Style Conversational Week 1339: Parody like it’s 2019
The Style Invitational Empress on this week’s contest and results
Flushies emcee Kyle Hendrickson — who has 102 blots of ink but never a
win, once again earning the Cantinkerous plaque — with the Empress at
last weekend’s festive but steamy awards/potluck/songfest. (Mark Holt)
Flushies emcee Kyle Hendrickson — who has 102 blots of ink but never a
win, once again earning the Cantinkerous plaque — with the Empress at
last weekend’s festive but steamy awards/potluck/songfest. (Mark Holt)
By
Pat Myers
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Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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July 3, 2019 at 3:45 p.m. EDT
Because of the July 4 holiday, The Post is printing the print version of
The Style Invitational this week on Wednesday rather than the usual
Thursday evening — all the preparations had to be finished early. And so
I said in last week’s Conversational that I’d likely skip this one.
But then I decided to run a song parody contest for Week 1339
, which requires some more guidance about
what we’re looking for. So instant solution: Run a Conversational after
all, but just copy old stuff into it! Gyaddh, I am soooo resourceful.
So the following guidelines are essentially lifted right out of Style
Conversational Week 1306, which was a contest for parodies of holiday
songs. For Week 1339 you may use any music at all, even your own, but
the lyrics should refer to “some modern woe.” But yeez, that’s pretty broad.
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● As with all Style Invitational song parody contests, *we value
flawless rhyming,* even if the original rhymes loosely. And we’re a
humor contest; witty wordplay (including, but not requiring, clever
playing off the words of the original), a zingy ending and the avoidance
of bitter anger — our word for this is “screediness” — are the paths to
Invite ink.
● Because the Invitational is a contest that is read rather than
listened to — especially, duh, in the print version — *a reader has to
easily figure out how your lyrics match the tune*. The best way to know
this is to show someone the lyrics and see if the person — without your
help or cues — can figure out how to sing them.
For the print page (which includes the four top winners), I’ll be
choosing what I hope are very well known songs. Online, I’ll include
links to video or audio versions to the originals, and so less well
known songs are welcome there. In either case, feel free to include the
URL of a clip on YouTube or elsewhere whose music matches your lyrics.
(Handy hint: To make a YouTube clip start playing at a certain point:
Play it, pause it at your starting point, then add to the end of the
URL, with no spaces: #T=0m25s, or how many minutes and seconds it really
is. Don’t worry about it if this task is confusing.)
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● In our Golden Era of Political Parody Videos,*I’d love it if I could
share your fabulously inkworthy parody as a performance,* particularly
if the lyrics are right there on the video — like this one by Sandy
Riccardi in our Week 1287
parody contest (results here
).
But it’s your lyrics, not the performance, that I’m judging. If you send
a link to a video, please also send the text of the lyrics.
● Our general rule with the Invitational is to run *humor that hasn’t
been published elsewhere.* But I’ve made exceptions in cases where it
hasn’t yet been distributed widely, or by another publication. Write me
at pat.myers@washpost.com. about specific cases and I’ll make a ruling.
● Also, while I normally consider the Invite not to be a team sport, *I
don’t mind crediting two people for a single parody.*
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● Note that once again,*I’m extending the usual deadline by a week* — so
you’ll have till July 22 to submit your parodies. If you’ve done a video
and it’s ready for me to see earlier, drop me a line and I’ll have a
look at it, in case I’d like you to tweak your lyrics. (My normally
strict blind judging, in which I don’t see the writers’ names until I’ve
chosen the winners, has to involve a little peeking in cases like this;
don’t worry — even if I know and adore you personally, I won’t have any
trouble at all denying you ink.)
*BEE — OUR JEST*: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1335 *
/*That headline got ink for Tom Witte in Week 1287, last year’s
spelling-bee poetry contest. He entered it again this year./
I’m glad I decided to let our Loserbards base their poems and short
jokes on any of the dozens and dozens of late-round words in this year’s
Scripps National Spelling Bee, not just the ones on the list I included
with Week 1335 . That allowed the Obsessives
a chance to dig up more material on the spelling bee website, while
letting those with Lives to enter the contest without extensive
research. So while most of the entries were for words on my list, such
as “badderlocks,” “mondegreen,” “Cytherian,” “rhyathymic” and
“taurokathapsis,” most of this week’s inking entries featured such
non-listees as “fucus,” “apophysitis,” “seitan,” “haustellum” and
“poas.” Next time we do this contest, I’ll offer the same alternatives.
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It wasn’t the slightest surprise that this week’s winners’ circle, as
well as the results in toto, was heavily salted with Invite veterans —
topped by Jesse Frankovich, who, I was just told, has now gotten ink for
60 straight weeks, thereby breaking the record long held by Brendan
Beary. It’s Jesse’s 13th win and 45th ink “above the fold,” and his
518th blot of ink in all (along with the excellent online-only double
dactyl about grabbing a bull “by the nuts”).
Another Hall of Famer, Beverley Sharp, takes second place with a
decorous way to muse on the pronunciation of “fucus” (rhymes with
“mucus,” FYI); Cruising Toward the Hall of Fame Duncan Stevens nabs yet
another bag or mug with one of four inking entries this week, and Chris
Doyle, whose vast sea of Invite ink makes the others’ vats seem like
thimbles, gets another one with his poem about how Cain and Abel were
the proud first generation in their families to have bellybuttons.
*What Doug Dug:* The faves this week of Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood
were Beverley’s “fucus,” Ann Martin’s “rhathymia/ goodbye, Mia” couplet
that the Czar didn’t think was a valid rhyme but I thought hilarious,
and Duncan’s “psoas,” or loin muscles, in the context of Yo Mama.
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*HOTTEST TICKET EVER: THIS YEAR’S FLUSHIES*
The beer was cold and the atmosphere warm — way warm — at the 24th
annual Flushies, the Losers’ own awards banquet/potluck/sillyfest. The
breathtaking views from the 20th-floor party room in Style Invitational
Devotee Kathleen Delano’s Crystal City apartment house were matched only
by the breathtaking air on an afternoon that reached 97 degrees outside
and, well, many degrees less than that inside.
But as always, the 50-some Losers and their auxiliaries enjoyed the
potluck spread plus outdoor grill; emcee Kyle Hendrickson’s somewhat
abbreviated game; the presentation of awards for milestones of 50, 100,
200, etc., blots of Invite ink — the presentation being tossing a roll
of toilet paper inscribed with the Loser’s name in the general direction
of the recipient or proxy; and the honoring of Rookie of the Year Jon
Ketzner. And then there was the tribute to the Loser of the Year — the
person who’d gotten the most ink from March 2018 to March 2019 who
hadn’t won this honor before. This time, after 26 straight years of his
entering this contest, that person was Tom Witte.
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Tom didn’t bother to show up to accept his award or two hear the two
song parodies written in tribute — excellent plays on “Windy” and “I
Feel Pretty” by Elden Carnahan and Duncan Stevens, respectively. (You
can see the lyrics on the Style Invitational Devotees
page in Facebook, along with video of everyone
singing with gusto.) But I scrapped the Witte’s-greatest-hits ink
compendium that I’d compiled. Guy doesn’t even show up, I’ll save my voice.
Thanks again to the band of Losers who work so hard to put on the
Flushies and the winter Post-Holiday Loser Party each year: Elden
Carnahan, Dave Prevar, Pie Snelson, Kyle Hendrickson, accompanist Steve
Honley. And this summer /and / last, Kathleen Delano for providing the
venue and making so many arrangements. And to all those who came in from
out of town — and even some who just had to walk down the street.
*AND COMING RIGHT UP: IT’S OUR KIWI LOSER*
A week from Saturday — July 13 — we’re having dinner with 41-Time Loser
Andy Bassett of Taranaki, New Zealand, who’s stopping in D.C. on a tour
of rock concerts across America and his native Britain (here he’s seeing
Jeff Lynne and ELO at Capital One Arena). Andy is a guitarist who has a
weekly radio show that I and some of the other Losers enjoy listening to
online, when we figure out the ever-changing time difference. So if
you’d like to join us and meet Andy, join us at 6 p.m. July 13 at Thai
Chef on Connecticut Avenue very close to the Dupont Circle Metro
station. You MUST contact Elden Carnahan — elden (dot) carnahan (at)
gmail (dot) com — ASAP so he can get an accurate head count for the
reservation; it’s not a huge restaurant.
Happy July 4, everyone — enjoy watching tanks roll down our city’s streets!