Style Conversational Week 1352: Ooh, baby, I want you to enter The Empress of The Style Invitational on this week’s “hee-rotica” contest and compare/contrast results Add to list Add to listAdd to list Bob Staake's sketch for Style Invitational Week 1352, to illustrate Mark Cognata's faux-porn used as an example. Because Mark attributed it to a "Garth," I asked Bob to change the lovestruck customer to someone who's gender-fluid. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post ) Bob Staake's sketch for Style Invitational Week 1352, to illustrate Mark Cognata's faux-porn used as an example. Because Mark attributed it to a "Garth," I asked Bob to change the lovestruck customer to someone who's gender-fluid. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post ) By Pat Myers close Image without a caption Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Bio Bio Follow Follow Oct. 3, 2019 at 3:43 p.m. EDT This week’s Style Invitational contest, Week 1352, comes to us via the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook, where Loser Daphne Steinberg called my attention to “Sexual Fantasies of Everyday New Yorkers,” a humor piece recently published in the Daily Shouts department at newyorker.com. “A possible contest idea, Pat?” Immediately, Devotees started writing steamy/unsteamy sentences in the comment thread under it. Hold off, I said. “Save it for a contest.” I’m running this contest — and quoting at length from the source — with the approval of the magazine and with the happy endorsement of writer Mark Cognata, since he now gets a plug in The Washington Post as well as his first New Yorker ink. (Mark’s day job is developing educational programs for The First Tee, a nonprofit that helps young people develop life skills through the prism of golf.) Mark hadn’t known about The Style Invitational, but he got a kick out of some entries from a similar contest we’d done many years ago (see below). I told him that he’s even welcome to enter Week 1352. “But I’ve already used my best ideas!” This week, though, the scope of the panting prose extends past “everyday New Yorkers.” I gave some top-of-my-head examples, but creative “sources” could be a big part of the humor. One potential problem: How fake-dirty can you be and still get ink in The Washington Post? Well, there wasn’t any objection to my top example of Mark’s prose: “My eyes can’t help but follow his hand — down, down — until, to my delight, he pulls out his big, bulging carton of oat milk.” But that is probably the outer limit of blueness, especially for the print paper; it has to be rated Mild Romance Novel. Here’s one that would NOT be printable: It’s an old joke that Daphne shared in the Devotees group: “As I slipped my finger slowly inside her hole, I could immediately feel it getting wetter and wetter. I slid my finger back out, and within seconds, she was going down on me. I thought to myself, “I really need a new ---ing boat.” We may have done this very contest sometime in the past 1,351 weeks, but this one from 2005, a couple of years into my Empressitude, was the one that occurred to me. I’m not worried about too much duplication from this one, though: we have 14 years of societal (d) evolution, not to mention current events, which unsurprisingly figured into the Week 637 ink as well (I’ve added some reminders on the allusions). *Report From Week 637, *in which we sought steamy scenes in novels as penned by your choice of people who aren’t best known for being novelists. A whole anthology could have been compiled of Iraq-metaphor entries whose punchline was “pull out now.” *Fourth place: *Did you ever notice how, when a woman is seductively removing her undergarments, all you can think about is how Lois Lane might look doing the same thing? — Jerry Seinfeld (Eric Murphy, Ann Arbor, Mich.) *Third place: *With a twinkle in his eye, he beckoned her to the bedroom. “But why?” she asked. “It's too early to go to sleep." As he put his arm around her he said, “No, my dear, I’ve invented a wonderful new thing for two people to do together in bed. Come with me and I’ll show you.” — Al Gore (Jonathan M. Guberman, Princeton, N.J.) [A widespread but pretty unfair story that Gore had claimed he’d invented the Internet is referenced even today.] *Second place, the winner of the hollow ceramic potato: *“I like to watch,” Margaret said … — Eleanor Holmes Norton (Brendan Beary, Great Mills) [It’s not out of date, alas: The District of Columbia’s only representation in Congress for its 700,000 residents — and it’s still Del. Norton — can’t vote on legislation.] *And the winner of the Inker:* The marble rolled down the chute, striking the lever that turned on the fan. Angela looked up at him, then back at the device, breathing heavily. The dart flew in a perfect arc, as he knew it would, ultimately propelling the two catcher’s mitts toward her chest. It was perfect. Embraced by the mitts, she turned her attention to the second device waiting below, and as the next marble started its journey, she moaned softly. — Rube Goldberg (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.) *Honorable Mentions* The pusillanimous prattling of his advance was pathetic — bearing no resemblance to his carnal conquest of the erstwhile pristine Janelle at Notre Dame in 1968; and yet the expression in Rachel's pulchritudinous orbs supported the conclusion that in fact, he-could-go-all-the-way! — Howard Cosell (Jeff Brechlin) On or about June 11 or 12, 2003, Person A had sex with Person B … — Patrick Fitzgerald (Joseph Romm, Washington) [Fitzgerald was the “special counsel” counsel who headed the unending investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by White House aide Scooter Libby.] As Brad eyed Amber’s assets, the old volatility in their relationship was running high, and he was hoping for a quick upturn, a good rate of growth and an eventual merger. But Amber was concerned about his performance, particularly his penchant for short-term, rather than long-term, investments, and the inevitable deflation that followed. — Alan Greenspan (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.) Frank stared into her eyes. Time seemed to stand still, although, as the world’s foremost authority on time and space, Frank knew this was impossible, and what seemed like an eternity was in fact only a second, or 1/141,912,000,000,000,000th of the time since the Earth’s crust had cooled. — Stephen Hawking (Andrew Hoenig, Rockville) The table was cleared, and he gazed adoringly into her eyes. “Issue 17,” he announced. “Your place or mine?" “I think — ” “Question: Tonight was (a) very romantic, (b) supremely enjoyable, or (c) the most wonderful night of your life? Eleanor!" “Really, it — ” “Well, that settles it — my place. Issue 18: Your car or mine?" — “Date, Interrupted” by John McLaughlin (Martin Bancroft, Ann Arbor, Mich.) [“The McLaughlin Group” was the model for the era of political pundits yelling at each other on TV. McLaughlin famously would cut off a panelist who disagreed with him.] Before the engaging by John in the carnal reproductive enjoyment that occurs between a man and a woman of certain ages upon the precondition of the forthright giving of consent by both parties, he had to first be sure that Jane was going to be receptive to his linguistic and not dispassionate requests for such behavior by him. — Harriet Miers (Marc Leibert, New York) [Just a month earlier, President George W. Bush nominated Miers to the Supreme Court. But support for her was so weak — for one thing, her responses on a questionnaire made some suspect her competence — that she withdrew the nomination 20 days later.] He hit the ground running, opening a gap in her already flimsy defense. Bottom line? It was crunch time. Lex left nothing on the field. He split the uprights, and they finally came together as a team. — From “Two-Minute Drill,” by [Redskins Coach] Joe Gibbs (Steve Fahey, Kensington) She lay languorously on the satin sheets, misting her nude body with a special mixture of Chanel and Lysol; she tugged on the guardrails alongside the bed — one can’t be too careful when romping about on slippery satin, she thought. As her man approached, she gave her throat a quick spritz of zinc gluconate. Suddenly, nostrils flaring, she demanded: “Why isn’t your surgical mask in place?” — Sally Quinn (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly) [I don’t have what’s probably a specific reference here, but I did see: "“Georgetown socialite and Post writer Sally Quinn has been on a chem/bio-terrorism freak-out dating back to Sept. 11.”] His lovemaking was intoxicating — Ann felt like a prairie dog trapped in a moonshine still at an Amarillo tractor pull. But what she truly marveled at was Kenneth’s frequency. — Dan Rather (Brendan Beary) [The CBS newscaster was famed for his folksy Texas “Ratherisms” (we did an Invite contest, Week 379, for similar ones. In 1986 Rather was physically attacked on the street by a mentally ill man who kept asking him, "'Kenneth, what is the frequency?''] He ran his towel up and down the sculpted legs. Then he let his fingers wander across the arms and up to the lovely shoulders. He was aching to kiss that magnificent neck, but realized he never could. A tear welled up as his gaze wandered to the hands of his beloved. The hands that could catch anything except his tongue … He pressed his hand against the mirror and sighed. — From “I Love T.O.,” by Terrell Owens (Steven King, Vienna) [The flamboyant NFL wide receiver had just been suspended for publicly criticizing teammates] Like unto 40 years had he pursued her; and when at last she graced his bed, he finally gazed upon the Promised Land. “Holy me!” he shouted. — Moses (Jeff Brechlin) Maybe it was the peyote messing with my brain, but Rosie O’Donnell looked awfully good to me right then. She winked one hooded, reptilian eye and flicked her long, bifurcated tongue at me. If only the stadium weren’t full of careening vampire bats, I would have leapt out of my box seat and taken her right there at home plate. — Hunter S. Thompson (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge) Mmmmmmm, breasts. — Homer Simpson (Peter Metrinko) “Wow, Bob, wow!” Anna murmured hungrily. “Tuna roll, or a nut?” I offered. She shook her head. “Wonton?" “Not now!” She seemed to be getting a bit testy. “Xanax?” I suggested. “Dammit! I'm mad!” And then she was gone. “Huh?" — From “My Palindrama,” by Robert Trebor (Katherine Hooper, Jacksonville) I gazed longingly at his muscular calf, glistening with a film of manly sweat after his mountain bike ride. The tightness of his cycling shorts around that firm thigh sent shivers through my loins. I could not resist any longer — I must take the plunge and slake the thirst of my lust … “Hey, get off my leg!” George yelled. — Barney the Scottie [of President George W. Bush] (Chris Parsons, Gaithersburg) And Last: Said a lecher who leered at his guest: “With your cleavage I'm truly obsessed." “You should move,” she did say, “And right there you may stay. Due south, that is where I suggest." — Chris Doyle (Kevin Dopart, Washington) Some linkage may occur*: The results of Week 1348 /*Non-inking headline by Tom Witte, though it was also an inking headline by Tom Witte for Week 1120/ The Great Loser Community /always /finds some ingenious connections between two items on the list of random items we supply, and so it was with the results of Week 1348 . (It always finds even more uningenious connections, but that is why they pay your friendly neighborhood Empress to read those and throw them away.) The compare/contrast contest — we’ve done it umpteen since its debut back in Week 155 — is at heart a wordplay contest making extensive use of a few formats: There’s the one in which a single phrase is used in two different contexts: This week’s winner by Jon Ketzner, about Boris Johnson “pulling off” both Brexit and Jockey shorts, is a classic example. A few of the others in this form getting ink this week: Mary McNamara’s “slug with a stick up its butt” for both a charred mollusk and the “dancing” Sean Spicer (plus “well done”); and Duncan Stevens “covering an ass” for Jockey shorts and Boris Johnson’s hair. Then there’s the one that uses two similar — but notably different — phrases: Warren Tanabe’s print/punt; David Peckarsky’s Ulster/oyster; Mark Raffman’s E.U./eeewww (the best of several of these) Beverley Sharp’s E.U./P.U. I feel that it’s fine to run lots of entries in both of those forms, but not in this third one, because it relies on the reader’s surprise: In this format, you list Items A and B; then you say “One is ...” The order leads the reader to think you’re talking about A. But then you make it clear you’re talking about B instead. While I get lots of good jokes in this form, I just can’t run more than one or two, because the reader knows exactly what’s coming. This year, this honorable mention from Stephen Dudzik got the ink: The difference between bedbugs and John Bolton’s mustache: One makes you look away in pure revulsion, and the other can be treated by using a dryer with a high heat setting. Here are a few other good ones: Avocado toast and hand-marked ballots: One’s an artisanal fad beloved by millennials, and one is lunch. (Melissa Balmain) Boris Johnson’s hair and Russian dressing: One is a messy, pale orange topping, and one goes on your salad. (Ha, also Melissa Balmain — I’m looking up the authors’ names just right now.) The difference between Russian dressing and hand-marked ballots: One is manufactured for the American market in a factory in St. Petersburg, and the other goes on a Reuben sandwich. (Ward Kay) It’s the first Lose Cannon, and 32nd ink in all, for Jon Ketzner, our most recent Rookie of the Year. Before Jon got his first blot of Invite ink, he ended up several times in the Conversational’s “unprintables” section, but it’s clear that if he /reallly/ wants to, Jon can keep his humor out of the You Must Be Kidding department. (This is a wild Invite week for the Western Maryland mountain town of Cumberland; in addition to Jon, we have ink for his friend Brett Dimaio — and for First Offender Pia Palamidessi, who I understand is Brett’s spouse.) It’s just the 10th blot of Invite ink for Mary McNamara, but this laugh-out-loud second-place entry is her second trip to the Losers’ Circle. Warren Tanabe has now reached 125 inks without showing up at some Loser event, an Empress-frowny statistic for a local that needs to be rectified. And then of course there’s Jesse Frankovich. *Shame difference*: *Unprintables from Week 1348: *Headline by Jeff Contompasis I think I was pushing the boundaries this week by running Joe Neff’s “crowded ballroom” joke for tango/Jockey shorts. But among the clever blue entries, I drew the line at: The difference between charred mollusk on a stick and Jockey shorts: The mollusk is boneless. (Tom Witte) And not quite as good because of the spelling change: The difference between Jockey shorts and bedbugs: Bedbugs inhabit the sack; the sac inhabits Jockey shorts. (Also Tom Witte) Meanwhile, in the Has No Shame category: A dot matrix printer and Will Shortz: Both can be found under the Empress’s desk. (Bird Waring, who, I’m guessing, doesn’t know much about Will Shortz. Or about me — why would I have a dot matrix printer?)