Style Conversational Week 1376: Get lit at home The Empress of The Style Invitational on this week’s Shakespeare contest and inking Balliol rhymes “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”: Bob Staake's illustration for Style Invitational Week 1278 in 2018, our last Shakespeare-themed contest. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”: Bob Staake's illustration for Style Invitational Week 1278 in 2018, our last Shakespeare-themed contest. By Pat Myers March 19, 2020 at 4:44 p.m. EDT Hello from Mount Vermin, the Imperial Palace deep in the D.C. suburbs. Last week I reported here that I’d be in exile from my just-once-a-week-anyway visit to the Post newsroom through the end of March; it’s pretty clear by now that we’re talking months. Still, I’m not banned from the building entirely; I plan to drive downtown this weekend to retrieve the several weeks’ worth of second prizes that are in my desk drawer, and also to send out some already won Lose Cannons and Loser Mugs. After that, I figure I’ll go once a month for the duration. I’m trying to avoid standing in lines inside my local post office to mail packages; a Grossery Bag, it turns out, I can put in my mailbox with three stamps, so it’s okay. So thanks for your patience if your prize requires special mailing. I’m also grateful to those recidivist Losers who’ve already have enough of this year’s honorable-mention magnets and will be satisfied with my usual letter sent as an email attachment; I have just an inkjet printer at home, and the letters are apt to bleed if you so much as look at them sadly. I promise to write some personalized snark on the email, just as I usually do on the snailular version, and it’ll even be legible. By my count, this would apply to most of the week’s honorable mentions. But if you really want that magnet — one Loser told me that, yes, he wants as many as possible so he can strive to match Jesse Frankovich’s prize-covered refrigerator — let me know and I’ll mail it to you. No biggie. AD --- Hey, teachers and home-schooling parents: Here’s something for your smartass kids (not to mention smartass you) that’s fun and educational — and quite possibly a useful object lesson on dealing with callous rejection: In this week’s Style Invitational, Week 1376, you add some dialogue into a Shakespeare play in the voice of some new character — real, fictional, old, modern. In the examples given by Hall of Fame Loser Duncan Stevens, who suggested the contest, that dialogue consists of an answer to some line taken out of context in a Shakespeare play, though I’m open to other approaches, as long as we’re not talking hundreds of words; the print version of the Invite just isn’t set up for big blocks of type. The low-tech but comprehensive website Open Source Shakespeare has everything, and you can search on words you might want to joke on. This contest will have some overlap, though in a different format, with Week 1275 (April 2018), also suggested by Duncan. That was a variation on our recurring Questionable Journalism contest: Choose any line from Shakespeare and follow it, A & Q style, with a question that the line might humorously answer. Here are some of the inking entries from that contest; see the whole set of results here. AD GOOD WILL PUNNING: THE SHAKESPEAREAN A & Q OF WEEK 1275 In Week 1275 the Empress asked you to quote a line from Shakespeare, then supply a question that quote might answer. Many entries reminded us how often Bardy quotes are regularly used as jokes — “too, too solid flesh” for dieters, “loved not wisely but too well” for STDs, etc. — but as usual, the Loser Community fortunately labour’d to outjest. Fourth place: A. “Give not this rotten orange to your friend.” (“Much Ado About Nothing”) / Q: “Shall I introduce Donald to my pal Melania?” (Thor Rudebeck, Chicago) Third place: A. “Dog!” (“Troilus and Cressida”)/ Q: Mr. President, for your last question on your cognitive assessment: Is this a dog, or a dog? (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.) Second place: A. “By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me.” (“The Merchant of Venice”)/ Q. What were the sadly inaccurate last words of the Tootsie Pop? (Danielle Nowlin, Fairfax Station, Va.) AD And the winner of the Lose Cannon: A. “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.” (“Romeo and Juliet”)Q, “Why does McCain care about my bone spurs, anyway?” (Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.) Let slip the dogs: Honorable mentions Which of you shall we say doth love us most? (“King Lear”) How shall we begin the Cabinet meeting, Mr. President? (Gil Glass, Washington) Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow … (“Macbeth”)Honey, when will you fix the screen door? (Dinah Rokach, Silver Spring, Md.) I crave your highness’ pardon. (“Antony and Cleopatra”) What’s the best-selling Hallmark card in Washington these days? (Robert Schechter, Dix Hills, N.Y.) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (Sonnet 18) No, seriously. What did you get me for Mother’s Day? (Danielle Nowlin) AD Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones … (“As You Like It”) Are we all set up for the church scavenger hunt? (Claire Walsh, Herndon, Va.) Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, and make me travel forth without my cloak, to let base clouds o’ertake me? (Sonnet 34)What’s the most common complaint in Topper Shutt’s inbox? (Kathleen DeBold, Burtonsville, Md.) I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. (“The Merchant of Venice”)How did the D.C. Council member respond when his colleague explained the term “anti-Semitism” to him? (Rick Haynes, Boynton Beach, Fla.) Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. (“Henry IV, Part II”) Why do I keep running out of toilet paper? (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.) To boot, and boot! (“King Lear”) What’s the motto of Windows 10? (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.) AD From the School of Bard Mocks*: The results of Week 1372 *Too-long non-inking headline by Steve Smith When 148-time Loser Matt Monitto suggested we do a contest echoing “Balliol rhymes” — a term new to me — I was concerned that the very short format of four lines, four beats a line, might not allow for enough creativity and our usual mordant humor, and so I added the option of a two-verse rhyme in Week 1372. But all of today’s inking entries are but a single verse each. The submission deadline for these poems was March 2, which seems like an eternity ago this month. Coronavirus was already a crisis on these shores as well as worldwide (except to the president and his enablers) but it had not yet taken the entire country hostage. On March 2, Sen. Amy Klobuchar ended her presidential candidacy; Pete Buttigieg pulled out the day before. But Mike Bloomberg wouldn’t give up for three more days. And Tom Brady wouldn’t pack his beach cleats for Tampa Bay until just two days ago. AD One reason we have such a long turnaround between the posting and results of the contest is that there is no other judge; if I get sick or “hit by a bus,” as a previous Post editor put it, there could be a cushion where I could miss a little work and still finish the Invite on time. But I’m rethinking this; I’m pretty sure that we could regularly go to a submission deadline that’s a week closer to the results; I already do it that way for more elaborate contests like song parodies and videos. (Remember, you still have till Monday night, March 23, to submit a “rap battle of history” video for Week 1374.) It’s yet another Lose Cannon — her nineteenth win — for Nan Reiner, who is back with us with gusto after a long absence with health issues, taking the artillery with a jab at Gordon Sondland, a non-diplomat who got named ambassador to the E.U. with the qualification of having given his pal Trump a nice six-figure donation, then was thrown under the bus when he actually honored a subpoena from Congress and told about his now-famous phone call about the Ukraine “investigation.” I’m the slippery Gordon Sondland; AD Bought my way into Fake-Blond-Land. Spilled the beans, then got the sack — I want my million dollars back. Fellow Loserbard Melissa Balmain wrote my favorite among a number of good rhymes about Mitch McConnell (including two others that rhymed his name with “Don’ll”). And then we have two unfamiliar names in the Losers’ Circle: It’s just the sixth blot of Invite ink for Francesca Kelly, who’s been entering just now and again since the Czarist era, but her fourth-place finish is her second ink “above the fold.” And it’s just the second week of the Invitational for Alex Steelsmith, a writer and painter in Hawaii who earned the Fir Stink for his first ink just yesterday. Alex sent a long list of Balliols, several of which made my shortlist, so I hope he’s around for good. Can’to — an unprintable from Week 1372: I’m sure that there were other Balliol poems submitted that wouldn’t pass The Post’s taste test, but here’s the one that I flagged. Kevin Dopart got an honorable mention this week for his rhyme about Roger Stone that referred to the crony convict’s tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back. There was also this one — by, as it turns out, Nan Reiner. I award it the Scarlet Letter. AD I’m Roger, fop in bowler hats, And suits of zoot, and shoes with spats. In prison garb I won’t look slick, But all the guys can see my Dick. Will we ever see each other? As of now, we have a potluck Loser brunch scheduled for Sam Mertens’s house for Sunday, April 26. Obviously we’ll have to see what’s going on a month from now. The Flushies are set for Saturday, June 13, which does seem more promising. We’ll keep you posted — stay with us and please look out for yourself and those around you.