Style Conversational Week 1378: Singing against the fear The Empress of The Style Invitational on this week’s parody contest and rap-battle results Sam Mertens (ft. Isaac Mertens) in “Jethro Tull vs. Jethro Tull.” Sam's rap battle video between the 18th-century agriculturalist and the rock band didn't get Style Invitational ink this week, but it's featured below — especially to laud the mad clarinet skillz of Isaac, who just turned 10. Sam Mertens (ft. Isaac Mertens) in “Jethro Tull vs. Jethro Tull.” Sam's rap battle video between the 18th-century agriculturalist and the rock band didn't get Style Invitational ink this week, but it's featured below — especially to laud the mad clarinet skillz of Isaac, who just turned 10. By Pat Myers April 2, 2020 at 5:03 p.m. EDT Well, it’s a sunny day, at least, here at Mount Vermin, the Empress’s bunker. (Last night’s find: a totally white dead stink bug. Turns out that it had been encased in some bodycon spider web.) Song parodies about the coronavirus and coronavirus-adjacent topics are being forwarded to me constantly. Some of them are good. (Can Randy Rainbow possibly get any better?) A lot of them are lame. The results of this week’s Style Invitational contest, Week 1378, are guaranteed to be good. Because all of our parody contests, since I started running them in November 2004, have been good. I shouldn’t have to say this, but: We are in the midst of a horrifying pandemic, overflowing with both tragedy and fear. And anger. And helplessness. And depression. I strongly believe, with evidence I see every day on social media and simply among friends, that humor helps us face our situation, helps bring a smile, if a wistful one. But for heaven’s sake: It’s emphatically not the time for sick humor, for anything making light of the power of this virus and the toll it has taken on our fellow human beings. AD Meanwhile, if you’re not a regular entrant of the Invite’s parody contests, take a moment to read the guidelines and tips that I included in the Week 1357 Conversational (which in turn had been lifted from an earlier one). Use this link and scroll down a couple of inches to the subhead “Play it again.” Remember that you have an extra week to send your songs; the deadline is April 20. This not only gives you more time to work on them, but there’s less chance that they’ll be dated when the results are posted online 10 days later. The War of the Razzes*: The rap battles of Week 1374 *Non-inking headline by Tom Witte, who also had the week’s inking headline, “Heavy-Wit Bouts” My running line about The Style Invitational’s humor is that it mixes “haughty and potty,” sometimes in a single joke. Perhaps no other contest exemplifies that principle as much as our take on the popular Epic Rap Battles of History, which itself draws much of its humor from juxtaposing this most popular, even affectedly “street” genre — not just rap, but trash-talking rap — with subject matter that its audience tends not to encounter outside textbooks. AD And the Invite takes the conceit to another level: Unlike the ERB folks, who are also offering up creative video production, costumes, etc., we place a premium on witty verse: rhymes that really work, meter that’s sharply consistent. I did, in a nod to the genre, relax that demand a bit for this genre (especially on videos, where assonant vowel sounds compensate for a not-quite rhyme). But while I had to search through dozens of ERB raps to find a pair of couplets I felt were clever enough on paper to use as an example four weeks ago, my shortlist for Week 1374 brimmed with inkworthy rhymes, at least a dozen more poems than I could reasonably use in this week’s results (I fit 14 on the print page, and 24 — including two videos — online). Sorry, Hegel vs. Kant! Rodin vs. Degas! Picasso vs. Bob Ross! John Lennon vs. Vladimir Putin! Bourbon vs. Scotch! It’s the 14th Style Invitational win — and Ink No. 444 (and 445, for his fabulous honorable-mentions subhead, “Peanut Eminems”) — for Gary Crockett, who matched up Andrew Jackson and Harriet Tubman, vying for face-space on the $20 bill. Bill Dorner’s Curie vs. Curie wins him that coveted Seattle Space Needle snow globe with a ring toss in it. But also be sure to scroll down and check out his impressive and fun video about polio vaccine pioneers Salk and Sabin. Yon Perennials Duncan Stevens and Jesse Frankovich fill out this week’s Losers’ Circle; both submitted long lists of entries, any of which out-ERBed ERB. (But of course, it’s a different venue. As Duncan (B.A., Swarthmore; J.D., Northwestern) readily acknowledges: “I thought about doing videos, but then YouTube told me that if I uploaded a video of myself rapping, they would have to take down their entire website and commit ritual suicide. And possibly nuke the servers from orbit.” What Doug Dug: Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood, who read the print entries, “liked the winner and runners-up, and most of the losers too,” singling out two honorable mentions by Kevin Dopart: his Battle of the Unqualified Scions, Ivanka and Hunter, and the Your Mama joke in Picasso vs. Michelangelo. AD ADVERTISING I did get one entry that, while not exactly inkworthy writing by Rookie Sensation Sam Mertens, clearly demanded airing here. Turn your volume up when Sam walks away from his phone, and enjoy 1 minute 12 seconds of Jethro Tull, agricultural pioneer, and Jethro Tull, classic-rock band — and especially the clarinet-for-flute lick by Isaac Mertens, who just turned 10. You rocked it, Isaac! Also note the setting of the video: The secluded acreage of Chez Mertens was supposed to be the site of our April Loser Brunch, and then for our June 13 Flushies potluck banquet and awards. The brunch, of course, is toast; since not that much planning is required for the Flushies, we’ll make a decision later about whether to postpone it till fall. And happy Passover! Check out Loser Barbara Sarshik’s New 'n' Improved website PassoverSongParodies.com, Including the brand-new “Will We Be Having Our Seder,” to “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”: “I’m feeling grumpy and grouchy/ So tell me please, Doctor Fauci …” Barbara offers them all to everyone free.