Style Conversational Week 1421: Altering address The Empress of The Style Invitational on this week’s word bank contest and obit poem results Sean Connery as Agent 007 and Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore in the 1964 movie “Goldfinger.” Both actors get the Style Invitational obit treatment in this week's results. Sean Connery as Agent 007 and Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore in the 1964 movie “Goldfinger.” Both actors get the Style Invitational obit treatment in this week's results. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios) By Pat Myers Jan. 28, 2021 at 4:51 p.m. EST Add to list “My small hands will get bigger — honestly, magnificent! — as long as I salute the one who controls my every move.” That was my example for Week 1214 of The Style Invitational in February 2017, the immediate progenitor of this week’s Invite contest, Week 1421. The “word bank” contest — to write something funny using only the words Trump used in his inaugural address (“1,433 words of pure … source material”) — did not specifically ask for political humor, or mockery of the new president, from the Loser Community. But obviously I wasn’t forbidding it, and the results — except for a few pop culture and sports jokes, including Mark Raffman’s runner-up about the Washington Nationals and the soon-to-exit Bryce Harper — were aimed squarely at the new occupant and his already huge array of aberrant behavior, including the incredibly divisive and exclusionary speech itself. AD It remains to be seen how we’ll be sending up the new president. I always planned to run the Alternaugural again, to illustrate how we’re here, just a few blocks away from the White House, and ready to have fun at the occupant’s expense. I’m not going to pretend that there’s an equivalence between these two inaugural addresses, or these two presidents, but surely we’ll find a way to take the new president’s lofty sentiments and twist them into something decidedly less inspiring/reassuring/sane. Whatever comes of them, they’ll be very different from the truly classic but very specific results of Week 1214. Click on the preceding link to see all the winners — including Michael Burch’s “translation” of the speech that runs a crazy 700 words. Below is a sampling of the ink, which, alas, turned out to be right on the mark for the next four years. Except for the fear of losing Bryce. Meh. Fourth place: “I will be a just and reasonable president to all of our citizens: Americans on the right, Americans on the far right, Americans on the radical right, and Americans striving to transition to the right or who promise to do so in an oath of total allegiance. Not so much to people in poverty, people from Washington, D.C., or anyone to the left of President Bush.” (John Hutchins) Third place: What is it like to be a Washington National? Many victories throughout the years, but never winning the Big One. With each historic fail, miseries and carnage. So much unrealized promise! Men, your time for success is now — it must be! Because in two years, when the magnificent young power fellow in right leaves to become very rich in another city, we will have to rebuild. (Mark Raffman) AD Second place: “What is going on? There are no people here. Did I get the time right — or is it tomorrow? There should be many people here. Many, many people! It is too empty! “IS ANYONE HERE??? “I cannot accept this! Here is a different reality: “Trillions and trillions of people assembled for my ceremony.” (Elaine Lederman) And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial: “Thank you, Chief Justice, stand there for a moment. People! Did you get a good look at this old Bible? Lift it for us. What is up with that, by the way? Is it from the Goodwill? It’s, like, all brown and totally in disrepair. Flush it and get a magnificent new one with a little shine — expense it! All right, you can salute, Roberts. Now, out of here!” (Frank Osen) “I promise you, we will eradicate all other countries from the face of the earth. Right here and right now, we will transfer all other countries to space, and the American people will be the rulers of the world for many, many years to come, with love to guide us along the way.” (the late and dearly missed Mae Scanlan) AD “Thank you, Michelle and President Obama, it’s good to be here right now, because back at your home, at great expense, I have a group of foreign women doing a ceremony that has infused your old room with an ocean of not very pleasant body by-products.” (Frank Osen) The Patriots are winning so much now. A total success. But who likes these people? No one! They are just like small women to us. Sad. (Mary Kappus) And Last: Trump enters The Style Invitational: “Everyone but you will think this is great. Only you stand in the way of my triumph. But you are not a righteous lady. For too long you have deprived me of victory. I will be forgotten no longer. The American people are looking for you to tell the public that I win! Understand, my winning is a MUST.” (Drew Bennett) [Yikes, it sounds like the call to the Georgia secretary of state.] AD How to do Week 1421: I tried to anticipate questions about how to use the word lists, and so I take up a bunch of space in the instructions with rules to work by, which I’ll repeat here as well (ask me why!): Use the official transcript. (Don’t count the stuff at the top before the speech begins.) You may not change the word except for capitalization or punctuation (of any kind you like): “Person’s” can’t be “person,” but it can be “persons.” You can’t take just part of the word, like “test” from “testing.” The numbers listed must stay intact as well. (We have 2,500 words to use here — almost twice what Trump fulminated — so stop griping right now.) There are a couple of phrases that combine words with hyphens: “once-in-a-century” and “swearing-in.” We’re treating those as individual words, though you’re free to combine them yourself. This lets you use “swearing”! On the other hand, “co-worker” is one word because “co” is not a word, just a prefix. AD Mike Burch’s 700-word tour de force notwithstanding, longer is not necessarily better. In fact, shorter is usually better. And I’m more likely to have room for it. Don’t pad and pad with every word you can fit in there. Todd DeLap, the 110-time Loser who so agreeably and swiftly created the word list you can use for this week’s contest (at wapo.st/invite-list-1421), will also validate my shortlist of entries, to make sure they don’t include words not on the list, or words used too many times. Four years ago it was Loser Gary Crockett (now at 480 blots) who created and ran a vetting program for me, and he offered to do it again. But Todd wouldn’t have it: “Just ’cause that Crockett guy is funnier than I am doesn’t mean I’m going to let him be a better programmer too.” Ooh, duel it out, Macho Nerds! Seriously, I’m deeply indebted to both of them several times over, as well as to Kyle Hendrickson and Steve Langer, who’ve also checked word bank entries in previous years, almost always finding some word that shouldn’t be there. (Once, Todd flagged his own entry.) Still, you should check your own entry! If I can’t easily fix it, I’ll have to toss it. That would be so sad. Laugh after death*: The obit poems of Week 1417 *The winning headline from last year’s obit poem contest, credited to Jesse Frankovich, Jon Gearhart and Tom Witte; that didn’t keep both Jon and Tom from submitting it this year as well. AD As certain as you-know-what and taxes, this year’s Dead Letters anthology was a zingy salute to a variety of Selected Mort Subjects, in varying degrees of (ir-)reverence. With the exception of First Offender Ellen Haas — who snagged a runner-up with a winsome tribute to NASA “Hidden Figure” Katherine Johnson — this week’s credits are an dishonor roll of veteran Loserbards. Chief among them this week is Hall of Famer Beverley Sharp, who snagged her 14th Invite win (plus three honorable mentions!), but her first Clowning Achievement, our new trophy. Once again, Beverley seems to have consulted the annals of the Darwin Awards, which highlights the demises of people who accidentally brought about their own demises in spectacularly dumb ways. Her winning poem, for example, tells the story of the man who went searching for the treasure hidden in Colorado by an eccentric codger named Forrest Fenn, had to be rescued in the snow … only to try again last March, and … no such luck this time. (In June, however, the treasure was finally found after 10 years, and Fenn, 89, died in September.) Second place and what probably rates the Bad Taste Award goes, fittingly, to an ode (well, a two-line quip) about the co-founder of Pizza Hut: AD In keeping with traditions old, Once boxed, he was delivered cold. (Frank Osen) Frank wins a face mask that was supposed to say “NYC Strong” in Hebrew letters, but the letters for “strong” were placed backward so it reads like “NYC Crotch.” And the Invite-ubiquitous Mark Raffman builds up to a zinger of a punchline with his tribute to four Hall of Fame pitchers: “The Umpire’s final call: ‘Outside and in the dirt.’” (Be sure also to catch Bob Kruger’s poem for the same four, farther down the list.) There was that familiar embarrassment of riches this week: poem after inkworthy poem that really demanded to be shared. Believe me, it’s worth your while to catch all 28 verses in this week’s online Invite — none longer than eight lines, some as short as two (the print page has 15 entries). I hope to share a few of the shorter ones as graphics on my Style Invitational Ink of the Day page on Facebook; sign up and click “like” at bit.ly/inkofday here to see Inks of the Day in your news feed (at least if you also click “like” on the posts a few times). Meet the new boss? Did you see that the legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron is retiring next month, after eight years running the Post newsroom and more than 40 years in journalism? I chatted with Marty a grand total of one time, soon after he came to The Post, and explained what I did. He never killed a Style Invitational contest or even an entry. No word yet on who’ll be taking the reins, but I hope it’s someone who likes bold humor. We’ve been very fortunate so far as the Invite nears its 28th birthday, under three different editors. Not-yet-arthritic fingers crossed!