Week 583: Mess With Our Heads


Surprising Ally Joins Landfill Quest

Diminutive attorney Ally McBeal made an unannounced visit yesterday to the Boston dump, where she helped search for the remains of her TV stardom . . .

Intrepid Loser Roy Ashley wrote to marvel at a recent Washington Post headline: "With Affection's Kick Leaves Field Behind." Roy eventually figured out that With Affection was the name of a racehorse. Which reminds the Empress that it's time again for a contest we've run several times with great success.

This Week's Contest: Take any headline, verbatim, from The Washington Post or its Web site from today through next Sunday, and reinterpret it by writing either a "bank headline" -- or subtitle -- or the first sentence of an article that changes the original meaning entirely. Please include the date and page number of the headline you're citing from the paper; for Web articles, give the date and copy a sentence or two of the story so it's clear what the original was about. Headlines in advertisements can be used, too; photo captions can't, nor can subheads within an article. The headline reinterpreted in the cartoon is from the Nov. 1 Metro section; the actual bank head that accompanied it read, "Thwarted Developer Would Make Indian Tribe Owner of Arundel Site."

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First runner-up receives a gaudily painted genuine large coconut, complete with sloshing milk inside. It is promoting some TV show set in some tropical locale, for which some network spent untold amounts of money and effort to ship to The Washington Post in an effort to gain publicity. So everybody make sure to watch that show, whatever it is.

Other runners-up win a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt. Honorable mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Magnets. One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.com or by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Nov. 15. Put the week number in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results will be published Dec. 5. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's contest is by Tom Witte of Montgomery Village.

Report from Week 579, in which we asked for sentences whose words began with consecutive letters of the alphabet.

A huge percentage of the contestants decided to include at least one entry featuring words beginning with all 26 letters (and some going around the alphabet a second time). Though many of these were amusing, reading them en masse felt like, well, a long sentence. (The Empress never wants to see the word "xenophobic" again.) So she will, for the most part, grant readers parole. Note: These entries were written, and judged, before the election. No points were deducted for inaccurate predictions or for simply backing the losing side.

Third runner-up: Mellow, nonchalant, oblivious, Pompeii quietly rests, satisfied; totally unheeded, Vesuvius waits. (Marvin Solberg, Edgewater)

Second runner-up: Bill Clinton did everyone: Frenchwomen, Golda, Hillary, Ingemar Johansson, Kofi, Lorena, Monica, Nomar, Oprah, poor Quayle, Rambo, Schenectady Township, Uma, Vladimir, Wenceslas X, Young Zionists and . . . (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

First runner-up, winner of the Aqua Frame fake aquarium: A badly coiffed Donald egomaniacally fired God. (Mary Lou French, Eveleth, Minn.)

And the winner of the Inker: John Kerry loves money -- new, old, printed, quartered, recounted, stacked . . . Teresa's. (Lawrence McGuire, Waldorf)

Honorable Mentions:

"Look, my naughty ol' pal's quickly revived," said Tom upstandingly. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)

After bombing cities daily, especially Fallujah, George hastens Iraqi jihad, killing lamentably many, needlessly obstructing peace, quashing rebellion stingingly, trivializing unfamiliar values with xenophobic yahooism. (Ted Einstein, Silver Spring)

John Kerry leaves me no optimism -- persistent questioning really stymies that underdog: Vote W! (Teri Chism, Winchester, Va.)

No one of presidential quality running, sadly. (Shirley Grossman, McLean)

Condoleezza didn't even flinch giving her Iraq justifications; kept listing mysterious nuclear objects, particularly quoting "really scary tubes" -- ultimate violent weapons. (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)

Acromegaly biometricians conclusively demonstrated excessive foreign growth hormone in John Kerry's Lenoesque mandible. (Steve Fahey, MD, Kensington)

Osama promises Qaeda recruits seventy-two tantalizing, undulating virgins. (Chris Doyle)

Reverend Spooner's tocabulary's unusually vaxing. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

Jim's kind lover may notice open pants, quickly requiring subtlety, tact; Ursula virtuously whispers, "XYZ." (Joseph Romm, Washington)

Redskins should take up volleyball. (Elliott Schiff, Allentown, Pa.)

Breasts can distract excitable fellows: Great hooters, impressive jugs, knockers like melons, "noble orbs" promote questionable reasoning. (Deb Parrish, Fairfax Station)

Reluctant, señor, to unshoe voluntarily? We'll X-ray your zapatos, amigo. (Stephen Ettinger, Chevy Chase)

Is John Kerry looking more neutral, or pulling quietly right so the undecided voters will "X"? (Karl Reed, Fairfax)

Art Buchwald's columns don't excite feelings; gentle humor is just kinda lame -- makes nodding off plausible; quite revered, sure, though ultimately vapid wasteland. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

Another Bush-Cheney dictatorship eventually fosters good, high-income jobs: killing liberals. (Joe Neff, Oreland, Pa.)

Awesomely beautiful
Cameron Diaz,
Exceedingly fabulous,
Gleefully has

Insatiability:
Jubilant, kinky,
Libidinous, multiple
Naughty orgas . . . (Chris Doyle)

And Last: A bygone Czar didn't ever flub giving humor ink.*

*Just kidding! Like most nabobs, Old Poopyhead quite regularly screwed things up very well. (Dave Zarrow, Herndon)