Week 595 Listing Precariously


Playgrounds-Plumbing: Make bath time fun every night!

Rental-Reporters: The memo line on Armstrong Williams's pay stub

Paternity-Patio: Where you set up that inviting hammock

This week's contest was suggested by Peter Metrinko of Chantilly, who gets zero credit because it turns out we've done this contest before. It was eight years ago, though; let's do it again: Take the two subject listings at the top of any page of the Yellow Pages and create a definition for the compound word they form. You may use it in a sentence if you like. Be sure to tell us which edition of the Yellow Pages you are using; the examples above are taken from the Verizon 2004 Yellow Pages, Southern Prince George's County edition. The Washington Post's newsroom library has an amazingly comprehensive set of directories from all over.

First-prize winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First runner-up receives "Think You're the Only One? Oddball Groups Where Outsiders Fit In." This new book by Intrepid Loser Seth Brown introduces readers to several dozen unusual organizations, from American Coaster Enthusiasts to the XXX Church ("The Number One Christian Porn Site on the Internet") and including . . . the Losers of The Style Invitational!

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, if you really have to, by fax to 202- 334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Feb. 7. 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. 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 591, our annual obit-poem contest:

{diam}Second Runner-Up:

Answering machine inventor Joseph Zimmerman

"Hi, this is St. Peter. I'm out at the moment
So leave me your name at the bell."
"This is Zimmerman, Joseph. I made this machine,
I'm so glad to reach you and not Hell."

(Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)

{diam}First Runner-Up, the winner of the Summer 2004 Washington Social Register:

Kinky girls in droves he bunked;
Now Rick James is quite defunked.

(Mark Eckenwiler, Washington)

{diam}And the winner of the Inker:

For Tony Randall, shed a tear;
It seems a tad unjust
That Felix Unger, gone from here,
Returneth now to dust.

(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

{diam}Honorable Mentions:

Firefighter Red Adair

The fire burned in Red Adair
Till well into his eighties;
Now Satan's scared, 'cause Red might care
To douse the fire in Hades.

(Bob Dalton, Arlington)

Arafat once won the Prize
But never won the peace.
Now he might (though not in sight)
Succeed by his decease.

(Luke Currano, Columbia)

Geoffrey Beene's survivors are beset with second-guessing:
"We could have saved him if we'd put him in that silk cravat
And double-breasted linen suit disaster by Armani --
How often he would say we'd never catch him dead in that!"

(Brendan Beary)

Jan Berry of Jan & Dean

Upon the crooked path of life
At last he failed to swerve,
And now Dean's erstwhile partner Jan
Has rounded Dead Man's Curve.

(Mark Eckenwiler)

Marlon Brando

No more tix for new flix can we buy on Fandango,
For Brando has finally danced his Last Tango.

(Manuel Smith, Silver Spring)

To see you in "The Wild One"
I played hooky when 11.
May the angels find a way
To squeeze you into Heaven.

(Howard Walderman, Columbia)

Brando coulda stayed a contenda
If he'd used a little more Splenda.

(Jack Cackler, Falls Church)

Julia Child is dead and gone,
Along with her boeuf bourguignon.
I will miss her cassoulet,
Her light and airy cheese souffle.
I hope that Heaven's security frisk
Will let her keep her wire whisk.

(Ron Mayer, Columbia)

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer's fish
Granted a paleontologist's wish.
She found a real coelacanth
That made biologists wet their panth.

(Jack Cackler)

One good thing about Alistair Cooke:
You never had to read the book.

(Roy Ashley, Washington)

Rodney Dangerfield

On the stone at his grave
An inscription is cut:
Rodney, Comic and Knave.
R.I.P. (Curb your mutt.)

(Chris Doyle, Honolulu)

Francis Crick

The Wooster to his Jeeves,
The Oscar to his Felix,
Poor Dr. Watson grieves:
He's lost the double to his helix.

(Brian Barrett, New York)

Arthur Hailey

I just loved "Roots," I gotta say,
Your views on Man so true . . .
Oh, wait, that was the other guy?
Well I guess he's dead, too.

(Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

The Treasure House stands empty now; no Moose, no Bunny Rabbit,
No Tom Terrific (or his dog) will there again inhabit.
It seems Bob Keeshan has forever left that famed redoubt;
How sad for Captain Kangaroo: Grandfather Clock's run out.

(Bob Dalton)

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

We can't believe you had to die,
It makes us kind of mad.
Oh, what we'd do to bring you back!
We're really rather sad.
But that's life, I guess. Too bad.

(John Conti, Norfolk, Mass.)

Estee Lauder

Lipstick, rouge and beauty creams
(for women's dollars vying)
Can do a lot to keep you young
But can't keep you from dying.

(Michelle Stupak, Ellicott City)

Janet Leigh

I tremble at the alchemy, the transcendental power
That kept you moving 40 years since dying in that shower.

(Jeff Brechlin)

What a family tradition that Janet Leigh started!
She showed how a psycho might hurt us.
Then her kid did the same with that guy Michael Myers.
(Of course, I mean Jamie Lee Curtis.)

(Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)

Combination

Farewell to Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon,
To Eileen Darby Lester, Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Scavullo, too -- photographers departed left and right,
All exiting the darkroom and heading toward the light.

(Brendan Beary)


More Honorable Mentions from Week 591 of The Style Invitational, poems about those who died in 2004:



Yasser Arafat:

Yasser's powers must still be legion,
Who else's death might save a region?

(Steve Ettinger, Chevy Chase)

Marlon Brando:

Marlon, you were one stud, fella',
Callin' out for your dear Stella.
But you really lost your aura
Callin' out for Stella Dora.

(Roy Ashley, Washington)

Francis Crick:

After 88 years his body's gone flaccid,
But we still got his deoxyribonucleic acid.

(Craig Pelz, Denver)

Jacques Derrida

Old Derrida was dea(le)d a hand
That took him from our go(o)dly land.
His work pa(ren)thetical some may still mock,
But post-mo(der)nism must now be post-Jacques.

(Seth Brown, No(rth) (A)dam(s) (M)ass.)

Bob Keeshan:

Dear departed Kangaroo,
On your program up we grew,
Kind to kids, not once a grouch,
From the day you left the pouch.

(Dave Zarrow, Herndon)

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:

Each Sunday when I turn to Style,
My first reaction's oft denial.
Then staring at the second page,
My feelings quickly turn to rage.

Was there a problem with my jargon?
(How many T-shirts should I bargain
With the Empress to get an Inker?)
Depressed my entry was such a stinker,

I finally, heeding Kubler-Ross,
Reluctantly accept my loss.

(Jack Cackler, Falls Church)

Russ Meyer

Traditional heaven has angels in gowns, playing harps as they sit on cloud crests.
But in Russ Meyer's heaven, the angels are nude and endowed with magnificent breasts.

(John Shea, Lansdowne, Pa.)


"Madge the Manicurist" Jan Miner

You're motionless.
We're lotionless.

(Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)


O.D.B., self-styled bitch-slapper,
Caught a beatdown from the Grim Rapper.

(Mark Eckenwiler, Washington)


Theo van Gogh

In the land of weed and ho,
Lived a great-great-nephew of van Gogh.
He made a film about the lives
Of Muslims who abuse their wives.
This got him stabbed; he fell and died.
"A senseless crime!" a nation cried.
Still, his final words, "Hyawhack khawkhuuuhkh,"
At last show us how to say "van Gogh."

(Landon Gildar, Amsterdam)


Although it seemed different
You must understand:
Fay Wray had that ape
In the palm of her hand.

(Judith Cottrill, New York)


Rick James, Christopher Reeve, Ron O'Neal
We lost Super Freak, Superman and Superfly
2004: The year of the Super Die.

(Russell Beland, Springfield)

And Last:

Down three games, winning four in a row;
There cannot be anything worse;
To the Series the Sox would go;
This Yankees fan mourns for the Curse.

(Stephen Gaull, Arlington)