Week 615: Airy Persiflage


"We'll be boarding today by SAT scores -- lowest scorers first, please."

This week's contest is a nifty little tie-in with Gene Weingarten's "Below the Beltway" humor column in today's Washington Post Magazine. In it, Gene interviews a standup comic named Dave George, who gets paid to make jokey announcements over the PA system at, of all places, Dulles International Airport, such as the one above. Here's the deal: You write some more jokes you'd like to hear in an airport announcement. And Dave, who works for Independence Air, will actually announce -- and videotape passenger reactions to -- the funniest ones that don't concern safety or security and are not horribly tasteless or risque. (These are not necessarily the same criteria that the Empress will use, however.) We hope to show the video on washingtonpost.com.

Winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First runner-up gets a genuine black plastic welder's mask, complete with that window thing that flips down, donated by Russell Beland of Springfield.

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, June 27. 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. Entries 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 July 17. 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 Russell Beland.

Report from Week 611, in which you were asked to give "Jeopardy!"-type questions to any of 12 answers, most of which contained fairly intellectual references.

But as you'll see below, the winning entries often ignored their academic origin. Here's a key to some of the erudition: The French scholar Peter Abelard fell in love with Heloise, the girl he tutored; her uncle eventually had him castrated. The islets of Langerhans are in the pancreas. The ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps" ("The Rite of Spring") caused a riot upon its premiere. Marginal utility is the economic concept of the added worth of one more unit of a product. Montaigne was a 16th-century essayist. The Babinski reflex makes toes curl upward. Sappho was the famous ancient poet from Lesbos. 6.02 x 10{2}{3} is the number of molecules in one mole of a chemical substance. William Faulkner set several works in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Miss.

{diam}Second runners-up: Answer: Sappho and Her Lyre. Question: What are the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's code names for Hillary and Bill Clinton? (Peter Jenkins, Bethesda; Joseph Romm, Washington)

{diam}First runner-up, winner of "Star Trek" Barbie and Ken: Yoknapatawpha Mall: Where do you go when the fetid stench of a humid night hangs on the lip of the sky like a cold sore and magnolia trees shimmering with a patina of regret reach for the sky with the power of a generation lost and the weight of your ancestors throttles your soul so hard that you need Tylenol? (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

{diam}And the winner of the Inker: Bob II, Chapter 4, Verse 9: What is: And the guards said unto Pilate: "Where wouldst thou want this killing done?" And he saith unto them: "Out there, upon Highway LXI"? (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park)

{diam}Honorable Mentions:

The Isle of Wight & the Islets of Langerhans:

What two things will I be really interested in when I'm 64? (Mary Ann Henningsen, Hayward, Calif.; Katherine Hooper, Jacksonville)

Which territories were exchanged by the treaty ending the Celtic- Pancreatic Wars? (Fred S. Souk, Reston)

What are two places where Jimi Hendrix didn't perform at his best? (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)

What are two stopovers on a Fantastic Voyage? (Phil Battey, Alexandria)

What are two little places where you can't get something good to eat, either because they are in the pancreas or because they serve English food there? (Roy Ashley, Washington)

Guns, Butter and Squeegees:

What are President Bush's programs for dealing with terrorists, the rich and the unemployed? (Thad Humphries, Warrenton; Elizabeth Molye, Fairfax)

What were the three items that fans most often tried to smuggle into prison for Martha Stewart? (Sue Lin Chong, Baltimore; Katherine Hooper)

Hints From Abelard:

What newspaper column describes how turnips make an excellent faux codpiece stuffing? (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park; Dennis Lindsay, Seabrook)

What's the most popular column on the Unix User Group Web site? (Tom Witte)

"Le Sacre du Printemps" but not the Sack of Rome:

What has become an annual tradition among U.S. college students? (Harold Walderman, Columbia; Deborah Guy, Columbus, Ohio)

Marginal Futility:

How did Sergio Aragones feel about his long-standing assignment at Mad Magazine? (Bill Spencer, Exeter, N.H.)

What was it like getting Ms. Schott to sing "We Shall Overcome"? (Paul Styrene, Olney)

What's an anagram for "Tug Italian firmly" and "Man, I fart guiltily"? (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

Montaigne and the Rolling Stones:

Who brought down the house at Altamontmartre? (Chris Doyle, Salinas, Calif.)

What French essayist and rock band both date back to somewhere around the 16th century? (Judith Cottrill, New York)

Who wrote "Of the Necessity to Remove Thyself From My Cloud"? (Jeff Brechlin)

Only in the Slow Movement of the "Pathetique":

You've forgotten to turn off your cell, with the ring tone set to "We Will Rock You." When will it go off? (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)

Since his mom wouldn't let him ride the Whirl 'n' Hurl and Cheat the Reaper roller coasters, where did Billy have to spend his whole day at the amusement park? (Brendan Beary)

The Real Babinski :

What foot masseur didn't achieve success until he switched his stage name from "The Podophile"? (Mike Cisneros, Centreville)

Who is Anna Kournikova? (Jack Cackler, Falls Church; Dot Yufer, Newton, W.Va.)

What was Babar's grandfather's name before he came through Ellis Island? (Michelle Stupak, Ellicott City)

Sappho and Her Lyre:

What sounds like it should be a really hot video, unless it turns out to be, y'know, just Sappho and her lyre? (Brendan Beary)

How was the Marx Sister billed? (Phyllis Reinhard, East Fallowfield, Pa.)

Who's in the kitchen with Dinah, strumming on the old banjo? (Stephen Dudzik, Olney)

What was the opening act for Priapus and His Organ? (Chris Doyle)

Yoknapatawpha Mall:

Where is the only food court where you can skin your own dinner? (Sue Lin Chong)

What brand of cigarettes sold better after the name was shortened to Pall Mall? (Mark Eckenwiler, Washington)

Where was Billy Joe MacAllister supposed to be going when he headed for the Tallahatchie Bridge? (Pam Sweeney, Germantown)

In what shopping center is The Gap a dentist's office? (Russell Beland)

How would you anagram "Apply anal tomahawk" to sneak it into a family newspaper? (Dan Seidman, Watertown, Mass.)

6.02 x 10{2}{3} pencils

Over the years, how much makeup has Cindy Crawford used to keep that cute mole on her face? (Marc Leibert, New York; Seth Brown, North Adams, Mass.; Peter Metrinko)

What's the Bush administration's name for the U.S. national forest system? (Mike Cisneros; Robin D. Grove, Woodbridge; Brendan Beary)

What's the code in the Pfizer accounting department for the number of Viagra doses sold? (Michelle Stupak)

And Last: What is an appropriate Style Invitational Prize because it consists of an enormous quantity of No. 2? (Mark Eckenwiler; Brendan Beary)


Next Week: Oh, and One More Thing, or A Fever of 102s