Bring out your dead! The Invitational is back with an obit-poem contest
The Empress joins her predecessor, "Czar" Gene Weingarten, on his Substack, The Gene Pool.
Cartoon by Bob Staake from The Style Invitational’s 20th-anniversary issue, March 2013
After a serene retirement that lasted almost three whole weeks, the Empress is back with a post-(Washington) Post “The Invitational,” now in conjunction with her big-deal predecessor “Czar,” Gene Weingarten — who’ll be hosting it every Thursday as part of his online chat on Substack, The Gene Pool at GeneWeingarten.substack.com. CHECK IT OUT RIGHT HERE. It’s all free for the time being, though your subscriptions will help us keep doing this thing.
And we’re starting — Week 1 — with a contest that The Style Invitational did every January for many years: for short, witty poems commemorating people (and non-people) who died the previous year. Deadline Friday, Jan. 13. (The contest links to the entry form.)
And because of the freaky circumstances surrounding the abrupt plug-pulling of the Invite by The Washington Post, we even have a whole set of results this week, judged by both of us! It’s our “sister cities” wordplay contest to join two European towns for a “joint venture,” like the Chester-Brest Any-Gender Bra Factory. Dozens of puns from the cream of the Loser Community.
Note: Tuesday’s debut of The Gene Pool suffered some technical growing pains, and the chat function still isn’t running the way it should. But you can submit questions to him about the Invitational or other topics at bit.ly/gene-1-5-23 .
See you in the Pool!