Style Invitational Week 1473: Give us a sign
The road sign contest returns (with a new option). Plus: Obit poems!!
▲ (From the sign generator at atom.smasher.org)
If you’re not yet getting this newsletter by email (or if you got dropped because you didn’t expressly opt in since we moved over to Substack): By all means …
We’re returning to a contest we did back in 2006: For Week 1473: Write a funny message for a road sign (as above) or the barbecue-joint marquee below, both courtesy of the sign-generating tool at atom.smasher.org. You don’t have to actually use the generator, but it will keep you to the limit of four lines, 19 characters per line (but shorter is probably better).
And we have the always terrific results of our contest for poems about people who died the previous year. This year the Loserbards salute everyone from the quartet of “Mary Tyler Moore” cast members to the guy who invented the adhesive for Post-it Notes — and have a few words for such unlaudables as Bernie Madoff and Rush Limbaugh.
In my weekly supplementary column, The Style Conversational, I’ll share the results of the 2006 sign contest, a truly classic week. (And I digress to remember that week’s second prize, an artwork that gained renown as The World’s Ugliest Painting.) And I also share a series of Losers’ poems in memory of the renowned mathematician Jacques Tits. (NO IDEA why so many people chose this scholar as a subject for their tributes.)
LINKS TO …
This week's Invitational column, Week 1473, and results of Week 1469
No-paywall entry form for Week 1473
This week’s Style Conversational column
Still running -- deadline Monday night, Jan. 31: It’s our contest for bogus trivia about money and the financial system, in our ongoing series of fictoid challenges. See Week 1472 here; see the no-paywall entry form here.
More ways to enjoy The Style Invitational and be part of the Loser Community:
Join the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook and the Devs will anagram your name every which way.
Also on Facebook, the Style Invitational Ink of the Day page presents one classic entry as a colorful graphic that's easy to share. "Like" the page to get it regularly on your news feed, or to scroll through the archives. bit.ly/inkofday.
And we're now on Season 2 of the You're Invited podcast, half-hour episodes with host Mike Gips and various Invite luminaries. Catch all 18 episodes at bit.ly/invite-podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
— Pat Myers, Empress of The Style Invitational, pat.myers@washpost.com (or just reply to this email)
*That's Loser with a capital L; named for the runner-up prizes emblazoned "LOSER," the community of regular Style Invitational entrants now proudly calls itself the Losers. If you enter the Invite, you're a Genuine Loser. But not (necessarily) a loser.