The Style Invitational
The Style Invitational
By the Empress

Week 1012: The news at 5 — write some current-events limericks

Bob Staake for The Washington Post - “Sequestration,” a timely and limerick-friendly word that proved useful for Week 1012.

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North Korea for summer vacation,
That passing-a-gallstone sensation
And intestinal flu
Are all comparable to
The appeal of this damned sequestration.

We’re still basking in the glow of last week’s 20th-anniversary retrospective, which brimmed with tantalizing tidbits from dozens of our more than 1,000 contests over the years. Among them were two limericks that made us thirst for a swig of more five-liners to tide us over till our annual Limerixicon in August. This week: Write a limerick about a recent news event, as in the example above. You may add a title or a lead-in line, but the limerick can’t require a lot of accompanying explanation. See wapo.st/limrules for guidelines for what we look for in a limerick.

The Style Invitational

The Style Invitational is The Post’s weekly humor/wordplay contest, serving up since 1993 an irreverent mix of highbrow and lowbrow -- haughty and potty -- in genres ranging from neologisms to cartoon captions to elaborate song parodies. A new contest appears at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational every Friday.

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(Mark Holt) - You didn’t get ink today? If you'd only had this stress reliever ... It makes a good noise, too.

Winner gets the Inkin’ Memorial, the Lincoln-statue bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives this really cool and ooky squeeze ball; not only do yellow-goo-filled clear plastic bubble things force their way through the mesh of the ball when you squeeze it, but it also makes an appropriately disgusting noise while doing so. Donated in the middle of a restaurant by Loser Dave Prevar. This ball has already been pre-squeezed many times by the Empress during the editing of last week’s Invitational.

Other runners-up win their choice of a yearned-for Loser Mug or the ardently desired Grossery Bag. Honorable mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet. First Offenders receive a smelly, tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink for their first ink). E-mail entries to losers@washpost.com or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, March 18; results published April 7 (online April 4). No more than 25 entries per entrant per week. Include “Week 1012” in your e-mail subject line or it might be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at wapo.st/inviterules. The subhead for this week’s honorable mentions is by Kevin Dopart; the alternative headline for the “next week’s results” line is by Brendan Beary. Join the lively Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook at on.fb.me/invdev.

Report from Week 1008

in which we asked you to rearrange the words of a movie title and describe the resulting new film:

The winner of the Inkin’ Memorial

The Kwai on the River Bridge: Barbara Walters narrates a moving story of two lovers saying goodbye above the Seine. (Roy Ashley, Washington)

2. Winner of the brown-and-white soap labeled “Butt” and “Face”:
Ralph It, Wreck!: A less-than-compassionate sidekick counsels a rock star through her latest drinking binge. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

3. Rich Little, Poor Girl: An aging impressionist tricks young women into blind dates by imitating Ryan Gosling, Daniel Craig, George Clooney and Justin Bieber. (Dan O’Day, Alexandria, Va., a First Offender)

4. Wonderful? It’s a Life: Grandpa Irving pooh-poohs being in the Greatest Generation. (Ellen Ryan, Rockville, Md.)

In Translation: Lost — honorable mentions

About 10, I Hate You Things: The story of a frazzled day-care provider. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.)

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