Style Conversational Week 1101: Looking back on the look-backs; The Style Invitational Empress ruminates on (ewww) this week's contest and results Washington Post Blogs December 4, 2014 Thursday 7:33 PM EST Copyright 2014 The Washington Post All Rights Reserved Length: 1565 words Byline: Pat Myers Body Before I start my usual weekly blather: I really hope you can make it to Catholic University Pryzbyla Center on Friday evening, Dec. 5, at 7, for the nine-poet light-verse readofest that's headlined by Loser Melissa Balmain and features several other Invite figures, including Brendan Beary, Mae Scanlan, Edmund Conti and one Gene Weingarten. It's all free, it's right near the Brookland Metro station, and parking should be easily available. See details at this link. A number of us are going to hang out and grab a sandwich beforehand at the nearby Potbelly (655 Michigan Ave NE, near the Metro station) starting at 4 and at least until the Pryzby-doors open at 6. (My first chance to meet Mr. Conti, who's up from Raleigh.) The poets will also surely hang around to chat after the reading, and Melissa and Gene and I'm sure others will happily sign books (Gene's not bringing books; you'll have to bring your own. I suggest bringing a Bible). And/or: Diane Wah of our Seattle Loser Bureau will be in town for the Loser Brunch, Dec. 14 at 11 a.m., at Kilroy's buffet, just off the Beltway in Northern Virginia. I'll be there from 11 to 1. Please RSVP for this one to Elden Carnahan so we can give the restaurant a head count. Back to the blather. I've been running year-endish retrospective contests, like Week 1011, ever since I began Empressing: My third contest ever (Dec. 28, 2003) was to enter any previous Invite; I offered links only to the previous 100 contests, though (the others probably didn't go up online back then). My predecessor, the Czar, also ran such whole-oeuvre contests: in Weeks 94 (1995), 289 (1998) and less than a year before I took over (Week 490, 2003). (I don't know how he expected people to remember what the contests were.) After I did that first one -I guessed correctly that some jokes the Czar had rejected over the years would end up on my list -I limited the pool at least a bit: My next retrospective was at my 100-week mark and encompassed only my mess so far; and since then, starting in 2006, they've been for the previous year, give or take a few weeks. This year we go back to Week 1047 (November 2013), since last year's retrospective covered up to Week 1046. Over the years, I've usually warned contestants that, because of space limitations, especially in the print paper, short-form entries - neologisms, horse names, etc. - were more likely to get ink than, say, elaborate song parodies. The thing, though, is that parodies and limericks have gotten retro-ink a number of times, even on the print page. Last year's results included two lengthy parodies, plus a limerick and a cinquain; the 2012 results had three parodies, including the first runner-up. Basically, if an entry is fabulous, it could very well get ink even if it's quite long. But it might be the only really long entry on the page. So it's definitely a gamble. (ewww) this week's contest and results Note that I said that, yes, you can resend an entry that didn't get ink last time. It seems counterintuitive, and indeed I'd say it's a low-percentage play, if you're the kind of person who's going to be figuring out which 25 entries to send in. But more than once, I have given ink in the retrospectives to entries that got robbed the first time around. It might have been because there were other entries like it, or that the bar was just in-cred-ibly high that week and even some of the rejects were highly worthy. (Song parodies again come to mind.) Please remember to give the week number of the contest you're entering, and if it's not abundantly clear, please add a line about what the contest was (e.g., "fi-to fo- limericks") so that I won't have to look it up. As you might imagine, this contest takes a long time to judge. And yes, once again you can be robbed: Part of the purpose of this contest is to showcase the variety of contests we do over the course of a year, and so I'm going to try to represent a fair number of them. If 10 people send me fi- limericks that are better than anything else I get this week, some of those limericks won't get ink. Sorry. It's also helpful if I don't have to use a lot of space to describe the contest, though I'm usually pretty good at boiling down the relevant point. For inspiration and whatever guidance you'd like to infer, here are the links to most if not all the previous retrospective contest results. Some of them were restricted to a certain subset of contests, and a few required entries to fit a certain theme. (These links are from Elden Carnahan's Master Contest List and won't affect your story count toward the paywall. Scroll down past the new contest to see the results.) Week 94. Week 223 Week 292 Week 490 Week 496 (beat the entries from the 10th-anniversary issue) Week 538 Week 635 Week 692 Week 735 Week 793 Week 844 Week 894 Week 948 Week 999 Week 1011 (beat the entries from the 20th-anniversary issue) Week 1050 This contest to "clarify" horoscopes brought tons of entries this week, even though it required readers to track down horoscopes in the print or online Post, and of course your starrier-touched Losers probably pored over every one of every day, along with the alternate versions on astrology.com. Jonathan Hardis noted that the advice given to Scorpios whose birthday was Nov. 13 -"Allow greater give-and-take between you and others" -was exactly the same as what was given to Pisces people a day later. I only pray that the astrologer didn't get the dates mixed up so that some poor Pisces gave and took when she should have stomped her foot and refused to budge. In general, I found the most humor in entries that played off typical horoscope phrases, rather than the really oddball stuff in some of the predictions. Notable exception by Bruce Alter: "Aries: You are really in your element when it comes to verbalizing complicated concepts so that your audience (whether that means your coworkers at the company shindig, your grandparents, your honey pie, your little sister, your little sister's punk rock honey pie or whomever) can grasp just what a good idea it is that you have.Bruce: Huh? The Losers' Circle this week is filled entirely with Invite Obsessives -the winner and three runners-up have close to 3,000 blots of ink among them, and ranked 1, 2, 5 and 8 in the current year's standings. (As almost always, I judged the entries blindly, and didn't check who wrote the winners until this past Tuesday.) I would have chosen another winning example for this week's contest (or, actually, I wouldn't have included it in a list of choices for Bob Staake) had I known at the time that Frank Osen would win Week 1097. Because the Invite in the past few months has annexed a region called Osenania: The Poet From Pasadena gets his sixth win in just this "Loser Year," which began in March, along with 10 runners-up and 49 honorable mentions. What is Frank doing with all those Inkin' Memorials? We demand photographic evidence. Meanwhile, it's the second second-place in a row for Danielle Nowlin, last year's Rookie of the Year and Loser of the Year. Danielle hasn't been quite as devoted to the Invite this past year, since she's been busy with her two pint-size Losers in Training while growing another one, due in just a few weeks: I see that Danielle's Facebook "cover photo" features a mantel from which hang a stocking labeled Joseph, a stocking labeled Abigail ... and a sign (ewww) this week's contest and results labeled "Reserved." (For some reason there are silly pine cones and greenery atop the mantel rather than the four Inkin' Memorials that should be there.) Though Frank has been getting all these wins this year, I see that in the current standings he's only in second place, with his 64 blots of ink before today. That's because in first place, with 66, is this week's third-place Loser, Chris Doyle, the highest-scoring Loser of all time (a position likely to last forever). While Chris has 49 first-place wins since his first one in 2000, he hasn't yet won any in this Loser year. Freaky! Yeah, he has "only" those six runners-up, those 51 honorable mentions, the subheads, the contest ideas, etc.... And trotting into fourth place is Kevin Dopart, highest-scoring Loser for seven straight years, who also is Bobble-Linc-less this year, but has still managed to mop up 48 blots of other ink. No First Offenders made the final cut this week, but it's just the third inks for Terri Berg Smith and Curtis Morrison. Curtis got two this week, and his one about "releasing the reins" and the "safe word" was the favorite of both the Czar and ace copy editor Doug Norwood. Sagittarius: "You're definitely ready for some good, old-fashioned recreation -with no strings attached." Edward Gordon: So Pinocchio, get between my legs and tell me lies. Aquarius: "Others will push hard for what they want, especially those involved in your personal life." Jeff Contompasis: And specifically your cellmate. Sagittarius: "Relax, kick back and let big things come to you." Nan Reiner: Like Catherine the Great did. And most crudely: Capricorn: "One key person will let you know that you are indispensable by the end of the day!"Brendan Beary: The exact phrase to listen for is, "Well, it's not going to suck itself." Presumably Brendan won't be working that phrase into a poem to read tomorrow night at Catholic U. See you there!