The Invitational Week 107: Twits' Twist — fun with anagrams
Plus our winning obit poems for the ex-folks of 2024.
Hello.
Have you thought much about Donald Trump, the anagrammatical president? He is both evil and vile, and he is live, but mostly in the sense of a grenade held in a bare hand with the pin removed; moreover, he hides behind a veil of treachery, just like Levi, the biblical character who duped the Shechemite men into getting circumcised, and then slaughtered them gleefully during their writhing agony.
When Gene ran a similar sentence in The Gene Pool a few days ago, we realized we had the makings of a contest: to anagram a word in multiple ways. On the other hand, we didn’t want to exclude those virtuoso anagrams of longer phrases, like this classic by Chris Doyle that makes a sentence with no extra words: The Invitational Losers … have nostrils in a toilet.”
So let’s have it both ways:
For Invitational Week 107: Write an entertaining sentence or two that contain either:
(a) a word or name and two or more anagrams of it, as in Gene’s example above; or
(b) a series of words and at least one anagram of it, as in Chris’s. Your sentence(s) may include other words as well, but please make it clear to us where the anagram is (putting it in all capitals, for example). You may ignore spacing and punctuation when anagramming. For longer anagrams, use Anu Garg’s handy-dandy and fun Wordsmith Anagram Checker to make sure you’ve used all the letters in your phrase, and no others.
Deadline is Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Jan. 30. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form.
Formatting this week: It’s just our standard request to write each entry as a single line (i.e., don’t push Enter until you’re finished that particular entry). That way we can shuffle all the anonymous entries.
Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyurl.com/inv-form-107.
This week’s winner receives something whose very existence is sure to prompt: “But why?” Well, because who wouldn’t want to have fake pet-store bags of fake water containing fake goldfish hanging from their ears? The Empress fell so deeply in love with this fine jewelry that she bought her own pair, and her ears aren’t even pierced; she’ll include the same little clips she uses as adapters for her virgin lobes.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.
The Late Edition: The obit poems of Week 105
In Invitational Week 105 we made our usual invitation (it’s in our name!) to celebrate in verse anyone who’d died last year. Of course we got lots for Jimmy Carter, who qualified for this year’s contest by just two days, but none of them quite had the dead-on tone and wit that this week’s inking obit poems possess.
Third runner-up:
Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024), sex therapist
Dr. Ruth’s former patients paid their respects
And almost could hear her exclaim:
“It’s vunderful to have enjoyed such success —
I’m so happy zat all of you came!”
(Sarah Walsh, Rockville, Md.)
Second runner-up:
Shigeichi Negishi (1923-2024)
Give a shout for Shigeichi Negishi,
Who brought us together with song.
For the man who invented the karaoke machine
A moment of silence seems wrong.
(Mary McNamara, Washington, D.C.)
First runner-up:
O.J. Simpson (1947-2024)
He ran through defenses with power and skill,
Through airports he ran as a rental car shill,
He ran from the law with the copters above,
Then he ran into luck with an ill-fitting glove.
He ran out of time, though, and now he’s begun,
In a place he deserves, one last very long run.
(Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
And the winner of the “glow knife” that looks as if it’s stuck through your head:
Robert Pickton (1949-2024), serial killer
Most hardworking humans who live on a farm
Would not be considered a cause for alarm.
But a cold-blooded killer (this poem explains)
Once nourished his piglets with human remains.
One after another he lured to their deaths;
He strangled those women— he stole their last breaths.
Police said he killed thirty-three of them (Lordy!)
Offended, he bragged, “It was way over forty!”
The world now is rid of him (so says our audit):
He no longer lives on that farm, ’cause he bought it.
(Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
As always, if you think the best among today’s inking entries were unjustly buried in the honorable mentions, shout out your favorites in the comments.
Death Be Not Wowed: Honorable mentions
William Post (1927-2024), creator of Pop-Tarts
We’ve lost inventor William Post,
A businessman who gained acclaim
For making pastries we can toast
And upping Kellogg’s breakfast game.
Now every year 3 billion sell,
Which brings in untold piles of gelt,
But folks keep asking why in hell
The Pop-Tart icing doesn’t melt.
(Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)
David Bouley (1953-2024), superstar chef
Saint Peter says to Chef Bouley,
“We’re thrilled that you’ve arrived today.
An ample kitchen’s here above
For you to make the things you love.
You’ll have it all, and nothing want,
For your eternal restaurant.”
“You have my thanks,” the great chef says,
“But lots of luck to get a rez.”
(Mark Raffman)
Peter Higgs (1929-2024), who discovered the Higgs boson, a particle that binds the universe together
I. Physics in the Trump Age
Can Peter’s puny boson (science tells us it exists)
Unite the universe (which it’s been doing from the start),
Despite a preening bozo who, at every turn, insists
On driving the inhabitants of Planet Earth apart?
(Melissa Balmain, Rochester, N.Y.)
II. Peter Higgs proposed a boson;
Now that gent no longer goes on.
Though his passing makes us sad,
Still, he two good half-lives had.
(Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
Jim Abrahams (1944-2024), writer-director
Jim Abrahams of Airplane! fame
Died at age 80 — too early.
Call him juvenile, tasteless, and lacking in shame
As long as you don’t call him — James (he always hated that).
(Richard Wexler, Alexandria, Va.)
Kamala (c. 1974-2024), an Asian elephant euthanized in November
Kamala the Elephant lived at the National Zoo;
Kamala the Candidate? She lives in D.C., too.
They share a famous name — and more:
Both got bumped off in ’24. (Beverley Sharp)
Richard Simmons (1948-2024), exercise leader
He got us all Sweatin’ to the Oldies,
And sending him cash from our billfoldies.
(Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)
Liam Payne (1993-2024), boy-band star:
They mourn, the fans of erstwhile Liam,
That henceforth they will never see him.
From time, alas, there’s no protection:
It moves in only One Direction.
(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
Julia Hawkins (1916-2024), centenarian cycling and track athlete
For Julia Hawkins, at a hundred and five,
Life was more than just thankfully being alive.
Breaking national times at that age in two dashes,
She wowed on the track and displayed what panache is.
Last year she succumbed at a hundred and eight,
Then blew right past Saint Peter and through heaven’s gate. (Chris Doyle)
Jennell Jaquays (1956-2024), video game artist
Jennell Jaquays, her artistry in D&D we knew;
Her skills were seen in Donkey Kong, and soon the legend grew.
And when she passed, Saint Peter greeted her and said, “Come through
These pearly gates — the game goes on: You’ve now reached Level Two.”
(Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)
Two unfortunate explorers in Washington state
Into the forest went two eager men,
Seeking out Bigfoot, that creature of lore.
But soon they got lost in a search for its den.
Found three days later, they’ll hunt nevermore.
If Sasquatch exists, then our genes may be linked.
But if so, he is thriving. These guys are extinct.
(Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)
Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024), sex therapist
I. This 4-foot-7 powerhouse from heaven can report:
“Life is meant for pleasure, though at times we’ll come up short.”
She’d want us to be joyful, no faces sad and stony.
So, in her honor, celebrate your lingam and your yoni.
(Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
II. Higgledy piggledy,
Dr. Ruth Westheimer,
News of her passing caused
Many to sniff.
Expert in sexual
Psychoanalysis,
Finally it was her
Turn to get stiff. (Jesse Frankovich)
III. On the air, she laughed, she taught, she soothed,
Some callers shared strange things.
Like the guy whose wife played ring toss
With his schlong and onion rings.
What a delight for a teen like me!
Each episode a treasure.
Thank you truly, Dr. Ruth—
It really was a pleasure.
(Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
Juli Lynne Charlot (1922-2024), creator of the poodle skirt:
’Twas the Fifties, and mavens of fashion all sighed,
“All our skirts are too bland — nothing’s making us smile.”
But then Juli Lynne Charlot stood up and replied,
“To spice everything up, let's all try doggy style!”
(Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
Teri Garr (1944–2024)
It's true, Teri Garr has been taken away
At the end, it was MS that took her
And yet she’s immortal, for who else could say,
“He vould have an enormous Schwanzstucker!” (Gary Crockett)
Grant Page (1939-2024)
If you needed a stuntman Down Under,
You knew Grant Page would bring on the thunder
For both film and TV
Till his car hit a tree
In an unplanned ironical blunder.
(Elliott Shevin, Efrat, West Bank)
Willie Mays (1931-2024) and Orlando Cepeda (1937-2024), Hall of Fame baseball players
They wowed many a fan
In New York and San Fran,
And on them their teams placed reliance.
If those who came later
Had stats that were greater,
They stood on the shoulders of Giants. (Duncan Stevens)
Rickey Henderson (1958-2024), Hall of Fame baseball star
A cloud of dust in heaven: Rickey’s scored!
It’s clear he’s safe up there; we won’t appeal it.
He really should have known, though, that the Lord
Would call him home. He didn’t have to steal it. (Duncan Stevens)
Anita Bryant (1940-2024), singer, orange juice spokeswoman, and anti-LGBT activist
Saint Peter stands at heaven’s gate
And weighs Anita Bryant’s fate.
Her Oklahoma pageant win
And OJ ads won’t get her in.
But entertaining soldiers on
Eight Bob Hope tours around the globe
May help offset her biggest con:
That she’s a vicious homophobe. (Chris Doyle)
Arthur Frommer (1929-2024), budget travel writer
Frommer’s latest guide, his loved ones pray,
Is Paradise on Zero Bucks a Day. (Melissa Balmain)
Peter Schickele (1935-2024), musical satirist and creator of P.D.Q. Bach
Peter Schickele set out to give a sharp poke
At the snobbery classical music was full of.
With pastiche and parody, genius and joke,
Tossed the classical china shop he was the bull of.
He “discovered” a son of the great J.S. Bach:
P.D.Q., who tried every manner of work
(Between benders and stupors and being in hock),
Twisting eras and touchstones, naive and berserk.
For fifty-plus years he continued his shtick,
And to classical music new followers led.
Although P.D.Q. was once Pretty Damned Quick,
Peter Schickele, sadly, is pretty damned dead.
(David Franks, Washington County, Ark.)
Phil Lesh (1940–2024), Grateful Dead bassist
Phil Lesh went to the afterlife without the normal fears,
Because he’d been among the Dead for nearly sixty years. (Jesse Frankovich)
Mr. Greedy (1991-2024), African penguin at the Maryland Zoo
Dad to many chicks was Mr. Greedy
Credit him with being extra seedy
Fruitful penguin, hardy, hale, and breedy
Saved his threatened species, yes indeedy.
(Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
Vladimir Shklyarov (1985-2024)
No Russian official is willing to answer
Why Vladimir Shklyarov, a principal dancer
And star in a prominent troupe of ballet,
Plunged five stories performing his last grand jeté. (Chris Doyle)
Natalia Larina (1974-2024), judge
Valentina Bondarenko (1942-2024), economist
Dzianis Sidarenka (1976-2024), diplomat
Mikhail Rogachev (1960-2024), oil oligarch
Four people took their final breaths
In falls from buildings to their deaths.
A noted judge, economist,
Belarussian diplomat
And Yukos oil exec all pissed
Off Vlad and wound up dead — kersplat! (Chris Doyle)
Morgan Spurlock (1970-2024), maker of “Super Size Me,” a documentary about fast food
This mission-driven man has sadly now met his demise.
Although he’ll film no more, his legacy is super-size.
He took his share of risks and surely learned from his mistakes.
He’d want us all to know a fast-food life is no great shakes. (Judy Freed)
Si Spiegel (1924-2024), who transformed the manufacture of fake Christmas trees
What to do as a war-hero pilot
If, in peacetime, the bigoted bosses
Won’t let Jews fly a plane? Cut your losses:
Take their holiday tree and restyle it!
Soon your greenery’s earning such green,
You soar high as a B-17. (Melissa Balmain)
Peggy Ann Jones (1939–2024), opera singer
Quincy Jones (1933–2024), record producer
Lewis Jones (1931–2024), rugby player
Ignatius Jones (1957–2024), actor and shock-rock singer
Parnelli Jones (1933–2024), Indianapolis 500 winner
Jacoby Jones (1984–2024), NFL wide receiver
James Earl Jones (1931–2024), actor
Peggy Ann, Quincy, Lewis, Ignatius, Parnelli, Jacoby, and James Earl supplied
Just a part of the list from last year for the folks keeping up with the Joneses who died. (Jesse Frankovich)
The headline “The Late Edition” is by Jeff Contompasis; Kevin Dopart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Jan. 18: our Week 106 contest to name and describe an Eighth Dwarf. Click on the link below.
We now enter the celebrated Real-Time segment of the Invitational Gene Pool, where Gene reads your questions and observations and responds to them in the aforementioned Real Time. That means you can keep sending QUestions, Observations, Telling Anecdotes to our newly named QUOTA button. And if you are reading it in real time, remember to keep refreshing your screen for new questions and answers.
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Q: Regarding your extended parable about the philosopher and the tyrant: The only lesson of that parable is that the smart guy, the clever guy, the honest guy got executed by the lying dufus having accomplished nothing tangible. I don’t like his daughter’s long term prospects either. Scheherazade used her superior brain pan brilliantly and lived to prevail. That’s how you do it.
Jack Smith going out the door claiming he would have prevailed in court is as lame as Biden still claiming he would have won had he stayed in the race. Constantly braying that Trump is a convicted felon…convicted of essentially fudging the books of his private business…accomplishes nothing. Andrew Jackson murdered a guy in a duel, owned slaves and committed genocide against indigenous people…and he’s on the twenty dollar bill. Harriet Tubman can kiss his ass. That’s how the real world works.
Barack Obama was the best President of my lifetime…smart, articulate, telegenic, honest, beautiful family, could hit a three-pointer in the White House gym. He came into office with Democratic majorities. With all that, he accomplished little. The ACA which was just a modest tweaking of Medicaid cost him so much political capital that the Dems were slaughtered in the next several elections. He won re-election because folks liked him despite his politics…much like Trump has prevailed. If a man with Obama’s gifts barely moved the needle, do I really need to fear the elderly, moronic man-child Trump?
Maybe. But I don’t think the Dems have the actual cut-throat guts to oppose Trumpism. They had four years to kill the King and all they did was make him more powerful. Our best bet is that his own vainglorious malfeasance and the gummy checks-and-balances of our corrupted system of competing special interests will spare us complete catastrophe. I guess we’ll see.
A: This is a very fine analysis, as you well know, as well as a deeply disheartening one. Your comparison to Scheherazade is on point; it is one of my favorite parables, because it speaks to the power of …. parables. It is a story about storytelling. I would contest one thing only, but it is crucial.
This is, indeed, the point of the story, but not a weakness: The only lesson of that parable is that the smart guy, the clever guy, the honest guy got executed by the lying dufus having accomplished nothing tangible. In other words, that has been our experience, and we must learn from it. Unlike Scheherazade, the way to fight the dufus is not by seeking to entrance and enchant and mollify him. That only makes him stronger. It is, I think, to poison him by turning his admirers into his enemies. More on this in weeks to come.
Your voice and thinking are both deep and deeply troubling and you used my preferred spelling of dufus. I would encourage you to shed your anonymity and out yourself in this chat; or at the least, to me, here, in the classic Questions and Observations Orange Button:
One more reminder: We need paid subscribers to survive. Also, we fight tyrants who wouldst decapitate their virgin wives. Please consider upgrading your subscription to '“paid.” It’s $4.15 a month. For God’s sake, think of the virgins.
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TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Just click on the headline in the email and it will deliver you to the full column online. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post in real time.
Q: The adorable prize for last week’s contest, a plushie uterus with a face, looks a lot like a toy dog. What’s really weird about it is that it looks like a male plushie to me.
— Audrey Liebross, Palm Desert, California.
A: Me, too. It is a paradox. I believe it might be because her mouth and chin resemble a jockstrap. And, uh, those ovaries could be something else.
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Q: In that photo from the Carter funeral, has anyone pointed out that Trump was seated between Barack and a Hard Place?
A: No, but thank you.
Q: Can you explain how by becoming paid subscribers we are saving virgins from beheading?
A: Sure. That is the story of Scheherazade. A king was cheated on and then declared that he would marry only virgins, and then behead them the next day so that they’d have no opportunity to betray him. Scheherazade agreed to marry him to save others from this fate, but then beguiled the king, night after night, with beautiful stories; she always ended NEAR the end, and begged her to continue, but she said there was no time left before her beheading. She completed it the following day, and started on a new one. Thus she delayed her execution for 1,001 nights, and then he relented and let her live.
Will you become a paid subscriber now?
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Q: I've not canceled my very long-time dead paper sub to the Post, but I just got an email that after all the turmoil and the layoffs, they were INCREASING my cost a substantial amount. I am very close to going digital only. Talk about not reading the room..
On the one hand, I like to support my local paper. I've had an online full subscription for years. On the other hand, without any email notification, the annual subscription fee (with auto-renewal) went from $235 at the start of 2023 to $325 at the start of 2024 to $515 at the start of 2025. I asked to cancel and got the annual fee for this year down to $60, but come on!
A: The $515 is showing chutzpah. The $60 is showing desperation.
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Q: This is not inspired by a reunion, more by “Wait…What?!” But it is about aging:
When we moved into our house in the early ’90s, our neighbor, Virgil Taylor, lived across the street and up the hill, with his wife Verne and Verne’s mother, Mattie (Margaret) Skeete. I never met any of them, but read about Mattie in the newspapers, because in 1992, she became the oldest living person in the U.S.
Mattie moved here from Texas to live with her daughter’s family after her husband died in 1953. Mattie was 115 when she died in May of 1994.
In July of that year, Virgil Taylor’s obituary ran in the local paper. Yes, that guy. His mother-in-law had lived with him for 40 years, and he lived for only two months after that.
A: A man cannot face life without a monther-in-law.
Q: Thanks for the link to the "you're no Jack Kennedy" moment. I quite enjoyed revisiting that. The best part is when Quayle petulantly said "that was uncalled for" and Bentsen's response. I read later that Bentsen's response was somewhat rehearsed. Quayle had made that "I have as much experience as JFK" remark before, and the guy playing Quayle in the debate prep used that line in one of the practice sessions. But still, it was masterfully delivered.
Of course, that debate proved once and for all that the VP choice matters not a whit in a presidential election. I think a comparable monent from this cycle is ""They're eating the dogs!" -- and Harris's reaction -- which, unfortunately, also proved that debates no longer do much of anything, at least to Republicans. But it was still fun to watch it again.
A: Exactly right “eating the dogs” AND Harris’s reaction. And then the dufuses elected him.
Q: No, no, don't stop publishing pictures of your current self! They make me feel so much better about MY current self!
A: Glad to be of service.
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Q: Do you ever give your own column a “like” heart?
A: Every once in a while, because I mistake the button for the “comments" button. Then when I realize what I have done — the heart suddenly becomes red, I believe — I erase it in shame.
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Q: Once I read the impressive contributor list for the Contrarian, I immediately thought that you should publish occasional pieces there. Is this a possibility? You could represent the important Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Liberal Boomer Humor Writer demographic. – Anne P.
A: Hey, Anne. Good to hear from you.
I suspect I won’t be writing for the Contrarian; after two years of struggle, we have finally turned the The Gene Pool into a marginally self-sustaining enterprise. I’d be competing against myself.
Q: If there is a lefty journalist out there who was screaming a year ago for Biden to step down and let a younger leader earn their way through the primary system, that’s the one whose Substack I want to subscribe. If I want a lefty journalist who was essentially a Biden apologist and gas-lighter, I got you. Jennifer might be funny ( she’s not) but you’re funnier ( much). I’ll stick with you. I don’t need both.
A: Good Lord, I wasn’t suggesting you desert her for me (or me for her.) We are all Israelites out here, wandering the inhospitable desert, hatching plans, hoping to bring down the Pharaoh (while still spelling him correctly). There is plenty of sand out here for both of us.
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Q: Regarding the poll about difficult to spell words, I submit for your consideration that "maintenance" is one of the worst words to spell!
A: Do you find yourself wanting to write “maintainance”? I am not seeing that as a temptation, though I do see from time to time the horrible misspelling of “pronounciation,” which is sort of the same sin.
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Q: Regarding Carrie Underwood’s decision to sing at the inauguration, She is from Checotah, Oklahoma. Bless her heart! — Dorothy Pugh
Excellent, Dorothy. We’ll leave this here.
PLEASE keep sending in Questions and Observations. You need me, and I need them. It’s our covenant.
I especially liked the caption on the prize photo ("For a koi mistress").
OMG The Post has a new mission statement:
Riveting storytelling for all of America!
"Storytelling!"