The Invitational Week 6: Picture This
Our caption contest, plus new inkers, plus Gene's thoughts on censor-less editing.
Good afternoon. Today, like all Thursdays, is Invitational Day, meaning you not only get to see a new contest you won’t win, but also the results of the last contest you didn’t win. In this case, the last contest was Questionable Journalism, in which you had to take lines stolen from stories in the media and propose questions they might be answering. The new contest involves coming up with captions for unusual pictures, one of which is above, that one and the others below. We’ll get to those important things in a bit, but first, we have to reluctantly deal with innuendo, filth, vulgarity, and mind-boggling saucy stories from inside the glass-enclosed, lavishly staffed Invitational Judging Complex. We will begin with some very sophisticated art history and criticism.
In April 1917. a French Dada artist named Marcel Duchamp (“Dada” is one of the greatest artistic terms of all time) realized something profound: There were no rules anymore, in art. No constraints. Impressionists and post-impressionists like Van Gogh had already established that art does not have to look like life. Duchamp went several steps further, a great leap forward, and realized that art doesn’t even have to look like art.
He submitted to a big international art show something he called a sculpture, but what was really just a commercially manufactured porcelain urinal. This is it. For some bizarre reason, he submitted it under the invented name “R. Mutt.” He was declaring it art, on the theory that anything can be elevated, by an artist, to be art. There were no rules. This urinal became one of the most important pieces anywhere, spurring bold, previously unheard of conversations that birthed modern art, which asks and seldom answers the question What is Art?
Just like the new Invitational. Pat Myers and I have realized that there are no rules anymore. We no longer are constrained by the petty, schmucky, understandable need of corporations to adhere to strictures such as “decency” or “appropriateness” that define the corporation’s “culture.” We can just try to be funny. This has led to some amazing conversations that would have been unthinkable a mere year ago. One of them occurred on Tuesday and we are sharing it here.
For the contest in which we asked you to take a published line from a publication, and suggest a question that might have prompted it as an answer, someone submitted the following, which I hereby edit only slightly:
Answer: “I obviously didn't think it was going to go in the hole.”
Q: How did [a well known, dignified, famous gay man] explain the cock ring found by a proctologist?
Now, neither Pat nor I would ever have even thought of publishing this in The Post, and had we done so, The Post would not only have fired us, but set fire to us, and would not have been prosecuted for it. But this sort of thing was now … on the table. Potentially in play! We both agreed that attributing this to a particular person was tasteless. But Pat argued that “cock ring” is a thing, and not dirty, and “cock” is a legitimate word adults use, and I asked if she felt the same knee-jerk liberal way about the female C-word, and she said absolutely not, and I accused her of being gender-inconsistent and misandrist, which is the opposite of misogynist, and she denied this, and so on.
This led to further conversation about private parts and sanctimony, and back to The Invitational, specifically another entry that read this way:
A: It's best if your partner can understand where you are coming from and potentially help you find a solution.
Q: How can your husband help you find your contact lens cleaner?
Pat had chosen this to get ink, and I suggested she was condoning a weird, barely comprehensible pussy joke, and she went nutso, saying it had nothing to do with pussies, and why do I always see pussies in everything I read, and I said, wait, what? And she said it was just about contact lens “solution,” and I said “that’s not even remotely funny,” and she said it was indeed funny and it had nothing to do with genitalia, and I said, you can’t have “coming” in a humor entry and not see double -entendre, and she rudely cited a deity not of her own religion.
And then I said this:
“You know what would be funny? If a guy who is going down on a woman said ‘I can see where you’re coming from.‘ ”
Pat: HAHAHAHAHA
Me: HAHAHAHAHA
Pat: HAHAHAHAHA.
New conversations, previously unthinkable, because of the new Invitational.
Okay, so. Before we get on to the new Invitational and old winners, some drudgery:
We have a new, streamlined system here! The entirety of The Gene Pool is on this one Web page. The page will be long. But you will not have to leap to another page anymore, and all the questions and answers will accumulate here. After the intro (which you are reading now), there will be some early questions and answers -- and then I'll keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for my opinions grows and multiplies and metastasizes. To see those later Q&As, just refresh your screen every once in a while.
As always, you can also leave comments. They’ll congregate at the bottom of the post, and allow you to hector each other and talk mostly amongst yourselves. Though I will stop in from time to time.
SPECIAL ADDITIONAL TIP: If you're reading this on an email: Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (Media Trigger Finger) for my full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers, and be able to refresh and see new questions and answers appear as I regularly update the post.
* * *.
And finally, a new orgasmically satisfying feature: You can ask your questions here. With the big ugly orange button below. Here it comes.
You can also ask questions here. They go to the same place, but if you are scared of orange buttons, you can do that other thing.
The Invitational Week 6: Picture This – a caption contest. Plus Questionable Journalism winners.
By Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten, Empress and Czar of The Invitational
The Invitational is no longer flush with money and can no longer commission a series of cartoons from the great Bob Sub-Staake but we can still ask the Loser Community to write up some captions. In fact, since we are no longer limited by the small space on a newspaper page, we can have more pictures to choose from. This week: Write a caption – as many as 25 total – for any of the pictures below; they range from medieval oddities to runway shots to family photos. Begin each caption only with the letter on the picture – as in “A. [your caption]” – so that the Empress can sort the captions by picture.
CLICK HERE FOR THIS WEEK’S ENTRY FORM.
Deadline is midnight Friday, Feb. 17. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Feb. 23.
Still running -- deadline Friday night, Feb. 10: Tell us a novel "circle of hell" for some sort of offender, along with an appropriate punishment. See Week 5 here.
Here are this week’s pictures:
Winner receives a little tin of Instant Underpants – “just add water.” Because you never know when you might suddenly need a pair of wet underpants. We have given these out several times over the years, but have never received a photo of the recipient wearing them. We’ll wait. Donated – unopened! – by Longtime Loser Edward Gordon. First Offenders receive the Fir Stink for their first ink: a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener.”
And here are the results of Week 4.
ALERT: For those of you who feel that you had better entries than the one we chose, please complain immediately and at length in high dudgeon to the editors of The Washington Post.
Asking The Har Questions: The Results of Invitational Week 4
Week 4 was another of our Questionable Journalism contests, in which Losers could choose any sentence from something published that week, and pair it, A&Q-style, with a question it could answer. Click on the links to see the original contexts.
Third runner-up:
A. “I don’t know where this will go.”
Q. What did he say that told you he wasn’t quite the playa he’d claimed to be? (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)
Second runner-up:
A. “There is a big grassroots movement that’s sprung up.”
Q. What did the plumber say after using his plunger on the vegan’s toilet? (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
First runner-up:
A. “Milk is released immediately upon sucking.”
Q. What happens when a farmer trains cows to judge “American Idol” auditions? (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
And the winner of the Joys of Jell-O cookbook:
A. The tortoise was discovered in a restroom at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
Q. Mr. Hare, what are the grounds for your allegation that your opponent cheated?
(Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.)
Dregs, the Questions: Honorable Mentions
A. Banishing it has become a conservative cause across the nation and a priority of DeSantis.
Q. Does basic human decency stand a chance? (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
A. Teachers who are trying out the draft curriculum said it has been popular.
Q. How have students responded to the new “Pub Crawling 101” course? (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
A. You should try to welcome any disruptions to your routine with open arms.
Q. Now that we members can carry guns in the House, Mr. Speaker, how would you advise dealing with the pesky news media? (Chris Doyle)
A. “Ready to go. Up to date on shots and deworming.”
Q. How does a Tinder profile show you’ve taken the covid advice of both the CDC and Donald Trump? (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.)
A. Will bad actors use AI to promote bigotry or hijack nuclear weapons?
Q. Any guesses about what’ll be in that new movie with Nicolas Cage and Kristen Stewart? (Mark Raffman)
A. “Aim for the head,” he said.
Q. How did the Navy captain summarize bathroom etiquette? (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)
A. The layoffs included two dozen massage therapists.
Q. What was the first indication that Trump had vacated the White House? (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.)
Q. Why did President Biden say there was only room for six people on his balloon? (Richard Wexler, Alexandria, Va.)
A. I can see where we can find common ground.
Q. Instead of this $20-a-pound whole-bean coffee, don’t you guys just sell a can of Maxwell House? (Kevin Dopart)
A. I wish it was more transparent, because that’s what it’s all about.
Q. What do you think of my new warm-weather burlap windshield? (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
A. “I was able to knock down some shots in the second quarter which really helped.”
Q. How have you been coping with your low approval ratings on the economy, Mr. President? (Jon Gearhart)
Q. What's is like watching "MILF Manor" at a bar? (Kevin Dopart)
A. “There will be a chess match along the lines.”
Q: What is the worst idea ever for a Super Bowl halftime show? (Steve Honley, Washington, D.C.)
A. Our main finding out of this is that fat matters a lot.
Q. What life lessons can be gleaned from the lyrics of Sir Mix-a-Lot? (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)
A. Far from it.
Q. Where should I stand to take a selfie with a water buffalo? (Chris Doyle)
A. This ordinance was originally agendized at an October City Council meeting.
Q. Is there any progress on your proposal to ban the verbing of nouns? (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
Q. How can you tell when Rudy Giuliani has just dyed his hair? (Leif Picoult)
A. They don’t care about being invited to elite parties in Georgetown.
Q. What’s the philosophy of the Georgetown Party-Crashers’ Guild? (Duncan Stevens)
A. The Federal Reserve Board announced that it was transferring $107 billion into Treasury’s accounts.
Q, How can the government afford to keep eggs on the menu at military bases? (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
Q. Why isn’t there a bigger uproar in Brazil after the outgoing president looted, vandalized and left his BM in a shoebox at the presidential palace? (Bill Dorner, Indianapolis)
Q. Besides reduced sentences for donating their organs, what else does Massachusetts plan to offer prisoners? (Chris Doyle)
A. “They are hyper-focused on the opportunity to breed, and they therefore lose some of their wits.”
Q. Why do so many high school boys perform poorly on standardized tests? (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)
A. Seen from the ground, their ephemeral parabolas look like calligraphic brushstrokes.
Q. What was it that William F Buckley said about forward passes? (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
A. “Will anyone I know be happier if I save this?”
Q. What thought process do you NOT want lifeguards to engage in? (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
A. If the outcome is No. 2, then they’ll be kind enough not to shove the U.S. economy off a cliff.
Q. Why might we want to try giving the Freedom Caucus a dose of a gentle laxative? (David Smith, Pleasanton, Calif.)
A. “They poop prolifically, and their droppings—thanks to their olive-heavy diet—are oily and slick.”
Q: What State Department travel warning offended the Greek ambassador? (Leif Picoult)
Q. How does Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene deal with the stress of trampling on the dreams of immigrants and the less fortunate? (John Hutchins, Silver Spring Md.)
Q: Is there anything on George Santos’s resume that’s accurate? (David Garratt)
A. Just a single new cutting-edge chip-making facility costs $20 to $25 billion.
Q. Why are Lay’s and Pringles so expensive? (Frank Osen)
A. “It was just annoying to do it over and over and over again.”
Q. How did my wife explain to our couples therapist why we had sex only three times during our five years of marriage? (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)
A. It depends on who you are speaking to.
Q. Does it matter if I mix up subjective and objective pronouns? (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)
A. 1 Roma tomato, seeded and diced.
Q. What’s the dinner special at the Institute for Runway Models and Ballerinas? (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
Q. How did George Santos use the phone to raise money for his Congressional run? (Karen Albamonti, North Kingstown, R.I.)
And Last:
A. Enter the storm door.
Q. For this week’s Invitational, should I submit my latest racist joke, sexist joke or storm door joke? (Jeff Contompasis)
The headline “Har Questions” is by Beverley Sharp; the honorable-mentions subhead is by Bill Dorner.
Ingest foodstuffs with genuine Losers! This month’s Loser Brunch is at Asian Palace in Columbia, Md., on Sunday, Feb. 19, at noon. (The E has to miss this one, alas.) More info and RSVP at Our Social Engorgements on the Losers’ website, NRARS.org.
Banter and share humor with the Losers and the Empress in the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook; join and the Devs will anagram your name every which way. And see more than 1,000 classic Invite entries in graphic form, also on FB, at Style Invitational Ink of the Day.
Your questions and answers:
Q: Is it just me, or are drugs named by drawing eight random Scrabble tiles, the fewer vowels the better? But that's not my real question. My real question is how do you know if you’re allergic to a drug before you take it? Ok, I lied. Here's my really real question. Have you had to take any drugs that you would rather have the disease than the list of side effects?
A: Addressing the last, first. Yes, I once was briefly on an antidepressant that made me instantly impotent, and did not allow me to sleep more than two hours a night. Got off it immediately. Also, after painful surgery I was briefly taking Ambien to get sleep through the pain. It made me insane. Got off it almost immediately. But the absolutely BEST drug I ever took was as a young man, for a mild urinary problem. It was called Urised, and it turned your urine blue. Very, very blue.
Once, I was peeing at a public urinal, a trough urinal at a baseball game, and I realized the guy next to me was Noticing. I pulled out a small cassette recorder I happened to have in my pocket and said into it: “Gardak reporting. Earth colonization plans complete. Initiating return to mother ship."
Lastly, you discover you are allergic to a drug when you die.
Q: So, if we ask a question after the chat finishes on Tuesday, will you answer it in Thursday's chat?
A: Yes, unless the question is idiotic. This one, I have to say, is borderline.
Q: Gene, what is the best way to tell someone that they are wrong about something important? Mark Hasty Jonesboro, IL
A: This might be neurotic, but I feel you are trying to tell me something.
Q: Do you like lima beans?
A: Only in succotash, but I don’t really like succotash. Try to parse that. I dare you.
Q: We recently adopted our first family dog, a 4 year old ex-racing greyhound. She is a beautiful soul - gentle, calm and affectionate. The only issue is that she freezes on walks, randomly deciding she will go no further in the direction we are travelling and insisting on taking a different route. There is no consistency to where or when this happens. I often (silent "t") require vehicular rescuing by my wife when I am far away from home and have no way of cajoling doggo to go in a helpful direction. Any tips?
A: We have had two consecutive Plott Hounds, Murphy and Lexi. When you google the Plott Hound, you discover that among their wonder, ful traits — smart, loyal, affectionate, protective etc. — they also tend to be “headstrong.” This is an understatement. My advice to you is to just plan for longer walks. Because the dog rules the walk.
Q: My 21-month-old just made his first observation about differences in skin tone. When we were reading a book with illustrations of different people, he pointed to a darker-skinned person and said, "Lights off." (Which is the phrase we say when it's dark, like when we drive through tunnels or do bedtime.) He then pointed to a lighter-skinned person and said, "Lights on." And then he pointed to a drawing of a black person and said the name of his biracial cousin who lives in a different city. In fact, he's started calling many drawings of black kids by his cousin's name. I know these are innocuous observations by themselves. But of course because of all the huge issues they're hitched to, I'm internally spiraling and searching for resources on how to talk to kids about race and dreading his socialization into our world with its messed-up ideas. How did you or the other chatters approach talking to young kids about race (or grandkids, if it's come up)? For context, I am Asian, my spouse is white, our kid is growing up bilingual, and we live in a pretty white college town in the Northeast.
A: When Molly was about three, she was in a preschool in Miami. When I came to pick her up one day, we went through the daily routine of washing her up after a day spent largely outside. We got into the learning experience of “clean” v. “dirty” and she solemnly informed me that Laurean is dirty.
There were about 15 kids in her class, and only one was Black. I sensed this was a major moment, and sat Molly down right in the bathroom, and told her this was Important. “Black people aren’t dirty,” I said.
She didn’t seem to comprehend.
“Look you know there are white dogs and black dogs, right?”
She nodded.
“Well, black dogs aren’t dirtier than white dogs! It’s just the color of their fur.”
My daughter nodded, a little dubiously.
“Molly, this is important.”
Just then the door to the bathroom opened, and a preschool teacher came in, carrying Laurean. Laurean was covered head to toe in mud.
Q: I've just had my first colonoscopy. While it certainly wasn't something I'd do recreationally, it wasn't as awful as I'd feared. But it WAS utterly absurd and full of "damn, bodies are gross" moments that are much funnier when shared. And I thought "everyone needs a poop friend"--someone who also thinks poop is funny, someone to tell when you crap out a whole long unbroken rope and it feels more impressive than your graduate degree. Will you be that friend for us? --CleanAsAWhistle
A: Just to show I have limits, there is out there on the Web a video of a performance artist, a woman, squatting and duck walking and pooping without interruption or breakage of chain, for something like 30 feet. I have elected not to link to it, and not just because I couldn’t find it.
Q: Gene --- I'm familiar with what you horologists (and no people, that has nothing to do with the study of sex work) call "complications" or multiple functions in a watch, but wonder if you have repaired (or own) clocks with many or unusual complications ?
A: I’m not that good. Most complex I have dealt with is an 1890s clock that also told the day of the month. And I was never competent with watches. The movements are just too small.
Q: The massage parlor story is fabulously written. I suspect that place isn't there anymore? I also suspect that story either didn't get read a lot or, if it did, it was forgotten, give the events that came shortly after it.
A: Thanks. According to the Web, it is still there!
Q: "Not everything is a valid political dispute" is a totally true, and meaningless, statement. All along the political spectrum, we agree that the media should acknowledge truth, but also explain where there are valid disagreements. But what we disagree upon is precisely where the "valid disagreement" line falls, and reporters have to use their judgement in debatable cases. And then we start yelling at each other about whether this is a debatable case, and so on. I'm not saying that there isn't truth; I'm saying there isn't some reference book in the sky that tells you what qualifies as true.
A: I disagree. There is a reference book. It has two parts: Common sense and understanding of history.
Q: I've been told that you're public affairs adverse (like Loser parties), which I find difficult to believe. Were you scared by something when you were 3? I hope not. Is it the moustache? That is, are you afraid of having it damaged/mutilated/ruined by some unexpected happenstance, like a crazed barber? Inquiring minds want to know.
A: It’s neurosis. At a party, I feel under stress to always be funny. So it’s like a gig to me. I realize this is illogical.
Q: Since the Style Invitational has been rebooted, could we be called something better than Losers?
A: No. I don’t like “schmucks,” and nothing else feels right. From the start the goal was to slightly lose, so you didn’t get the awful first prize. The first t-shirt, as I recall, said, on the back, calling up the Nike logo, “Almost Do It.
Q: Did you think “misandrist” needed to be defined to this brainiac group?
A: SOME of you are idiots, no?
Q: I read the description of the new Invite and the first thing I thought was, wait -- you guys had to pay Bob Staake to create those cartoons? And the second was . . . in that case why wasn't there more variety? I confess those were among my least favorite competitions, for the same reason that you don't like Lio. (Which has 3 recurring joke lines, not just one, but still.)
A: I don’t know who you are, but I am guessing you know nothing about cartooning. When Bob was hired, two dozen years ago, he was virtually unknown. He has since become one of the most famous cartoonists in the country. He had drawn many New Yorker covers. Pat and I loved him not just because he had a recognizable, irresistible style, but because he is gifted, comedically. He came up with concepts for contests, and great examples to illustrate them. And yes, we paid him well.
Q: I work in a specialized field (I'm a litigation attorney) that makes it hard for me to talk to friends and loved ones about things that happen at work, because any such anecdote needs to be prefaced by several minutes of explanation about how things usually go in order for them to understand why what happened was so remarkable. I assume that you've experienced something similar related to the specifics of your career in journalism and professional writing. Do you have any specialized insight on how to handle this situation, other than "only talk to fellow lawyers," or "adopt a personal code of Omerta"?
A: Yes, you have to over-explain things. Set em up. It’s like telling a joke, which comes naturally to us, as it probably does to you. It’s about establishing a narrative.
Q: I have discovered a new way to play with character.ai. I have learned how to have two characters converse with one another. Last night, R Daneel Olivaw, Asimov's positronic humanoid robot, had a long talk with Data, from Star Trek. My wife is bemused. I get the feeling she thinks I am wasting time. But I feel there is much to be learned from this sort of thing. Am I wrong?
A: It depends on whether you mind being in the thrall of a computer-run oligarchy and kakistocracy.
Okay, we are done! Thank you all. See you Tuesday.
Chris Doyle's question about the selfie with a water buffalo reminded me of a true story. When I was first out of college and working evenings I volunteered at the zoo in Syracuse. The lady who helped publish the zoo's newsletter asked me to take a photo of the new baby bison for the newsletter since I usually brought my camera with me to the zoo and had taken a photography class in college. I was allowed to go into the large enclosure where the bison were. However the bison mom did not like me getting close to her baby (I didn't have a telephoto lens) and luckily I managed to get back through the gate before she did. Probably beat my 50 yard dash record.
I want to be the first to congratulate Chris Doyle for surpassing 2500 inks! His 4 today bring his total to 2502!