Style Conversational Week 1444: Ode News

This is the first time I decided to award a first-place trophy, the Clowning Achievement. to both a written song and a video. In previous years I’d stuck to the idea that the Invitational was really all about words, and the ink would always go to the cleverest songwriting — the best rhymes, the most natural syntax, the most effective satire, the best play off the original — rather than to the production values of a video. And because the top winners run on the print page, they have to be interesting to read; they can’t be incredibly long; they can’t fade out; the rhymes can’t be fudged by a voice. And still, those qualities are paramount for me.

But of course, The Style Invitational is a humor contest, not just a wordplay one, and so a well-produced, entertainingly sung, funny video such as First Offender Sophie Crafts’s “Two Darn Shots” ought to be eligible for a Disembodied Clown Head on a Stick as well. Let me emphasize that Sophie’s song is indeed really clever and funny, from the title on down. Cole Porter would have grinned. But just as a set of lyrics, it would have missed this week’s top four.

But oh my goodness, it was so much fun! Sophie, who’s an educator in the Cambridge, Mass., public schools, really went to town on this video — the excellent jazz singing including harmonies; the costumes; the staging (including getting her vaccine at a CVS while wearing a silky evening gown and long gloves); and just all that energy and charm kept me watching it over and over.

Somehow, I think that Sophie’s Clowner — not to mention the Fir Stink for her first ink — won’t be the only award on her mantel in Somerville, Mass. And I can’t wait to see and hear more from her.

Speaking of “her,” this week turned out to be one for the women: While in a usual Invite week the ink-blotters are disproportionately male — last week’s entries: 32 by men, 8 by women, 1 by someone named Sandy — this week, both Clowners and two of the three runner-up slots went to women — congrats to not only Sophie, but to the superb perennial Loserbards Hildy Zampella, Barbara Sarshik and Beverley Sharp — and women shine throughout this week’s whole songbook.

Meanwhile a definitely female Sandy: The fabulous Longtime Loser Sandy Riccardi — who with her husband, Richard, performs their parodies and other comic songs around the country — tells me that this week’s inking parody, the hilarious “I Never Started a Coup,” is the first one the Riccardis have made since Richard suffered a subdural hematoma and a fall this past spring; it’s the first one since January, actually. We are thrilled to see him totally back on his game. I hope we’ll be able to go back up to Baltimore to see them again at Germano’s cabaret.

The only thing I don’t like about judging the song contests is denying ink to totally inkworthy songs. Fortunately, I — and the writers themselves — can post “noinks” in the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook. I’ll start posting one or more each day starting July 9, and I’ll include the hashtag #parodies in the intro so that you can search for all the parodies when you’re on the page (FYI, each comment on a post pushes that post back up near the top, right under the Invite itself). You can post your own noinks there as well.

What Doug Dug: Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood read the nine songs that will appear in the print Invitational in The Post’s July 11 Arts & Style section — the four winners, plus Gary Crockett’s “Arizona,” Sarah Walsh’s cicada-eating dog, Mark Raffman’s unfavorite things, Terri Berg Smith’s play on the Maryland state song, and Irene Plotzker’s “I Cain’t Say Yes” (they happened to add to exactly the right column length) — and pronounced them “all awesome.” Well, duh, Doug.

You’re Invited again: The podcast is back for Season 2

While 55 of us were busy stuffing our faces at the Loser/Devotee Picnic last Saturday, “You’re Invited” podcaster Mike Gips was busy buttonholing various Invitational types for short interviews (setting up in the house on the way to the bathroom was key). And he’s edited them into two podcast episodes. In Part 1, up now, Alex offers warm and entertaining insights on being a part of the Loser Community — and, drawing on her youth in Nicaragua — chats with Mike about wordplay in different languages ... and how that can go wrong. Alex was too diplomatic to name her favorite song-title-play ink from Week 1439, so Mike and the Empress’s Royal Consort, Mark Holt, compare their picks of the week in the podcast’s weekly department.

Hear this week’s episode, plus all 12 entertaining interviews from last year (including me in full blather), at bit.ly/invite-podcast, or on most podcast platforms. Next week, mini-interviews with several Losers.

On your mark! Get set! Type! This week’s sports neologism contest

This week’s contest, Week 1444, is thoroughly in the Style Invitational neologistic tradition: take a real sport, event, sports-related-thing, competitive pastime, etc.; change it by a letter, or a little more than a letter, but little enough that the original is obvious; describe it so that the entry is funny and not just an interesting idea (or a stupid idea, unless it is hilariously stupid).

I thought Gregory Koch’s suggested examples were both funny — and, as we see from Bob Staake’s cartoon for the Invitational and the Plan B sketch above, both especially illustratable. Speaking of:

Buy your own Invite ink! (Or pencil.)

Various Style Invitational fans — especially those decorating their padded rooms — have asked me if some past cartoon by Bob Staake was still available There’s a good chance: Bob, whose bestselling picture books are becoming more and more handsome — makes his Invite art, both pencil sketches and final pen-and-ink drawings, available to the Loser Community at low-for-a-famous-artist prices at bobstaake.com/SI. Tell him what you’re looking for -- write to me first if you need help in figuring out the date, details of the cartoon, etc. -- and he’ll check to see if he still has it.

Thanks for coming! Sorry if you missed it!

Last Saturday’s Loser/Devotee picnic last Saturday at my house, Mount Vermin, in honor of the visiting Devotees admin Alex Blackwood of Houston, proved an astonishing success — that’s

because I hadn’t realized that Alex was going to ensure, for her four-day visit to the D.C. area, four days of sunny, 75-degree days (immediately preceded and followed by the usual hazy 90s). [Scroll down for more.]

But really, everything fell into place: Fifty-five Losers, Devotees and Assorted Hangers-On converged on my yard in Fort Washington, Md., with a wide variety of potluck fare in tow (Mark Raffman brought his puppy, who was cute enough to eat, but we stuck to the grape leaves). Everyone was thrilled with Alex, who promises to come back from Houston before long.

Until then, mark your calendar for the Loser brunch on Sunday around noon, Aug. 22, and the bigger-deal Flushies awards/songfest, Saturday afternoon, Sept. 18. Both will be potlucks at Chez Loser Sam Mertens in outer Silver Spring, Md., about 10 miles north of the Capital Beltway and so an easy trip from Baltimore and even the Philadelphia area. (Virginians, you can deal with this too.)

The headline “Ode News” got ink for Kevin Dopart in 2011 for a news-poem contest, but not this week after Kevin sent us the very same one. Hey, we do a lot of ode contests.