Style Invitational Ink of the Day

13/05/2023

One of the winners of The Invitational's contest to make dioramas or pictures with toilet paper and/or tubes. See the rest at The Gene Pool at geneweingarten.substack.com.

12/05/2023

“It's now illegal to have your tubes tied in this state."
That’s the caption for the winner of The Invitational’s contest for dioramas and other art made from toilet paper and/or tubes (our subversive answer to Peeps). See the rest, plus a new contest and a Q&A with Gene Weingarten, at The Gene Pool at
bit.ly/inv-week-19

28/04/2023

The Invitational does its irreverent variation on those Peeps diorama contests: For this one, make art with toilet paper and/or tubes, and send us a photo. Dioramas, standing artworks, whatever. We're looking for funny and clever, not just pretty. Subjects in the news are always welcome. Deadline Monday, May 8.

Make some funny art with toilet paper, and send us a photo. Plus winning Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

25/03/2023

A winner in our latest contest:. See the rest -- a do-over of contests from our first year, 1993 -- at bit.ly/inv-week-12 .

14/03/2023

Back in the news! A classic from 2018.

01/03/2023

More winning captions -- plus a new contest -- at The Gene Pool. bit.ly/inv-week-8

27/02/2023

(The Empress's own beloved dog, the late Henry.) More winning captions -- plus a new contest -- at The Gene Pool. bit.ly/inv-week-8

23/02/2023

https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/the-invitational-week-8-poke-us-tillDianne Feinstein recalls the challenges of her first day in the Senate.
That’s one winner of The Invitational’s first new-era caption contest. See all seven pictures and 38 captions in this week's Invite at The Gene Pool.
Plus a new contest for "pokes" -- jokes in the form of a rhyming poem.

17/02/2023

(No, that's just a photo of a can of soup.) This week’s Invitational contest: Give us a funny idea — you don’t have to draw it — for a contemporary artwork. Deadline Friday, Feb. 24. Win a copy of the classic children’s educational book The Gas We Pass.
Plus the winners of our contest for “circles of hell” (and appropriate punishments) for mansplainers, Karens, and “people who knowingly serve vegetarians meals with ‘only a little meat.’ ” It's all at The Gene Pool. https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/the-invitational-week-7-arty-har

14/02/2023

Happy Valentine's Day from The Invitational!

11/02/2023

A classic from one of our many "fictoid" contests. Be sure to follow us at our new home on Substack!

06/02/2023

A winner in this year's "Joint Legislation" contest to combine the names of new members of Congress. See them all now at The Gene Pool! https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/week-5-of-the-invitational-where

04/02/2023

A runner-up in this year's "Joint Legislation" contest to combine the names of new members of Congress. See them all now at The Gene Pool! https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/week-5-of-the-invitational-where

02/02/2023

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Sing it to "As Time Goes By": A synopsis of the movie "Groundhog Day" by Invitational GOAT Chris Doyle in a 2013 Invitational contest.
She won't remember this:
That yesterday the kiss
Phil tried was not okay.
He gets the chance to press "replay" On Groundhog Day.

Each morn he wakes anew
To find he can redo
The things that went astray.
A different man's pursuing Rita
Each Groundhog Day.

Blunders in wooing he makes on every date,
Daily debuting a slightly better mate.
At billing and cooing he's doing really great. (Il parle bien francais.)

This Punxsutawney story,
A time loop allegory,
Gives Phil a brilliant way
To reinvent himself for Rita
On Groundhog Day.

22/01/2023

Say it out loud! A winner from our Class of '21. This year's freshmen have great names to work with, too -- deadline Friday night!

21/01/2023

Say it out loud! A classic from our first "joint legislation" contest. Now play the game with this year's congressional freshmen -- deadline Friday, Jan. 27. See the contest and entry form here -- still free! https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/the-invitational-week-3-send-us-the

20/01/2023

Say them out loud! Our favorite biennial game: join new congressmen's names in "joint legislation."
Past classics include the Buck-Perdue Act levying a $1 fine for leaving dog droppings Or the Moore-Greene-Salazar-Good act mandating fresh leafy veggies. Deadline Jan. 27.
Plus irreverent poems about last year's ex-people.

Join new Congress members’ names in our biennial ‘joint legislation’ contest

16/01/2023

Say it out loud! A winner from the first Invitational contest at our new home -- be sure to subscribe (free to read, cheap to enter) at GeneWeingarten.substack.com

12/01/2023

June 2023: The head of lettuce signs deal to star in "The Liz Truss Story.
What Lies (Are) Ahead: Grab your crystal balls and help us build a timeline of 2023 news event. Deadline Friday, Jan. 20. Plus some classic predictions from previous Year in Preview contests -- including a timely one from 2011.

Humor. Outrageous discussions, surprising observations, live chats, polls, and the weekly Style Invitational humor contest. Significant misanthropy tempered by a warm heart.

12/01/2023

Winner of the first Invitational contest at our new home! Be sure to subscribe (free to read, cheap to enter) at GeneWeingarten.substack.com !

10/01/2023

Deadline Friday night -- write a short poem about someone who died in 2022.
Here's a classic from our 2013 obit poem contest, Dead Letters
And here's the link to this week's contest, now hitching a ride on Gene Weingarten's Substack chat, The Gene Pool.
https://geneweingarten.substack.com/p/the-invitational-week-1-dead-letters

06/01/2023

The Invitational is back -- just no longer with the Post: Instead, the Empress is doing it jointly every Thursday with Gene Weingarten, founder and Czar of the Invite, who'll be posting it each week as part of the revival of his online chat. Read it for free! (Or pay a little to subscribe and keep it going.)
We even have results this week!

The post-Post humor contest barely skips a beat as the Czar & Empress begin with the annual obit poems.

30/12/2022

A winner in our winter "fictoid" contest from 2019. Sign up for the new, post-Post Invitational -- free to read it, cheap to enter -- along with a live write-in chat led by former Post humorist Gene Weingarten -- at GeneWeingarten.substack.com. (Click on "Hello.")

21/12/2022

A winner in our winter "fictoid" contest from 2019. Sign up for the new, post-Post Invitational -- free to read it, cheap to enter -- along with a live chat led by former Post humorist Gene Weingarten -- at GeneWeingarten.substack.com. (Click on "Hello.")

19/12/2022

Great news! The Washington Post may have canceled The Style Invitational, but the Invite will live again! The Empress is teaming up with her predecessor, the Czar -- former WP humorist and feature writer Gene Weingarten -- on Substack. And they'll jointly run the weekly contest, now called just The Invitational, starting in January 2023 along with the revival of Gene's famous online chat. It's all free to read, cheap to participate. Sign up at GeneWeingarten.substack.com and click on "Hello."
And once we figure out how to change the name of this page, we'll drop the "Style." (We've never been very stylish anyway.)

03/12/2022

We're so, so sorry to announce the The Washington Post has pulled the plug on The Style Invitational after almost 30 years of weekly contests. We'll have one more week -- and for that we'd love to hear suggestions for favorite entries to include for a closing "greatest hits" page. But we need them by MONDAY NIGHT, DEC. 5. Directions to look up the entries and send suggestions are in the column. Plus a bonus mini-contest involving clown heads.
Most important: We'll be continuing to share Loser wit -- including perhaps informal contests where you can vote on your faves -- in the Facebook group Style Invitational Devotees. Be sure to answer the questions and tell us you found us through the Ink of the Day.

No new contest in The Style Invitational's penultimate week. Plus winning greeting-card rhymes for non-greeting-card occasions.

28/11/2022

Deadline midnight! Pair the names of any two towns in Europe to make a "joint venture" -- like the Chester-Brest Any-Gender Bra Factory. No paywall with this link!

In this wordplay contest, name a "joint venture" that two or more towns in Europe might undertake. Plus winning "air quotes" -- words inside other words.

27/11/2022

One more from our "air quotes" contest. See the rest at https://wapo.st/3GMUdtK