Style Conversational Week 1262: Tell us how you really fill

Before Evan Birnholz got the plum job of replacing the late Merl Reagle a couple of years ago as the creator of The Washington Post's Sunday crossword, Evan regularly created puzzles for his own website, DevilCross.com — which is the source of the this week's Style Invitational reverse crossword, Week 1262, as well as several of our earlier ones. (Did you know that Evan writes a weekly kind of Conversational column for each of his crosswords? Here's a link to the Post crossword itself; and here's the one to his weekly blog, in which he explains some of the clues and shares news from the crossword world.

I'm using Evan's own puzzles (this one is from 2015) rather than his consistently excellent Post puzzles merely because the Sunday puzzle is too big for us to print in the Invite, with 21 squares in each direction and well over 100 clues; one we're using is 15 x 15, with 60-some clues to be written. Evan's DevilCross clues, which I list below, are also quite different from the Sunday puzzle in The Washington Post Magazine:

First, because his own crosswords didn't appear in print, Evan wasn't restricted to extremely short wording — and neither are we, because I don't try to include a clue for every last word in the grid, just the funniest ones (and sometimes several clues for the same word). And because Evan's own readership probably ranges more toward his own age (mid-thirties) than that of a large fraction of Post readers, his clues can include a lot more references that the more fogy-centric among us might not get.

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While Evan uses clever humor and wordplay for some of his clues, he more often adds interest to the "fill," or smaller words, by citing interesting facts, as in his clue for the super-bomb movie "It's Pat." I don't think that tack of just fascinating trivia will work for the Invite, though.

A few things to note for this contest:
1. Crossword convention is to signal wordplay in a clue with a question mark. We don't do that in the Invite because non-wordplay is the exception.

2. Hey, there aren't any numbers in the grid! That's because we don't need them. This way, the letters can appear in larger print, and it keeps people from sending entries that give only the numbers rather than the words, forcing me to look them up. If you want to combine two words in one clue, just write CLUEONE + CLUETWO.

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3. Since I asked repeatedly, I am sure that all of you who enter this contest will not add spaces into the words you cite in your entries, so that if I search through the list for all the entries for a particular word, I'll be sure to see it. But do feel free to explain that ITSPAT is "IT SPAT" after your clue, though I probably won't include that in the results.

4. While I never insist that Invite crossword clues be extremely short, this week you can be even more expansive. I mean, don't write a paragraph, but if you can make your entry funnier by using the word in a funny sentence? Go for it.

Evan Birnholz's clues to the puzzle we're using this week:

ACROSS CLUES
MAMASBOY: He has a special woman in his life, and it's kind of pathetic
BASQUE: Navarre tongue
ITALIANO: Latina tongue
ABOUND: Teem
TIRAMISU: 15-across [Italiano] dish whose name means "pick me up"
REWARD: Positive reinforcement gesture
ETC: Letters written after many examples
CLEVER: Sharp
LEI: Hawaiian-based chain
DIETER: Mike Myers's character in "Sprockets" sketches
ASIDE: Device often employed by Ferris Bueller
TWEETY: Diminutive "Space Jam" baller
GAZETTE: Word on a masthead, at times
RATTY: In really awful shape
JOSEREYES: Shortstop who won the 2006 Silver Slugger Award
ASHE: He beat Crealy to win the 1970 Australian Open
FETED: Gave the star treatment to
PIMA: Southwest people
PHANTASMS: They're in one's head
CONES: They're in one's eyes
ANTIQUE: Object for a certain dealer
SOUNDS: Heard things
ASHEN: Evincing terror, in a way
ITSPAT: 1994 film that sucked horribly enough to earn a 0% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on only 11 reviews, but still)
CHA: Dance segment?
OTHERS: Those indicated by 19 Across [etc.]
MSG: Additive originally patented by Kikunae Akeda during the early 20th century
TOWBAR: Device that can help someone who experienced a breakdown
EXITLINE: Dramatic last word
ORKANS: Nonviolent alien species of old TV
RENEGEON: Break, as a deal
NEEDTO: Must
ESTRANGE: Turn away

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DOWN CLUES
MITE: Subject for an acarologist
ATIT: Arguing
MARC: NBA star Gasol
ALA: Eurodance tune "Vamus ___ Playa"
SIMCITY: Popular game in development?
BAILEY: "Grey's Anatomy" star nicknamed the Nazi
ONSET: First sign
YOUVEGOTMETHERE: "I can't argue with that"
BARR: Presidential candidate in 2008 or 2012 (note: it was a different person each time)
ABE: Protagonist of the "Oddworld" video game series
SOW: Spread
QUALITYINN: Comfort Suites alternative
UNREDEEMED: Not saved
EDDIE: _____Brock (Venom's alter ego)
ERASES: Draws a blank?
DETENTE: Opportunity to resume talks, perhaps
AER: ___ Arann Islands (Irish carrier)
STEPOUT: Leave briefly
TRAP: "Sweet Disposition" band The Temper ____
WASHASHORE: Turn up, as flotsam
ETHANHAWKE: "Predestination" star
ZED: Bobcat's role in the "Police Academy" movies
JESUIT: Like Xavier, say
SASS: Take a fresh approach?
FAQ: Resource with all the answers, hopefully
TIN: Like a certain god
COASTER: Cedar Point's Blue Streak or Mean Streak, e.g.
SPRINT: Short run?
ACTON: Do more than simply talk about
SEXES: Groups in an old battle
ORSO: Qualifying time phrase?
MIEN: Look
SNOG: French in London, say
GENE: Bob's son in "Bob's Burgers"
BAD: Ass front?
ANT: Princess Atta of animated film, for one
LGA: It was originally called Glenn H. Curtiss Airport: abbr.

THE DEUX-OVER:* THE RESULTS OF PART 2 OF OUR 2017 RETROSPECTIVE
*Non-inking headline by Mark Raffman

This week's results, encompassing Weeks 1230 through 1254, provided a happy complement to last week's (1203-1229); together they make an illustrative guide to What The Style Invitational Is All About. I ended up using entries for 16 of the contests, including, online, two captions for a Bob Staake cartoon from Week 1232.

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Many of this week's inking entries were resubmissions. I especially remembered the song parodies about science and technology (Week 1235), which I rued not having the room to share back in the summer, and many of which I'm robbing of ink yet again. (I may have room on the page to run one or more parodies next week, since the entries for euphemisms will run only a line or two apiece.)

It was indeed a new entry that wins this week's Lose Cannon: "Philip Mortis" earns William Kennard his third win — all in the past year — and his 60th blot of ink. Even though Bill lives right across the river from Washington, I still haven't met him in person.
SPEAKING OF MEETING IN PERSON: It's still not too late to decide to come to this Saturday's Loser Post Holiday Party, a potluck at the Langer-Fultz Abode in Chevy Chase, right near the Friendship Heights Metro station. Bill and even YOU are invited with this highly personal Evite. We're currently at 53 guests and 13 maybes. Complete with several songs about Loserdom and more by our own Aluminum Pan Alley: Jesse Frankovich, Mae Scanlan, Matt Monitto, Duncan Stevens and (in a crowdsourced "Major General") Mark Raffman, Jon Gearhart, Barbara Sarshik and Brendan Beary. Some of the parodies are set to Christmas songs, so feel free to pretend it's still Christmas and wear ridiculous sweaters.

Back to this week's Losers' Circle: While it's the fifth ink "above the fold" for parody specialist Perry Beider, and the umptieth for everything specialist Jesse Frankovich, it's just the second blot of ink for runner-up Thor Rudebeck. The Chicagoan has been a frequent presence on the Style Invitational Devotees Facebook page, but this win really certifies him as a Thor Loser.

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What Doug Dug: Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood singled out as this week's faves Jesse Frankovich's "medicine" Yomamamine ("Treats extreme ugliness, obesity, stupidity and easiness"); Roy Ashley's "Twelve Angry Men" (too many Redskins on the field); the "untrue confessions" of coffee shop irritation Sean Bender-Prouty, our latest high school student phenom, and of dog park grosser-out Frank Osen, who is not, chronologically, an adolescent; and Doug's very favorite, Jesse's runner-up Oxford comma joke.

Deja ewwww* — the retrospective unprintables (*Non-inking honorable-mentions subhead by Beverley Sharp): A few entries I deemed Not Safe for Invite:

Week 1254, change a business name by one letter: Politifuct: An organization dedicated to uncovering which elected officials' lies have left them the public screwed. (Jon Gearhart)
Week 1246, Questionable Journalism:
Sentence in a Post story: It contained 40 photographs and, by my count, about 100 human faces, none of which were smiling.
Q: What did you find in Ed Gein's scrapbook? (Jeff Contompasis)

And for the Scarlet Letter: Week 1250, poems featuring words used the first time in a particular year:
1678:
Said the nobleman: "UGH! What's that stink!"
"With respect, sir, it's just what you think" —
And then, served from the mess,
In a BEDPAN, no less —
"Your request -- a meal fit for a KINK." (Mark Raffman)

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