We hear there’s another magazine out there, one that also publishes fiction and poetry, which apparently stole our idea from about a year ago of having images without captions and then having a contest wherein people then submit comical caption possibilities. We take solace though, since it’s some no-name, obscure magazine. We think it’s called The New Yankee or The New Yorker or something stupid like that. We don’t know. Must be a regional thing, like Mr. Pibb or Chipotle. We can’t imagine they’d have a significant enough readership for anyone to really notice the overlap.
So, in order to reclaim our rightful position as the progenitors of the Caption Contest, we’re having another Caption Contest. The above photograph is from our weekly staff meeting. We don’t know what to say about it. But maybe you do. The writer of the best caption for this photo will win (your choice) a free back issue, CR thermos, or CR slingpack.
Leave your caption as a blog comment. (You have to click on the post title above, then you’ll see the comment box. We get a lot of spam, so you’ll have to wait for the comment to be approved.) Be sure to check back in a week or so to see if you won! Judging will be entirely subjective, flawed, and at our whim.
We all drank the tall glass of experimental super-laxitive at the same time. Right now, it is working its magic on the first one of us. Who is it?
Pictured: Our three loyal Cincinnati Review staff members (seated) and the mannequin we bought used from Aeropostale that we like to beat mercilessly, set fire to, wrestle lewdly with, and stick our old gum on its face when we find we’ve made a copyediting bungle (also seated, obviously–although really just teetering on a chair because we just whacked off both its feet with a ruler out of hyphenation-related frustration).
Award-winning researcher Dr. T. Q. Wellenwall (seated at table) about to demonstrate the dictionary-reading ability of three feral adolescents (now adults, also seated at table) who were discovered in the Siberian wilderness and raised in the Dr.’s university laboratory—just moments before they regressed, undressed themselves, and ate the Dr. alive. Wellenwall will be remembered in a memorial service on campus this weekend, at which the Dr.’s three subjects will sing-howl an apologetic dirge in the famous researcher’s honor.
If you are not secretly harboring an [edited], you may look directly at the camera. If you are, just look away, look away.
The CR staff, proud of our new copyediting robot—moments before it emitted a shower of sparks, trashed the office, and attempted to procreate with our metal filing cabinets while reciting the Chicago Manual of Style in the electronic voice of an android Sean Connery.
Fiction Editor Michael Griffith and Poetry Editor Don Bogen (under table) make it a point to massage staff members’ calf muscles every Friday, using advanced Swedish techniques. “I enjoy that they really put their thumbs into it,” said Associate Editor Matt McBride. “I hate it, and it is uncomfortable,” said the other three staff members, who wished to remain anonymous and asked that we not use their names.
The University of Cincinnati’s renowned Kegel Exercise Team, ranked #1 in the nation, hard at practice. Go Team!
Three out of four editors agree: making eye contact with the camera is fun!
“If we are to create the Emo poetry journal of the 21st Century, should it exclusively be published as Tweets?”
Editor’s Anonymous meeting discussing our vices: fear of looking at the camera, obsessive dictionary reading, and passion for writing on tables.
What was I thinking? Picture day and I wore stripes.