Donovan Kelly
Crummy But Good Writer with a Lighter Touch
But You Said It Better!
Take a picture of one famous kidney stone, add an unknown ant and ask readers to provide a punch line and what do you get?
“The late and still great Art Buchwald described in his last book (p.12-13, Too Soon To Say Goodbye) how scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey National Center, Reston, Va., volunteered in 1975 to analyze his first kidney stone.”
A wild range of wild photo captions!
* Stand-alone gag lines, even old geology jokes:
So the ant says, "Oh, definitely that stone is a leverite - leverite here." (Ivan James, Golden, CO)
* Long captions designed to tie the photo to the story:
His eyes have seen the glory! As geologist Ed Dwornik noted, "The kidney stone was pretty small and, as a museum exhibit, no Hope Diamond," but to this unknown ant, Art Buchwald's first stone was worthy of reflection. (Pilar Wyman, Annapolis, MD)
* And the slightly vulgar:
Only one entrant suggested a clever play on the doubly appropriate sometimes French word "pissant." That entrant turned out to be my younger brother Roger, who has been disqualified for many long-standing reasons. Plus I dare him to say "pissant" in front of Mom.
While I enjoyed all the entries, my favorite and winner of the grand prize was:
"You can take the stone out of Art, but you can't take the art out of this stone."
Thank you, Alvin Hattal (nee Washington, DC., now Kirkland, WA) for neatly summarizing the whole story in one short caption.
Read the whole story about Art Buchwald and the Geologists
My second most favorite invoked a mixture of Greek ant mythology and cheerful "glass half full" philosophy:
"Pushing this uphill is bad enough. I'm glad I don't have kidneys."
Thank you Mary Brotherton (West Melbourne, FL). I also enjoyed your footnote "I'm glad I didn't have to push that thing through my Malpighian tubules." Which sounds very painful and I assume refers to one of the many parts of female anatomy that we didn't cover in ninth grade health.
Our first place winner received a gift certificate from élan Magazine to the famous Tuscarora Mills Restaurant in Leesburg, Va. OK, maybe it doesn't qualify as a crummy restaurant, but it sure is good!
Our first place winner also received a warmly autographed copy of my book, "Quest for the Holy Grill: 50 Crummy But Good Restaurants within Rambling Range of Washington, DC."
Second place winner received two copies!
Each also received a subscription to élan Magazine