Space Sharks

Because Space Sharks! 

Why not? I’m wearing a tee shirt today that has a cute graphic of sharks wearing glass ‘fishbowl’ style helmets and swimming with asteroids and stars. It’s improbably impossible, of course. But it’s cute. The human brain will put up with a lot of impossible things before breakfast, given they are cute, or funny, or possibly both. I was thinking about this yesterday, as one of my coworkers teased me about being a witchy woman gathering herbs – which reminds me to get a bundle of sage for another coworker. I am not, strictly speaking, an herbalist. The more I learn over the years, the less I think that using herbs in preference to modern medicine is wise or safe. I see people online advocating stuff that makes me cringe. Someone is going to die – already has, if you look at the cases. But it’s funny to joke about collecting herbs and casting spells, so we do. Because the modern image of witch is a cute lil’ thing in a black hat with a broom and a cat, a’la Studio Ghibli. 

But I digress. This was supposed to be about nonsense, and it’s place in the world to break up the harshness of reality. Life can be a bitter dose of medicine, if you walk into it with eyes open and ready to learn. The cat pictures of the internet are the antidote to that. Humor is a buffer that keeps the buffets of disappointment and discouragement from breaking us. Send in the cute! 

We live in a world of polarized opinions, internet mobs of hate, and the daily grind that wears away at our souls an hour at a time. I would argue that cat memes, and space sharks, and the delightful nonsensical notions of the likes of Lewis Carroll and Ogden Nash (who deserves to be better remembered) save us all from plunging into the darkest gloom. Sometimes I want to surround myself with beautiful things. Other times, I want to coo and giggle like a child over the silly stuff.

You can find more of Brynn Metheny’s creations here. 


Comments

4 responses to “Space Sharks”

  1. John in Philly Avatar
    John in Philly

    We bought Brian Kesinger’s books about Victoria and her domesticated octopus named Otto because cute.

    You are correct, humor is a buffer and humor is lacking in the modern world.

  2. Many people are unable to suspend seriousness. Something that is absurd will make them uneasy. I write comics knowing that everyone won’t like them. I am thankful for the ones who do.

  3. Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard Avatar
    Paul (Drak Bibliophile) Howard

    Tanith Lee has a little story within a story.

    It seems that snakes wanted to get closer to humans but humans didn’t like them.

    So the King Of Demons found a way to create cats from snakes so the snakes (now cats) could get closer to humans. 😈

    1. Athena T. Cat, who is currently importuning DadRed for something, anything, from the kitchen, says that is foul calumny and not to trust anything a demon says. (Note that this is that cat who swears she has not been fed in years and is dying of hunger, even with a full bowl of food.)