Art and commentary by Kimberly Harris

Archive for the ‘Fantasy’ Category

Cthulhu Pens his Memoirs

Cthulhu works on his typewriter as he smokes a cigarette

Cthulhu smokes a cigarette as he attempts to overcome writer’s block

After waking from an eternity of sleep in his sunken city of R’lyeh, Cthulhu finds himself restless and bored. The propitious hour to destroy civilization has yet to arrive because the necessary galactic alignment won’t occur until December 12, 2012. In order to pass the time, Cthulhu decides to write his memoirs. He has been alive for untold eons, and his story began to evolve long ago on a dark and stormy night at the foot of the Mountains of Madness.

Cthulhu reminisces about his long existence as he winds his way through the complex cosmology that governs the arcane hierarchy of greater and lesser gods that have played influential roles in his life over the years. More than anything, Cthulhu cherishes his memory of the defining moment in his life that occurred when he was named the high priest to the Great Old Ones, powerful beings from other star systems that have long been worshipped by primitive humans on Earth.

Cthulhu has only vague recollections of his childhood on a distant planet in the twenty-third nebula, but recalls with fondness the arrival of his star-spawn who built R’lyeh in the immeasurable depths beneath an Antarctic ice shelf. At present, Cthulhu is completing a chapter containing a dramatic portrayal of the unsuccessful Shoggoth Rebellion which was temporarily put down by the Elder Things, who were subsequently weakened by the last ice age and were ultimately exterminated by these former slaves.

Cultists who are aware of Cthulhu’s literary undertaking are excited about the potential resolution to the longstanding question as to whether the Great Old Ones were cast out and imprisoned under the sea for their use of black magic, or as others argue, they are merely hibernating in consonance with an immutable cosmic cycle, and will be revived at the auspicious moment when the planets are again in correct alignment.

Up to now, Cthulhu has thus refrained from commenting on what the future holds for humanity when that fateful moment arrives and humankind’s brief reign on the planet comes to an abrupt and violent end at the hands of the original inhabitants who are returning to claim it as their own, as some suggest has been prophesized in the Necronomicon.

Predictably, he has titled his memoirs “Cthulhu Fhtagn,” an expression in his native ancient tongue that is generally accepted to translate as “”Cthulhu Waits Dreaming.”

Illustration by Kim Harris
Story by Don Rudisuhle

Category:

Cryptids and monsters, Extraterrestrials, Fantasy

Tagged with:

Governor Blagojevich’s Otherworldly Trial

Governor Blagojevich is on trial on an alien planet

Governor Blagojevich reacts to his unexpected sentence

The retrial of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has now entered its third month. People who follow the news will recall the high-profile scandal involving the former governor who was accused of corruption and abuses of power during the latter part of his tenure. The most prominent allegation was that Blagojevich had schemed to use his position to fill the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for personal gain. There were other allegations involving improprieties relating to state funding for Children’s Memorial Hospital and the sale of Wrigley Field. It is a twisted tale indeed and former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley once called Blagojevich “cuckoo” to which the governor replied “I don’t think I’m cuckoo.”

Cuckoo or not, the governor’s fortunes began a precipitous decline following his arrest in December 2008 on federal charges of corruption. Talk of impeachment immediately followed and led Blagojevich to announce that if somehow his actions during his tenure constituted impeachable offenses then “I’m on the wrong planet and I’m living in the wrong place.”

Shortly thereafter, in January 2009, he was impeached by the Illinois House of Representatives and subsequently by the Illinois State Senate. In April 2009 he was indicted by a federal grand jury and in August 2010 he was convicted of lying to the FBI, which was only one of the 24 charges he faced, the jury having been hung on the other 23 counts. The prosecution immediately announced that they would seek a retrial on these counts.

The governor repeatedly sought to have the charges dismissed and the trial halted. Defense counsel argued that the case had received such extensive publicity that all of the potential jurors on planet Earth had already been tainted by the many news stories that portrayed Blagojevich unfairly and published inaccurate characterizations of his actions. Taking into account the governor’s statement about being on the wrong planet and anticipating an unfavorable verdict from a hopelessly biased jury, the defense attorneys requested a change of venue to another planet outside of our solar system. U.S. District Judge James Zagel obliged and agreed to move the trial to Gliese 581d, an earthlike exoplanet located about 20 light years from Earth.

In response to the court’s request, friendly aliens from the underground extraterrestrial base in Dulce, New Mexico promptly dispatched a saucer to transport the governor and his defense team to Gliese 581d, a planet they know as Zugzigvy.

The jurors were dismissed and Blagojevich was promptly ushered into a disc under the cover of darkness. The craft departed and entered into a wormhole just behind the moon and arrived at Zugzigvy so quickly that the governor did not even have time to arrange his hair.

As soon as he landed, the Governor was arraigned before a Zugzivian Imperial Anti-Corruption Magistrate. Unfortunately for the governor, the Zugzivian people have no tolerance for corruption and misconduct on the part of their elected officials. Their society is much more advanced than our own and has long evolved past the primitive state whereby elected officials abuse their positions with impunity and betray the trust of their constituents. Corruption is viewed as a very serious crime and the governor’s bench trial lasted less than an hour before he was pronounced guilty on all 23 counts.

Zugzivians do not routinely imprison criminals as this is viewed as a waste of public resources. Instead, they mandate various forms of community service that are designed to rehabilitate the offender while at the same time contributing to the advancement of science and medicine.

Science fiction fans will be familiar with the accounts of alien abductees who assert that they were the objects of invasive and humiliating medical examinations on the part of their extraterrestrial captors. The governor will be no exception, and Nurse Gszkwy stands ready with her multipurpose probing instrument in anticipation of his arrival.

Category:

Current events, Extraterrestrials, Fantasy, Politics

Tagged with:

Krampus Takes a Vacation

The horned Krampus monster is on the beach with hula dancers

Krampus relaxes on the beach for a well-deserved vacation

After a long cold holiday season of scaring naughty children into exhibiting better behavior, Krampus takes a well-deserved vacation at a warm tropical location. On the beach on Maui, Krampus sips a cold refreshing beverage while enjoying a presentation by a local hula troupe.

In the United States, Santa is taken for granted. It is a foregone conclusion that Santa will always deliver on the presents. Kids in America don’t know how good they have it because no matter how naughty they have been during the year, Santa will never fail to bring them something. In fact, the very worst they can expect is that Santa will fill their Christmas stockings with lumps of coal. This is not the end of the world, because with the soaring cost of energy reaching unprecedented heights, the children can easily pool their lumps of coal and sell them to the local power utility and use the cash to buy the gifts that Santa did not bring due to their naughtiness.

However, in Europe, children have a lot more to fear, particularly in Austria, Switzerland, Croatia and Germany. In those countries, jolly old St. Nick hands out gifts on his feast day of December 6th. However, he does not punish children himself no matter how bad they have been. Instead, he delegates that task to a terrifying horned creature called the Krampus, who accompanies Santa on his visits and metes out punishment according to Santa’s instructions.

The children that Santa has fingered as naughty are seized by the Krampus, who whips them with a switch of birch branches or with rusty chains. In extreme cases involving exceptionally naughty children, the Krampus is said to carry them in his backpack to the forest where he proceeds to devour them. Alternatively, the Krampus simply stuffs them into a sack which he then tosses into a stream.

People who have observed the widespread lack of discipline, manners and work ethic that characterizes today’s youth have suggested that a serious dose of Krampus might be in order here in America.

The origin of the Krampus can be traced back thousands of years. It is believed that the Krampus was an evolution of the Norse god Loki that was slowly assimilated into Christian tradition. Many European countries today organize Krampus festivals on December 5th, the day before St. Nick arrives. A number of designated individuals dress up as the Krampus and go from house to house scaring children with their growls and their switches and drinking schnapps with their parents. As the night progresses, it is not unusual to see the Krampus throwing up in the gutter.

If a Krampus should approach you in the darkness of night, you will certainly know him by his long horns and his most unusual characteristic of having one humanlike foot and another that resembles a cloven hoof of a goat.

Category:

Animals, Cryptids and monsters, Fantasy, Myths and Legends

Tagged with:

Ben Bernanke’s optimistic outlook for the economy

Picture of Ben Bernanke portayed as Pinocchio

Benocchio assures the public that inflation is under control

On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, for the very first time in history, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve held a press conference and took open questions from journalists representing prominent news organizations and prestigious financial publications.

During his opening statement, the Chairman denied that the liquidity being added through the quantitative easing program and the purchase of hundreds of billions in Treasury debt has contributed to inflation. He further asserted that the current rise in prices was a temporary phenomenon and that they would revert to historical norms in due time. The Chairman also reiterated the Federal Reserve’s commitment to maintaining a strong dollar. When Treasury Secretary Geithner made a similar statement in 2009 during an address to students at Beijing University, he elicited loud bursts of laughter from the audience.

These rosy predictions fly in the face of what ordinary consumers are experiencing on a daily basis when they shop for basic necessities. Just as the US Department of Agriculture predicted in October of last year, retail prices for fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, dairy products and meat have gone up dramatically, some of these registering annualized increases of as much as 14%.

The Consumer Price Index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics concedes a 3.6% inflation rate over the last 12 months for food purchased for consumption at home, and this is likely to be understated. Even McDonald’s Corporation announced last week that it expects inflation in food costs this year, and everybody knows that when the clown speaks, people listen.

Also, people need to get to the store and to their place of employment, assuming they are lucky enough to have a steady job. Over the last six months, gasoline has increased at a rate of more than 6% per month from $2.82 to $3.87 per gallon and there is no relief in sight from the destructive impact wrought upon budgets of families already stressed by the long recession the country has been experiencing.

Maybe the government really does have inflation under control as we’re being told, but more likely, the wooden man with the nicely trimmed beard and the prominent nose hasn’t filled up his car or been to the grocery store lately.

Category:

Current events, Fantasy, Politics

Tagged with:

The Birth of Bigfoot

Boticcelli's Bigfoot stands in a clamshell surrounded by extraterrestrials

The Birth of Bigfoot

Art historians in Florence, Italy call an impromptu press conference to announce a shocking discovery regarding an image found to lie underneath a famous Renaissance painting.

Earlier this year, museum curators at the famed Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy removed 15th century painter Sandro Botticelli’s masterpiece, the “Birth of Venus” from public display so that it could undergo routine cleaning and maintenance. At the museum’s art restoration laboratory, a team of highly experienced conservation and restoration experts employed three-dimensional infrared technology to look beneath the original layer of paint in order to help determine the cause of the 15th century painting’s slow deterioration. What they found shook the foundations of the art history community.

It is not unusual in the case of historical works to find an earlier painting or sketch by the artist underneath a well-known masterpiece, as was the case with Da Vinci’s “Virgin on the Rocks.” However, in most instances, those images were revealed to be sketches that were the basis of the final work, or occasionally, simply a painting that the artist was not satisfied with, leading him to recycle the canvas for a future project.

However, the experts’ scan revealed a shockingly different image that immediately gave rise to centuries-old conspiracy theories and suggestions of a Renaissance era cover-up. For more than five centuries Botticelli’s masterpiece concealed a sinister secret. The image that appeared on the restorers’ computer screens was not a fantasy with Greco-Roman roots, but rather depicted a creature that is all too well-known by present day enthusiasts of cryptozoology and the paranormal: Bigfoot.

Historians speculate that this image may potentially lend credence to the long-held theory that Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Chupacabra and other creatures of legend and folklore may in fact have otherworldly origins. Most students of art history are aware of the abundance of images painted over the centuries that would appear to depict UFOs and their extraterrestrial occupants.

Fellow Florentine painter and Botticelli contemporary, Domenico Ghirlandaio painted his “The Madonna with Saint Giovannino” which clearly shows a mysterious glowing object suspended in the sky above Mary’s shoulder. Also from the same period, “The Annunciation” by Carlo Crivelli, shows an airborne disk directing a focused beam of light right through a building onto Mary’s head. Could visitors from another world have brought strange creatures to live among us, and to what end?

Scholars agree that Lorenzo de’ Medici ordered Botticelli to paint the canvas over because he feared that Savonarola, the Dominican monk who was at the time campaigning vigorously for the destruction of immoral art might denounce it as an act of heresy and order its authors to be punished.

Illustration by Kim Harris

Implausible yarn by Don Rudisuhle

Category:

Animals, Cryptids and monsters, Extraterrestrials, Fantasy, Myths and Legends, Paranormal

Tagged with:

Garlic Man at the Airport

Drawing of a man in the form of a garlic bulb sitting in an airport terminal

Please be kind.

We garlic lovers don’t mean to offend others. Often we are oblivious to the noxious bouquet that envelopes us and permeates our immediate environment. If you happen to be among the unfortunate ones forced to spend an extended amount of time in our presence in a public place such as an airport, we apologize. Please be kind.

Category:

Fantasy, Food, Travel

Tagged with:

President Obama Appoints a Cheese Czar

President Obama Appoints a Czar to manage the Federal Cheese Reserves

Dr. Al Gorgonzola, the newly appointed Cheese Czar

After reading alarming accounts in the news regarding the possibility of widespread food shortages in the near future, President Obama met with key officials in his cabinet to be briefed about possible measures he might propose in order to mitigate the impact on the citizenry.

The President had just seen the World Bank’s recently released Food Price Watch report which announced the disturbing news that the Bank’s Food Price Index had gone up by 15% in the three months between October 2010 and January 2011 and is a full 29% above its level a year ago. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization further stated that a 30% increase in food prices would be likely next year as well. The President’s advisors explained that a number of factors were at work, and that these were largely beyond anyone’s control, with global warming as the primary culprit. Among causes cited were devastating floods in Brazil, Pakistan and Australia, unprecedented droughts in Russia, Argentina and China and below average harvests in the United States and other countries. Increased demand and domestic inflation resulted in higher rice prices in some Asian and African countries and the diversion of corn for the production of ethanol was also considered to be a cause for increased prices in basic foodstuffs, including beef and poultry. In the United States, it is predicted that this year 40% of domestic corn production will be destined for processing into biofuels.

The officials were at a loss as to how to shield the US against this dangerous global phenomenon until Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack reminded the President of the existence of the nation’s Strategic Cheese Reserves, which are stockpiled deep underground in caves in Missouri. This hoard is the result of a longstanding federal program dating back to the Depression Era whereby the government purchased much of the excess cheese that was produced by the dairy industry. Only officials with high security clearances know for sure, but there is said to be well in excess of a million tons stored there with a current market value approaching $9 billion. Secretary Vilsack proposed that this cheese be mobilized and made available to needy people, much in the fashion as food stamps are today.

The President’s new Press Secretary, Jay Carney, even went as far as to suggest that Mr. Obama could garner favor among low-income voters by pitching bricks of cheddar from a White House balcony into a crowd of hungry, chronically unemployed, although the group unanimously discounted this idea.

The first lady was horrified at releasing the estimated 23 trillion calories stored in the cheese caves to an already overweight public, fearing that this would undermine her “Let’s Move” anti-obesity campaign. However, Mrs. Obama agreed to listen to all of the arguments put forth at the meeting.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cautioned the President that for some time, the United States Geological Survey had been concerned that increasing underground geothermal activity caused by climate change could heat the cheese to the point where it would melt and violently erupt out through fissures in the rock, and potentially smother entire communities with a scalding yellow ooze. Secretary Salazar suggested that this would be an opportune time to release the stockpiles and clear out the caves, because FEMA would likely be incapable of dealing with a catastrophe of this nature, as their rescue launches would not be able to navigate in a medium as dense as molten cheese, which would quickly clog the heat exchangers on their engines.

Prior efforts to mitigate threats to the public and avoid a catastrophic caseous meltdown, numerous federal initiatives have been in place for some years. In 1995, the Department of Agriculture created a non-profit organization called Dairy Management, Inc. It is funded through assessments charged to the dairy producers and the taxpayer dollars and has a mandate to increase demand for U.S. dairy products.

Unfortunately, attempts to reduce the vast stores of cheese have only been met with moderate success. According to the New York Times, the best promotional efforts put forth by Dairy Management Inc. and the Department of Agriculture in their 2002 partnership with Pizza Hut in their celebrated 2002 “Summer of Cheese” only resulted in a meager incremental consumption of 102 million pounds cheese, which scarcely put a dent in the 1.3 million tons that are believed to exist in the nation’s underground repository.

Recognizing a unique opportunity to solve two worrisome problems at the same time, President Obama and his advisors moved swiftly to put a plan into action. Due to the magnitude and complexity of the undertaking, the President soon realized that it would be necessary to appoint a Cheese Czar to oversee the operation. After consulting his most trusted advisers, Mr. Obama soon settled on his leading candidate, a distinguished industry expert named Al Gorgonzola. Dr. Aloysius Gorgonzola earned his PhD in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin and later spent some time as an Assistant Professor at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research. As an articulate speaker and an authority on cheese production and long-term storage, Dr. Gorgonzola fit the bill perfectly for steering America’s cheese policy and running what would soon become a high-profile operation with considerable public and media visibility. Within days of his nomination, the White House held a formal ceremony in the Rose Garden and invited many of Washington’s luminaries to participate in Mr. Obama’s historic conveyance of the prestigious title of Cheese Czar to a beaming Dr. Gorgonzola.

When Fox News television host Greta Van Susteren read the White House release, she immediately recognized Dr. Gorgonzola as a fellow Wisconsin cheesehead, and quickly contacted his office to arrange for him to appear on her show, “On the Record” and defend his suggestion that the state’s iconic football team be renamed “The Green Cheese Packers” because they always shoot for the moon.

Illustration by Kim Harris
Story by Don Rudisuhle

Category:

Animals, Current events, Fantasy, Politics

Tagged with:

Jonathan Roosevelt Rat Portrait

Jonathan Roosevelt was a piebald rat that was one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s many exotic pets. He lived in the White House in the early 1900s and liked to play with the president’s children.

A portrait of President Theodore Roosevelt's pet rat

Jonathan Roosevelt Rat's Presidential Portrait

There has been a longstanding rumor that Jonathan rode in Teddy Roosevelt’s front jacket pocket during his famous charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish American War. The actual truth was that he stayed home and took advantage of Colonel Roosevelt’s absence to conduct a raid of his own on his master’s cheese cellar back at Oyster Bay, New York

Piebald is a generic expression used to describe an animal that has patches of black and white or other colors.

Category:

Animals, Fantasy, Politics

Tagged with:

Cupid on the Day After

Cupid is at the bar having a post-Valentine's Day drink

Cupid laments unfulfilled expectations of love

The day after Valentine’s Day can be pretty rough when the expectations for love are high but are ultimately not fulfilled.

Maybe we all expect a little too much of Cupid around Valentine’s Day. He is overworked and can only do so much and he takes his failures personally.

Category:

Current events, Fantasy

Tagged with:

Robert Shops Etsy for Priscilla’s Birthday Presents

Robert chooses strange Valentine's Day gifts for his girlfriend including a giant squid hat

Maybe Robert should have gone to Jared's

Looking for those last minute special gifts for that special someone? Maybe it’s best not to take a tip from Robert.

Robert hopes to make this an extra special birthday this year for his girlfriend Priscilla with the purchase of handmade gifts from her favorite online marketplace, Etsy

He spent many hours browsing through the myriad of shops and strolling down their virtual aisles. He just knew she would love the giant fleece squid hat, the living moss heart-shaped belt buckle, the spectacular tulle tutu, a hand-knitted cowl and a quizzical needle felted owl. He wasn’t really sure about the camouflage tights, although he thought they were quite alluring.

Category:

Current events, Fantasy

Tagged with: