3rd place in Derby #512: Out of the Darkness with 95 votes!

The phoenix is a mythical bird from Arizona that dies and comes back to life every fifty years or hundred years or whenever. It builds a nest out of wadded-up newspaper and Kingsford brand charcoal and sets itself on fire. It’s a horrible, gruesome spectacle, but you kind of have to admire its devotion to whatever political cause inspired such an extreme protest. Onlookers ooh and aah as the phoenix disappears with a shriek of agony, a plume of smoke, and an aroma of extra-spicy barbecued chicken.

After a pretty boring dormant period, during which basically nothing happens, the beast is reborn, phoenix-like, from the ashes. Obviously, an ash-pile doesn’t meet the sanitation standards you’d get in a modern delivery room, but the fire does kill a lot of the germs, and anyway phoenixes don’t have those kinds of hang-ups.

The phoenix’s unique process of asexual reproduction has long fascinated biologists, folklorists and pyromaniacs alike, and has inspired artists and writers ranging from Chris Claremont to whoever wrote that River Phoenix movie where his parents are spies.

Another thing about phoenixes is that there’s one on this shirt. That’s weird; how did that get there?

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