3rd place in Derby #157: Reinterpreting Famous Art Titles, with 718 votes!

Look, we’re not the judgmental type, so if you wanna believe in firebirds or a phoenix or whatever your particular brand of mythos leads you to believe sparked fire and art in mankind that’s fine. We could get into the fauna of Earth slowly releasing enough oxygen into the atmosphere until about 470 million years ago when the first fire sparked, thus establishing fire as a wild and uncontrollable force with no use for man, but that’s beside the point.

And sure, your way is more romantic: a friendly spirit or noble deity of some kind deigns humankind worthy of imparting some wisdom upon and grants us the knowledge of fire. That’s kinda neat. Probably helps you feel slightly more special in the grand scheme of things and a little less like a tiny hairless mammal clinging to a wet ball of rock careening through the infinite blackness of space just waiting for it all to end. We can appreciate that.

But c’mon. You know that’s not how it happened. Fire is DANGEROUS, man. And that means there was probably some trial and error involved at a time when the things that passed for people were even dumber than they are today. So the reason we’re sitting in homes lit by energy from burning coal and boiling water for tea on our gas stoves and killing ourselves with cigarettes as opposed to uncooked pork is because SOME poor ape got lit up like the Fourth of July messing with some burning branches.

So the next time you’re having a drink raise a glass in memory and tribute to the one ancestor (who hopefully died serving as an example to the others before reproducing) who thought, “That stuff doesn’t look THAT dangerous.”

Wear this shirt: In a crowded movie theater. It’s fine! It doesn’t actually SAY “fire.”

Don’t wear this shirt: On fire. Hopefully you knew that already.

This shirt tells the world: “I have the potential to cause physical damage through burning.”

We call this color: Inreddiary

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