Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.

-Jonathan Swift

Humor can be risky. We take a chance when we visualize and create, through parody and satire, the ridiculous and off-putting behavior of some individuals and groups, and make their actions visible to others. Although  the situations, landscapes and characters might be caricatured and exaggerated, the burlesque we create is more than a result of soaring imaginations; it is also rooted in reality. The depictions are often magnifications of what already exists. Humor is frequently an indicator of what we consciously or subconsciously know.

“Humor is an essential ingredient of creativity…People with a sense of humor see things differently. They recognize the ludicrous in a situation, or the incongruous or comical, and they effectively give expressions to these perceptions.” (HAVE YOU EVER HAD A HUNCH? The Importance of Creative Thinking). Humor gives visibility to situations we don’t often verbalize. It puts situations into perspective. Humor frees us from conventional ways of thinking and allows us to experiment and make unexpected connections.

I enjoy creating satire. I amused myself by visualizing hamburgers as trashburgers on which the Drooma gormandized – hyperbole, of course, but with many an unhealthy grain of truth. It was entertaining to imagine Graball, the Drooma leader, in THE WORLD OF GLIMPSE, devour these trashburgers while smacking “his semi-protracted slurplips,” and plunging “voraciously into the burgers, diminishing crashing columns of Drooma inedibles into a tumbledown mound.”

Humor allows us to illuminate reality humorously and yet seriously. Through humor, I find the opportunity to spotlight the futility and lack of cerebration in violence, sadly all too pervasive today. As Tiff and Taff discuss in my poem Tiff and Taff: Words are Better (I TOUCHED A STAR IN MY DREAM LAST NIGHT):

Tiff: I can slog.

Taff: I can swipe.

I’m the wacking, thwacking type.

Tiff: I Can thump.

Taff: I can thwart.

I’m the wacking, cracking sort.

Tiff: I can thrust.

Taff: I can swing.

I’m a wacking, slapping thing.

Tiff: But

I wouldn’t

’cause it’s dumb

to hurt a fly, of flea, or chum.

But

I wouldn’t

’cause it’s senseless

to use a fist on someone defenseless.

Taff: Especially when words will do …

Tiff: To sort out differences

Between me and you.

The Drooma of THE WORLD OF GLIMPSE, who are composites of the many Drooma who inhabit our own world, are not in agreement about anything – and will use their thwackers on other Drooma, on the Glimpsibles or on anyone “defenseless” …

“The rest is for me!” Graball’s stomach bellowed ravenously and ballooned into a quivering bulgebelly, trammeling Grotty, Gungy, Grouse, Grud, Greasepot and Grunch into the corner of the Droomousine. “The rest is for me!”

“Unfair! We can’t budge,” said Grotty.

“Cornered,” said Grouse. “Mooooove your belly, Graball. I can’t breathe.”

“Got us at a disadvantage. That’s not leadership,” complained Greasepot. “That’s despotic.”

“Dispeptic,” agreed the others. “Unjust.”