The link title was “Seventy-two small fish launched into space.”  Of course, 99 Red Balloons sprang to mind, and for a few seconds I savored the image of a large floating globule of water containing confused fish, triggering nuclear war. 

But then, the water would boil away in space.  So, no.

The German scientist – ew.  Granted, I haven’t met him, but his comments immediately reminded me of a German engineer I dated very briefly.  Stupid joke, possibly betraying hint of sadism (the fish loved it and want to do it again!), repugnance of body fat, and the use of “sporty” to mean “athletic.”  Reminiscent.  Ick.

It’s interesting that fish are often associated with surrealism.  Maybe it’s because they’re the archetypal occupant of a foreign, hostile ecosystem, one that frequently gets yanked into our ecosystem. 

In that way, they’re kind of like the estranged, buried images and bits of thought that get yanked into consciousness in surrealist art and fiction.  And in the same way that fish can survive only in their world and not ours, these alien images, random or suppressed, perish upon contact with the conscious, rational mind.