The Early Years: We’ll All Float On

So there are some kids who you can just tell are going to grow up to become artists, because even when they’re little, they’re creating ridiculous good drawings and sketches. For instance, years ago, one of my wife’s 10-year-old students, upon learning that his teacher’s wife was a fellow Doctor Who fan, whipped up this little sketch of a Silent, a member of a group of alien religious fanatics who are one of the Eleventh Doctor’s main antagonists, whose primary ability is that nobody remembers a Silent after leaving his presence, but will still be compelled to act upon whatever instructions the Silent gave them:

For comparison purposes, here’s an actual Silent*. So to speak.

Pretty amazing likeness, eh? So, yeah, there are those kids, and then there’s me. This week’s entry in our continuing series “Jim Can’t Draw“** comes courtesy of something my folks found while tidying up around the house:

I don’t know for sure exactly what ship that is, but based on the yellow header text (whose positioning I clearly didn’t properly plan out in advance, since it wraps to a second line), and thanks to a Google search, I’m going to guess it’s John Cabot’s 1497 caravel, the Matthew***. Here’s the actual Matthew. So to speak, again****.

Ooh, the resemblance between my version and the real one is simply uncanny!

Now, I don’t know why were we drawing pictures of the Matthew, but as you can infer from the illustration, it’s a little-known fact that John Cabot deployed drones to help him find and explore the new world:

Naturally, I can’t conclude a post with the title “We’ll All Float On” without including a link to the song that inspired said title:

BTW, to the YouTube commenter who said that video looks like a Trader Joe’s shopping bag: Congratulations, sir. That day, you won the Internet.

^* If the Silents remind you of the Gentlemen, you’re not alone.
^** See also “The Eclipse Saga”
^*** AKA the Mathew. But “Matthew” looks funny with only one “t”.
^**** It’s a replica, of course.