The sound of sheep bleating just filled the coffee shop. Turns out it was part of a song piped in, but the incongruity of sheep in a city café was a moment of funny.

Most humor has some bit of aggression to it, but the humor of the incongruous has less bite.

Of all the many animals in the Earth zoo, the only ones who seem to find anything to laugh about is the human being. Are we the only creatures with the genes for a funny bone?

We ask, is this comedy or tragedy, but sometimes we find the most potent humor from within tragedy. Laughter eases the hurt of funerals and hospitals, double shifts and dull meetings. It offers perspective and hope. Hilarity fixes things. We've been given a terrific gift. The universe with all its clock-like simplicity and elegance, its gravity and light and its dark energy, for some reason also offers us comedy.