From Down East comes a chilling technological innovation, a brand-new form of exploitation. Do not be misled by the friendly crustacean clutching a symbol of his love for you. For this is not a tale of love. But it is a tale of sacrifice. A sacrifice we have analyzed so thoroughly in these "pages" before. It is a tale of death, distorted and foul.
The "LOVE Maine Lobsters" image itself is benign. Yes, yes, one could easily imagine the lobster transformed into a plush, a plaything for the crib. Let's provide some context for ths loving and lovable lobster. The creature is shilling for a machine. A lobster-plucking machine. That you pay to play. $2 for 30 seconds of lobster-grabbing hilarity.Typical suicidal food offers itself up for some basic purpose. The grinning pig, the sanguine cow from so many commercial announcements—at least they lunge at the knives with something comprehensible in mind. It is perverse, yes—so, so perverse!—but it is something that can be translated into an intelligible impulse. After a series of mental contortions (and maybe a great deal of alcohol and drunken prayers for a Better World), our search for meaning could even transmute these poor animals’ intentions into noble ones: They die that others may live. (Leave aside the dubious quality of the “food” under discussion, as well as the questionable need of the barbecue addict. And banish from your thoughts the inane horror of it all. We’re building to a point.) The point is this: Most suicide food is in service of a fundamental thing—sustenance.
But this! This is sacrifice for what? For “entertainment.” And here, the mechanical claw-style arcade “amusement” is so lamebrain it’s a double insult! The innocent lobster—he’s holding out his heart for you—happily risks a live boiling, all in the name of giving you 30 seconds of low-grade fun. This is a new nadir, even for the suicidefoodist. To think that a living thing would sell itself so cheaply. This is truly disheartening.Can't we return to our previous Suicide Food utopia, where the animals cavorted and begged for the chance to be dispatched with dignity and precision, at least? Curse you, LOVE Maine Lobsters, for making the hell of traditional suicidefoodism seem sensible.
1 comment:
Isn't it bad enough that these lobsters will soon be thrown, alive, into pots of boiling water? First they have to be chased around a small tank by a robotic claw? What happens if the claw actually snaggs a lobster? Does it slide out the chute like a plush toy, claws wiggling? What would that blonde lady do with the lobster? Put it in her purse?
It's a small consolation that no lobster would ever let itself be caught by that clumsy claw. Lobsters are too smart for that!
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