Monday, April 23, 2007

A.C. Butcher, Leichhardt, Sydney, Australia

From Down Under comes this hellish vision: Hieronymus Bosch as butcher-shop kitsch, David Cronenberg as misguided come-on.

Far from horror at seeing her entire back half carved off, the cow feels nothing but delight at being hacked into thick, juicy, ready-to-grill steaks. She is downright giddy—her tongue wiggling in anticipation, her proud napkin waving like a flag. She obviously finds unremarkable the blatant one-to-one correspondence of her very body to a foodstuff requiring no further processing. "You are not a being," she is told. "You are mere food, alive not for yourself, but for us."

(Imagine how frightened—and offended—you would be on discovering that the invading alien horde does not wish to cook or skin—or even wash!—you before digging in. "I am not stuff!" you might squeak in your feeble language as the tentacles drag you toward a hundred stinking maws. "I am a human!") It's all so Law of the Jungle in its baseness. At least prepare the poor thing. But Bossie only wishes the procedure would hurry up a bit already. Time's a-wastin'!

Leaving aside for a moment the problems of scale (that knife is either about 4 feet long, or the cow is a foot high), there is the problem of psychological integrity. Namely, the sanity of the people who commissioned this, executed (!) it, and approved it. They have managed to create the quintessential explication of the entire Suicide Food movement, where every trope is taken to new heights of dizzying terror, where no act of barbarity is beyond the animals' eager acceptance. And for that, we thank those responsible. And pity them.

(Thanks to Dr. Spong for the referral.)

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

This site is great!!! I haven't laughed this hard since I accidentally shot my girlfriends cat while trying to kill a rabbit for my legendary hasenpfeffer. Keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

This is the funniest website I've seen in months.

Eric said...

In-fucking-sane. Thank you for this blog. Great idea.

Anonymous said...

I almost barfed when I saw this one. Sick, sick, sick. The self-cannibalist aspect, the streaks of blood on the butcher's block. Soooo nauseating!

On a happier note, your blog is AWESOME. Really clever, really funny, and also thought-provoking. I have to send you a photo of a happy lobster-chicken-cow trifecta that appears on a number of trucks around here (DC) (the lobster has its arms around the other two animals, and the size scale is really bizarre).

Keep up the awesome blog!

Anonymous said...

The lobster-chicken-cow logo can be seen here.

Anonymous said...

kcindc, you are awesome for finding that and sending it in to this site! Isn't that logo really...odd?! (!!!)

Anonymous said...

I have a t-shirt that looks almost exactly like this. This must have been the inspiration for it.

When I wear it around, it offends most meat eaters, and most vegetarians think it's hillarious.

-Z

Anonymous said...

Not unlike self-inflicted felatio...

14169

Crystal said...

WOW this one had my jaw ready to catch flies. Five nooses definitely!

Anonymous said...

Re: "napkin waving like a flag"

The white flag. . . of surrender??

Anonymous said...

This one is the worst. The thought of eating meat is making me sick.

This is seriously awful.

Anonymous said...

Yo this is the best one ever! I busted out laughing in the middle of work just now.

matthewspong said...

Hello, Dr Spong here, regretful to inform you that AC Butchery has changed their logo. By the simple expedient of slicing off the offending content, they have rendered their logo the still slightly offensive image of a cows head wearing a bib. You can see the logo here, and a blurry image of the side of their shop with the logo here.

Ben said...

Thank you, Dr. Spong, for your tireless work studying this one trailblazing image. Talk about specializing!

Arnie said...

As the owner of A.C. Butchery i find it amazing that you people have nothing better to do other than vilify hard working people like myself and others for doing their best to earn enough money to put food on our tables and pay the rent.
ITS ONLY A PICTURE FFS. GET A LIFE.

Peta said...

Arnie, if you're telling the truth about owning AC - I commend you. You own the best goddamn butchery I have ever come across.

The staff are legendarily helpful, the range is incredible and your pricing is fantastic. I just hope you have a peek back here one day and see the compliment.

Aside from all that - this picture is absolutely hilarious.

I only got directed here trying to find out if you guys sell goose, you really need to get your website back up and running so you can top the google searches. I'll call your store tomorrow with fingers crossed that you guys can facilitate a fat goose for christmas, hopefully with the same enthusiasm as this cow.

Anonymous said...

Have you no sense of humour? It's just a fucking logo, don't read into it so much, lighten up and have a laugh?

Anonymous said...

You got a number for these people? I need to buy some veal.(You do, however, write well if that's any help...)