National Hamburger Festival

We are torn: Can a developmentally challenged Hamburger-American form the intent to commit suicide? Or is he merely an exploited minority excited by every crumb of attention he receives from the ruling class?

Is he acting out his own, authentic intentions, however tragic they may be—a death with a caricature of dignity—or is he acting out someone else's script?

But then—the power of clear thinking!—we take note of that face, those oversized clown shoes, the splayed, dystonic fingers, and we know. We know the hamburger is, well… Some have used the term "special." And whatever his functional age, he is demonstrating a genuine interest in being destroyed, wherever that interest first arose.

"You already killed the cow I once was," the hamburger might say (if he could speak in complete sentences). "So why not finish the job and eat me? Eat all burgerkind!"

This is a lovely example of Undead Food: already dead, it lingers. Lingering, it wishes for passage through your alimentary canal. Passing through, it thinks only of its eventual entry to the Other Side. Where it can, at last, rest. Typically, we focus here on depictions of actual, living animals, and not on these poor souls in animals-once-removed form. This overeager zombie was too striking to pass up.

A nonsuicidefood-related trouble spot: What is going on with that flag? We cannot find anything in the scene that starts with C, so why is Hamburgero waving a patriotic, C-shaped banner? C for "carnivory"? For "cancer"? For "clogged colons"? For "culinary"? (The absurdest suggestion of the bunch!)

And finally today, we have these images of the 2007 festival's "bobbing for burgers" event:













The site never clarifies what that red substance is. Sure, it could be ketchup. Tell yourself that's all it is.