Rodolfo Langostino

We here at the Center for the Analysis of Suicide Food have been stricken with the fever that is sweeping the region. So it is possible that our perceptions and judgments are off.

Does this image actually show a Casanova in shrimp-form? Surely it's only our febrile delirium playing tricks on our eyes. Because… a leering shrimp filled with lustful thoughts of dead crustaceans… Even the purveyors of suicide food couldn't conjure up something so bizarre.

If they did, we would have to question the mental stability of Rodolfo Langostino (as the spokeshrimp is called). What sort of self-loathing is necessary to let a shrimp conclude that his company is fit only for the corpses of his kinsmen? Whether necrophilia or a shocking lack of confidence, this fellow's got real problems.

His own death will no doubt be a blessing.

(Thanks to Dr. Mar for the referral.)






Addendum: The package uses the word ultracongelado in boasting about the product. Yes, our Spanish is rusty, but doesn't that term mean "ultracongealed"? Don't they want people to buy this stuff?

Jack the Ribber

Thank you, Jack the Ribber, for giving us this opportunity to return to one of our favorite topics: undead food.

Undead suicide food is former animals in whom the drive to die was so insistent, so much a part of their identities, it survived even death. Thus, we see suicidal hot dogs, suicidal chops, suicidal hamburgers, and now suicidal ribs. It was… well, not natural exactly, but let's say inevitable.

Jack is seething not merely with flavor, but also with an obsessive hatred for himself, the living, everything! Look at that face—the eyebrows drawn down in rage, the tongue sticking out. Even his cute cowboy hat looks mad! And as he balefully regards those who would finally love him, warding them off with a paintbrush loaded with blood, he can't help but chant his woefully inappropriate slogan: Bone Lickin' Good!

That Jack should identify with a murderer of note and not, say, a famous suicide (Sylvia Plath, for instance), is testament to his general mental breakdown. But have sympathy. He is dead, after all.

(Thanks to Dr. Squeakyrat for the photo.)

Jimmy's Grocery

The gentleman/cow says, "MOO MOO," but he imagines a world of wonders made more wonderful through his slaughter and sacrifice!

Behold the bounty he knows will come from his death: meat (sure), hot dogs (naturally), grapes (um...), apples (yeah, whatever).

He's living in a dream world, but what a dream!

With the butchering of one dapper animal, a cornucopia is made available, released from its accidental origins as the body of an inconveniently live animal.

We conjecture that this… thing is on his way to his own funeral. This accounts for his clothes (or, well, what passes for a full suit of clothes: collar, necktie, and lapels) and that unrestrained smile. He means to meet his destiny with a spring in his step and a song in his heart. Until that, too, winds up in the grinder.

(Image courtesy of interestingideas.com.)

El Conejo Fresa

Bugs Bunny has something to show you.

No, it's not his ribcage. It's his shocking mental illness.

Thrilled to die, to be slaughtered, butchered, and eaten, he can still sell even in his current state. But, you forget: this is the state (i.e., dead and skinless, livid organs laid bare) he was born to assume.

For in the world of the suicidefoodist, all life is merely prelude to the main event—death and dismemberment. In that reeking world, Cadaverrabbit is a god. A gristly god holding up as sacred the indomitable urge to be killed.

And so, there he stands, offering himself up again and again, ceaselessly, to a parade of jaded consumers. He wonders, will showing off a little more skeleton make that one extra sale? Will that shot of his bloody peritoneal cavity add a few bucks to his bottom line?

Who are we kidding? Cadaverrabbit doesn't care about such things! This isn't about commerce. It's about being dead and flayed and loving it!

(Thanks to Dr. Adria for the image.)










Addendum: Refresh your memory about other beloved characters from childhood who are hot for suicide!

Reed's Seafood #3

Our bitter fish serves as a reminder that suicidal animals are a varied bunch. Not all are driven by depression’s ragged demons, nor led by stupidity’s deranged deputies. Some, like this fish, are motivated by a force more powerful than misery, greed, fear, or even ignorance. For them, vengeance is the goal. The hunger for it is power. It can make a troubled main dish betray his kind, and perform even grosser misdeeds.

It is left to us only to imagine what scheme the fish has concocted. Clearly, it involves the deaths of many of his finned fellows. That goes without saying. But we believe there is more.

After dispatching his kin in pot after pot of fish-based horror, the chef has one last entrée in mind. His masterpiece, if you will. Having committed such depredations, such desperate carnage, the chef finally feels worthy of the ultimate. At last, he can offer himself to the cruel pleasures of "self-sacrifice."

Remember: Revenge is a dish best served piping hot, with a hint of tarragon.

Chicken Holiday

Now here’s a harmless fellow! A little peculiar, maybe. Simple, even. A happy-go-lucky oddball, you might say.

Hardly!

Look beneath the festive headgear. Look beyond the ridiculous eyes. Look within the package. This mother is hard-core.

When some citizen of Meatville needs a break, a night’s respite from the demands of the kitchen and filling her family’s bellies—in short, when she needs a holiday and picks up the phone to have a dead chicken delivered to her door—the bird throws a got-damn party! Your holiday is his holiday!

This is a chicken who takes his suicidal mania seriously. He celebrates when his number’s up, so eager is he to break free of the tender tethers binding him to his own life. This is one serious (and seriously messed up) chicken.






Addendum: Another suicidal animal in a party hat. (Source.)

Agura Bokujo Farm and Online Beef

In Japan, land of technological marvels, anything is possible. Miniaturization, automation, vicious game shows, and now the first major innovation in dead cow purchasing in years!

Gone are the days when consumers had to leave their homes in search of cow parts. To market, to market, you unlucky men and women, there to wait in line with your unwashed brothers. Navigating those carts, fumbling for wallets, gathering up change, all the while having your meat selections—the very privatest of private matters—scrutinized by shopkeeper, butcher, and cashier alike.

But no more!

For now, thanks to the Agura Bokujo Farm, beef can be purchased online. If that’s all there were, the parades would be short indeed.

Here’s where we come in: The cows, natural proponents of the old system (to be fair, it was the only system they knew of that could insure their reliable processing, purchase, and consumption), have given the enterprise their blessing.

And, really, why wouldn’t they? Buying cow meat on the computer can only increase demand and efficiency. Which is every cow’s treasured hope. The graphic to the right is an Agura Bokujo illustration of their total calf-to-product-you-can-buy-online system!

And to drive the point home with the meat-buying public, AB has prepared a charming (and accurate!) video.

Set to a delightfully off-beat a cappella jingle, the commercial shows us all the true meaning of suicidal cows learning about online beef purchasing.

First, we see two cows peering into a house. "Where is everyone?" they wonder. "Why are we not—as is normal—encountering droves of people offering money to buy our flesh?"

Next, the two cows (now clearly seen to be mother and child), stroll aimlessly through a park. Who will solve this dreadful mystery? Will they never be butchered and bought? In the park, they meet a man in a bowler. The man reads a newspaper: "Agura's Japanese Black Hair Cattle Beef. You can buy it online, too." Glorious truth! Do you see? All is well! Well? Better than that! All is divinely modern!

Our last shot finds our cows in their living room, trying this newfangled thing out for themselves! Yes—they are eagerly ordering beef (their own beef?) online. See the cute cow "hand" pointer icon? Precious!

(Thanks to Dr. Sandra for the referral and background information.)

Festival of Cruelty 5

Every so often, we feel the urge to leave the snug confines of the Center for the Analysis of Suicide Food and enter the wider world of the animal haters. It is there, in the realm of those with no need to salve their consciences, that we find the real sick stuff. We return with a head full of unease and discomfiting reports. (Catch up by reviewing these previous installments of the Festival of Cruelty: 1, 2, 3, 4.) And now, number 5.

Turkey Testicle Festival: It's not only bulls who experience excruciating pain when castrated without anesthesia! Turkeys hate it, too!

Just take a look at this tom, his hands clutching his bereft crotch, his face contorted in agony, his head erupting with tears the size of jellyfish. They are the physical manifestations of his anguish, thoughtfully supplied by the illustrator to remind us how hilarious the situation is.

The website of this Byron, Illinois, institution is replete with the usual testicle-related puns we've come to expect from testicle festival organizers.

It all adds up to a contemptible good time!






East Texas Smoker Company: A pig emerges from his hellish, smoke-filled barbecue for one final breath of sweet life.

He gasps. He wonders at God's hatred for him. He spits out the Apple of Death so that he might offer a final word, to imprint upon the wind some trace, some echo of his existence. And then, after lingering in a twilight of misery, he dies.

Remember, it is not enough that he should die for us. He must suffer for us, too. For only in that way do we feel our own superiority. Our lives grow as his is diminished.

We don't understand it either, but that's how it works. Apparently.




Bulladelah: What better advertisement for a meat purveyor than a giant window painting of an enormous steer rendered impotent in the face of his imminent death?

This New South Wales establishment pulls out all the stops with their depiction of a throat-slitter wielding a knife of Crocodile Dundee proportions.

The steer, pinned to the ground by the standard two-point confinement system, can do nothing but look on in mute resignation. But the man! Though his arms and legs work their magic against nearly 600 years of perspective in art, Sleeveless Joe is pumped full of purpose. His aim is all too clear: to stick that critter (or whatever they call critters in Australia) and bleed him dry.

And, yes, that's what this god-forsaken deli wants on their window.





The Great International Chicken Wing Society: This might not be the first amputee chicken we've featured, but it is the most heartless.

That they let her survive, wingless, to live out her days in the shadow of their sin against her…

Oh, the disgust in her eye!

A maimed bird, an accusing glance, a life destroyed.

Who thought this logo was a good idea?


Bunsen Burners Bar-B-Que: Science in service of animal cruelty, as it should be!

The scientist, freed from the tyranny of discovery and invention, is at last permitted to use his equipment—his flasks, his tubes, his flame—for the One True Good!

And now he can see the animal inside the gigantic glass bulb, as it squirms and writhes, seethes and panics. Which, naturally, really works up the old appetite!

(Thanks to Dr. Christine for the Bulladelah image and referral.)

The Dinner Mainstay

On the surface, we have another fun-loving parade of undead food items. (Remember these high-stepping shills?) Their status as living things—animals, the lowest living things in creation!—is long behind them. But that doesn't stop the chops from waving their parsley to the crowd, big, sincere smiles on their meaty faces. Even the oven-fresh roast (playing the role of parade float) is in on the fun. Of course, he looks a little simple. Or drunk. Or… is it possible that's embarrassment playing across his features?

Part inducement, part indoctrination, this thing is all propaganda!

This quaint image comes from a vintage cookbook. One cannot help but wonder at its purpose. It doesn't illustrate a thorny cooking technique. It doesn't offer a handy reminder of the ingredients required for an especially tricky dish. But you're looking at this all wrong.

This illustration has nothing to do with cooking. It has everything to do with a sinister alliance between church and state. In this case, between the church of suicidefoodism and the United States. There is, of course, the implication that animals want to die for you. That, even after they've been turned into food, they still can't stop their happy marching toward your mouth. But it's more than that.

The caption brings it home: "For most Americans meat is the dinner mainstay."

In other words: You will eat meat. Unless you're one of them borscht-swilling, vodka-downing reds, you'll eat meat and like it. (And, yes, naturally, the animals will like it too.)

And, this being propaganda, nuance is an unaffordable luxury. Read what this thing actually says. Meat is the dinner mainstay. What kind of meat? Prepared in what way? Who cares! It's meat, and that's all you need to know! "What's for dinner, Mom?" Meat! Shut up and choke it down.

(Thanks to Dr. Cowtools for the referral.)

Westport World-Class Crab Races

Here's how this most sporting event works: officials seed the marina with crabs (we love the word seed here, as though they went and planted crustaceans!), people try to catch them, and then they enjoy the crabs. Their enjoyment takes the form of "rac[ing] crabs on the track" and "stack[ing] 'em on a plate."

And take a look at the representative contestant. The checkered flag, long a symbol of suicidal animals, is hoisted high, like a banner. (We trust we need not explain the symbolism here.) We will remark that the crab is remarkably chipper about what is about to happen to him.

That "I'm a winner!" look on his face is precious. Hey, crab, you're all "winners." In other words, you're all losers.

The conclusion is inescapable: Forgive us, but the Westport World-Class Crab Races are the Special Olympics of crabs.

Pahl Fleischerei & Gasthaus

Another flesh-filled wonderland! (Did we say "another"? Indeed. Or have you forgotten this establishment?) What we have here is more than your garden-variety porkstore presided over by two snappy young pigs. (And, no, Gasthaus is not German for "ghastly house," although the error is understandable.)

It is as though the world were destroyed and reconstituted—remade from the Divine Substance, all of creation reborn as meat. And not just inert stuff, the merest of matter, contemptible for its lifelessness. No! Meat that is alive with death! Meat that frolics from beyond the grave! Pigs reconstructed from the remains of the once-alive!

This is "art" for people unable to appreciate animals that do not come in the form of food. Again, we see the soulless proposition stated: animal = meat. And it has never been stated with such stunning conviction. The entire ap-Pahl-ling enterprise is a monument to this hated equation. And they take it further than pigs, those despised darlings of the Movement. At the hands of Pahl, dogs, cats, turtles (!), and even… humans are rendered in the medium of meat.

Here, by way of example, is the first wedding we have featured, and it is the most depressing ceremony ever.

"Do you, pig effigy crafted from an assortment of dead pig parts, take this other hellish assemblage of sausage to be your lawful wedded whatever-the-hell-you'd-call-it? If anyone has reason to believe this marriage should not be made, please vomit in that pail over there."

The rational response to such a world is horror. But for the suicidefoodist, the response is rapture. And salivating. Lots of salivating.

(Thanks to Dr. David for the referral.)







Addendum: Here is the happy couple before their engagement.









Addendum 2: And the less said about the Wurstblumenstrauß ("sausage bouquet"), the better.