Bacon is the New Black

Naturally, this T-shirt design is associated with an earnest, high-end butcher.

The studied attitude of cool, the nod to fashion—these mark the modern, artisanal dismantler of carcasses no less than they mark today's pig.

And just when a gluttonous nation's obsessive and forced-smile-hilarious dedication to bacon was becoming tiresome, the enterprise is rescued by a pig who's given up on living.

The pig knows it temporarily houses this generation's It Meat, and he capitalizes on it. But remember, pig: You don't own bacon; you borrow it from your butcher.

Idiom Watch: Makin' Bacon

We take a break now from the crass world of commerce, with its logos, signs, slogans, come-ons, and assorted attention grabbers, and turn to the world of pure expression.

Specifically, the phrase "makin' bacon," surely one of the most unpleasant turns of phrase ever to spring from the mind of mankind.

The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms by Jordan Tate (St. Martin's Press) tells us that the phrase formerly carried with it the specific sense of overweight humans having intercourse. Consider if you must the related dysphemism porking.





Nowadays, all we think of when we (infrequently!) encounter the phrase is pigs having sex to create more pigs to be consumed. "Makin' bacon," therefore, is the most perfect example of suicidefoodistic terminology we've ever come across. It also appears to be a favorite of the nation's t-shirt and tchotchke makers.












The pigs have harnessed their life force and channeled it to the needs of industry. Sex becomes an expression not of love or need or even wordless instinct, but of sterile supply and demand.



























The offspring issuing from these bacon-making unions are not Khalil Gibran's "sons and daughters of life's yearning for itself." They're just commodities, born to be killed and chilled in your grocer's refrigerators.























Addendum: And we don't know what to make of this.











Addendum 2: Do you know this man?

Bacon Bash

This pig looks like a helluva pig. Decent, hard-working, friendly. Great fella to hoist a couple with.

Which makes him a good candidate for someone to see a ball game with, but not—we suggest—to take sober advice from.

He's gearing up for a bacon bash, after all, an event devoted to eating him.

Maybe he's already had a few too many? Or maybe he just can't turn down a friend in a tight spot. If you need a late-night ride to the airport, or help moving to a new apartment, or, say, a bunch of bacon, he's your pig.

Bacön Takedown

A cute animal, the Iron Maiden font, wings, senseless destruction in the offing. Yes, we've been here before: A year ago, we profiled a lamb receiving the same "takedown" treatment.

The pig is thrilled to be the guest of honor at an event dedicated to dismantling him like an old kitchen appliance. Amid the flames, he smiles. He positively beams. It's all for him! They've come for him! To carve him up and celebrate the crispness of his smoked and cured meat. The intimacy, the acceptance... It's almost too much for our pig to take. His heart is bursting with blessings. Temporarily.

What the pig doesn't see or cannot credit is the bristling anti-pig attitude of his public. They have gathered to take him down a peg, to mete out mob justice for some invisible crime. Somehow, the pig doesn't see it coming.

We have to ask—and hope not to receive an answer—how many other adorable animals are lining up for similar takedowns? How far does this movement go? Will we be seeing a tough-guy veal calf? A sideburned chick? No, really, don't tell us.

Bacon Valentine

On this day when we bare our hearts, we see the central theme of suicidefoodism laid bare. Namely, that the animals want to serve us so ardently, they will do anything we ask—anything! They experience their most flushed flushing, their most thrilling thrills when we ask them to do for us the one thing we'd never think to do for them: die.

Take this peculiarly (almost wickedly) smitten pig. In exchange for the love of a boy, he will surrender to the caresses of the cleaver.

But the boy is put off by the pig's aggressive affection. The boy might not even want the pig's flayed carcass, hard as that is to believe. The pig's profession of love is frightening, too weighty for the boy's innocent shoulders to carry.

In his fixation, his lusty drive to be killed and eaten, the pig persists. Whose wish will prevail? The boy's, to carry on as before, blameless and unknowing? Or the pig's, to die horribly, his repugnant love finally requited? Thankfully, the valentine leaves the outcome to our imaginations.

(Enjoy our previous celebrations of meaty love, from 2008, 2009, and 2010.)

Special Report: Pig Logo Exposé 10

For reasons known only to ourselves (at best), we like to assemble paeans to frequently seen suicidal pigs. The last one was a good while ago. Our files are bulging, so it's time for another.






























































































































(From left to right by row: Orchard Old Spots, Westfest 2006; Hamm's Meat, Stu-Pit BBQ Team; B. P.'s Smoke House, Mission Cochon; Bowie BBQ Duel, Rob's BBQ on the side; The Barbeque Hut, Conway's BBQ in a Box; Carolina Children's Home Annual BBQ Cook-off Festival, Bacon Camp; Tri-State BBQ Fest bucks, Big Pig Gig; Boss Hogg Award Winning World Famous BBQ, Lucknow Fall Fair; Garden State Porkway, A Hampshire Hog; GoodLand, Manfield Village Covered Bridge Bluegrass & Barbeque; Ware's Bar-B-Q.)

Appearing in such profusion, Dopey (as he shall hereafter be known) is surprisingly resistant to variation. Yes, he can be given spots or sunglasses, but he doesn't invite the same kind of tinkering other overused pigs do. Compare Dopey's immutability with Lumpy's or Jowly's ability to assume different roles and master new contexts.

There's something steadfast—almost admirable—in Dopey's insistence on remaining so trusting, right up to the end, over and over again.







Addendum (5/22/11): What no one was waiting for: Dopey specimen #22.