Chicken Bar-B-Que

When a library finds itself holding the short end of the budget stick, it does what any other institution does in dire need: It whips out the sardonic animals who have decided that anything would be better than one more day in this stinking sewer called Life.

In this example, the dialogue of a pair of chickens is so bleak and wintry, so baldly Beckettian, that we hardly wonder at the impatience to be done with this tiresome business of existence:

"Brrrrr brrrrr."

"Things are going to warm up for us!"

Life's extremes—from bone-chilling blasts to fiery agonies—inspire in them only a futile irony. We might expect to see them arrayed in garbage cans like Endgame's Nagg and Nell, instead of festive caps and scarves.

And there's this final taunt: "Your head is shaped like an egg!" Who speaks this hurtful wisdom? Is it God himself, condemning them to their desired deaths even as he mocks the anatomy with which he cursed them?

No matter who utters the line, the last act is already written: the birds will be split down the middle and served with hot cocoa (mix).

Mellin Baby Food

Italian babies live like emperors!

They eat chickens and cows and fish, naturally. But their palates push them far beyond the pedestrian tastes of humbler infants. Push them, in fact, to the consumption of rabbits, lambs, ostriches, and horses! (There's something especially grand about the thought of a horse—a stamping, champing beast, so sturdy, so tall, so proud—killed, puréed, homogenized, and portioned into tiny packages for the delectation of a diapered Nero.)

The power and goodness of tyrannical children makes dying and being eaten that much more honorable! To be spooned into their pure mouths! To be wiped from their rosy cheeks and glistening chins!













The rabbit smiles shyly at the thought of it.

The lamb beams a gentle grin.

A wholesome smirk plays upon the chicken's beak.

Today, they will be served to babies, accompanied by the fanfare of Italian airplanes threading the skies and Italian trains charging into tunnels. What a send-off!

(Thanks to Dr. Marina for the photos.)

The Seafood International Market & Restaurant

The Seafood International Market & Restaurant boasts, "If it swims, we have it."

By which they mean, naturally, "If it used to swim, we have it." Or, in the case of this lovely mermaid, "If it used to swim and has been hoisted onto a table, trapped, never to return to its natural home, we have it."

What's remarkable about this image, of course, is the presence of a half- (or near-) human. In this, it demonstrates suicidefoodism's total domination of our better natures. For it announces—do listen for the trumpets—that even near- (or half-) humans can wish to die for our culinary satisfaction. And doing so, they are fair game.

Our mermaid, her breasts demurely scaled, is fresh from the sea—her hair is still stringy with brine. Having been plopped onto the table, she doesn't wriggle. No, she invites you to dig in, her flukes coyly raised. It's a heady invitation, indeed, this comely amphibian makes. And the diners flock to her table. They fumble with their chopsticks. They dig in.

Which raises the question: how much humanity is required to render a potential meal inedible? Would a pig with human ears be spared? Or a chicken with an Adam's apple?

Our undine, who might very well have swum headlong into the net, doesn't wish to be spared, but instead to be devoured raw, like a common fish.

Hi-Grade Fine Meat Products

Reminiscent of the Ballard's Farm logo we profiled back in '07, this Hi-Grade sign features a pair of pigs who couldn't be happier to represent fine meat purveyors.

In their vests and bow ties, they prop up the sign and gesture as though welcoming all passersby to stop in, sample the flesh of their kinswine. It's an honor for them, really, serving as the standard-bearers of an outfit as devoted to quality as Hi-Grade.

But all is not humility for these official greeters. They also get the thrill of setting themselves up as superior meat products.

And we would be remiss if we failed to mention the serendipitous setting for our display. Utopia Avenue, indeed. Could anything better describe the scene? For it is the happiest of all possible worlds, a hyper-real paradise of death wishes fulfilled.

(Thanks to Drs. Erika And Pranjal for the referral and the photo.)

Buddy's All-American Bar-B-Que

The pig—embodiment of all things all-American—is more right than he knows. For, as we have exhaustively, retchingly documented, nothing, in fact, could be more American than pigs—and other animals—who strive only for an honorable death. Which, let's be honest, really just means any old death. When their duty is to die, any death is honorable.

So let Buddy be your guide, America, as you strive to live up to your ideals of fortitude, sacrifice, and nobility.

(Thanks to Dr. Nessa for permission to use the photo.)






Addendum: Read up on our 2009 and 2007 July 4th profiles. (It seems we weren't patriotic enough in 2008 to honor the fourth.)

Jacked Up BBQ

It's been more than three years, but we've finally found the spiritual brother of this furious fellow.

Jacked Up "Jack" BBQ is fueled by a rage so powerful it overwhelms his desire to live. It flames and flares.

He is irate at you, himself, life. Everything. It is all infuriating and foul. His anger torments him and twists him and transforms him into something his mother would never recognize.

He channels his hatred into the perfection of his physical form. He can thank his wrath for those chiseled arms, that heaving chest, those popping veins.

He hoists the jugs of barbecue sauce—the suicidefood equivalent of lugging around your own tombstone—and dreams of the day when it will all, finally, be enough.

When he can just… stop. And breathe. And take a moment to die. And get eaten.

Governor's Championship BBQ

From the back of his limo dragging the official barbecue, sprawled behind the chicken chauffeur, Hizzoner waves his shapeless, meaty hand at the unseen parade-goers.

This is a twist on that time-honored device, the Submissive Dominant. (In fact, the governor bears more than a passing resemblance to the Capitalist Pigs, those other embodiments of greed's and graft's pernicious effects on the sensibilities of pigs with authority.)

With the instruments of state power at his fingertips, the governor could force through legislation to improve the lot of pigs and chickens everywhere. "Nevermore shall you fear, brothers!" he could say at gatherings along the route of his whistle-stop tour. "A chicken removed from every pot!" he could promise. And how they would cheer! How they would throng to him, to shake his hand, to pledge their votes, to repeat his name in humble awe.

But no.

For in the state of BBQ (motto: Nunquam praeter dimidium or "Never more than half," a reference to the "food animals'" perpetual lesser-than status), some things are more important than rightness or justice. Or even power. What matters most of all is the duty attendant upon every citizen to fling himself onto the grill in wild populist fervor.

The Lucky Snapper Grill & Bar

No, sir. It doesn't get much luckier than this. And for a fish whose abysmal self-esteem is matched only by his repellent fashion sense, this is paradise.

Oh to be at the Lucky Snapper, where one can, in quick succession, reel in the Catch of the Day and become its companion on the great Serving Platter of Life!

With his shades, long-billed fisherman-type cap, and inadvertent belly shirt, the fish enjoys the pinnacle of good fortune's blessings. The only thing that could make this moment better is if he could, somehow, snare himself with a hook to the mouth, haul himself onto the arid land, and debone himself. But how much luck can one fish withstand?







Addendum: Visit another "lucky" animal.

Preppy Pig BBQ

As though we needed reminding, the Preppy Pig arrives on the scene to tell us that Suicidefoodism is such a powerful creed—a worldview of such sweeping urgency—that it can ensnare them all.

The pirates. The prize fighters. The patriots. The captains of industry. The debauched. The juvenile. And now add to them the scions of the nation's finest families. They all wish to honor themselves and us by submitting to their toxic belief system.

While Royce or Tad (or whoever) here could easily buy and sell us, all he really wants to do is feed us. Just stroll onto the blade, climb onto the grill, roll onto the plate, and leap onto our tongues.

Rubb

Mothers, lock up your daughters!

Fathers, recheck the ammunition!

Uncle, man the barricades of your arid, suburban kingdom of conformity!

Grandfather, recite for us the soothing myths of your crumbling dynasty!

Your time is over. The old ways, which lulled you so, are lost. The barbarians are here, now, at the gates. No tradition is sacred. No icon shall be spared! The old institutions that propped up your kings and queens, that pulled Power's levers in the name of your presidents—see how they have withered and drifted like smoke.

With their mohawk-style haircuts, their Tattoos of Irony, their peculiar pince-nez sunglasses (?), they come. And as the ultimate sign of their rebellion, they arrive as voluntary offerings. Subverting even their own paradigm—does nothing win their respect?—they wish only to be killed.

So draw back, you Children of Yesterday, lest this pig die all over you.






Addendum: Are we alone in finding the punk-rock victims especially depressing? Remember these meeksters?

Teat Tweet: a "what the hell?" dairy digression

We've presented "what the hell?" digressions before (for instance, this mind-bender) and dairy digressions (such as this curdled superhero fantasy), but never before have we embarked on a "what the hell?" dairy digression.

History prints itself on the page!

And now to business:

Have you ever wondered what would result from the combination of cutting-edge dairy farm techniques and today's social networking media? Of course you haven't. The whole enterprise is a ridiculous admixture of exploitation and boondoggle.

Or, as the Teat Tweet Dairy Diary puts it, "For one year, twelve cows on a dairy farm Twitter about their lactation cycle and robotic milking activities."

Though the silent cries of Why, oh why? deafen us, still we press on.

Thanks to this most unnecessary of experiments, empty-souled computer users can follow the gladly giving cows and despondently go along with the conceit that they are tweeting the details of their daily lives. The cows include Freeride Speedy ("12.8 kg of frothy deliciousness for the humans"), Frosty Lace ("That robot still won't let me in there. What is it thinking? I'll explode!"), and Montgomery Mae ("Gave 13.1 kgs and got my 120 g of daily food to keep me producing well").

The "researchers" have their high and mighty ideas about what this is meant to accomplish—something about our relationship with the agrindustrial complex—but all we see it do is pump out the time-worn idea that cows are only too happy to be continually impregnated and hooked up to milking machines. And here they are, sharing their every deed and mood like chatty college students, content to shine in the spotlight, taking a chintzy "fame" as their due.

(Thanks to Dr. Becci for the referral.)

Farmer John Pork Packing Plant

This depiction to the contrary, Farmer John's is not an aeronautics academy catering to pigs. You're excused for coming to that conclusion. The magnificent pig in his flying machine bespeaks freedom and exhilaration and joy. And yet Farmer John's is, in fact, an institution that offers none of those precious commodities.

For Farmer John's is a slaughterhouse the size of a city block.

Its exterior is covered in a fanciful mural that portrays not the Horrors of the Mallet, nor the Terrors of the Blade, but instead, well, pigs flying airplanes, pigs strolling with Li'l Abner's Daisy Mae, and pigs perching on fences.

The—we hesitate to say it—contradiction is difficult to ignore.






But then we remember that, while Farmer John's might have a California zip code, its true address is Main Street, Suicidefood City. And in that storied municipality, a slaughterhouse is really just... a pig playground. (But do keep clear, won't you?)












Now the variously zooming and fence-climbing pigs make perfect sense.

Or, no, not sense, really, but they fit right in.

The "playground" is where they can fulfill their profoundest destinies. They will play—how they will play—until they have played themselves all the way into the afterworld, where they slumber eternally, serene in the knowledge that they gave their lives for a good cause some guy named Farmer John.

(Thanks to Drs. Elinor and Bea for the referral. Find the Creative Commons license that applies to the first and third photos, by hexodus, here, and see the movie from which the second image was taken.)

Festival of Cruelty 13: Spotlight on Harold

We first encountered Harold in the inaugural post of our Festival of Cruelty feature. Unbeknownst to us, Harold has been busy since then, amassing a sizable body of work. We have therefore chosen to showcase Harold and his chicken-hating ways in this, our 13th installment of the Festival of Cruelty.

For those of you who are still blissfully ignorant of this hateful little series, an explanation: the Festivals of Cruelty afford us the opportunity to enjoy some plainspoken anti-animal sentiment. Instead of the usual suicidefoodist fare, with its obfuscation and misdirection—its perversion of obvious truths—we get to experience unadorned candor. It's like hearing the whispers out of range of cameras and microphones. (Revisit the previous edition, won't you?)

Which brings us back to Harold. Here is a monarch who just loves killing (or at least chasing and menacing) chickens throughout Chicago and points beyond. He can't get enough of it.





































Sometimes Harold keeps his regal status under wraps. But whether he's in his crown and ermine-trimmed jacket or the humble garb of the short-order cook, whether he runs to the left or the right, whether his quarry scampers or, legless, flaps in fright, the constant is that insatiable hatchet. Those damn chickens will feel the sting of his singing steel!

(Thanks to Debora Drower for her photo of the frantic neon Harold.)

Addendum (11/08/11): Another slight Harold variation.