Suicide Food

Five Years: an announcement

2011-12-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone. (Anyone?) It has now been just over five years since our first post—written on December 20, 2006—and since then we've logged and chronicled more (way more!) than a thousand images of animals delighted to be killed, and sometimes despoiled and tortured, for you.

Our goal when we started the Suicide Food blog was to reveal just how horrifyingly absurd (and repetitive!) meat culture is, and just how much it depends on bizarre beliefs for its legitimacy. We envisioned an endless catalog of marketing strategies, an eternally unspooling record of a subculture's tastes, dreams, and drives. We have now amassed the Internet's foremost clearinghouse of suicidefoodist imagery, not that the competition was exactly fierce.

But we've reached our limit. Oh, there are more shills out there. The world will never run out of animals living for their chance to die, animals who find their highest calling in the mad dash for death. Our files are stuffed with literally hundreds of unused images, with more uncovered or emailed to us all the time. But we're done. We're hanging up our scolding cape.

We can't say whether this is a permanent retirement or just a sabbatical. We might be back in a week. Or a month. Maybe we'll adopt a lackluster once-a-week posting schedule. We might pop in from time to time with especially vile specimens from suicidefoodism's wretched workshop. Or we might just slink off to embark on another grand/stupid obsession.

We still invite your contributions.

If you'd like to explore the archives, click on the "suicidal tendencies" in the list to the right. The "5 noosers" are always good for a cringe. And the link below "from the case files" directs you to a randomly selected post with every click.

Until we see each other again, keep looking to the ~~stars~~ suicidal animals.

Christmas City Competition BBQ team

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's a Christmas tradition in these parts: Santa hitches the flying pigs to his magic barbecue and takes to the skies.

At every house they pass, Santa frees one of his wonderful pigs, who tumbles down the chimney, incinerating himself in the fireplace. Oh, don't worry! These are miracle pigs; they regenerate endlessly, until every home on Earth has a dead pig of its own!

Which is why the pigs are every bit as jolly as Saint Nick. On this night, they get to die eternally (well, a billion or so times each), again and again, reconstituted above the rooftops and readied once more for death.

Ho ho ho!

Take a moment to visit the ghosts of suicidefood Christmases past—2010, 2009, and 2007.

Colman's Instant Beef Gravy

2011-12-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

Things are different in Australia—profoundly, mystifyingly, adorably, offputtingly different—so there's no reason this should startle us.

But it does.

Because, to demonstrate the agreeable flavor of their meat-based food moistener, the Colman's Instant Beef Gravy people have introduced us to a beef paste-born bovine reincarnation springing forth from his sacred gravy boat. Look at him, freed from Death's grim shackles, leaping above the table top, destined to splash himself all over your plate!

Of course, it's only what any right-thinking animal offered a second chance at life would seek out: not escape, but a quick trip back to the conveyor belt of consumption and nothingness.

Thus has suicidefoodism ever represented it. So eager are the animals to die that their most numinous vocation is not to die once, but to return to life to die again. The second death is sweeter, surely, because they rush into it with eyes open. Having already savored their own destruction, they hasten back to their utter negation, the no-time and no-place where they are finally at home.

And so Zombie Gravy the Bull soars. He cavorts and poses. He dances and sings.

And what a song it is! For reasons we can't begin to explain (no, not even with all our big words and pointy-headed ideas), he croons "I like the way you moo!" He likes the way we moo? (We weren't aware we were mooing.) But you try arguing with a reanimated bull made of gravy.

See the whole thing for yourself.

(Thanks to Dr. Julian for the referral.)

Suicidefood Book Report: Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher

2011-12-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

In this, our fourth suicidefood book report, we continue our tradition of dabbling at the surface of books we haven't fully, completely finished. Or perhaps even begun. (Reacquaint yourself with our previous reports: Animals Make Us Human, Endgame, and Punk Farm.)

Our subject this time around is Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher (Tricycle Press, 978-1582463155) by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by David Goldin.

[Editor's note: It's possible—just maybe—that, in relying on a particular source, we may have misrepresented the nature of the book in question, as thoughtful commenters have lovingly pointed out. ~~Integrity~~ Laziness compels us to keep the following as originally written.]

According to the blurb at amazon.com, it would appear this charming picture book is actually a chilling tale of premature animal dementia (PAD). As they put it:

"Baxter desperately wants to experience Shabbat dinner, the special Friday-night meal that ushers in the Jewish day of rest. [...] When he learns that pork is a forbidden food according to Jewish law, he stuffs his face with kosher pickles and raisin challah, hoping to become kosher. He even tries, unsuccessfully, to become a cow."

And you're surprised that suicidefoodism lingers? That it spreads like illness? That it lurks in the forgotten corners of the cultural hive, waiting waiting waiting to regroup, to regrow, to re-emerge and conquer!

Baxter—dear, foolish Baxter—wants so badly to experience everything the humans experience that he thinks nothing of attempting to make himself edible. The adorable string of misadventures he embarks on have at their center a trusting pig's desire to make himself the centerpiece of their holiday celebration. Not, you understand, to finagle an invitation, but to make his very flesh suitable for his hosts' consumption.

(Thanks to Dr. RandiJM for the referral.)

Pleasantville Pig Out

2011-12-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

Compare if you will the name Pleasantville with the gruesomely spot-on barbecue-related town names we've seen in the past, like Boiling Springs Lake and Hardball Farms. While those toponyms put it all out there—the pain, the anguish—Pleasantville is coy. Pleasant. Does this look pleasant?

The pig in his barbecue grill jail, the flames swelling at his back—that's pleasant?

Well, for him, it probably is. We lost our heads for a minute. This isn't one of our scheduled Festivals of Cruelty, wherein the animals are truly terrorized and hounded to the brink of death and beyond.

This is party time. The animals are honored guests, proud for the chance to die and experience the oblivion they've spent their lives pursuing.

Sauced Pigs Bar-B-Que

2011-12-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

We love animals-as-food punning. Ask anyone. (Exhibit A, and Exhibit B.)

These two pigs are sauced, you see—drunk on the glory of their impending deaths. They're also sauced, as in slathered with flavor-enhancing goop.

Either way, we can see they're feeling no pain. (That part comes later.) Right now, it's all about camaraderie, happy wishes for an eventful future, and the profound satisfaction that comes from fulfilling one's dearest wishes. That they can experience their blossoming present and fructifying future together is icing on the cake. Or more like barbecue sauce on the hunk of pig meat.

Of course, the one on the right looks like he's had a touch too much camaraderie and reminiscing about the paltry pleasures of living.

Addendum: More sauce-related wordplay, this time courtesy of a decapitated pig head wreathed in a bandanna of fire.

Big John's Beef Jerky

2011-12-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

The jerky pushers puzzle us. Yes, all the True Believers, the Willing Sacrifices, the Kill-Me-Nows, the relentless martyrs—every self-peddling beast puzzles us. But for some reason, the pre-jerky animals (along with the pre-rinded pigs) just baffle us and give us the shivers.

There's something about the time investment implicit in the jerky-making process. Big John knows it's not simply a matter of killing himself and trusting that he will make it into the waiting mouths of his superiors. He has to rely on a more extensive procedure. There's the defatting, the marinading, the seasoning, the dehydrating, and the packaging. It'll be a while between his sweet death and his sweeter consumption, which is sort of a superdeath, the irrevocable made thoroughly unimaginable.

He has to be completely committed, and that level of certainty is a little off-putting.

One other thing strikes us about Bovines Who Would Be Jerky. As far as we can tell they are almost always hyper-masculine characters. Take the Rosie's Vermont Beef Jerky spokesjerk—the burly lumberjack we met almost five years ago. These animals are the manliest of the manly: muscle-bound, tuxedoed, boxing gloved, or bedecked in backwoods plaid. Like the foodstuffs they are destined to become, they are tough. Whether this reflects the aspirations of the jerky consumer or the essential nature of the animals in their benighted (i.e., living) form, we can't say.

Best in the West Rib Cook-Off

2011-12-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

The rib cook-off is finally given its due!

Ensconced within the classical tradition, the rib cook-off can at last be seen as the honorable institution it has ever been.

The pig in his cerulean toga and his laurel wreath signifying high birth and virtuous deeds readies to open the games and make merry.

Friends, Nevadans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to eat this here pig, not to praise him.
The evil that pigs do lives after them;
The good is oft consumed along with their flesh;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was delicious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Blah blah blah. Yeah, that's all very artsy-fartsy and everything, but maybe you should just listen to the pigs and start eating.

Civilization depends on obeying the pigs' wishes.

It always has.

Cubby's Q

2011-12-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Cubby is angry.

Angrily, he endorses his eponymous line of "killer" pig ribs while angrily holding aloft a killer barbecue fork.

We're not sure what Cubby's got to be so angry about. After all, he's orchestrated this entire enterprise according to his own scheme. If he doesn't like it, he could just leave the gigantic cowboy hat behind and assume a life of quiet dignity.

So we know he's right where he wants to be: hawking ribs by the platterful, in the hopes that one day it'll be his ribs up there.

Maybe that's what's got him so mad, the knowledge that it's always someone else's turn, some other pig's chance to sacrifice his meat and bones for the "good" of humanity. What about Cubby? When is it his turn? He has a restaurant, he has standing in the community, he has a set of custom-made overalls. So why not him?

In time, Cubby. In time. Until then, content yourself with the thought that your anger is the secret ingredient that'll make you one memorable meal.

Mainely Grillin' & Chillin'

2011-12-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Lobster: Say, when you think about the Raitt Homestead Farm's Mainely Grillin' & Chillin' Country BBQ State Championship, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Pig: Hard to say, Lob. I guess the grilling? Or maybe the chilling?

Lobster: They're both important aspects of the G&C festivities, that's for sure. But aren't you forgetting something?

Pig: No, I don't think...

Lobster: Come on, Pig. What's the best part? The Reason for the Season?

Pig: Um...

Lobster: There's the grilling. The chilling. And the...?

Pig: The killing!

Lobster: Now you got it!

Pig: If it weren't for us getting killed, none of the rest of it would be worth a darn.

Lobster: Too true.

Pig: And the spilling. Spilling our blood?

Lobster: Sure, I guess.

Pig: And the willing? Like, making out your will?

Lobster: Yeah, but it's not like we own anything to give away. It's borrowed time all the way! We can't even claim ownership of our bodies.

Pig: There's the Adirondack chairs, too. Can't forget them.

Lobster: They make the chilling so much easier.

Pig: To us!

Lobster: To us!

*clink!*

Pig on the Pond

2011-12-07T00:01:00.001-08:00

There once was a pig. There was a pond, too, but we're interested in the pig.

The pig had a dream. Unless you're three weeks old, you already know what the pig's dream was. The pig's dream was to get eaten. If he could bob around on an inner tube for a while beforehand, that would be gravy.

So, the pig did what any pig with a purpose would do: He dedicated himself to the quest for culinary knowledge, enrolled in a pig-fattening class, and got himself fitted for a pair of swim fins.

All the pieces were falling into place. As he drifted off to sleep every night, he warmed himself with thoughts of his future, a future that offered itself to him like a big old plate of pig meat all dripping with, you know, "juice."

And after all that work… nothing happened. The pig floated from one end of the pond to the other, and no one so much as stabbed him with a fork.

Now, the average pig would have been so discouraged he might have given up completely on the idea of being killed and eaten in a superfluous festival of carnivory. But this pig was no average sacrifice.

He didn't quit.

No, he redoubled his efforts.

He got himself an advanced degree in Dying Studies and tried again.

He'd give them something to shoot for. (And, hell, maybe even something to shoot at. He wasn't going to rule out anything!)

Slathering himself with BBQ 30 (ha ha?), he mounted his inner tube and took to the pond once more. Who could resist such an educated pig? He had achieved the pinnacle of academic excellence! He had finally become somebody. Just in time to become nobody.

(Coincidentally—we can only assume—the 2011 Pigs on the Pond event was designed to raise money for schools.)

Griff's Chicken Shack

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

For our money, any chicken who can manage to grow sideburns has earned the right to make crummy decisions about his own life.

Like Griff here. He's not just a finger-pickin', guitar-strummin' bird. He's also the proprietor of his own shack as well as a main dish.

He'll just keep on crooning and wailing and offering up his wings and legs for the deep fryer. That's the performance that really matters.

Addendum: Griff's rockabilly vibe calls to mind the celebrated Elvis/Pork Nexus and this rocking and rolling chicken.

Uncle Piggy Smokey Grill

2011-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

We can't be sure, but Uncle Piggy sure seems like a pig with a terrible secret.

We don't pretend to know all the details, but if we had to hazard a guess, we'd say it involves his eating all the stuff you threw on the grill a few minutes ago. (See him patting his belly?)

And then there's his, well… His personal issues. It's not exactly well known outside the world of suicidefood, but cannibalism and his own impending demise have joined forces to inflame inside him an unquenchable paraphilia.

His shirt's already off, and he crosses his legs provocatively. He wants you to want him. He is making bedroom eyes at you from atop the grill. Oh, he'll make you cry Uncle.

And with that, we're off to see our therapist. Until next time!

Ethical Nutrients Fish Oil

2011-12-01T00:01:00.002-08:00

Do you know what makes fish happy?

Swimming, maybe? Spawning? Satisfying other crude biological imperatives?

Maybe it's the simple act of being, of possessing a functioning body, of existing as an example of life, colorful, beautiful, graceful, a scintilla amid creation's great dazzle.

Or maybe you don't believe fish are the sorts of things that can experience happiness?

Well, both views are wrong. What makes fish happy—very happy—is peddling fish oil for people to take by the spoonful. It makes them (the fish, not the people) dress up in Carmen Miranda drag and give in to life's clarion call: Dance! Make merry! Shake your fins and die!

(Thanks to Dr. Mel for the referral.)

Chickin' Pickin'

2011-11-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's an allegory.

With pop-eyed abandon, the chicken pursues his own mortality.

The headless, skinless, footless chicken corpse scampers gaily ahead, leading the poor living bird further into the realm of delusion. You can almost feel how carefree the innocent cadaver is, with what solemn mischief it tempts the living.

Looking on from the stage, their role obscure, a pig and a steer.

Are they the judges of this macabre ceremony, this wretched game? Are they timekeepers of some kind, the sport's sacred adjutants? Are they waiting for their turn in the arena, their chance to confront their own imminent deaths?

No, we're not sure why we're trying so hard to make this rational either.

Fighting Cock Kentucky Bourbon Brand Barbecue Sauce

2011-11-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

Over the years, the animals have granted us a taste of many flavors of madness. Their deathwishes are as varied as all creation. For many animals, of course, the urge to die is primal and ineffable. It just is. As real, as fundamental as a genome, the drive to succumb to oblivion's gentle caress is inherent in the very act of being an animal.

The lesser-known imperative, second only to this basic impetus, is to serve. Oh, we have seen the many forms this service has taken: To please, to pay tribute, to titillate, to secure for oneself the blessings of humans' crumbs, of their attention, of their favor.

We've even seen animals sacrifice themselves to improve the sex lives of their (barely) betters.

But with this Fighting Cock Kentucky Bourbon Brand Barbecue Sauce, we discover a whole new reason to die!

"C'mon," the bottle commands, "singe a few tailfeathers... unless you'd rather stay in the henhouse."

The animals are lining up before the blade so that you can prove your manhood, an opportunity that concerns them greatly. If they can't be eaten by the manly, they'd just as soon—shudder—go on living.

Al Baik

2011-11-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

It is with equal parts excitement and nausea that we discover, again, that the animals' death-drive is universal. Wherever we look, to the New World, the Old, to Asia, we see animals who want nothing more than to be dead. And now, with al Baik, it is clear that the Great Wish extends even into the Arabian Peninsula.

The 37-year-old franchise's 40-plus outlets and its 18 secret herbs and spices are capably represented by a dapper chicken with a giant bow tie and a dracular collar.

It's "nice" knowing that some things—for instance, nattily attired animals contentedly awaiting death—are the same wherever you go. It's like we've always said: Suicidal animals are the universal language.

Addendum: While we know it doesn't really, we choose to believe that al Baik means The Beak.

Vintage Thanksgiving Day Roast Turkey

2011-11-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

You there! Am I to understand you feel yourself qualified to dine upon my roasted flesh? Pardon me, but it is to laugh!

Have you failed to take note of my breeding, my station? My top hat is cocked at a superior angle. My cape hangs off my shoulderless frame in such a way as to convey the pride of my lineage. My walking stick—purchased from the finest bird haberdasher on the eastern seaboard—is worth more than your great aunt Myrtle's trousseau.

That you should partake of me. Why, it strains propriety.

I shall wander these forlorn streets in search of the man who deserves this bounty. Today is my day, and I will have satisfaction.

Until then, good day!

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral. You should know the good doctor has a knack for digging up turkey-themed horrors. "Enjoy" these posts about Spammy, Manny's, and the Turkey Hooker.)

Addendum: Visit with the ghosts of Thanksgivings past: 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

Animals Aren't Even Things: a digression

2011-11-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

We've discussed the Doctrine of Inanimacy several times. It holds that animals, being mere objects, are beneath our moral consideration. Contrary to everything you have witnessed yourself, animals don't think or feel. Hell, they don't really do anything.

Of course, the bizarre part is how this concept—animals' status as nothing more than matter—so often nestles alongside suicidefoodism's foundational principle. Namely, that animals are so like us, with dreams and desires that resonate so strongly in us because they so closely mirror our own. They want to belong, to amount to something, to receive approval.

It's the central paradox of the Movement: that which should serve to create psychological distance actually inspires intimacy, and that intimacy inspires contempt. Look, it's a giant, steaming stew of contradictory impulses, and trying to understand it will only give you wrinkles.

Our point here isn't to understand. Instead, we'd like to look at something that denies even the Doctrine of Inanimacy, something that says individual animals aren't even things, something that would have actual animals vanish into sheer abstraction.

This photo is from the October 31, 2011 edition of The New York Times. It accompanied a story in The New York Times Magazine about a "farmer" hoping to do something or other with fancy meat.

Whatever.

Before you go any farther, take a look at the thing under the man's arm. If you're like us, you might have thought that object was a piglet.

You would have been wrong. The caption explains the true nature of the photo:

"Brock with one of his heritage breeds—the start of a grand culinary reclamation project."

And just like that—poof!—the pig has been rendered invisible. For the man isn't holding an individual animal, or even a physical thing! He is holding a breed, and not even one that occupies its own place in the natural order. No, it's one of the man's breeds! The pig can't even claim its own lineage, its own existence. It's as though chattel was too good for the pigs, and they had to be reduced to airy concepts.

Deny if you will that pigs are intelligent and you are uninformed. Deny if you will that pigs are sentient and you are blind. But deny that they are physical things and you are a madman.

BBQ Trophies

2011-11-19T00:01:00.001-08:00

You are looking at a bunch of true believers. This Unholy Trinity has fully embraced their status as food. They have totemized themselves, solidifying their very objectness.

The point is that these animals have so thoroughly assimilated the very concept of their own worthlessness that they can appear—excited, eager, with fond wishes for a future constituting more of the same—as living embodiments of others' desires to eat them.

They do not merely offer their blessings on an endeavor dedicated to their destruction; they ratify the worldview and priorities of their destroyers. And so the cow represents herself as beef and the pig as ribs. They are just (temporarily) living stuff.

It is a curious phenomenon, this use of the animals' agency to reaffirm their lack of agency. Curious, but altogether commonplace.

Then again, it should hardly surprise us when animals this warped fail to appreciate the difference between prize-winner and prize.

Henderson Chicken

2011-11-17T00:01:00.001-08:00

From where does the Henderson Chicken chicken derive his sense of identity and purpose? It's not a trick question. In fact, the answer is the same one we've found approximately seventy-seven jillion times: The bird has placed all his (?) eggs in the basket labeled "I am edible."

Oh, the chest-swelling pride!

He suppresses a satisfied tear when he remembers the legend rippling beneath him: Once you've tasted our chicken, you'll want more!

You know—you just know—when he first saw that motto he called everyone he knew and gushed. "Our chicken! They called me their chicken! They really love me!" That's right. Someone finally believes in him. For an insecure chicken, that means the world. Something has plucked him from the obscurity of his fellows, his indistinguishable coopmates. He is a chicken of distinction.

Oh, and he might be saluting, too. But don't hold us to that.

Cohoctah Cook'n

2011-11-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's the wistful side of suicide food. This pig's heart is about to burst. Look at his eyes. You can practically feel the pain in those big, heavy-lidded eyes. He wants so much. The yearning is written all over his face. His ears hang down, symbolic of his downcast soul. He suppresses a tear. When he's alone, those tears will flow. His sorrow will emerge, tentatively, so afraid is the pig of the mockery he has come to regard as his due.

To be put to work, managing the grill, while his dreams are elsewhere. Not far away, no, but elsewhere.

Stuck behind the scenes, as it were, tending to the actors, he longs to be on the stage. It should be him crisping above the coals! It should be him sizzling, as his cooking flesh exudes its precious freight of fat! It should be him filling the skies with his smoke!

But they've got him standing behind a board (?), his "hands" alongside his, um, pointy fingernails—look, we're not clear on his anatomy at all—so he can watch. So he can eat his heart out.

But if he wants to be near, to have one foot in that glorious world of dead pigs, this is where he needs to be. Bitter as it is, this is the choice he must make. And always, in the shadowed cell of his mind, the thought resounds: Maybe one day....

Red'z Ribs

2011-11-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

All we know is that Red looks a little—just a little—evil.

It's those leering, threatening eyes. And that iron grin. His cheeks heavy with menace. From his haughty height, he looks down on you.

Like another apostrophe-z fellow we know, Red is certainly full of attitude. We're not sure exactly how we'd characterize that attitude, but there's something of the bully about him. He's daring you to eat him and his ribs.

With that red vest straining against his girth, he taunts and tests. Do you have what it takes? Will you accept his challenge?

He's going to see you eat him if it's the last thing he does. Which is a convenient arrangement.

Thighs-N-Pies

2011-11-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

She's got thighs—has she ever!—and she's got pies. Put them together, and she's got thighs-n-pies. While this image scores high on the Truth in Advertising Meter, it does raise a vexing issue.

Namely, does this lipsticked chicken in Daisy Dukes have pies in the same way she has thighs?

We think not. The pie is an item she holds aloft. When she shows it off to you, she's inviting you to select it from the menu. But when she struts and shows off those long legs, she's inviting you to select it from her body.

When you tell your server you'd like the Smoked Chicken Thighs (Hot, BBQ, or Mild), the chicken steps out back for a rendezvous with the cleaver. Which, apparently, is what's in it for her.

Addendum: When it comes to Pies 'n Thighs, a similarly named establishment, it's the pies that receive top billing. And among the wide assortment of pre-dead animals clamoring for you attention, there is, surprisingly, no leggy chicken hoping to catch you eye.

I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener: a digression

2011-11-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

For more than 45 years, a suicidefoodist earworm has been wriggling across the airways of the world. It involves stuff made from "food" animals, but the targets of its warped philosophy are... children. Human children. So enshrined in our collective unconscious is this message that it belongs with the Suicide Food Emeriti we honored in May of 2007.

What helps it rise above the dregs of advertising's sump is the flagrant insanity of its premise:

Beyond animals wishing to die so that they may find meaning in being eaten, this is children wishing—and lofting their wishes to a mindless pantheon—to be dead animals so that they may find meaning in being eaten. These kids, they've mastered the subjunctive mood (all that "I wish I were" stuff), but the basics of self-preservation and self-respect elude them.

"Oh, I'd love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener.
That is what I'd truly like to be!
'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
Everyone would be in love with me!"

So hungry are they for acknowledgment from a society blind to their existence that they would be transformed into animals, butchered, extruded into mildly seasoned meat products, grilled, and placed on buns. If that's what it takes to receive love at last, they'll do it!

In the classic commercial from 1965, one demented boy refuses to go along with the crowd of would-be martyrs. He has no wish to die, but he is soon bullied back into the fold.

Addendum: We assume you can find examples of this death march on your own. But how about a short video on the making of the jingle?

Le Vrai Menage

2011-11-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Hanging on like grim death to his cylindrical totem of cured meat, the pig ponders the meaning of his life. He quickly realizes—it's as plain as the meat in his loins, really—that without the promise of death, his life holds no meaning whatever.

The salami-sausage thing (why demean it with anything as puny as a label?) is the pig's life preserver. It is his flesh apart from his own flesh. The meat is sans rival. Nothing is better.

Nothing buoys him more surely on his journey along life's brackish course, and nothing promises to deliver him more quickly into the ocean of death.

Lord of the Ribs

2011-11-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

At first we weren't sure whether Tolkien's timeless epic translated well to the world of barbecue. We knew the chicken was Gandalf, the cow was cast as a man of the Second Age (Elendil, presumably), and the pig was some Second Age elf (Elrond or Gil-galad, we assumed), but it all felt contrived. Not as contrived as other barbecue-related stretches we've encountered, to be sure, but where were they going with this? If the One True Rib promised to enslave the free peoples of Middle Earth, then our protagonists want to destroy it? And that's going to sell pig meat?

Then we realized we were looking at it all wrong. We were seeing the details but missing the big picture. For what is J. R. R.'s tale about? Beyond the comings and goings of bearded weirdos and a bunch of business about a giant, evil eyeball, it's a story about brotherhood and sacrifice. Brotherhood and sacrifice? That's the hallmark of modern "food" animals!

It all made sense! Who knows more about sacrifice and selflessness than cows, pigs, and chickens? Who is better suited to hit the battlefield of Dagorlad—also known as the backyard barbecues of North America—and offer themselves up for their friends? In this respect, all the animals are Sam Gamgees, bearing all our burdens, long-suffering, never questioning our motives or intentions.

Epilogue: Five minutes later it stopped making sense again.

Absolutely BBQ

2011-11-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Don't be distracted by the wild-eyed cowboy with the tongs and the flags. (What's he up to with his French and UK flags? Full disclosure: We don't care.)

The real story, as always, is the pig. The pig with the smile, the inviting eyes, and the spit rammed the length of its body. Whatever goes on around it, no matter the cultural significance of the celebration of which he is the centerpiece, the pig has simple needs easily met: hot steel, hot coals, and a hot old time. If only we all had such humble requirements! If only life were so accommodating to us as it is to pigs. It's almost as if the entirety of existence—the very Way of Things—were set in order specifically with the needs of pigs in mind.

And we thought we occupied the center of the world's turning! It's the pigs! It's all for them! Don't envy them their satisfaction. One day we'll all be just as dead.

Colby's Pig Roast Catering Inc

2011-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

After years of clambering after the cutting edge, this pig has finally found it.

The little round sunglasses, bought in a spasm of self-consciousness, didn't do it.

The supposedly slimming black tee didn't do it.

The striving and struggling, showing up early and leaving late, didn't do it.

The tirelessly positive attitude didn't it.

No, all it took was deliberately lowering himself into the flames, there to be crisped and cooked. In other words, he became his truest self when he finally surrendered the very idea of his own identity. That's when he finally mattered. When he finally became cool.

Festival of Cruelty 18

2011-10-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's time once more to enter the shadow world of suicidefoodism, the world where no one's constrained by decency. They don't have to pretend that animals are complicit in their own deaths. It's a world we visit every few months, though we've long forgotten why. (Read up on the custom by checking out Festival of Cruelty #17.)

Rural Route BBQ: As every crazed hillbilly with a knife to brandish and a chicken to choke knows, terror is the finest seasoning.

Pig Chaser BBQ Sauce: Continuing the theme, the Pigchaser menaces pigs throughout Illinois. He's just so villainous, the way he pursues his panic-stricken quarry, sandaled and full of wicked glee. The entrailpreneurs of the various Festivals of Cruelty are no shrinking violets, meekly coaxing the "food" animals onto the coals. No, they tend to drift more into bloodthirsty Harold territory. They are hunters (of penned livestock), and they ask no one for permission!

Virginia Smokis Porkis: It looks like an innocent depiction of Man's brutal dominance over gentle Nature, but you couldn't be more wrong.

See, in the official state seal (no, this isn't the official one), Virtus, the Roman goddess of virtue, is shown triumphant over Tyranny. The legend beneath the vanquished despot reads Sic Semper Tyrannis or "Thus always to tyrants." In the Smokis Porkis (or "Doesn't actually mean anything") version, the role of the tyrant is played by a dead pig. So, like, take that, pig? You, um, tyrant?

Smokin' Up a Storm: It's no longer enough, apparently, to kill and butcher them the old-fashioned way. To satisfy a jaded public, ever more diabolical means of dispatching the animals must be dreamt up. In this case, it's some kind of weather-controlling contraption that has sucked up the cow, pig, and chicken. Within its artificial funnel cloud, it subjects them to punishing speeds and stunning jolts of lightning.

WTF? Smoke -n- BBQ: It would hardly be a Festival of Cruelty without some dog or wolf making life miserable for a pig or two. It's practically a tradition! No, seriously. Take a look at recent Festivals and see what we mean.

Byrd'z Bar-B-Q

2011-10-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Can we all agree, once and for all, that the attitude on display here is not what is usually intended when the phrase "with an attitude" is deployed?

Yes, the leather jacketed chicken affects an air of carefree cool. Yes, there are sunglasses involved. And yes, the letter Z has long been recognized as an orthographic signifier of rebellion.

But where is this would-be disrupter? The bird is in the fire, making not the slightest effort to escape! He positions himself just so, to ensure even cooking!

Attitude? While we agree that it demands no small degree of toughness to hold one's ground even as the flames cook one's flesh, it's a toughness in service of maintaining the status quo. No matter the cost.

Guerrila Q

2011-10-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Even though we've seen this kind of "food"-animal-as-radical-smasher-of-the-system before, we still don't get it.

Look at El Jefe here. The Castro-esque cigar, the Che-esque beret, the revolutionary's bandoleer made of pig ribs… It's sad, really.

Sad that he thinks he's, you know, accomplishing something. Standing up for a principle. Fighting an oppressive regime. Instead of what he's actually doing: Joining the struggle to be eaten. In the streets, we suppose.

It's not exactly the stirring stuff of romantic myth-making.

Addendum: And here's the (even less logical) kinder, gentler version of the barbecue-themed freedom fighter.

Holy Chuck Burger

2011-10-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Holy Chuck is working the symbolism hard. Both the sacrificer and the sacrificed, he is the perfect icon for a cruddy ethos.

Biblically speaking, whose head winds up on a plate? That would be John the Baptist. And who was responsible for that head finding its way there? Salome, step-daughter of Herod.

Both wrestle for a toehold within the figure of Holy Chuck. The innocent and the guilty. The accuser and the accused. The victimized and the victimizer. She who, triumphant, holds aloft the severed head, and the former owner of that head. All—each thing and its opposite—can be found in Holy Chuck. It's as though everything, every impulse and every impulse's obverse, ratifies the proposition that cows are to be eaten. Cows, which are, after all, sanctified stuff, holy chuck (the cut between neck and shoulder blade). She is simultaneously mere matter and the moral agent who transformed herself to mere matter, thus removing her own moral agency. It's a neat trick.

So eat! Engage in the sacrament of boviphagy. There's no way it can't be pure and good.

Addendum: It's Guidi Reni's Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (circa 1630), via Wikimedia Commons.

Murray's Chicken

2011-10-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

In the two and a half years since we last looked in on the trend of hobo livestock, things haven't gotten much better.

High unemployment, strained finances, and frayed safety nets have all taken their toll, and the "food" animals are bearing the brunt.

No longer can they count on the same sty-to-slaughterhouse, coop-to-throat-slitter care their fathers received. No more can they take for granted the security enjoyed by previous generations. It's every chicken for herself now, and many are forced to make hard choices. This representative from Murray's, for instance. Like so many who preceded her, she has taken up her bindlestiff and hit the trail.

Who knows what she'll find around the bend? We know what she hopes for: an untimely, economical death. We can only hope.

National Barbecue News

2011-10-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

What Scoop here won't do to get the story!

Traffic jams, the high heat of summer, sciatica acting up? Nothing will stop him. If there's an event involving dead pigs, he'll be there. With his notepad and anachronistic fedora and press card, he'll be there. To inform, entertain, and sell, sell, sell!

This is not the journalist-as-muckraker model you might remember from the Watergate days. This is more of the bought-and-paid-for PR-shill model.

Scoop isn't driven by the dream of overturning the system, of exposing the abuses of the pig-killing industry. No, he's there to promote it.

You can just hear him interviewing a source:

"What's that? How many ribs will you be moving at this here celebration? 300 slabs? Soo-wee, that's a lot! Smells good, too. You say this is the finest barbecue in three counties? Can I quote you on that?"

Suicide Horses: a digression

2011-10-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since our last sports-related digression, and we're not sure what took us so long. Because this tradition has been around long enough to have merited attention before now. The event is the World Famous Suicide Race, a cherished part of the annual Omak (Washington) Stampede, wherein riders and horses race down a 62-degree slope and into Okanogan River, swim about 100 yards, and then charge up a 500-yard incline.

Why is this colorful equestrian pageant called that, you may wonder. The spectacle has been around since the mid 30s, and from 1984 to the present, at least 20 horses have died from injuries sustained during the race.

What slots this right alongside our usual niche is that word, suicide. See, the horses choose this dangerous sport and make it their own. They volunteer for it. Their human partners honor the horses' wishes, helping to make their dreams come true.

So when they crash down Suicide Hill and tumble into the water… Well, after all, this is what they wanted.

(Image source: IDA USA.)

Slumpbuster BBQ

2011-10-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

This only looks like it's about baseball.

The pig isn't hoping to get off the bench or boost his batting average or up his slugging percentage.

Don't let the bat, cap, and jersey fool you. The slump he's talking about has nothing to do with baseball.

Ever since his sow-and-teat days, this pig's been an also-ran. No challenges gracefully faced and bested, no successes racked up in the ledger of his life. But it's all about to change. When he is transformed into ribs, chops, and the rest, everything will be different.

You see, the slump is his life, and the barbecue's about to bust it. Wide open. This is the big league. Pig's waited for years, hoping for this break.

Off the Hoof BBQ Crew

2011-10-14T00:01:00.001-07:00

Beneath a legend made of bone, gristle, and blood, they disport themselves. The pig and chicken, their faces bearing smiles that shade into idiotic grimaces, play on their madhouse jungle gym.

Is anything about this image natural?

The way the animals hang from the steer's horns, the way the steer, looking as though he's gone five rounds with a pugilist, lets them—we are seeing the final stages of life's miserly drama.

If we were to try to name their emotions, we'd say the pig displays jolly resignation, the steer glum incredulity, and the chicken sheer lunacy.

Are they hanging above steaming cauldrons? Are their unseen lower regions still there? If they were gone, having been gnawed or hacked off, would it only add to the animals' fun?

(Thanks to Dr. Lance for the referral.)

Mooch's BBQ & Sauce

2011-10-12T00:01:00.001-07:00

If you can see past the vacant eyes, those mirrors reflecting a vacant soul, you will see something monumentally unpleasant.

Where the naive (or oblivious) among us might see a swimsuited pig slathering on the (possibly expired) sunscreen, we have no choice but to see a pig rubbing in the barbecue sauce. Compared to this genteel image, Mooch's presents an uncomfortable upping of the ante.

By recasting a pleasant recreation—the weekend at the beach we might plan for and happily anticipate sharing with our families—as a prelude to a grisly ritual, the pre-mortem pig upends everything we thought we knew. He approaches death as though it were a longed-for vacation, requiring merely a different set of clothes and the right accoutrements: bathing suit, barbecue sauce, tongs, last will and testament.

Queer Eye for the BBQ Guy

2011-10-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

This thing is less sociopolitcal touchstone—some statement or other about "Our Changing Times"—as it is testament to suicidefoodism's power to adapt.

The Movement can take any form, clothe itself in the mores and ways of any subculture, any cultural moment.

The Movement is opportunistic, crawling and seeping into any available niche.

Frosty Morn Pigs: Update

2011-10-08T00:01:00.002-07:00

You remember Frosty Morn, don't you? Besides the oddest sausage-related name imaginable (Frosty? Morn?), they are known for terror-delighting millions throughout the South for decades.

As we said long ago, Frosty Morn made its mark by employing a cunning strategy built on suicidal animals and a relentlessly repeated jingle. So significant was Frosty Morn that a second look is in order.

In the animated advertisement under discussion here, a meat elf instructs a class of pigs on the benefits of Frosty Morn ham. That is, he inspires them to grab their destinies with both hands, to rush headlong into their hickory-smoked future and dive into their sugar-cured doom.

Not, you understand, that they require much coaxing. They're practically prancing in expectant joy! These pigs are the aptest of pupils. They need very little convincing. Hell, they came to school pre-convinced that their lives are already spoken for.

Sing it over and over and over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!
Sing it over and you sing it over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!

The height of a piggy’s ambition
From the day he is born
Is hope that he’ll be good enough
To be a Frosty Morn!

(Solo pig, spoken) All Frosty Morn meat is government inspected.

For meat that’s wonderfully different
They tenderize these hams.
They sugar cure and hick’ry smoke
That’s Frosty Morn—yes, ma’am!

(Meat Elf) So everybody join in!

Annnd…

Sing it over and over and over again!
(Meat Elf) Frosty Morn!
Sing it over and you sing it over again!
(All) Frosty Morn!

It's almost charming how blatant they are. The repetition is no hidden technique. It's front and center! Sing it over and over and over again! Repeat it until you're ready to believe anything. A destructive absurdity will do as well as a consoling truth. A proposition's value depends not one scrap on its intellectual rigor, its logical consistency, its congruity with the facts. Instead, it depends on its ubiquity. And, of course, on the degree to which it leads animals to seek their own deaths.

(Thanks to Dr. Tom for the referral.)

Vintage Crawfish

2011-10-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

In his pan, the crawgentleman salts himself judiciously and checks the results with his hand mirror.

You know how we sometimes believe that our modern world, with its hurry-up underpinning, its speeding technology, its celebrity scandals, is a breeding ground for absurdity and insanity?

Well, sure, maybe.

But things were plenty crazy back in the days of celluloid collars and toothbrush mustaches, too.

For instance, this crustacean has clearly gone around the bend. He can manipulate objects. He demonstrates a sense of self. He cares about his appearance. And yet he cooperates with his killers. He will season himself, thank you very much. No, no, don't bother setting him in the—no, he will arrange himself in the pan. He can do it. If you would just let him—please! Just have a seat. He'll have himself brought out to you when he's ready. There's a good man. Yes, thank you.

(Thanks to Dr. Javier for the referral.)

Beguiling Chicken Skin

2011-10-04T00:01:00.002-07:00

Reminiscent of the exalted Rachachuros Seasoning chicken, this glorious monstrosity served up by the New York Times art department bursts upon the scene, an audacious example of myth-making!

As the Times says: "There are white-meat people and there are dark-meat people; there are those who swear by the drumstick, thigh or breast. And then there are skin people."

Here, then, is the patron saint of the Skin People, a carefree scaffolding of chicken skin, otherwise known as a dead, plucked, headless, and footless chicken. It used to be a bird, but it has become so much more. A symbol! A figurehead! The emblem of a new identity! What started as a mere living thing has parted the veil surrounding the eternal and become the apotheosis of a New Discipline.

This politico-religious icon, this beguiling provider of multifariously edible skin, this let-me-just-slip-out-of-something-more-comfortable charmer is part-vixen, part-apostle. Nothing could be more familiar to the lusty despoilers of animals!

2nd Annual Holy Smoke BBQ

2011-10-02T00:01:00.001-07:00

More nautical fun from Maryland!

Look at this scene of gleeful mayhem—all in the name of the 2nd Annual Holy Smoke BBQ of Easton, Maryland—and see how many adjectives come to mind.

If you're like us, awesome, cool, extreme, and crazy rise to the surface right away.

But keep looking. Concentrate. Ponder the mysteries of the universe, the inexplicable unfolding of things. Breathe. Wait.

Has it dawned on you? The most natural way to describe soon-to-be-barbecued animals enjoying the most enlightening thrills? The word that best describes these boating beasts soaking up the rays as though their lives weren't about to end in a spectacularly awful way?

The word, friends, is holy.

Snapper's Saloon

2011-09-30T00:01:00.001-07:00

With a little imagination and a whole lot of unpleasant warping of one's mind, any edible thing can become a violent, sexual trigger.

For instance, the Lobstress.

Granted, compared with hooter, it takes plenty of effort to turn snapper into a word charged with erotic possibilities, but it can be done!

Just picture gleaming chitinous claws, crimson claws that mock-snap your most delicate regions, and that lipsticked mouth looming above them, she's just laughing at you, her cruel, painted eyes smile, she strokes her hair, long earrings dangling and tinkling, and it's all you can do to lift her above the boiling water and pry those succulent claws apart, dunk her in, and slam the lid down tight, chest heaving, your face flushed with the heat from the stove, your fists clenching and unclenching in spasmodic rage.

But they saw! They saw it all! She forced you! It was all her fault! That lobstress didn't know when to let it go. She had to keep snapping, clacking again and again. That snapping never stopped. Playing, she called it. Playing?! Yeah, well, who won the game? Huh? Who won the game?

(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)

Team Bar-B-Quau

2011-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

She is delight. She is grace. She is the embodiment of the solemn play that is life.

The palm tosses in a summer storm, and still she sways, her hands telling the story of her unimportant birth and her wonderful, imminent death. The grass skirt flirting with her hips, her hooves twinkling in the sand, the ecstasy of movement—it all speaks of a joy, a gratitude.

That the universe has blessed her with this tiny, fleeting, destined-to-be-unmourned-and-unremembered portion of existence! She can't contain herself. She must dance!

Addendum: Another Hawaiian pig waiting to enact the most glorious rite ever.

Virginia Pork Festival

2011-09-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

This pig of uncertain psychological, emotional, and physical make-up is a study in contrasts. Or, well, the same darn contrast we've seen so many, many times before.

Namely, the piquant contrast between living and dying.

On the one hand, he or she grabs life by the scruff of the neck and yanks. The hoisting of beers! The wearing of sunglasses! The carrying of sandwiches! The striking of awkward, unnameable poses! She or he is a one-pig celebration of life's undeniable charms, of the overflowing bounty of life's promise to us all. Live, pig, live! Drink every drop! Bask in every second! Wallow in every moment life offers you!

And yet.

And yet he or she indulges in a too-familiar search for death. For while dancing on the (invisible) table, the pig prepares to die. The pig seduces oblivion. Can you make out the tattoo on her or his arm? MOM inked above a ham?

Ponder that one some night when you can't stop thinking about the poor decisions you've made in your life.

Foies Gras Marie

2011-09-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

A joyeux Tokyo Rose for the the worldwide war between Human and Animal, Foies Gras Marie purrs like a seductress. Telling you lies so blatant you have no choice but to surrender and believe, she flaunts her liver and the livers of her fellow ducks.

For reasons best known to their psychiatrists, the purveyors of foie gras—the gavageoisie—always, always, always make sure to draw your attention to the birds' throats.

The birds are taunting us. With their big bows, their bonnets tied so gaily beneath their chins, the loose ends snapping in the breeze, those damn, depraved ducks are taunting us.

They want us to remember their necks and to envision the feeding tube and the gunk it extrudes. They want us to picture it, to bear it in mind as we dine on the mush that used to be their livers.

And they laugh! They delight! They cackle! These waddling, paddling she-demons cackle!

(Thanks to Dr. Adrienne for the referral and the second photo.)

What We've Been Missing 6: a digression

2011-09-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

From time to time, on stumbling feet made careless by regret, we visit the culinary heights we have forsworn. (Our most recent installment of similar bounty, from nearly a year ago, is here.) What riches could our tongue be sampling! What delights for the eye and palate! Instead of these clever morsels, to content ourselves with such paltry, dirt-grown fare. When we could be tasting all of this!

Like these swollen joints, these bloated, bulbous, stuffed, and ruptured pipkes!

Or this Hawaiian... stuff. It's called kālua pork, meaning that it's cooked in an underground oven. Special wood is burned in a pit, stones are added for heat retention, and the pit is lined with banana leaves. Then the meat is added, covered with more leaves, burlap, and sand, and the whole thing cooks for hours and hours.

When the result is as scrumptious (?) as the image to the left, it's clearly worth all the trouble.

Presentation is everything.

The simplest things are sometimes the most tempting. Such as these slabs of canned meat fried atop a tough, rubbery skin of scrambled eggs and topped with viscous ketchup!

Leonard's Pit Barbecue

2011-09-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

More aristocratic pigs tempting you to eat them.

We've seen them before (in both their pre-death and their post-living states), and they never fail to impress.

You see, even in these times of economic uncertainty, where the Average Joe looks upon the high priests of finance with richly deserved suspicion, the wealthy pig still commands respect. Still, they look to him, for guidance, for wisdom, for an example. And when the example he gives is one of utter self-abnegation… Well, it does contribute to the pervasive feeling of impermanence, the unmooring of our institutions, the weakening of our most celebrated beliefs.

Which, bizarrely, is Leonard's objective. He wants you to eat your betters. He wants you to strip him of his finery. To trample his striped trousers. To poke him in the eye with his own walking stick! To choke him with his spats and suffocate him with his top hat!

If you can't upend the System, if you can't avenge yourself upon the keepers of accounts, the repossessors and foreclosers, the buyers and sellers, the accumulators of wealth, then topple him!

Topple Leonard! Cast him down, down, all the way down!

Hog Time!

2011-09-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

One crucifixion the hard way, coming up!

In this delightful art to be found at Portland's Hog Time! food cart, a peppy pig is willingly drawn into hell by a grasping area code.

(Thanks to Dr. Steve for the referral and photo.)

Partners in Swine

2011-09-16T00:01:00.001-07:00

So now the conceit is that the "food" animals aren't hopping into the flames out of love for us, because this is what they think we want.

It appears that the Partners in Swine are engaging in a reckless rampage of "slow grilling a mighty tender piece of pork" against our wishes, in violation of our laws.

Their striped convict get-ups suggest we are dealing with recidivist suicides at that! They were already locked up, then, in protective custody perhaps. But they escaped, to pursue their dream of dying.

They're not doing for us; they're doing it in spite of us?

The Local Grill & Scoop

2011-09-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Animals and the desire to leave it all behind go together like fish and ice cream!

This fish hugging his ice cream dish (if that is, in fact, what it's doing) is a perfect example. Instead of clinging to life, the fish clings to its favorite dessert... receptacle. Is that even what's going on?

All we really know is that the fish has something else on its mind besides a quick flop back into the water and the possibility of resuming a normal life.

(Thanks to Dr. Joanna for the referral and photo.)

Suicide Snacks: quickies 9

2011-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

When the lengthy sermons are too much, we turn to our by-now-classic series of rapid-fire diatribules for relief. (Revisit the most recent installment, won't you?)

You tell 'em, duck! What, do those tofu-munching hippies think they're too good for your repulsive liver or something?

The swiggin' pig of Nashville, Tennessee doesn't do anything halfway. He lives life at full throttle, sometimes spending seven, eight hours a day down at the local tavern. And he dies full tilt, too.

A shrimp crossed with a Segway? It's the cuddliest version yet of half-animal/half-machine monstrosity.

Yes, yes, it's not about meat. It's a rare example of dairy-related business. Still, it's remarkable because it's like the cow's innermost thoughts and feelings will not be repressed. The cow's undeniable gratitude at being used shines out, through bone, muscle, and hide.

Septemberfest Wild Game Cook Off

2011-09-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

And here you thought only those effete playthings, those (snort) domestic animals, dreamt of self-annihilation. We've told you over and over that it's all animals! From decadent livestock to the beasts cursed with boundless freedom, all the animals long for the end.

Take this rugged fellow. Fresh from the forests that team with abandoned creatures, his coat still redolent of Nature's neglect, he made his clumsy way to the bright lights of civilization.

There, to tend the grills, to hold aloft the savory morsels bequeathed by the proud animals who have already succumbed to their dearest desires. And one day—dare he dream?—he might find himself upon those dutiful tines.

Fischer Family Farms Pork

2011-09-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Fischer Family Farms ~~pork~~ pig is practically a member of the family.

That he shifts so easily and readily from category to category—on the left he's a sentient being, on the right a delicately ruffled chunk of meat—is only part of his charm.

Separating them is a gossamer thread. Each self, each half of the whole, can regard the other with grace. "Hello, Brother Who Shall Be," says the living pig. "Hello, Brother Who Once Was," says the dead one.

Like you, we are reminded of this dramatic representation. Before and After shots of this kind are always sobering. For us, at least. For the pigs, they are merely confirmation of the rightness of life, a validation of The Way of Things. Which is why the Before pig here is quietly pleased with his situation. Here, alive and smiling; there, dead and sliced by practiced hands. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Dusty's Barbecue

2011-09-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

This has been kicking around our files for years, and it's now obsolete. Dusty's went out of business in 2009, but this image is still instructive.

It demonstrates the same gambit employed by Niku-Mansei and others: by showing a cross-section of pig society—the child-pig holding a balloon, the middle-aged pig playing badminton, and the senile pig buggy-whipping passers-by—it intends to put the best possible light on the consumption of pigs. "The complete spectrum of pigs lives in harmony with the concept of their own inevitable destruction," it announces, "so why shouldn't you? And here, enjoy this old-timey portrait."

Pig society cries out with one voice: Being eaten is right, natural, and expected. It's suitable for the young and old, the mild and the crotchety.

Les Pigs Extraordinaire

2011-09-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

The thing about these black-tie images is that they are doubly deceptive. They intend to deceive the pigs twice over.

(We are reminded of many royal pigs we've seen over the years (for instance, this one and this one), pigs who were sold a bill of goods. See more examples here.)

They've given him not the crown and throne of Old World royalty, but the top hat and tuffet of the New World overclass. Do you suppose they really see him as their social better? Do you imagine it possible they are not laughing at him behind their hands?

They've set him up high, on the pedestal of the elite, but they consider him low-born. The lowest. Theirs to do with as they see fit. Deserving nothing. They hurry to wait on him, smirking.

Reykjavík Svið

2011-09-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's like that old Icelandic saga:

There was a witch named Hriðmir whose magic had fled him. He wore the white coat and the white hat, and he chanted to the Giants of the North Wind, but the magic was extinguished and flared no more.

As Hriðmir sat on the banks of the River Hvitá, which in those days was called the River of Tears, he wept for his departed magic.

There arose then, in the midst of the river, a sheep with a fleece like gusting (?) winds, and the sheep said to Hriðmir: "Who weeps? Who that wears the whites has need of weeping?"

And when Hriðmir told the sorrow (?) of his departed magic, the sheep withdrew a blade and lopped off its smiling head, which bounded onto Hriðmir's upturned shield. It was the harbinger of his magic's return.

But not really. It's nothing so grand as all that. It's just an advertisement for svið, an Icelandic dish of sheep's head, on display at a large Reykjavík bus station that caters to foreign visitors.

Although, now that we think of it, why should this sort of sacrifice—which we now know has reached Iceland—require any dressing up? It's already the stuff of everyday legend.

(Thanks to Dr. Bullet for the referral and photo.)

Percy Pig

2011-08-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

Have we been living under a rock for the past 15 years or so? We didn't think so, but how else to explain our complete, happy ignorance of the Percy Pig phenomenon?

The pink stalwart is not only the spokesman for a candy popular throughout the United Kingdom (in a recent year, the candy makers raked in more than $15 million)—he's also an ingredient. The standard variety of Percy Pig candy contains gelatin of specifically pig provenance. A version prepared without pig gelatin was set to be made available earlier this month. We assume Percy will endorse this suspect product as well, but only out of contractual obligation.

And it's more than candy. It's toys, socks, sheets, calendars, books, and on and on! What does it say about the hungers within the British bosom when a pig known principally for his eagerness to donate the collagen from his own skin and bones can launch and sustain such a merchandising juggernaut? (A Facebook fan club reportedly has upwards of 200,000 members.)

We already know what it says about Percy. It says he's suffering from the queasy-making combination of over-weaning self-esteem and abject hopelessness so common (it would seem) among the world's "food" animals.

(Thanks to Dr. Liz for the referral.)

Calf Club

2011-08-29T00:01:00.001-07:00

We'd like to tell you all about this, but after reading up on it, we're still feeling a little dizzy. From the Calf Club's website:

Originally the day was known as Calf Club even though children exhibited animals like lambs and goats, but with fewer children now having access to 'farm animals' the day has become known, in some areas, as Pet, Livestock or Agriculture Day, with events for all classes of animals, pets and handcrafts.

LIC strongly supports New Zealand's dairy, beef, deer and sheep industries and recognises that there are young farmers who work hard each year to select, prepare and show young animals at these school events.

This website provides information and guidelines to help you and your child select, train and show a pet - and most importantly, ensure everyone enjoys the experience.

Okay! Did you spot it?

It's the seamless, oh-so-natural conflation of the categories pet and livestock.

Let's be fair: The organizers of this event explicitly encourage young people to take good care of their animals, to treat them kindly, to make sure they have proper food and clean bedding. It's clear they believe—and the kids feel it too—that the up-and-coming "farmers" form a strong bond with their (ahem) pets, a connection born of duty and affection. We would assume that many "farmers" find this a commonplace.

But to us, that adoring calf—with its serene smile and worshipful gaze—knows more than it lets on. For, whether destined for milking or "rearing" (that is, being raised for meat), it will not long be anyone's companion. Are we wrong to detect a trusting nature in the calf? Not a trust that it will always be—and have—a friend, but a bedrock faith in the entire administration that will see to its eventual disposition. From friend to food, the calf is in their hands. Where it belongs.

Quality Semen Tanks

2011-08-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

"I finally have my own little bundle of ~~joy~~ product! Thank you, Quality Semen Tanks!"

So says Mrs. Cow, we can only assume, on cuddling her newborn for the first time.

She knows what lies in store for her offspring. She knows that for a she-calf, it's a life spent voluntarily offering up her milk and her own offspring. For a he-calf, it's most likely an adorable processing at the hands of hard-working vealsmiths.

Which is why she's so pleased with the product line at Quality Semen Tanks. Because that's what makes it all possible. The fulfillment of her too, too brief motherhood. The succession of babies dedicated to milking and vealing operations. The peace that comes from knowing her place. All of it concentrated in her love and gratitude for sturdy, well-made semen tanks.

Addendum: An outfit called Goode Cattle uses the same mom-and-baby graphic on their website. They go one better (or one stranger, at least) by using this one, too, which looks for all the world like a cow in love with a Millennium SC20 semen tank. Perfectly understandable.

European Fur Breeders' Association

2011-08-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

The industrious European fur breeders of the European Fur Breeders' Association need to learn to dial it back just a bit. A smidgen less... enthusiasm would serve them well. We're uncomfortable giving them pointers, but their videos look like hoaxes or something we might have cooked up just to make the EFBA's position look even worse.

We've seen footage before where animals speak about their yearnings and their fears in their own voices, and, far from grounding us in a comforting reality, they only make our skin crawl and our bowels loosen. What begins as an attempt at cinéma vérité becomes cinéma putréfié, as the cognizant beings patiently explain their eagerness to die.

Fred the mink gets the ball rolling.

"...nice farmers and vets take care of us," he says—and they sure do take care of them!—"and we are useful to people!"

And then things get a little personal when Fred points out the real value of his friends Simone the chicken and Lola the cow:

Where the EFBA's little videos compound the insanity is in their central, axiomatic proposition that because raising and killing animals for their meat is ordained by the animals themselves, there can be no legitimate objection to raising and killing animals for their fur. It's logic so simple even (only?) a child could embrace it!

After all, there's no difference...

(Thanks to Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood for the referral.)

Addendum: If you really need to watch one of these videos, knock yourself out.

Addendum 2: Enjoy a suicide-clothing digression from four and a half years ago.

Beaux Hawg BBQ

2011-08-23T00:01:00.001-07:00

It's called the Good Life, all right?

A martini, a fine cigar. Good food, good friends. And when the good food is the good friends, so much the better.

The good pig is an instant archetype, a down-home bon vivant. He smiles at his own good fortune, shrugging in lieu of explanation.

After they've experienced everything life has to offer, they'll hoist themselves onto the barbecue. Indeed, today is a good day to die.

Addendum: Yes, sir. From Kansas to Florida, the good pig is living it up, for the time being.

Smoke Wagon BBQ

2011-08-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

We know we're looking at an allusion to the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We don't know why, and we're too weary to puzzle out whether these three represent the Law (Wyatt and Billy Earp and whoever) or the Outlaws (the Clanton Boys and them).

What difference could it possibly make?

They're standing up for the interests of Smoke Wagon BBQ, which means they're standing up to be knocked down, whichever side they're on.

They stride through the dusty street, menace hooding their eyes. They tote their guns. By God, they will be put down.

PBC Fried Chicken Run

2011-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

No head? No problem!

It'll take a lot more than headlessness to keep the chickens from participating in this thing, whatever it is. Hey, as long as the event is dedicated to the proposition that chickens are nothing but objects, they'll be there, dead, headless, and fried.

These are hardy birds and they're used to putting up with the worst the animal-eating industry can dish out.

So step out of their way and see how a real athlete gets the job done!

(Thanks to Dr. Robert for the referral.)

Special Report: Pig Logo Exposé 11

2011-08-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

We're ready to dive back into the world of recycled pig logos. Review, won't you, the last time we indulged our inexplicable penchant for RPE (Repetitious Porcine Emblemology).

(From left to right, by row: Lillie's, Northwest Tennessee Battle of the Pigs BBQ & Car Show, Get Your Pig On; Gourmet Grills, Holy Smokes BBQ Festival, In Hog Heaven BarBQue; Shawn's Smokehouse BBQ, Que-by-the-Sea, Pork U; BBQ Pit Boss, Louisiana State Championship Bowie BBQ Duel & Festival, Microwave Pork Puffies; Greet American BBQ Tour, Bixby BBQ 'n Music, BBQ Bonanza; Eagle BBQ Cook-Off and Spudfest, Giggly Pig BBQ Team, BBQ Throwdown.)

The hallmarks of the breed are the burly forearms and intricate nostrils. True, some examples of Burly (as he is hereby designated) are missing those two f-hole nostrils, but all appear to boast forearms of Popeye proportions. He also always (so far!) sports a bandanna or an apron. Unless those are overalls. It's clear that somewhere in his evolution, Burly split into two variants: the elbow-on-the-bar glad-hander and the dimwitted cowboy.

We'll be watching this one.

Addendum (12/16/11): And here are Burly specimens #19–22.

Don't think this is actually Burly? We admit it's not a perfect example of the form. But look at the curlicue nostrils. Never forget the curlicue nostrils.

Fantastic Chicken Noodles

2011-08-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

He's the sexiest chicken in New Zealand. As he luxuriates in a hot tub full of broth, steam plays sensually about his feathers.

Lasciviously, he rubs himself with lemon halves, flavoring his flesh.

Later—you can't see him doing it here—he scrubs his back with a giant noodle.

He's a little high on himself, you see, and a little in love with the pleasure he feels preparing himself for your consumption. He's one erotic ingredient and he knows it.

(Thanks to Dr. Ross for the referral.)

Addendum: If you must.

Bacon is the New Black

2011-08-13T00:01:00.001-07:00

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.

Gatorama

2011-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

One of the inspiring things about the study of suicidefoodism is its reach. No matter which twig of the tree of life you study, no matter what rock you turn over, you can find something happy about being eaten. And not only that, but you can find creatures happy about dying and being killed. Lobsters longing for the Big Boil. Pigs enamored of knives. Chickens prepared to angle their necks just... so.

And while alligators are not entirely unknown around these parts, they are still curiously rare. Perhaps their primitive reptilian brains have a harder time imagining the glories of death and dismemberment. Maybe they lack the brainpower to understand the many benefits of dying for no good reason.

Could be, but this healthy specimen from Gatorama (if you can call him "healthy" while he's in his death throes) sure seems to get it. The cauldron bubbles, and the gator's tough hide cooks. (That hide, of course, is suitable for wallets, belts, and key fobs, all of which they sell down there at Gatorama.) And he gives a generous wave good-bye as he dies so that he might—at last!—be turned into economical portions of alligator ribs and tail meat.

(Thanks to Dr. Kevin for the referral.)

Spammy Fortified Turkey Spread

2011-08-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

If there's anything less appetizing than a spreadable turkey paste, it's Spammy, the turkey destined to be enpasted, reminding us of his richness and nutritional value.

Glory be! Spammy Fortified Turkey Spread gives us both in one product!

The good-hearted Spammy, he of undeniable rico y nutritivo siempre qualities, was brought into being by the Hormel corporation to fight hunger in Guatemala. As such, he was born of the finest intentions. It's his motives we question. Is he driven to relieve hunger or merely to get himself eaten? Six of one, half dozen of the other, we suppose. Because either way, he winds up in someone's stomach. For Spammy, it's a classic case of doing good while doing well.

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral.)

Pigs with Banjos

2011-08-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's the newest thing in not rocking the boat! The perfect accessory for the pig striving to maintain the status quo. Exactly what any ambitious lickspittle needs to send those nagging thoughts of independence into the darkness of forgetfulness. The banjo is just what the doctor ordered for pigs to while away those tedious afternoons spent on, you know, being alive.

You just, like, give the strings a little pluck and—plink!—the desire to live another day floats off into the gentle breeze.

Plink! There goes that ol' dignity.

Plink! And self-respect.

Plink-a-plink-a-plink! And that troubling sanity. With that, the pigs have finally achieved their most exalted state: meat.

Addendum: Ready for a chicken with a banjo? There's this feller from a few years back!

NRV

2011-08-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

We are proud to present the winner of Suicide Food's first-ever George Orwell Award for Excellence in Distorting Language and Generally Making Us Feel Like We Need to Sit Down in a Quiet Room (the "Georgie" for short).

Do the fine folks of NRV take care of calves naturally by providing a safe and enriching environment for calves and their mothers to bond and grow? Yes, of course! Which is to say, no, of course not.

In "naturally" taking care of calves, NRV has made it their business to manufacture "replacement" milk for them. That is, a substitute for the mother's milk the calves would naturally drink.

And why? Because the milk produced by their mothers is already spoken for. The calves have only a natural—not a spiritual/economic—claim on it. The milk already belongs to those who manufactured the calves' mothers.

This stuff is evaluated on the basis of everything you might expect—fat and protein content, and even taste, but also on the basis of so much more. For instance, at NRV's own lab, they can analyze the "meat color status" of the calves! (Take that, your mind!) This must be the detail that has their mascot smiling.

Naturally.

Hard Ball Farms

2011-08-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

We're going to be honest. What really draws us in here is the stunning, totally unironic aptness of this place's name. Yes, there's the whole pig-with-the-cheap-crown angle. But after all this time, another pig seduced by the false promise of a better life—a life of clout and authority—hardly has the power to move us.

We've seen the Nahunta dupe, the Pork Palace pawn, "King" Richard, the Pink King, and the Brooklyn Boob. And that's just the pigs! So forgive us our lack of enthusiasm.

But the name. Hard Ball Farms. Could the pigs hope for a clearer signal that the good life is over for them? The name conveys the idea that they will now be treated with no tenderness or consideration. As though now they'll learn the true meaning of ruthless.

No matter. The pig doesn't mind. The pig never does.

Addendum: And don't forget the Festival on the "Noose" River. Perfect!

Txoko

2011-08-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Around the world, every tongue tells animals the good news: The end is nigh! Your sentence is almost done! You will soon leave the state to which your nature condemned you—petty life. (Bah!)

In this case, the language is Basque, and the animals have heard the call. They have put on their smartest clothes. Their little jackets, their little caps. The pig has even put on his little wings. Or maybe he got a head start on the death?

Anyway, they're dying or ready to die or freshly dead in their little corner (which is what "txoko" means in Basque, though it also refers to a type of restaurant, or something—we confess we're past caring).

This isn't so much ceremony for the soon-to-be-former "food" animals, as it is a formal occasion, an opportunity to go out with a bang, to say good-bye at last to life (bah!) with dignity. Everything about the image bespeaks dignity and status and rectitude: the coat of arms, the crown, the clothing. These aren't barnyard animals, after all, dumb brutes who wait around to get killed. No, these two seek it out, like they would a cunning investment or fortuitous employment prospect.

(Thanks to Dr. Erika for the referral and the photo.)

Chicago BBQ

2011-07-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Too soon, Chicago? It was a scant 140 years ago when the Second City went up in flames. Legend has it that Mrs. O'Leary's cow was to blame, but this pig seems to be rewriting history. Could it be pig-centric barbecue was really to blame?

Then again, maybe this is just suicidefoodism's drive to recast everything in terms of animals hungering for death.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871? Don't despair! It's nothing more than a charming backdrop for a barbecue competition in which pigs tie their aprons on and prepare to cook their own ribs.

Addendum (8/29/11): We knew it! We've this pig before, way back in 2007.

Erpiliç

2011-07-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Circle of Life is a happening thing in Turkey. Only, there, the people of Erpiliç recast the Circle of Life into "From Farm to Table." It's the kind of minor recalibration often undertaken by the suicidefoodists. Life, death… Let's not quibble.

To hear them tell it, the journey is one of love and sheer, bloody-minded adorableness. And shrink-wrapped meat, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

It starts with a flirtation, and then a bond is formed. A bond of attraction, surely, but more than that, a bond of enduring regard and trust. That chicken you're eating? It's made of love.

Our young chick joins the wider world, a world where she—yes, she; the useless males have long-since been lovingly pulverized—joins a community. She now has a social self.

Her original family is no longer even a memory to her. Her new family is a place of food and fattening up.

This is where things really start to veer from the traditional telling of the Circle of Life.

Because this is where we get to the part about cross-contamination. Which is why we see the (human) family member stepping through the cleansing bath. And then the masked family member making sure her hands are free of infectious agents. No doubt she'll perform similar procedures upon leaving the chickens' realm.

The glorious climax of the story! It's the confident march into the killing and packaging mechanism! The chickens transform themselves from pre-product—cumbersome, inconvenient—into Product, the hallowed culmination of the entire enterprise. The conclusion to a grand life, this perfectly brief waystation between not-life and not-life.

Or, as Erpiliç puts it, with equal parts poetry and horror:

In the first stage, blood is drained out of the carcass and then scalding process takes place in feather softening tank where chickens are prepared for defeathering. Subsequently, head is removed from the body and the headless carcass transferred to the evisceration line. During transfer process, feet of the chicken are cut using feet cutting machine.

Chickens are conveyed into the evisceration machine, and stomach area of the chicken is perforated. Evisceration machine completely removes internal organs of the chicken which come to the machine. The internal organs continue on the line towards the giblet separation machine, in which intestines and gall bladder are separated. Automation process continues in the subsequent stages. Chickens without internal organs are entered into the throat control machine where maws are removed and the chickens are passed to neck breaking machine. Chickens' necks are removed by the machine. Following removal of the necks, neck skins on the chickens are cut by a machine; and then the chickens are taken into the machine for complete washing including inside and out side.

Still with us? (The chickens aren't! Har har!)

It's the birth of a metaphor, a New Fable to shape our lives. It's all just a journey from farm to table, my friends. Farm to table.

Gaspar's Sausage

2011-07-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Do you know why we love this little Portuguese pig?

Because he's just so decent. So real.

Let other brands have their educated pigs. Their high and mighty pigs. Their ivory tower pigs. Yeah, and while all that's going on, Gaspar's pig will be out there working for a living.

He embodies the values we all used to take for granted. Nowadays, when we see someone showing up on time and rolling up his sleeves and caring, we roll our eyes. "Sucker," we say with a sneer. "Chump." Well, this chump's getting it done. He doesn't need the limelight. We don't even know his name, but we already know him well enough to know that's not what this is about.

This is about doing what you say you're going to do. This is about punching in and delivering. This is about getting yourself killed and encased in sausage skins made of the lining of your own intestines. Because no one's going to do it for you.

Actually, they would. Without being asked, even. But don't tell him that.

(Thanks to Dr. Trent for the referral and the photo.)

Greater Youngstown Wing Fest

2011-07-24T00:01:00.001-07:00

Now this is new. When it comes to animals flinging themselves under the axe, pigs are typically tops.

Well, step aside, pigs. There's a new player in town. And, hey: it's nothing personal. It's just, you know, sometimes a chicken's got to have its wings chopped off and fried up and shoved down someone's throat. Just how it is.

Oh, don't worry about the pigs. They've been in this business a long time. They've seen 'em come and they've seen 'em go. When the smoke clears and the dust settles, they'll still be here, lining up to get killed and eaten just like nothing happened.

But for now, it's this disreputable chicken's turn, this juvenile delinquent with his dungarees and his shades and his exciting air of brash youthfulness. He doesn't take nothing from nobody. Except for the people who have dominated every aspect of his existence from fertilization onward and brought him into being as a commodity for the express purpose of serving their bottom lines and ingrained habits. So, yeah, except for them.

(Thanks to Dr. Liz for the referral.)

Festival of Cruelty 17

2011-07-22T00:01:00.001-07:00

Every few months, we leave the safety of suicidefoodism's comfy lies—"the animals want us to do to them what we want to do to them" chief among them—and descend into the dungeons of the truth. Finding there nothing soft, nothing easy, we hold out as long as we can before climbing into the light of lies above. (Our last visit into the darkness.)

Burnside BBQ: Burn the side, burn the front, burn the back. Burn it all. In for a penny, in for a pound. The worst part: The pig's got a napkin tied under his chin. When they said they'd be pleased to have him for dinner, he thought they meant something else.

El Pampero: Who says "food" animals are mistreated, forced to live without adequate space, mental stimulation, or medical attention? Jab! Take that! Jab! And that!

We know that El Pampero means "the one from the pampas," the great, grassy plains of Argentina. But we can't help wanting to translate it as "The Pamperer." That's how we imagine the hypo-wielding pig describing himself, with supervillainish sarcasm.

Law Dawg BBQ: More abuse of canine power. It's an unlikely trope: the uniformed dog or wolf—a law enforcement officer or a pilot or a chef—rousting the local pig populace. In this case, a good ol' boy sheriff ushers a pig into the paddy wagon for a bit of extrajudicial barbecuing.

SS BBQ Team: Although the aproned executioner adheres to a system designed to remove the stink of patronage and caprice, still the deck is, shall we say, stacked. It's a sure thing: someone's going to die. The concession the chef makes is a small one. After all, he doesn't really much care who's next. He knows he'll get around to killing and grilling each of them in turn.

Stu Pit: So much for the respect the barbecuing community professes for the animals their food used to be.

See you next time! (There's going to be a next time?!)

Suicide Art: a digression

2011-07-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

As you know—even children know it!—animals want to die to enrich our lunches. And our wardrobes, our leisure time, our medicine chests, and our decrepit cultural institutions. And other things besides.

We've seen them all, all the ways animals are dying to serve us by serving up themselves. The July 3, 2011, edition of The New York Times Magazine suggests one that escaped our reeling imagination: art. Yes, we can now assume animals enjoy dying for our art.

In a piece titled "Among the Piglets," by Randy Kennedy, we learn about what Peter Nadin, onetime leading light of the intellectual New York City art circuit, has been up to lately. And what he's been up to is farming. We learn about how his experiences on the land have led him back to art. But we're not the only ones inspired. The animals are pretty darn happy about it, too! One of his projects is the artistic drying and curing of "a half-dozen mold-covered hams." Says Mr. Nadin, whether about his artistic or agrarian pursuits, we're not quite sure:

The pigs, for their part, might not agree that it's such a good thing to have happen, I suppose. But it seems to me like a pretty noble end, all in all. I wouldn't mind being eaten, you know? Meet your end in the forest somewhere and the coyotes and other animals eat your body? In fact, I think it would be quite a dignified way to go.

Almost as nobly dignified, we would venture, as having your entire life taken over by some artist who wants to make you his property, kill you, and make supper or art out of you.

Hamstock

2011-07-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Behold the death of Youth!

Witness the silencing of Rebellion!

Hearken to the imprisonment of Freedom!

Coherence itself is pulped and quietly disposed of. Wait, did we say quietly? No, no! This is Hamstock, and there is nothing quiet about it. This is triumphal! This is the glorification—reverberating from the hills—of senselessness!

Woodstock, with its tawdry legacy of stickittothemannity, has effectively been erased from the history books, for now we have the amplified justice of Hamstock! Unlike those unruly peaceniks—some of whom were no doubt vegetarians—the pig sings no hymn to individuality. He is no unique blossom in life's garden. He is a cog in a meat machine, remarkable only for his uniformity. Along with the millions of his identical brethren, he makes music to accompany the end of his days.

Olathe's Annual Kids Fishing Derby

2011-07-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

You know what's awesome? Fish! Fish are awesome. This one in particular.

Just look at him, leaping out of the water, the very thing that sustains him! And why? For the kids! It's all for the kids.

The fish knows kids love killing things, and he loves kids, so he's only too happy to oblige them. The beauty part? He loves dying just as much as the kids love the idea of dragging him into the reeking air where he will suffocate, slowly and awesomely. It's like symbiosis, a partnership so perfect and, well, awesome, it almost gives you the shivers.

(Sad note: Participation is limited to the first 600 kids.)

Red Curry with Pork Fillet

2011-07-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

The pig is alone on his island, his only company the playful sailboat that appears occasionally just past the lagoon. Apart from that fey blue sail, the pig has no one to talk to, no one to dream with. He has a coconut palm. He has food enough, thankfully. And he has the insane nightmare world that blooms brilliantly in his brain.

How else to explain what on earth he's doing?

Some have argued—believe us, we know—that the pig is merely capering. Or maybe gathering coconuts for his meager subsistence.

Please. We've been around the block a few times. We know what's what. The pig has gone out of his way to enact an elaborate ritual suicide. He will shinny up the slender tree until it bends just so, whereupon he will loosen his awkward grip and splash into the seasoned broth simmering in the wok. He intends to cook himself—with curry, coconut juice, and fish sauce—so that the sweetly calling birds will pick him apart and scatter him from one end of the island to the other in their droppings.

Addendum: Every year or so, we bring you one of these illustrations, from livestock pharmaceutical giant Baytril. Take a look at the most recent.

Happy Mountain Farms

2011-07-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Have you been looking for a place to satisfy your dream of meeting miniature cattle while you satisfy your meat tooth? Look no further. Happy the 32-inch miniature bull—and the rest of his diminutive fellows—invite you to take it all in! See? He's talking to you!

Well, to be fair, Happy is mostly promoting the come-look-at-small-cows angle, but his parent company also deals in the edible side of the business, too.

Catering to the small-is-beautiful crowd, Happy and the rest of the shrimpy bovines make themselves available for anything you might have in mind. Petting, chewing, digesting, whatever.

(Thanks to Dr. Kirsten for the referral.)

Kippenhandel Heindryckx

2011-07-10T00:01:00.001-07:00

Belgium, you crazy little country, you've done it again! It's always a blow to one's American pride when some Old World obscurity (we apologize) shows us how it's done.

Belgium's 11,780 square miles put her at about the size of Maryland. Now, sure, Maryland has plenty to boast about, not the least being this and this, but pound-for pound, Belgium is a major player.

This wrapper here is a doozy. It has recast the horror of seeing one's fellows immolated as an evening's comfy entertainment. The chickens gather around—are they in a clubhouse?—and plop down and just... relax.

Again (and again, and again), they don't tune in to a closed-circuit TV providing them with up-to-the-minute intelligence about the guards' whereabouts so that they might effect their escape. They sit there watching the boob tube! And what's more, it's not even some kind of keep-the-natives-fat-and-ignorant fare like, say, Belgium's Best Coops or Cock-a-Doodle Doofus! No, it's the brutal truth, the very thing that should have the power, the moral authority, to get them running for their lives.

Neither in Belgium, nor in Maryland—nor, indeed, in any place we have yet become acquainted with—can the animals be bothered.

("What's that? The corpses of our brothers and sisters slowly turning in the flames? The very flames to which we ourselves will be consigned tomorrow? What of it?")

"Hey! Keep it down! This is the good part! The skin's splitting open!"

("This really isn't a good time. Listen, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Catch me in the morning.")

It's a small world, after all.

(Thanks to Dr. Simon for the referral and the photo.)

Idiom Watch: Makin' Bacon

2011-07-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

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?

One Sweet Rack BBQ

2011-07-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Henceforth, or until we have to stop because it makes us feel too weird, this mingling of meat and sex will be referred to as feastiality.

What else can we call it when they create this mash-up of iconic sex symbol Marilyn Monroe and a rack of pork ribs? (Yes, yes, there's also the hilarious "rack of ribs" = "woman's bust" cliché.) They want to have their cake and eat it too. That is, they want to "have" their sex symbol—if you know what we mean—and consume her too.

Is it that the barbekooks would don the mantle of the conqueror? Must they not only take, but dominate? Must they annihilate? Where does this come from, this need to go beyond mere eating?

Unable to obtain Marilyn herself, they see her taunting vision in livestock. In food.

(Image source.)

Addendum: According to a site billing itself as "the leading online news and technical resource to the global swine industry," Pig Marilyn here is markedly underteated. Only six? You call that sexy?

The Great American BBQ & Brew House

2011-07-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

What finer symbol for this day, when a nation celebrates and honors the qualities it holds most dear? The Fourth is a day for celebrating independence! Courage! Freedom! Justice! Who better than a pig—a benighted creature permitted the enjoyment of none of those things—to dress in the garb of those who guard the rights of Man!

He waves his little flag and welcomes them all. Like Lady Liberty standing in her harbor and lighting the way for the poor and hopeless, throwing open the gates and saying, "Here! Here! Here is the respite you seek and the honest work you crave and a peace born of equality!" the pig asks them all in.

And so they come. They come to eat dead pigs, to remind them, in between mouthfuls, of the greatness and goodness of this land.

(Enjoy last year's Fabulous Fourth.)

Bacon Bash

2011-07-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

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.

WIRK Rib Roundup

2011-06-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

And here we see the power of a rotten idea to rot animals' minds.

Just as the chicken combatants and various barbecue battlers before them, this cow and pig attended to the sermons telling them they had no intrinsic worth, that their lives belonged to others and not to themselves.

And they believed. When an idea is drummed into you, into your bones and muscles, you believe. This idea took hold. It ran away with them. It fevered their minds. It addled their spirits. Before they knew what was happening, they had signed their lives away.

See what it has done to them!

They fight, yes, but not for freedom. Not for justice. Nor mercy. No, they fight for their masters' reputations, for bragging rights of those who own, kill, and consume them.

Look how they regard one another. They are brothers, born in chains, but that brotherhood has been rendered invisible. Neither sees a brother now. Each sees only a rival. An enemy.

Franklin's Battle of the BBQ

2011-06-28T00:01:00.001-07:00

The Civil War is a contextual grounding of increasing popularity (see here and here), and we think we know why: Suicidefoodism takes war, with all its hatred and moral ambiguities, and nullifies it. "Hatred?" the Civil War imagery simpers. "What hatred?" If something as bloody and desperate as war can be brought under control, can anyone or anything threaten suicidefoodism's power?

Indeed, warfare's aggrieved parties, in this case a pair of pigs, shrivel not in hatred, but instead bask in the glow of amity.

They've laid down their arms. They've cast aside their suspicions of each other. Of the very system that brought them to this impasse. Are they not equals, sharing their status as commodity, the fact of their Thingness? Where they saw only an enemy before now they see a brother.

Hallelujah! Barbecue has wrung wickedness from the world! All that remains of a once-destructive institution is a proud and storied heritage of being eaten.

South Park Rib & Wing Challenge

2011-06-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Again the idols are cast down. Knocked from their pedestals, they are dashed to the floor, ensmithereened. First the pirates were emasculated. Then the bikers. In turn, the cowboys, the boxers, the superheroes, and still other he-man archetypes were fettered and enfeebled.

So it is with a mild sense of disgust—yes, we still have a supply of disgust, even if we ration it with more care than in the past—that we take in these (ahem) rockers. When such stalwart symbols of reckless hedonism and bull-headed individuality can be so thoroughly tamed, we are all diminished. Even the power of freedom—the very possibility of defiance—is tenuous.

There they are, crooning into a microphone-bone, bashing out power chords on a meatar (not the first we've seen, mind you: check out addenda 7 and 9 here), and just generally uncooling up the place.

Instead of singing for their supper, they and the other rockers we've presented over the years sing to become supper. Instead of a thorn in The Man's side, rock 'n' roll becomes The Man's servant. Instead of issuing a challenge to the status quo, howling with the pain of the oppressed, the hungry, the stifled, the shut-down, the fed-up, the bored, and the ignored, they bow at the waist.

Lucky Me!

2011-06-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Lucky is certainly the word that comes to mind!

Barely hatched, the chicken is transformed into a powder to flavor instant noodles. Talk about good fortune!

If only he could have lingered in this paradise. Just a little longer.

(Image source.)

Another lucky animal! The pig, too—there, just above the Jesus sign—can thank the fates that he was born in this time and place.

Think of it: against the odds, he enters the world. And he's healthy, to boot. With a leg up. And then! Then, to discover that life gets even better: to learn that he is destined to increase the deliciousness of noodles!

(Thanks to Dr. Katie for the referral and the rib-flavored photo.)

Stockcar BBQ

2011-06-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Once again, the animals have a message for us: When we work together, all our dreams are within reach.

This pit crew has worked together, trained together, striven together. And now they're putting it all on the line. Together.

Each has his role to play. Engine adjuster. Driver. Barbecue sauce supplier.

And they will win. They will see that checkered flag and they will cross that finish line first.

In other words, they will die and get eaten. Together.

You're beautiful, guys.

Mo'z BBQ

2011-06-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

In the heart of Suicidefoodland, USA, lives a legend.

Other self-destructive "food" animals practice passive resistance of their consumers, or anticipate their own needless deaths with unrestrained glee, or even get down in the bloody trenches and help speed themselves to the great beyond. But Mo does them one better.

He has moved into the barbecue and made it his own. It's his version of a swingin' bachelor pad, and it's got all the creature comforts any depressed creature could hope for: a bucket of barbecue sauce for 'round-the-clock basting, a fork for the occasional puncturing, and an interior roomy enough so he can stretch out and let that good, dry heat get everywhere. He even has his own smokestack! It's everything a pig with an unquenchable drive to suffer could ever need!

No tedious drive to the last reckoning for Mo. He just wakes up on his big day, and there he is. Even before the coals heat up, he's ready and waiting, eager to meet his bleak, bleak future head on.

BBQ Fight Club

2011-06-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

The animals, they love to fight. They are not the placid nibblers and grazers you have been encouraged to believe. No, these animals have claws. By which we mean, of course, formidable fighting skills.

We've seen all manner of kicking chickens. We've seen boxing ruminants and the battling barbecued.

This is merely the movement's latest tawdry development. A cow, a chicken, and a pig get pumped, don the gi, and put up their dukes, respectively. And all to accomplish what, exactly? Not to combat the power of barbecue to overwhelm them. They've lent their names to sauces created to coat their cooking flesh! No, no. They fight for… Well, not honor. (Is there any honor among lunatics?) You're looking at it wrong. They fight not on their own behalf. They fight for those who would kill, cook, and eat them.

He who makes the most auspicious sacrifice wins. Or... something?

Suicide Barnyard: a digression, part 2

2011-06-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

A year and a half ago, we presented a letter printed in the New Yorker that reminded us all how much animals on loving farms enjoy their lot. Well, in the magazine's June 13/20 issue, a Ms. G. of Ashland, Oregon, has a similar message for us:

Placing a value on the existence of cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens as both edible and sentient beings gives them species-appropriate lives, albeit with a scheduled death. (Emphasis added, because that's plain weird.)

In other words… Oh, shoot. We lost it.

It's a squirrely thing, this idea.

No, wait. It's like this: The animals are better off when people think of them as walking foodstuffs—this is opposed to supporting the bioengineered ("vat") meat industry waiting in the wings, an industry that would eliminate the need for actual animals.

Because see, um…

Because if animals are nothing but commodities, then, even though, sure, someone else will control every aspect of their existence and their "scheduled" deaths, at least the animals will be granted "species-appropriate" lives. And who's deciding what's appropriate? Why, the people making all the decisions and doing all the killing, of course!

Hey, Ms. G. is just telling you how the animals see it. They are thankful for the opportunity to live and die at your pleasure. Like the most sycophantic subjects of the cruelest tsar, the animals live and die to serve.

Hava BBQ

2011-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

What more do they need to do?

They get out on the lake, they manage to stand on the skis, and they show their stuff. For you. For you! To bring a little enjoyment to your life. To put a smile on your face. They just want to make you feel good.

But it's not enough, is it? What will it take for you to eat them? It's such a simple thing, such a small thing, isn't it?

Well, not to them it's not.

They're working. This isn't fun for them. This is their job and they do it well. You think it's easy to waterski when you don't have hands? When your legs end in trotters? Do you have any idea how much those custom skis cost? (Upwards up $800 a pair.) This doesn't even take into account the boat, the moorage fees, the fuel. The permits! The photographer alone costs $300.

And all so they can ~~make a living~~ die.

What more do they need to do?

Bacön Takedown

2011-06-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

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.