Sunday, February 8, 2009

Festival of Cruelty 8

Every 50 posts, we visit the slums of Suicidefood City. There's something so… real about life there. In the glitzy downtown, with its glittering high-rises, we sweat beneath a coating of sweet-smelling lies. The animals love us for our gluttony. They admire us for our greed. They envy us for our certainty.

But not today! Today is for gritty reality. For hatred! For the latest in our Festival of Cruelty series, where the too-easy deceptions of suicidefoodism are cast off and shredded into bits the size and shape of teardrops. (Catch up with the previous installment.)

Berger's Deli Hot Wings: Get it? Hot wings? And the poor chicken's plucked wings are currently on fire? And the chicken writhes in agony, calling out to an unseeing universe devoid of justice? Now that's good punning. And responsible stewardship of the earth. Bonus: The tortured chicken's wings come with a can of soda and cilantro! All for only… $750?! (Thanks to Dr. Seth for the photo.)



Smokin' Our Butts Off BBQ: This pig tends the grill with such stalwart determination that even when his entire backside falls off, he keeps on working. Through the pain, through the horror. A tiny tear, his only offering in the name of the awful sacrifice he has made. Notice also that he has become a creature of smoke, his soul having been transferred to the dark church of his masters. Where blood should be, where flesh should be: only smoke. Is he even alive? Has he already died? Is he tending the fires of Hell, heaping upon them the bodies of those he loved in life?




Hogs 'N Heat BBQ Team: Flavor? Technique? These are not the bywords of true barbecuers. These don't spell success! The trick, the secret ingredient—the blessed spice!—is suffering. And how the hogs suffer! Here we see them, having surrendered to their fate. Their lives drain from them one drip at a time. Rescue, respite, recourse? What is the sound that gently echoes throughout this smothering, flame-ridden realm? Laughter.







Smokin' Carnivores BBQ Team: Hey, as long as the livestock is put to panicked flight and something gets to eat them. That's still a win, right? Oh, by the way, the competitive barbecuers now see themselves as murderous dinosaurs.










Dillard Door & Entrance Control Security Smokers: Forced to take to the streets, pursued by madmen with sharp barbecue implements, the pigs race into the unknown. Who is worse: the yahoo goading them on, or the cretin in the lead, making a sport of the pigs' terror?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that's a bead of sweat on the "Smokin' Our Butts Off" hog rather than a tear.

"oh god it burns" indeed. That doesn't say "morbid sense of humor" so much as it says "someone has a sadistic mind".

Erika said...

The tortured chicken doesn't come with "cilantro," it comes with "cilantro!!"

Try to get just a little bit excited about this, Ben!

Anonymous said...

About the guy running in the lead in "Security Smokers ... Celebrates Spain", by his clothes, red scarf and (?don't know the english name) red waist-scarf, i think it's rather a nod to the "Running of the bulls" tradition in Spain and southern France, where some bulls are released in streets, and people with those attire plays some bravado by teasing the bulls into charging, running before them and eventually jumping to cover at the last moment.

Only here with frightened pigs instead of angry bulls, a fun self-derision of a spanish tradition with the right reference.