JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 794 Blog Bookstore
I wonder when it was that humans developed the extra senses that were able to "intuitively" determine (1) when
something is missing, and (1.5) when something is just wrong? I’m sure that these blood-bumpers were developed
soon after the recognition that the face in the primordial goo staring back at
its owner wasn’t something drowning.
This fast-forwards us through Wilberforces ultradense 6,000 years to the near-present: when looking at the explosively chromaticized picture of the progress of meat, brought to you by the invisible packing empire of Armour & Co. (of Chicago, of course), one gets the ancient immediacy of something being missing and just plain wrong.
The cows being herded from their pastures are being led to the Armour bridge
of Meat Evolution, where by some miracle the process of turning cows into
packaged goods—like Leda and the swan—takes place over the “A” in Armour, three-quarters
of the way over the bridge. This process
is wholesome in its invisibility, the walking product on the one side of the
bridge getting ready for transubstantiation for the nested humanity on the
other side.
The picture of the packer weighing the elements of the mysterious gold-plated market rams this invisibility home as well: the “producer” and “consumer” columns behind him are prettily illustrated with referential scenes, while the “packer” column just gets a single slab of color. A singularity of nothingness in regards to what goes on behind the packer’s head is all the consumer would want, then and now, ‘cause certainly nobody wanted to know what the hell was going on in the packer’s den to hasten the evolution of cows from muddy hooves to the dinner table--especially in 1926, when this pamphlet was printed. The vast conspiracy of people not-wanting-to-know-what-happens-at-the-packing-house continues.
I can’t leave this short post without a nod to another extraordinary image
from the Armour pamphlet: the butcher
waving off the drover and his herd because of a glutted market. The “good old days” here doesn’t look very
much like the 1870’s to me: I can’t
recall a single drover/cowboy image in my very long experience that showed a cow
sniffing a fire hydrant. Plus everything
else in the picture is pure 1920’s, except for the drover, who—although wearing
skins in the city for some unknown reason—at least looks mostly like he should
and isn’t packing an endlessly bouncing-on-your-thigh revolver. Sorta.
The horse looks embarrassed and surprised at the same time. Is there an English word for that?
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