Drunken Pig Monument in Ukraine

In a story that almost seems too good to be true, a monument to a drunken pig is supposedly to be unveiled in the town of Komsomolsk in central Ukraine. It will portray a pig lying on its belly with its snout in a trough and will be located adjacent to a cafe. According to the sculptor, Oleg Ryabo, "This monument symbolizes those people who make pigs of themselves by drinking far too much." Thanks to Dave from the more-consistently posting Axis of Evel Knievel for the reference to the Russian News and Information Agency (here).

Roger Waters Has Lost His Pig (Again)

The big news from the Coachella Festival out here in California over the weekend wasn't the return of Portishead but the disappearance of Rogers Waters' inflatable pig. The giant flying pig, which goes back to Pink Floyd's stage shows in support of their Animals record (1977), broke free from its tethers and drifted off. It's not only recognizable because it's a gigantic pig, but because it says "Don't be led to the slaughter. Vote Democrat November 2nd" on it. It also has a check mark next to "Obama" on the bottom. When I first heard that, I wondered if the pig really was Waters' pig--perhaps it was a marketing stunt. There's a good account of the show and the pig here via a blog at Entertainment Weekly (a better source than Reuters this time). Either way, the festival organizers are offering a great reward for its return: $10,000 and four tickets to the festival for life. 

By the way, this isn't the first time the pig has floated away. While shooting the cover for Animals at Battersea Power Station it also got loose. See my earlier blog entry, with video, here.

UPDATE: The pig has apparently been found (here). It landed in at least two pieces at the Hideaway Golf Club in La Quinta, California. No word whether the finders will want to use their festival tickets, but hey, the money's really good in these recessionary times.

"Great Movie Pigs" Slideshow

I was contemplating a post on the rising popularity of pigs in movies (the most recent appears in the ads for Disney's College Road Trip), when I happened to look at today's L.A. Times online and found a great feature and slideshow put together by Susan King called "Great Movie Pigs" (here). 

The famous pigs depicted on the site include Babe, Napoleon, Porky, Miss Piggy, Hamm, and Wilbur, among others. King's feature is accompanied by a few quotes from animal trainer James P. Warren (he's worked on Charlotte's Web and College Road Trip, among many, many other films), who notes that "If you look at all of those films, they tend to use smaller pigs. They go for the cute look--the little pug nose. I think they are so animated when the move and how they look at the camera. What they can offer is so much, it's very appealing."

Tigers & Piglets: An Urban Legend Explained

One of my students sent me an e-mail over the break with photos of a tigress nursing piglets in little tiger costumes. According to the e-mail, forwarded under the title "A lesson in world peace among divergent cultures (and religions)," this scene took place at a zoo in California. Before the images and the "story," it reads: "Once more my faith in animals grows stronger. We could learn so much from them. Imagine!" After the photos, this version of the e-mail ends with "Now, please tell me one more time... Why can't the rest of the world get along?"

I told my student that I'd seen these before and wanted to check out the story. Thankfully, Snopes.com came to the rescue yet again, letting me know that these were real photos, but with an inaccurate description. You can read the full story here, but in brief, I received an even more recent e-mail than the one Snopes addressed; they discuss one that made the rounds in which the tigress was supposedly given these piglets as a treatment for depression after losing her own cubs. As it turns out, these images come from the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Thailand, where this is apparently a common form of visual entertainment for zoo patrons.

There have been a lot of problems at, and concerns about this zoo: the Animal Welfare Institute has noted that this zoo has been investigated for illegally breeding and selling its tigers for use in Chinese medicines and that somewhere around 80 to 100 tigers died at the zoo due to an outbreak of avian influenza. I guess this type of creation of a story and a heavily-forwarded e-mail around an image isn't all that surprising--just look at how much has been made out of Barack Obama's decision to be a good guest on a visit to Kenya.

Meatpaper Magazine

I've been cleaning out the e-mail inbox lately while stranded on break in Florida and remembered that Mr. Sidetable had forwarded me an article from the New York Times that I hadn't gotten around to reading during the end of the semester craziness. The article (here) by Oliver Schwaner-Albright was about a new magazine, Meatpaper: Your Journal of Meat Culture. I haven't had the internet access to fully see what the magazine is all about, but you can find a link here. I'll be posting sporadically (as if that's not what I've been doing anyway) while in Coral Springs...

Pork With An Attitude in Memphis

My colleague David just returned from a trip to Memphis and Nashville. On Beale Street in Memphis he snapped this photo of a great sign. Can't go wrong with "pork with an attitude," unless the place is a BBQ joint, which I'm assuming is the case...

The Bacon & Porkchop Show

Another link from the editor of Porkopolis, this time to an animal act called the Bacon and Porkchop Show. According to an article in the Greeley, Colorado Tribune (here), John Vincent's performing pot-bellied pigs have been on the road for fifteen years. Although the pig known as Bacon died last year (see photo at right of Bacon raising the American flag), he has been replaced by a rescued pig called Mudslinger. The act also features a chocolate lab and five trained parrots. Vincent apparently uses popcorn to motivate his pigs (recall that oreo cookies seem to be the universal treat in pig racing setups) and notes that "Pigs, like most animals and humans, are products of their environment. If you're nice when you train them, they'll be nice pigs." This, of course, reminds me that I still have to create a post about pig training methods going back to William Frederick Pinchbeck and his 1805 book The Expositor. You can find more information about Vincent's show at the Top Hogs, Dogs, and Parrots site.

Spider Pig in The Simpsons Movie

I've been putting off making reference to The Simpsons Movie for quite a while. So, as many of you will know by now, the plot is driven by Homer's acquisition of a pig after a commercial shoot at Krusty Burger. Homer keeps the pig at home and stores its waste in a rickety silo that Marge insists he get rid of. He dumps the silo in the already polluted Lake Springfield, further contaminating it and leading to the EPA's invasion of Springfield which sets the rest of the action in motion.

Homer names his friend "Spider Pig" after he makes it walk on the ceiling. Later, the pig is called "Harry Plopper" in a parody of, well, you know. There was a special pig-centered movie trailer made for the film that is well worth seeing. A version of it can be found here. The trailer includes the great line "The other white meat has a taste for vengeance."

Homer's song "Spider Pig," a takeoff of the 1970s "Spiderman" tune, is probably stuck in millions of people's heads this summer. The lyrics: "Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does, can he swing, from a web? No he can't, he's a pig." There's an overly orchestrated version in the film's credits and on the official soundtrack.

"Spider Pig" has made it into the news in an odd way. One Australian guy is running a petition on Facebook to get 100,000 signatures so that his wife will let him name their forthcoming child "Spider Pig" (here). By the way, what's the deal these days with children's names down under? A couple in New Zealand, Pat and Sheena Wheaton, were trying to name their baby boy 4Real. After the court turned them down, they chose "Superman." Hmm.

Addendum: Some joker has added "sus arachnia" to the list of the species of pigs on the Wikipedia entry for "pig." Might serve as a good example for our students when things start back up in a few weeks...

Greased Pig Chases

Despite looking around a bit, I have no idea how long greased pig chases have been going on. I've found an 1859 engraving by Richard Doyle of a greased pig chase (see it for yourself here) but not much other information about them. I remember seeing one myself at a festival at Stone Mountain back in the 1970s, but I haven't seen or heard of one since. This is perhaps more due to the fact that I have lived in cities all my life, as the greased pig contests I've read about on-line have all taken place at rural fairs and gatherings. For example, this image was taken at the Alger County Fair in Chatham, Michigan in August 2005. (The original can be found here.)

There have been several successful protests against this treatment of pigs. In fact, according to PETA, greased pig chases are illegal in Minnesota and Rhode Island. (See their "Ax Animal Acts" page here at PETA Kids.) As they note in their Get Active Center (here), "Pigs are intelligent, social animals with high cognitive ability. Being chased around or mishandled by participants in raucous greased-pig contests is terrifying for them." I would surmise, then, that these animal entertainments are on the way out and are certainly less likely to be found in urban and suburban areas. Yet one can find advice on how to compete in one of these contests on line as well. In a "how-to" Wiki (here) someone has provided a list of the eight steps involved in catching a greased pig. This advice is also appended: "Chasing a greased pig is a cruel sport for the animal. make sure you're aware of the ethics of such an event before participating. However, also bear in mind the event probably has a significant cultural or traditional origin, so be careful about admonishing people about it."

Girls Gone Hog-Wrestling in Indiana

I wasn't sure whether greased pig chases and hog wrestling still existed as regular events at summer fairs and festivals, but at least the latter does. The Evansville (Indiana) Courier and Press (here) recently ran a photo essay about the hog wrestling competition for girls sixteen and under that was held at the Gibson County Fair. Apparently a team of four girls has 60 seconds to capture a hog in a mud pit and put it in a barrel.

The article followed the exploits of four 12-year-olds who competed under the team name "Pork Dorks." They managed to get their pig into the barrel in 58 seconds, just under the deadline. 21 other teams participated, but I could find no account of the winning time or of how many teams managed to beat the clock. There was also no evidence of any protests about this event, which certainly has the potential to be stressful and harmful to the pig.

Scanning the web there appear to have been a number of greased pig chases at 4th of July events. More about some of those (and animal activists' efforts to end these entertainments) later...