Thursday 23 April 2009

Killing Floor


Today’s card sets a new high in adopting an unsentimental approach to subject matter. Hapless hogs are chained by their feet to a rotating wheel for their last journey to the killing floor. It’s an infernal image of blood drenched slaughter, courtesy of Upton Sinclair (The Jungle) with a soundtrack by Howlin’ Wolf. Not suitable for sending to a vegetarian. Or anyone else for that matter. Flip the card over and somehow it gets worse. The writer gives a brief account of the death of his/her mother in a message that comes from a sequence of cards. I’ve seen other examples where a message has been spread across a number of cards but never one with such a poignant narrative. Even in the postcard universe, there’s no escape from the remorseless cycles of death and decay that haunt our imagination.

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