Mr. Wake

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Location: Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Sausage Blogging: a Prelude


I’m going to post a series of articles dealing with Japanese sausages. To be honest, I’m not sure how far I’m going to get with it. There are a couple of good jokes to be made at the onset, but I’m not sure about the sustainability.

I bought a sausage, took pictures, cropped them, and wrote some hi-larious copy for the first entry. But then I found something. Sometimes you come across a thing that makes you pause and take stock. A thing that makes you consider that the world we live in and the species we belong to can create something this awesome. I question the wisdom of leading with this, because It’s much more brilliant than anything I can come up with. But you would just find it anyway when my efforts prompt you to perform your own research on this “meaty” topic.

It was posted to one of those Cool/Weird Things on the Internet sites last September, so forgive me if you’ve seen it.

Without further ado, click here.

Wow. Where to begin. By all means click on the pictures. Instructional videos are available for those three creatures in their own paddock at the top. Click on the image then click on either the pink or the orange button. Listen all the way to the end for some exclamations of truly forced joy.

The whole website is a treasure trove. A visit to their "idea menu" has seasonal dishes made from our animal friends. The winter/fall dishes are “new.” Weenie Boy there at the top is the most uninspired animated GIF I have ever seen.

What are weenies?” shows us the two varieties of weenie products. The “Winny” weenies that we’ve been working with, and below the…are you ready for this?..."Weenie Balls."

And this little hidden gem offers three manga. Y’know, cause the kids these days, they’re all reading the manga. Read through the first two. It will not take long. The second frame is the only difference. Weenie Boy’s mother asks him what he likes to do. He gives two answers, and then finally confesses that plowing through weenie lunches is his favorite. Shows how connected the guys at Winny are. They had four panels and could only come up with three things that kids like to do: playing the sand, swinging, and toy trains.

In the third and mercifully final installment we get a good look at the kind of woman who would name her child Weenie Boy. She combs her bangs (but is still mostly bald), has a mole the size and shape of a baseball at the base of her skull, and wears red overalls. This means that this is not a family of cave men, they only dress their son that way. In the first panel while fondling her giant mole she decides finally to make Weenie Boy a weenie lunch. I can’t tell how the artist is using perspective in the first frame, but the plate of sausages is larger than Wennie Boy’s head. Next, she goes to stand at a desk for some reason, and when she comes back Weenie Boy has eaten the weenies. Hoooo, didn’t see that comin’, didja! The wittiest exclamation Mrs. Boy and the geniuses at Winny can come up with is the Japanese equivalent of “Wha-?!”

So this was the first installment, a pre-installment, if you will. I will follow up with images of Japanese treats far less amusing that Weenie Boy and the Menagerie of Meat.

And for those playing at home: If you don’t speak Japanese some of those creatures in the Menagerie can be pretty tough to identify. Discuss them in the comments!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ben & Atsuko are wondering exactly what you are doing in Japan if you have time for this kind of thing.

12:34 AM, February 19, 2006  

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