Jan 07 2009
You Are Getting Sleepy; Also Smoky and Tasty
Sent to me by my good friend Mary Robinette Kowal, from the streets of New York City:
Mmmm… the suggestive power of bacon. It compels you. Fortunately, just to eat bacon. And possibly hash browns. Oh, and waffles. And maybe some eggs, too.
Damn it, now I need to go down to the kitchen. Curse you, bacon hypnosis!
I'm the Creative Consultant for this television show, appearing Fridays on Syfy. Miss a week? For US residents, 
I just had Cheerios. They’ll never have the power to make anyone cluck like a chicken or quit smoking.
For the record from a Manhattanite and regular at the Union Square Farmer’s Market (where the picture was taken), the farm that has that sign makes some awesome bacon.
Better than sausage acupuncture!
(I will admit to a weekly session of French Toast Reflexology.)
When I was younger we’d go to nightclubs and lie in the middle of the dance floor and thrash around like we were having a fit. It was called “The frying bacon”. Also sometimes called “The dying blowfly”.
That is all.
I love my city…
Strangely, though I run through Union Square (and the farmers market there) fairly frequently, I cannot recall having seen this.
I will be looking from now on.
This sign has singlehandedly diverted meticulously planned shopping lists on numerous occasions.
But the bacon doesn’t compare to Keith’s Garlic which is usually two stalls down. The smell of that has stopped me mid sentence.
Could be worse, at least it wasn’t Soylent Green hypnosis.
Maybe it’s a where you place where bacon goes to get hypnotized.
…anyone seen John’s cat lately? This looks to me like a plan for world domination. I could just be paranoid, though (in addition to smoky and tasty.)
I finally know how I’m going to name my next band…
It was great. It was better than the cats. I will read this post again and again.
What, now a pig conspiracy?
Elephants are the only land animal that can’t jump.
I Can Resist, I can resist, i can resist
Mmmm, bacon.
Patrick @12,
that explains the conspicuous absence of pachyderms in pro basketball teams. And here I suspected species-ism.
Trufax, the way to a (non-vegetarian, non-kosher, non-halal) man’s heart is bacon. Last night I made scratch macaroni and cheese with caramelized onions and crispy bacon, and my husband was extra cuddly in exchange.
I was strangely drawn to the booth and I’m vegetarian. I seriously actually thought about buying bacon.
Witness the power of bacon. If Mother Church ever really wanted to draw me back into the fold, they’d figure out a way to transubstantiate the stuff.
That’d be interesting. Communion bacon? That’d sure be a boost over those nasty wafers. On the other hand, it would open up the door for some interesting advertising:
“Our bacon tastes better than Jesus!”
Dang — no Farmers’ Market in Berkeley, California would dare feature anything as non-PC as bacon. Another good reason to visit NY…
The great irony of communion bacon would be that Jesus could never have partaken of it.
(This makes me wonder, though: are there gluten-free communion wafers for people with celiac disease?)
@#20 M.A. The farmer’s market in San Francisco at the Ferry Building has lots of meats, including bacon. Berkeley is a bit more anti meat I guess.
I’d like to point out that that picture was taken just a few blocks south of your publisher’s offices. We’re already sleepy, in fact.
Mr. Scalzi,
Can you tell us how many pieces of bacon you consume in a given week?
I have a sneaking suspicion that your affiliation with the bacon industry is strongly feline related. Or maybe you really do eat nothing but bacon and drink nothing but bacon grease.
If that’s the case, get your autographed books now.
My bacon number would be about 8ish. I probably average about 2 strips for breakfast, 5 for a blt, and 2 more on a chicken sandwich once a fortnight.
What’s your bacon number!
Those New York street bacon vendors are an awesome force of nature, aren’t they?
I think John Scalzi needs the Bacon Fairy from Justine Larbalestier’s book. Or maybe has already?
- yeff
#21 Madeline: Yes there are.
#26: Good! I’m glad to hear it.
Ooh.. waffles!
Darn it.
I nearly entirely stop eating Bacon for health reasons, and you all keep posting YUMMY YUMMY photos and having YUMMY YUMMY conversations here.
As Zim would put it: “Curse you, Food-Pig!”
Presently in the oven: a bacon pizza. Used to be my favorite when I was in college. No place ever made a bacon pizza like the ones I had in Galesburg, IL. Nor can I do it yet — but I keep trying.
Hmm… When was this photo taken. He may be an impostor of a Vermont original: http://flickr.com/photos/found_drama/2485488110/
Yeah, ya gotta LOVE Union Square Farmer’s Market. They have pretty much…everything.
I am in Wisconsin, where bacon and cheese are pressed upon you at every opportunity. I think when I fill up my gas tank I will get a free rasher of bacon with it.
This is a band right?
There is one stall at the Greenmarket there that regularly fries up bacon in the morning and it takes all my willpower not to stop on my way to work and hand over every dollar in my wallet. It’s like smelling heaven.
Jeff Hentoz:
Better than sausage acupuncture!
The more I read that, the dirtier that gets.
“Just lay down here while I poke you with my sausage in several different parts of your body…it’s really quite relaxing…wait, where are you going? I assure you, I am fully licensed and insured!!!”
Mary Robinette Kowal:
As one vegetarian to another, I feel your pain. Bacon is my bete noir, my nemesis and my abandoned true love. There’s a local arts and crafts gallery here in Asheville created out of an old Woolworths, only they kept the diner counter for that funky, Bohemian-Asheville atmosphere. They apparently do many lovely things with bacon, because the whole building is almost always heart-stoppingly redolent with OMG BACONNNNN!!! I browse there often (for the art, mostly) and it’s like being an abstemious Vampire in a slaughterhouse.
One of these days, something very strained and fragile in my head is going to go *ping* and an entire pig’s worth of the Divine Protein will get sucked down into the yawning, bacon-tuned black hole that will be thusly birthed.
Especially if you layer several stacks of crispy bacon together and sharpen the edge, but that’s kind of a waste of bacon, isn’t it?
It used to have a 3-D element:
http://flickr.com/photos/vvvanessa/2578886605/
Ms Kowel @ 17
Just stop in and see Rev. Billy at the Church of Stop Shopping. He can do the exorcism.
oh, no, here I go again…
bacon envy and that bastion of all Southern breakfast food, Waffle House, is just down the street…
going to bed, hopefully the feeling will pass by morning. Otherwise, MickeyD’s has a 2/1 special on the bacon, egg & cheese biscuts going on this month.
Another Manhattanite who loves that Greenmarket chiming in to say that those guys make the best bacon I’ve ever had.
No lie. The best I’ve ever had. It’s sooooooooooooo good. But they’ve been sold out every time I’ve been there in months. :-(
Ok, now that I’ve read all this glowing praise for their bacon, I will final have to bite the bullet and buy some. Thanks, Whatever commenters. You guys are not helping the plaque build up in my arteries.
I never realized how much the Union Square subway entrance looks like a flying saucer on stilts. (The distant one in this photo.)
Why would a flying saucer need stilts?
I have to go up to my kitchen, tee hee.
#F-D: New York Greenmarket includes several farmers from VT/NH (which can in some cases be closer than upstate New York), so I’d assume it is the same farmer and not a ripoff. (If you really care, I can ask my SO, who works for Greenmarket and is actually at this very moment buying aforementioned bacon for an experiment in bacon toffee.)