Take Grater Divide, 2002. The work is ridiculous: a standing metal cheese grater more than six feet high. Installed in a gallery, it works as a room divider, but the holes make privacy impossible. The wall is a weapon rather than a shield: A person undressing behind it could be cut as well as peeped at, opened up by sharp edges made for shredding. The work is not only an enlargement of a grater, however, but also a miniaturization of a divide, prototyping, in particular, the West Bank barrier Israel had begun to construct on appropriated Palestinian land. A person traveling through a border checkpoint may be asked to undress—strip searches are not prohibited by Israeli law. In the United States, they have been allowed ever since the 1985 Supreme Court case United States v. Rosa Elvira Montoya de Hernandez, which originated with the cavity search of Hernandez, who was traveling to Los Angeles from Colombia. In both countries, the coercive invasion of bodies is more likely to be visited on people of color, who are disproportionately singled out for selective or heightened “screening.” This word’s very meaning is reframed, or enlarged, by the Grater Divide. Gloria Anzaldúa, the queer Chicana theorist of Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), called the United States–Mexico border an “open wound” where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.” All borders are graters: not solid walls but permeable ones whose pores are sharpened to pierce what passes through.
It’s a universally known fact that you don’t fuck with our crab cakes here in Maryland.
Unfortunately, that second billboard is a photoshopped fake. BUT the real billboards that went up are just as fun!
So PETA put up that top billboard in 2018 in Baltimore, and the restaurant across the street, Jimmy’s Famous Seafood, put up a response. They also debuted a beer called, appropriately, PETA Tears, but I digress.
The ME was a subtle call out, a warning shot if you will.
But earlier this year (2023) right in time for Lent in very catholic Baltimore, PETA decided to try again.
To which Jimmy’s decided fuck that, let’s get two billboards this time. (WaPo)
No lie, ‘savor the sacrifice’ is my new favorite tag line.
*peers out the window* Weird shit, mostly. It’s fun living here.
Gay goofball formerly based in Nola and now trying to figure it all out in Buffalo.
Reblogging random humor posts and pictures of men is my game. Some material may not be appropriate for all ages and can be NSFW, FYI (that means 18+ only, please). Check out my instagram-vitruvianmantine- if you're so inclined.
