Pigs eat it in South Philly

Or, rather, are eaten.

On my way from New York back to Spookytown, I stopped in Philadelphia to visit Hellraiser - and, fortuitously, to meet up for two seconds with J-ka, who was stopping by en route from Spookytown to New York, and for three seconds with Dor, visiting in-laws in West Chester. I made trips to the Italian Market with both Hellie and J-ka, and hoo-ee was there a lot to see. (I know, "hoo-ee" doesn't sound very South Philly, but I'm not sure what their exclamations are and so will instead revel in fact that I once again live south of the Mason-Dixon line.) After some invigorating morning exercises (visitors to Hellie's house must, apparently, engage in Russian-type Soviet-era uprazhneniia each morning), we left Marky Mark at home fixing Hellie's bike (good boyfriend!) and headed out in search of breakfast.
The newly hipster-frequented places were too crowded, so huevos rancheros it was. Even without the Italian-style breakfast, Hellie was able to channel the ghost of popular-with-the-Italians-but-oh-so-corrupt former mayor Frank Rizzo.
As you can see, we were pretty glammed up for a Sunday morning, but signs like this reassured me that we had done the right thing.
This fish stand prepared me for all kinds of hairstyle excitement, but in fact South Philly hair was pretty traditional. I suppose after living in Chicago, where basically every takeout menu has ribs on it (fried chicken + ribs, pizza + ribs, Chinese food + ribs) the butchery aspect of the market shouldn't have struck me as notable, but it did. People seemed to revel in the transformation of animals into food, and made sure that even if the cut of meat was not immediately recognizable, the pictoral representation would be.
Yes, poor little rabbitlet, so unaware of your meaty fate. Meanwhile, here only the pig seems aware of his impending doom - look at the sad little downturn of his mouth. He knows he's living on borrowed time above that House of Pork.
This chicken looks like it might put up a bit of resistance, though.
The animal horns hint at former sheepy glory,
and the chorizo sign seems to be really lording it over the pig, who even has the cartoon "X" eyes of death.
Most taunting of all, though, was this butcher sign. Earlier, with the potato eating french fries and the ice cream cone licking itself, we saw a kind of auto-cannibalism, but one that neatly skipped over the moment of transformation into food. But here we have a rampaging cartoon pig! Who is it going to kill with that cleaver? Other piggies? Or itself?
It seems kind of insane, and also I think he'd be more effective if he shopped here and not just in the cleaver store.
In the end, J-ka and I had pizza. Vegetarian pizza.