Behold the majesty that is the Phuket Vegetarian Festival:

Omnivore food festivals do not come close to this.  Heck, the average meat eater doesn’t even own this many knives.  But yeah dude, your state fair with the deep fried butter is pretty, well, I’m sure your mom’s proud anyway.

Now, I don’t go to a lot of vegetarian festivals, because they’re often outside my house, and I rarely leave it, but I can tell you with pretty reasonable authority that the Toronto Vegetarian Food Fair didn’t have any of this in it.  Did anyone go to the one in Boston?  Was it stabby?

Yes, I know I’m avoiding the rich cultural details surrounding the festival and capitalizing on its name, but meat eaters around the world have tried to pass themselves off as “manly men” (well, the male meat eaters, mostly) for pretty much ever, and nobody ever questions that maybe they’re not in fact manly men and are just using the phrase to mask a deep cultural ritual of not stabbing their faces.

Oh, and you know how you can tell it’s a vegetarian festival?  Here:

It’s a rubber snake. That’s right, if you were all set to go vegan and then remembered that you have a thing for stuffing snakes through your face, don’t worry, we’ve got mock versions of pretty much everything.

Seriously meat eaters, just give up your rodeos and bull fighting now (no, really give that stuff up) – you’re not even in the same league as the vegetarians, and you don’t even want to know what vegans can do.

They had me at hello.  If by hello, you mean this, of course:

I have a running joke (with myself) that I try hard not to swear on VP because the purer the site gets the funnier (again, to me) the site’s name is.  Which makes it hard to talk about the zine soyfucker, but they invoked the power of hammer pants, so we all must make sacrifices for the greater good.

And the good is greater than it would seem: two American dollars gets you the electronic copy (there’s a paper copy if you’d prefer the artifact in your hands, which I respect, and it’s only $2 as well,) it features all vegan artists, and the money for issue 2 goes to the Deep Roots Sanctuary in Indiana.  I can’t think of a way to make this more of a win, so please check it out – it’s a collection of stories, and not all of them were “for me,” but at 32 pages I feel like I would have gotten my money’s worth even if the proceeds went to something silly like rent.

But wait, there’s more!

OK, I want to try something here, so I’m going to sweeten the deal: if you buy the paper or electronic copy of soyfucker, forward your receipt email to jason at veganporn.com and I’ll email you a webcomic from back in the early days of VP (maybe circa 2003, but that’s a guess.)  It’s the semi-infamous “dill dough” strip, which some of you may remember, and some of you have asked for in the past.  I don’t think it’s available online anywhere, and this is your only official way to get this anytime soon.  Oh, and you can edit the receipt as needed if you don’t want me getting your address and stuff, and I’m not going to do anything with your email other than send you the comic.

So, to recap:

1. Go buy the comic.
2. Email the (possibly edited) receipt to me.
3. Get a bonus comic while helping out a sanctuary and encouraging vegan art projects.

All it’ll take is two dollars and probably less time than it took to read this post.  And do it before Friday, August 27 because, as Vince says, you know we can’t do this all day!

(discovered via the always enjoyable vegansaurus)

There are things in this world that just happen to be vegan-friendly that fit into the “wow, I’m happy about that” category, and then there are things that I’ve never really thought about before but then discover in pursuit of my pornographic duties.  This would be a strong Number Two:

A 62 year old Hong Kong man was admitted to hospital recently after he jammed a cucumber up his butt in what he claimed was a variant of Japanese hari-kari suicide.  The traditional, non-plant-based way would have involved a sword into the belly, but as it turns out, ramming a cucumber into one’s anus can produce a surprising amount of blood that I’m sure scared the bejeezus out of his daughter when she discovered him.  Well, that and the cucumber sticking out of his ass, of course.  That would certainly add to the effect.  Are you visualizing this yet?  What song do you think was playing in the background when this all happened?

The man, whose name is Chin Wei, incidentally (and I hope he’s not one to Google-search his own name from now on,) is going to be fine.  The bleeding was from a “severe tear” and isn’t considered to be life-threatening.

Then again, maybe the chosen method was one based on vegan precaution: it’s hard enough to find a vegan meal in some parts of the North American highway system, so one can only guess what the dining options are in the afterlife (we’ve been really lax in that part of activism, I’ve got to say.)  It may just be that Chin Wei wanted to make sure he had a salad with him in the great beyond.

Don’t think of this link to a toy cucumber six pack as a weak-assed (heh) attempt to bring in some much-needed Amazon affiliate income, think of it as inspiration for the winning VP Hallowe’en Costume Contest entry.  Which doesn’t really exist, but I like to encourage things when I can.

It is Valentine’s Day, I am tired, and it seems like every keystroke I press runs the risk of breaking the interweb. In lieu of posting something about how beef is bad for you (because typos there could be harmful – I mean, I accidentally wrote “vealtines day” a minute ago), here’s a new music video from Beloved Binge that’s going to be in my head all day: Link.

We’re approaching the darkest day of the year, and I’m in no mood to post depressing news. Luckily, Dagda Samildanc sends word of a shopping opportunity! Does anyone know more about this soy silk stuff? Apparently it’s now available in lemur: Link.

Buried on page 6 of the linked PDF is a poem about tofu, as discovered (but not written) by Dagda Samildanc. I recall a time when pornstars would post poetry, but I don’t remember seeing any about our favourite block of soy, so how about it? Do you have a tofu poem inside you, yearning to be free? Post it in the comments. The best one will be used in an upcoming VP project. Link.

Veronica wants you to send her your food receipts! No, she’s not looking to turn you in to the vegan police, it’s for an art project she’s working on. Link to her bio, Link to the project info.

FlashedMRG sent in news of an art exhibit in the UK that wasn’t particulary vegan: the performance piece featured the artist hugging a dead pig for four hours. The story has several references to the show being funded by taxpayer money, but here’s what I don’t get – most people spend far more hours per year eating dead pigs whose slaughter was subsidized by taxpayer money, and there’s no front page story there. Maybe it’s because the artist was naked. Link (contains boobies).

Wow, it’s becoming arts day! Dagda Samildanc sends word of a human breast milk bar that’s opening on July 13. It’s actually an art exhibit by Jess Dobkin, to be held at the Ontario College of Art & Design’s Professional Gallery, and yes, there will be samples. What’s amusing is that the artist’s name is way below the fold in the linked article, and the focus is on the fact that Dobkin received a $9,000 government grant to develop the idea. The Conservative government is staying clear of the “controversy,” but it might not just be to distance themselves from criticism about their lack of support for the arts – when Canadian taxpayers are subsidizing the dairy industry by $2 billion a year, nine grand for this project doesn’t even make it to the spreadsheet. Link.

I almost forgot to talk about the cow/art thing – AimeeLeigh79 was one of several people who sent in news of artist Zoe Birrell