See you in San Francisco, St. Louis, or Houston this week?

A long time ago, I wrote a post with the title “Hog-Butcher to the World” about an appearance I was making on Chicago radio. As I noted shortly afterward, this brought google-using people here looking for instructions on how to butcher a hog.

Back then I said that if you are using the internet to learn how to butcher a hog, then maybe you should reconsider doing it yourself. I just think there are some things you need someone to teach you. And I stick to that.

But since then I have been getting people coming here on a very regular basis looking to learn how to butcher a hog. Trust me, I don’t know how and really can’t show you. I was tempted to post a youtube video I found on how to do it, as a sort of favor to these random visitors, but the video was far too disgusting.

But today I see that Helen actually went to a pig butchering class. So she now knows how. Go ask her and leave me alone. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a girl living in Brooklyn needs to know, but know it she does, for some reason. So, please visit Helen’s blog for all your hog butchering needs.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, my sister really wants you to see this video:

Now go away.

• Like I said, tonight I will be having a public conversation about subject matter I am totally unqualified to speak about. Perhaps you are interested in seeing the illusion for yourself.
• Tomorrow I’ll be posting the list of my upcoming book events across the US and Canada. Come back and take a look then.

Over at the The Nervous Breakdown, I have a new little piece up about an excruciating incident with which I was recently involved. It’s called “This Must Never Happen Again.” Take a look.

Related:

• The Nervous Breakdown

It pains me to have to argue a bit with the granddaughter of one of my childhood heroes, but I’m afraid I have to. Novelist Melanie Greenberg, granddaughter of Hank Greenberg — the baseball star who famously sat out a crucial game because of the Jewish Day of Atonement — has an interesting piece in The Jerusalem Post. Essentially, she argues that today’s Jewish baseball players have a responsibility to sit out games during Yom Kippur, in order ”to serve as representatives for their people.”

I think that’s sort of offensive.

On her grandfather, she writes, “For American Jews, who were still only acknowledged as second-class citizens, his was a meaningful decision.” That’s certainly true as far as it goes, but the idea that American Jews are still second-class citizens is paranoid nonsense.

I would argue, in fact, that sitting out games today when you’re not even religious could actually forward an anti-Semitic idea — that is, that Jews always remain a people apart. Being a regular player, though, does just the opposite.

But maybe that’s because I think baseball is a force for good, and religion is, well…

Greenberg writes that while her grandfather “would not be met by the roar of the stadium crowd, he was greeted with thunderous applause and a standing ovation when he walked into temple.”

I know which one I’d choose.

Image by Flickr user dbking used under a Creative Commons License.