Piggy's Palace
This week's Stranger includes a grisly story about serial murder, prostitution, police indifference, and cannibalistic bacchanals:
Port Coquitlam Councillor Darrell Penner, according to the Now, visited Piggy's Palace "a few times," believed that thousands of people had been to the place, and, though he had enjoyed some roasted pork, was certain it did not come from 953 Dominion Avenue, that is, from pigs that had been eating the women murdered on the Pickton farm.
But where else could it have come from?
It's common knowledge that Robert Pickton was, by the mid-'90s, no longer a serious commercial pig farmer. He was a wealthy man. Raising hogs now was more of a hobby. He bought the pigs, fattened them, and sold the meat to friends, or roasted them for the bikers, prostitutes, mayors, and Little Leaguers who partied at Piggy's Palace. The entire city of Port Coquitlam (pop. 53,000), it seemed, was feeding on pigs that had been fed by the suspected serial killer Robert Pickton.
And:
The plant turns animal bones, guts, fish, blood, pig entrails, used restaurant grease, and, now many believe, the remains of sex workers into a number of consumer products, like lipstick base, soaps, shampoos, and perfumes. These commodities that improve human appearance are shipped all over the world.
That feels like a metaphor for something. Happy Hallowe'en.