Machine Project wants a ham. Not just any ham, but Jamón ibérico.

The innovative gallery-laboratory made the following appeal to supporters: Make a $50 donation to Machine Project's ham campaign on Kickstarter, and you will get a ticket to "Cabeza Debacle, "a several hour marathon event inspired by the story of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's voyage from Spain to North America in the 16th Century." The Debacle will take place on September 8.

According to Machine:

The evening will be centered around a communal, dramatic reading of an english translation of La Relación, De Vaca's account of his journey as told to the king of Spain.

Obviously, for this event to be a truly gluttonous debacle, we need to purchase the finest, fanciest and most opulent imported Spanish ham that money can buy: Jamón ibérico.

Since its inception, Kickstarter has been used to fund some pretty noble projects: socially-engaged documentary films, innovative and life-improving inventions, and opportunities for earnest, hard-working bands to produce their first album. But, to our knowledge, the platform has yet to be used in order to crowdsource a ham.

By the way, Chicken Corner wonders if they shouldn't be eating fancy beef, given that the English translation of Sr. Cabeza de Vaca's name is Mr. Cow Head. Just asking.

Way back in the day, before Chicken Corner owned hens or had even heard of Echo Park, she was an 11-year-old who was driven past a stolid-looking building every day on the way to and from school in Washington D.C. They said it was The Mint, and I used to wonder if that really were true. The building looked too ordinary and boring to be the place where money is created. By money, I was thinking quarters.

It turned out that this building was not The Mint. It was (and is) the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. But they do make the money there -- paper notes -- as well as stamps, White House soiree invites, and miscellaneous special portraits.

They were doing it then, and they've been doing it all this time, seven days a week, apparently without rest, while we are sleeping, when we're awake, when we're driving to the airport, or yawning. It never stops. (And who said we don't make anything in this country anymore?) I learned this last week when I finally toured the D.C. building.

So, we saw them making twenties, big sheets of them, which are printed, reprinted, stamped, cut, sorted, photographed, judged to be worthy, or shredded and sold in the gift shop. It was a 45-minute tour, with no bathroom breaks allowed, we were told at the outset by a guy who sounded like a drill sergeant. First we watched a video that showed twenties being made in a Texas facility (there are two, including the DC shop). Then we followed a young guide through some tunnel-like hallways with Plexiglas windows that looked down into the printing shops, which were staffed by good-looking folks in uniforms who sometimes waved, winked or even pretended to offer an uncut sheet of 32 "subjects," as they call each bill. We saw paper and ink, and big sheets of cash being shuffled in the air before being passed into a new machine to be stamped.

The subject of counterfeit ran through the tour guide's spiel like a ribbon. It seems to inform every decision made in the printing process. And there were lots of jokes about "making" money. Which is why Chicken Corner won't be making a joke about making money, not here, not now. Though I do like their URL: www.moneyfactory.gov. Cluck, cluck.

Chicken Corner and a few family members drove up to Harpers Ferry, WV, on Sunday to go canoeing on the Potomac and see a few historic sights. It poured rain, was cold (cold? yes, cold), and we didn't get to canoe. But we did get some glimpses of history in the town where John Brown and co. attempted rebellion and so many other notable things happened. To say that the meanings of much that happened in Harpers Ferry are subjects of dispute, is like saying that the American people are divided on the subjects of race, class, religion, and the definition of rape. It's a bit of an understatement.

In any case, we drove in three cars, and we met at "the Fort," which was where Brown and his doomed rebels were either shot or captured in their effort to arm the slaves with weapons taken from the government munitions store. The building has been reconstructed, and its location has changed, moved about twenty yards downhill from where it stood originally.

You see all kinds in Harpers Ferry: backpackers from the Appalachian trail; people like us who come mainly to play in the river; Union history and civil rights buffs who are interested in the John Brown story and black history in the area; and Confederacy buffs, drawn by nearby Antietam Creek and the fact the Confederacy held Harpers Ferry several times during the Civil War -- and, yes, I did notice one Confederate cap wearer.

So, you read a plaque about the Abolitionists, and then you turn a corner and there's a marker like this:

THIS BOULDER IS ERECTED BY THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY AND THE SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS AS A MEMORIAL TO HEYWARD SHEPHERD, EXEMPLIFYING THE CHARACTER AND FAITHFULNESS OF THOUSANDS OF NEGROES WHO, UNDER MANY TEMPTATIONS THROUGHOUT SUBSEQUENT YEARS OF WAR, SO CONDUCTED THEMSELVES THAT NO STAIN WAS LEFT UPON A RECORD WHICH IS THE PECULIAR HERITAGE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, AND AN EVERLASTING TRIBUTE TO THE BEST IN BOTH RACES.

Next to the stone marker is an interpretation in sun-faded plastic, kind of acknowledging the startling words in stone:

It says:

During the ceremony [to dedicate the Daughters of the Confederacy's stone marker] voices raised to praise and denounce the monument. Conceived around the turn of the century, the monument has endured controversy. In 1905 the United Daughters of the Confederacy stated that "erecting the monument would influence for good the present and coming generations, and prove that the people of the South who owned slaves valued and respected their good qualities as no one else ever did or will do."

It reminded me of how much further in the past the Civil War seems to a resident of Los Angeles. We have few physical reminders.

Heyward Shepherd was the free black man, unconnected to Brown, who was shot by someone in John Brown's company, noise from the shooting causing Brown's mission to fall apart. Today, when I googled Shepherd, the first entries are all about the marker that's dedicated to him. The man who probably never knew he'd be famous is now most famous for an infamous tribute to his actions.

Cluck, cluck. Chicken Corner is going to the hardware store right now to get a chisel and chip out a response she thinks worthy of 2012.

Meanwhile, at the Montgomery County Fair ...

Chicken Corner flew in to Maryland for a visit and found some farm animals on display in Gaithersburg. There was a Nubian goat and her kid, both of whom I wished I could take home to Los Angeles to become family members. But the mom was a prize-winner and wasn't for sale. Besides, a ticket in the passenger area of our return flight might have been tricky.

The fair displayed no giant cucumbers, not that I saw, but there was an enormous horse. And there was possible evidence of discrimination in rabbit judging. The bunny in question, named Coffee Bean, was DQ'd for being the "wrong sex," never mind that both females and males were being compared and judged. Others were DQ'd for having a "white toenail," a white spot behind the ear, or "not enough color." Are you serious? Chicken Corner clucked. A white spot? I guess it's the people who are, in fact, being judged, including their ability to fill out competition forms correctly. So, never mind, Coffee Bean, you're just a bystander.

It was an uneasy pleasure touring the animal sheds. The whole business of confining, enslaving, displaying, and judging the animals is so wrong. But I was captivated by a sow with her piglets, even as I didn't want to consider their future.

On Monday, we tour the U.S. Bureau of Engraving.