Although lobsters look like alien beings and live in a world, that despite all of our exploration and exploitation of it, remains “other” to us, science has proven that these strange and humble animals do indeed feel pain in ways quite similar to the ways we do. If you have never read David Foster Wallace’s essay Consider the Lobster, please do. Assigned to cover the Maine Lobster Festival for Gourmet magazine, DFW’s exploration of the orgy of butter and cracking claws and kitsch, becomes about something much more profound.