As You Like It

Shakespeare in fifth gear!  Yeah baby!  We’re flooring it on this one!

As we muzzily bit into our bacon this morning, we sipped and sipped at our coffee, trying to wake our brains up, asking, “What was that thing we said the other day about Shakespeare?  That brilliant hilarious thing that kept us in stiches all day?  And it was so witty and intelligent?”  Ssslllurrp sip coffee.

Now CoCo’s legs will not stop jumping and our brains are going a gazillion miles an hour.  Now we have too many things to say about the bard of our dreams! 

We don’t want to bore you all with literary psychoprattle  or collegiate confab (we’re GRE takers, don’t worry about it).  There’s nothing we hate more than a group of snobs having their elitist discussion with 20 dollar words, making you feel like a dumb fuck illiterate. That shit makes you claw your own skin from your face.  We just want to share that general appreciation that everyone has (whether they know it or not) of Billiam the Bard!

Where my players at?

As librarians/English and Art History Majors, it’s basically a crucial obligation to love Shakespeare.  Yet, how can we not?  He covers everything: from Biblical to Greco Roman mythology, side-splitting humor to bloody bloody tragedy, from shrewish ladies to the original emo kid (that’s right, Hamlet. We’re calling you out).  He expertly articulates our deepest emotions to a tee.  We’re like, “yes! That’s exactly how I feel.  It’s as if Will just saw into my brain!”  Really, he just perfectly captured human nature.  It’s hard to believe you can follow the chain of logic that leads a jealous character to kill his adversary… and sympathize even!

ANYWAY…. We are celebrating Shakespeare this month because it is his birthday/deathday.  He died on his fifty-second birthday.  So we have cake!  And a party.  We wear geeky tee shirts with things like “the original English major” and “you think you have drama?”  We display his works in all forms: play, graphic novel, manga, picture book (the illustrated Macbeth, we have!) And we put our favorite production up on the big screen – The Complete works of Shakespeare performed in forty five minutes by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. 

Then we sing, (to the melody of Let’s Hear it for the Boy) “Let’s hear it for the bard! Let’s give the bard a haaa-ya-ya-aha-aand!  Maybe he’s no Romeo, but he created Romeo! Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoah!  Let’s hear it for the Bard!”

So raise a glass of wine to William!  And say something like, “Here’s to saucy ladies and gentlemen!”  Because he invented the phrase which includes saucy as an adjective to describe fiery, smart-alecky people, see?  Here is a whole list of words and phrases Shakespeare invented just for you!

Words:

Dauntless-Macbeth

Puking-As You Like It

Hobnob- Twelfth Night

Swagger- Henry IV

Honey-tongued- Love’s Labour’s Lost

Fanged- Hamlet

Ensnare- Othello

Phrases:

The world’s my oyster- Henry IV

Witching time of night-Hamlet 

What the Dickens-Merry Wives of Windsor

Violent delights have violent ends- Romeo and Juliet

Sweets to the Sweet- Hamlet

Playing fast and loose- King John

One fell swoop- Macbeth

Kill with kindness-Taming of the Shrew

Knock knock! Who’s there?- Macbeth

For goodness’ sake- Henry VIII

All that glitters is not gold- Merchant of Venice

Crocs-a-GoGo, Crocs-a-NoNo!

Let's talk fashion

Peach and her brother were recently having a long, collegiate discussion about fashion; and to their surprise, agreed that there was one piece of fashion in particular that was an atrocity to all mankind. They spent hours pondering why someone would create such a beastly piece of footwear. Peach has decided to share. Sorry if you are offended. We hope to appropriately convey our disdain in this blog. Here is the beef:

Crocs are not shoes. They are garden clogs. Plastic clogs you wear in a garden.

Here is the argument – wait! Hold on, where do we even start??

First of all they have holes in them. That is ugly, that looks like a scrap-booking project gone wrong. Horribly wrong.

Second, the color pallet with these shoes is like going into a kindergarten class during craft time. Or worse, it is like the plastic ball pit at chuck-e-cheeses. Like, the designer of these shoes went to a pit of plastic balls, got inspiration, and he was like, “Wow! Those balls are so beautiful! I shall turn them into shoes, and we will all wear them! It’ll be like we’re walking in fun rainbow land happiness shoes wherever we go.”

 

Even Ronald McDonald is shaking his head at these shoes, and he is a clown! The thing with the colors is… hold tight. There is only one good example we can show you that really illuminates this aggressive and offensive croc behavior. Just so you all know, Coco and Peachy will never be caught on the town with the gentleman or gentlelady who sports duds like these:

 Before some folks bring out the pitch forks and start rioting, let’s take a brief “exception” pause. If you are a doctor, bartender or someone on your feet all day, and these shoes are utilized as part of your uniform, then more power to you. A job that requires scrub or coverall-type uniforms, where one is on his or her feet all day is an appropriate croc-wearing situation.  It makes sense that you would want to wear garden clogs at your job. It’s practical and logical.  And, check out these medical fashionistas rocking crocs like they should be rocked:

Crocs are not lip gloss. They not some insignificant accessory, they are shoes. If you want aeration on your tootsies, wear sandals.  Normally when you see someone on the street with holes in their shoes you are dropping a dollar in their cup. 

As we are nearing that wonderful season of bunnyliciousness, which some people like to call Easter, it brings to mind another Patton quote concerning Christmas shoes, but he basically asks where in the bible it says that Jesus is catty and concerned about fashion footwear.  “I died for your sins, but honey, those shoes are unforgivable!”  If Peach and CoCo were Jesus and saw the previously pictured gentleman at the pearly gates, that would be exactly what they’d say. Also, Peach would throw in “Hey! Those shoes aren’t holy, they are hole punched!”

This Might Get Loud!

Remember when we were in 5^th or 6^th grade – for Peach and CoCo, this means the mid-nineties – and we made those mix tapes of our favorite songs from the radio?  No, we mean literally recorded from the radio.  We had to jump across the room which was suddenly an obstacle course and hit that record button and hope that we weren’t near the end of that side of the tape.  A lot of the songs were missing the very beginning.  “….mmraup zzooop… until my fingers bled. It was the summer of sixty nine!”  That was just how the song began for CoCo.  Her favorite mix tape included Billy Joel’s River of Dreams, Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love,   Annie Lennox’s Walking On Broken Glass, and who didn’t have Ace of Base’s I Saw The Sign.

Music was much more an intimate love affair.  You walked across town to get that cassette tape from Rite Aide, you did slave labor for your older siblings for hand-me-down rock albums by Aerosmith and Madonna.  You knew and treasured every word and nuance to all your favorite songs.  You and each of your friends had your own holy grail of music on one or two cassettes.  And if your favorite mix tape got lost or eaten by a crappy tape recorder… whoa mama!  Major meltdown.  “You know how many days and hours I spent on that tape!  I can never get back!  It won’t ever be the same!”

Patton Oswalt summed it up pretty well in one of his bits about music today.  He was talking about going back in time and meeting himself in 1999.  His 1999 self would be listening to a tape with his twenty favorite songs, and future Patton would say, “take that tape out, now break it in half.  That’s the size of the thing we listen to music on in the future. And it holds all the songs you’ve ever heard as well as every song that will ever be written.”  1999 Patton would think something so amazing must be worth way too much money, and future Patton would explain that people give them away.  “It’s a goddam miracle and nobody gives a shit!”

It’s so amazing that we can have so much music –plus the bonus feature of having the song in its entirety, beginning to end!  We have to say, we love every song on our ipods.  Except sometimes when it’s on shuffle.  Then we love about every fifth song on our ipods.  BUT, we love even more that we have that option.  No matter what mood you’re in, there’s a 99.9% chance you have the perfect song for that moment.  With or Without You by U2.

Peach sometimes follows her dream of being a DJ.  Party in the House DJ Baby Peach covers all your wedding, birthday party and anniversary music needs!  Hit it Enrique Iglesias, Kanye and Pitbull! Yeah, this is totally a plug for Peach’s extensive and lucrative DJ business.  Call her!  (note: we’re totally joking.  It’s not really lucrative.  She DOES totally DJ your party, no cost.)

CoCo’s  a campfire guitar player.  Sister Golden Hair and Leaving on a Jet Plane will be your entertainment when you hang with s’mores and wine and Alaska reindeer sausage on the fire. She’s just a rhythm strummer, but you know you love singing even the cheesiest folk songs when you’re drinking with friends and family.

Here is what we are listening to!

The Peaches picks for the season…it is almost spring!!!  

Let’s Get Lost - Beck and Bat for Lashes

Rolling in the Deep - Adele

Born this Way-Lady GaGa

Kids-MGMT

Cinnamon Girl- Type O Negative

What you Need - INXS

Supermassive Black Hole- Muse 

American Music- Violent Femmes

Messiah, No.1.-44. - Handel

Whole Wide World- Wreckless Eric

Ball and Biscuit- White Stripes

Can’t You Hear Me Callin- Crooked Still

All Night- Damian Marley

D’yer Mak’er- Led Zeppelin

Start Wearing Purple- Gogol Bordello

CoCo’s favorites this week

Band on the Run – Beatles

The Rose – Bette Midler

Turn the Page – BoB Seger

Listen to the Music – Doobie Brothers

Feels Like Home – Linda Ronstadt

Fly Away – John Denver

Lola – The Kinks

Under Pressure – Queen

Howlin’ For You – The Black Keys

Raining Like Magic – Raffi

Little Bitty Pretty One – Thurston Harris

Fat Bottomed Girls – Queen

Seed of Wonder – Jesca Hoop