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

STEAMPUNK

CoCo really loves steampunk. Most of her favorite movies and books include trains, clocks, antiques, art nouveau, zeppelins, automata and some elements of sci fi or fantasy. Almost all of these stories include action and adventure. Most of them include a mystery of some kind.

We can see that some of you still have mystified and glazed expressions. You might be wondering, “what is this steampunk you speak of? I don’t get it.”



Steampunk is a little tricky to describe. Around the turn of the century, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote stories about time machines and aliens, high tech submarines and electric pulses that turned a man invisible. Their idea of futuristic technology included a romantic aesthetic we don’t see in science fiction today (i.e. The Matrix or Mission Impossible).



Watch a movie like Metropolis, Sherlock Holmes, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or The Golden Compass. These movies show mannerly ladies and gentlemen, cowboys and villains. The settings include shiny copper and steel, gears and clockwork within Victorian style backdrops, with hints of the old Wild West. Or play a video game such as Bioshock or Fallout; they are fully designed in the genre of steampunk.

Everything in steampunk story is organic and exposed. It is beautiful and fascinating to watch how a clock functions, to be able to see and understand the process of steam power or electricity. The printing press, the Tesla machine, even a simple bicycle… everyone stops to gaze at the inner-workings of complicated machines. We are entranced by the rotating gears and the moving pistons.

The culture of steampunk is highly civilized. People have all the positive aspects of old fashioned propriety (niceties, manners, racial integration) but without the restrictions or oppressions of dystopias (fanatical religion, dictatorship, monarchy). Even the villains, twirling their mustaches and monologue-ing about taking over the kingdom or the moon or whatever, still say please and thank you. They are well-groomed and fancy. Even rustic dirty cowboys might show with a vest and bowtie, all perty-like and dignified.



So that’s about it. If you enjoy robots and goggles and mad scientists, steampunk is for you. It also means you love Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Ben Franklin, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi. Now you at least know about steampunk, and maybe you’ll get into a story or two.

Books to check out: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, The Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, and Worldshaker by Richard Harland.

Smoking Season

And we do!

Greetings all you beautiful people out there, today you get a special salmony, savory, smoky dose of Alaska. Peachy spent all weekend long brining, smoking and packaging Red Salmon and she documented the ENTIRE thing just for you! 

First step is to catch the salmon, and be grateful. These reds were caught this past summer from the Copper River.

Now you must dry out the fillets of salmon for at least 30 min.  Peach has about 10 LBS of salmon here and they are drying out on wax paper. This step helps the salmon soak up ore brine and that means more yummy-ness for you! 

The next step is mixing the brine.  Make sure you have at least 10 hours for the brining step.  A 5 gallon bucket is perfect for this part. Fill the bucket with about 6 inches of warm water then add 1 cup of kosher salt and 1.5 cups of brown sugar. I got my bucket at home-depot, but that is a whole different adventure.

Make sure your pets stay away, unless you are Walter and are the Master Predator of caught Salmons.

 

Pull the little fishies out of the brine and give them a nice rinse in the water. Once again, let them sit and dry off for about 1 hour. Be sure to remove all bones.

Now it’s time to smoke ‘em!  Hickory chips are the best to use for salmon, but it is all preference. Before putting salmon on racks be sure to coat the racks with non-stick spray. I also do either a honey or maple glaze on top of the fish, it really seals in the flavor.  Depending on the smoker it should take anywhere from 5 hours to 12 hours.

Now doesn't that look good. 

All packaged and ready to go! Lucky you.

If you don’t like smoked salmon straight up, here is a nice Alaskan salmon dip recipe. Please enjoy.

Love Peach.

Mix all of these things together.

16 ounces cream cheese

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon Worcestershire 

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon pepper

1 -2 cup Alaskan Smoked Salmon

Small red onion minced   
Capers

Add cat, but only if you must

Reading is Sexy

The secret’s out.  Studious library girls have been spotted in the lingerie shop looking at…. Sexy girlie things! We are not the bespectacled turtlenecked mousy librarians you imagine, smelling of mothballs and sadness.  We are hip young ladies who wear glitter on our eyes and bangles on our wrists; we dance to hip hop, reference Family Guy, have tattoos and shop for lacy lingerie to look like fertile goddesses of Egyptian Myth or Kama Sutra.  Peach wants to defy the Vatican for being so outdated in its male exclusivity and CoCo is basically atheist.

Really, in this day and age, why are we still getting outrageous looks when we claim our occupation?  “You?  With your color-streaked hair and dangly earrings and shiny lip gloss?  But you’re so bubbly and nice!  I can’t picture you shushing or shelving… or reading literature!”  Hex yeah, these girls do ALL of that.  Though instead of shushing, it’s more like we holler across the room for kids to “quiet down over there ya jamokes!” And, we are all about our man, Billiam Shake-a-speare! 

So hang on to your hats, boys and girls!  The modern day keeper of information is here, and she is totally down.  We are navigating the technologies, the internets and reference databases.  We are also looking at the future of libraries and librarians.  These places are not just musty shelves of outdated molding books.  These are the headquarters of information navigators. 

Think of anything in the universe… anything at all.  We know how to find it.  We can teach YOU how to find it! You don’t need to scroll through Google for three hours. We will sashay in our pointy high heels down the hall and seductively allure the correct information from its designated location and give it to you - and give it you until we learn your brains out! Like the dominator, Nancy Pearl says, “saving the world from misinformation, one day at a time!” 

CoCo likes to say, “The more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the smarter you sound as you dexterously prove your argument beyond a shadow of a doubt.”  And that’s sexy.

P.S.        Make sure to turn your library books in on time or else… we may have to PUNISH you!

HEEE YAAAA!!!

OOOOHHHHH Give me a team and a good lead dog and a sled that’s built so fine…… sing with us now! Hobo Jim performed the annual Iditarod anthem the night before the ceremonial start in Anchorage last Saturday.  Peach was in attendance and starry eyed for days afterward. These world-famous dog mushers, who spend so much time alone and training with their fifty or more racers, tend to be either extremely shy or extremely happy to be in human contact and chatter excitedly and passionately about the career they’ve chosen. 



This dog is ready to race


 

It’s a harsh road to Nome – what are you saying, CoCo? There isn’t a road!  It’s frozen tundra! Nothing and no one but harsh winter climate for one THOUSAND, one hundred fifty miles.  They spend all year training.  It’s dirty and smelly and rough and the love of their lives.  The dogs always come first, above the mushers own life.  That Disney movie, Iron Will, was not far off the mark with its dramatic swelling music, fierce bond between musher and dog storyline and epic physical battle to the finish.  The Last Great Race has barely changed in forty years. 

This is no glamorous runway, no billion dollar contract, no Rolls Royce blinged out on main street, no supermodels in diamond dresses serving thousand dollar glasses of champaign, no A or B-list celebrities making scenes in the media… These are down home people with not a ton of money, racing on really dangerous terrain, winning just enough to cover the cost it takes to even get into the race.  This is a tough and time-consuming sport.



Dallas out on the trail



And it is SO ridiculously Alaskan.  That’s why Peach and CoCo love it.  They took a whole van full of tourists to see the official restart on Sunday.  Crowds of spectators stood on top of the frozen Big Lake in Willow, Alaska, squinting in the blinding sun that reflected off the snow.  They kept their guests warm with chili and hot chocolate and pointed out who to root for.  Martin Boozer, Dallas Seavey and Dee Dee Jonrowe.  The girls know these big stars personally – no big deal – and support them all the way.