Library lecture: Sine Anahita on Blackface Peformance in Territorial Alaska

Tonight at 7 pm UAF associate professor of sociology and associate director of UAF Northern Studies Sine Anahita will be giving a talk for the John Trigg Ester Library's monthly lecture series. The talk will take place at Hartung Hall in Ester Village, a block east of the Golden Eagle Saloon's parking lot.

Anahita, a fiddler, has a special interest in music. Her topic is on blackface performance in territorial Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Americans were fascinated with blackface, where (mostly) white (and some black) performers painted their faces black, playing in shows for well over 100 years. How can blackface in the territorial Pacific Northwest be interpreted? In what context can we place blackface performance in relation to Alaska Natives and other colonized groups?

"Cake-walkers": a 1900 blackface minstrel show in Dawson, Yukon Territory. Grace Carr Raymenton Photographs, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.

Seedy Saturdays!

The Growing Ester's Biodiversity Program (GEB) is pleased to present the 2013 Seedy Saturday Series!

These fun educational seed-trading events will be held every other Saturday starting February 2nd at Hartung Hall in Ester. (directions to the hall) Parking is at the nearby Ester Village Square, opposite the Golden Eagle Saloon and the John Trigg Ester Library, down the street. Bring the whole family!

Seedy Saturday is a seed swap designed to encourage local agricultural biodiversity, where participants trade seeds of heirloom varieties and seeds gardeners have saved themselves.

Rules:

Come at 1 pm and place your seeds at the appropriate plant family table by 2 pm. Trading begins 2 pm sharp and ends at 4 pm. Participants must have their items out of the hall by 4:30.

No seed sales, please. Local seed sellers and farmers are encouraged to provide literature for seed swap participants to take away, however.

At the end of the swap, participants who brought seeds may either leave their remaining seeds to donate to the GEB program's seed library or take them away, as they wish.

Dates:

Feb. 2: 1-2 setup, 2-4 trading, 4-4:30 cleanup
Feb. 16
March 2


The GEB program will provide some seeds, containers, and labels. Also, a few seed-saving informational brochures will be available for donation. Signup lists for the GEB program e-newsletter and information on John Trigg Ester Library membership will also be available.

Book sale!

The John Trigg Ester Library, along with many other participating literary nonprofits in the Tanana Valley, will be selling books to the public at bargain prices this coming Saturday. Come on by and help out your favorite local library raise funds and public awareness. We'll have videos and books! Poetry! Adventure! History! Art! Fiction! Fantasy! Politics! Philosophy!--and More!

SALE HOURS & LOCATION:

• Saturday, 10 am to 3:30 pm
• Noel Wien Library Auditorium
• 1215 Cowles Street

If you have extra books or movies you would like to donate to the cause, please bring them by the JTEL no later than Friday afternoon.

Questions? Please call Deirdre at 479-3368 (home) or 474-6923 (work).

Election results and Jamie Smith lecture tonight!

Jamie Smith, cartoonist, will be speaking on his adventures with pencil and camera as a park ranger in Maine over the last year.  7 pm tonight, October 24th, at Hartung Hall in downtown Ester! Don't miss it—Jamie's always a great speaker and his talks and illustrations are worth coming to see. This will be the second time Jamie has given a talk for the John Trigg Ester Library; we're delighted to have him back.

The Ester Library Lecture Series is free and open to the public, but donations are always welcome—and greatly appreciated. Lectures are generally held on the third Wednesday of the month at 7 pm. For more information, please contact Trey Simmons, series coordinator.

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The election results and terms of the board at the annual membership meeting are as follows. New members are highlighted with an asterisk, board members re-elected with a double asterisk.

Monique Musick, 2011-2013 (president)
Deirdre Helfferich, 2012-2014 (vice president)**
Nancy Burnham, 2011-2013 (treasurer)
Jan Ohmstede, 2011-2013 (secretary)
Rena Flint, 2012-2014*
Molly Rettig, 2011-2013
Kayt Sunwood, 2012-2014*
Carla Helfferich, 2012-2014 (alternate)*
Trey Simmons, 2012-2014 (alternate)**

Annual membership meeting this weekend!

This weekend is the 2012 John Trigg Ester Library membership meeting, the 4th annual library membership meeting since the library incorporated. The meeting should be brief (less than an hour), but it is vital that the members turn out: your presence is needed. (Besides, there's going to be some good appetizers to snack on as the meeting starts.)

Here's the invitation from the board president:

Good afternoon,

I invite you to the John Trigg Ester Library annual meeting this Sunday afternoon October 21. Come join the board of directors and fellow library members at the Hartung Hall in beautiful downtown Ester. We will begin with refreshments at 4:00 and the opportunity to renew your membership, review and discuss the library designs, chat with friends and review the annual report. The meeting will begin at 5:00 and is expected to take less than an hour. (All memberships run from annual meeting to annual meeting, so everyone needs to renew this October for the 2012-2013 year.)

The main business of the day is the election of new board members. Myself, Nancy Burnham, Molly Rettig and Jan Olhmsted will be continuing our terms on the board for another year, but we will be electing three (3) new board members and two (2) alternates. (Board member positions are for 2-years, alternates for 1-year.) We are looking for interested volunteers with a variety of skills. Experience in business, project management, membership management, collections development, fundraising, grant writing, communications, graphic design and willingness to volunteer are just some of the skills we are looking for in the new board. Everyone has a talent to share! If you have any questions about serving on the board please contact me.

I will be sharing updates on our progress this Sunday. I hope to see you there!

Cheers,
Monique Musick
JTEL President

First bid on pie judgeship!

HomeGrown Market proprietor Jeff Johnson has put in the first bid for the pie judgeship seat auction, event though the auction hasn't officially opened, with an offer of $50. "I'm GOING to get that seat," he exclaimed to the volunteers putting up posters for the LiBerry Music Festival and Berry Pie Throwdown.

We'll see, but he seemed pretty determined. (Pre-auction bids may be sent to events @esterlibrary.org, and then we'll know where to open the auction at! Remember, you have to actually be there to bid--and taste the pies!) Check out our event page on Facebook to RSVP to find out more about the music festival; see below for pie contest rules.

Berry list!

Berry season, folks, and it's time for pie and some great local music!

Date & Time: Saturday, August 25, 2 to 10 pm
Location: Golden Eagle Saloon, 3630 Main Street, Ester, Alaska
Cost: $15 donation requested at the door, $5 donation requested per slice of delicious, homemade pie! 
Pie contest entry fee: $2 per pie (savory and sweet categories, no limit on number of entries, but all must be homemade and include berries)
Pie registration: noon to 1:30 (don't be late!)
Pie judgeship seat auction: 
Reason: good fun, good music, good pie—and raising funds to build a library! 

Here's the scoop:

• PIE THROWDOWN: Bring your homemade pie with berries in it to the Golden Eagle Saloon between noon and 1:30 pm, pay your $2 entry fee and register your pie (and bring your recipe for publication in the Throwdown Cookbook!). Winning pie makers receive FABULOUS prizes, and the top pies are auctioned off to the audience. Awards are presented between 3:30 and 4:30 pm (we hope the judges can finish that fast!) and then the other pies are sold by the slice ($5 donation requested per slice). And if you'd rather just eat pie, one of the judge's seats is up for auction, too, so get there early to have a chance at tasting every pie entered! 
• BERRIES: Most people know what berries are: blueberries, cranberries, etc. But did you know that things like strawberries or raspberries aren't actually berries, botanically speaking? And that avocadoes, watermelons, tomatoes, bananas, and lemons are? Pies submitted for the contest must have berries in them, but the berries may be either by the botanical definition or those fruits commonly thought of as berries. The pie judges will be the final arbiters of what constitutes a berry for purposes of the contest, so be prepared to sweet talk them if necessary (large donations to the library sometimes help in this matter).

• MUSIC FESTIVAL: music starts at 2 pm and goes until 10 pm, with some really incredibly good local bands and performers, including Ptarmagin, Zingaro Roots, Tim Robb, Almost A Minyan, and many, many more.