Akil and Hong welcome Luria Library department chair Ellen Carey to the show to talk all things library! From there, Ellen recounts her uplifting path to SBCC, her love of strawberry rhubarb pie, and does some on-the-spot reader's advisory requested by Akil. Also discussed in this episode: Along the way, Hainan chicken rice and Mary J. Blige get thrown in the mix for good measure!
Mentioned in this episode:
Luria Library - https://www.sbcc.edu/library/
Santa Barbara Public Library -https://library.santabarbaraca.gov/
UCSB Library - https://www.library.ucsb.edu/
Meet the Luria Library Staff - https://www.sbcc.edu/library/library_staff.php
Friends of the Luria Library - https://sbcc.libanswers.com/faq/330394
Library General Email - library@sbcc.edu
Library Circulation Questions - circulation@sbcc.edu
Library Reference Desk Phone Number - 805-730-4444
Library Appointments - https://libcal.sbcc.edu/appointments?lid=556
Seven Sisters Schools - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(colleges)
Greenfield Community College - https://www.gcc.mass.edu/
Lying Awake by Mark Salzman - https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780375406324
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Picture - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OQf5IWUgFC06Q3e4vUpjS1hatu_PidYn/view?usp=sharing
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Recipe from The New Best Recipe by Cook’s Illustrated - https://caccl-sbarbara.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CACCL_SBARBARA/19tv8bd/alma991000612649705285
Clementine’s Steak House - https://www.yelp.com/biz/clementines-steak-house-carpinteria
Crushcakes / Simply Pies - https://www.crushcakes.com/
Flavor of India - https://flavorofindiasb.com/
India House in Northhampton, MA - https://www.indiahousenoho.com/
Apna - https://apnasb.com/
Masala Spice - https://www.masalaspicesb.com/
Rori’s Artisanal Creamery - https://www.rorisartisanalcreamery.com/
Ipoh Kopitiam Alhambra, CA - https://www.ipoh-kopitiam.com/
Char Kway Teow - https://thewoksoflife.com/char-kway-teow/
Roti Canai - https://rasamalaysia.com/roti-canai-roti-paratha-recipe/
Hainan Chicken Rice - https://thewoksoflife.com/hainanese-chicken-rice/
Kaiju - https://www.yelp.com/biz/kaiju-isla-vista
Savoy Kitchen Alhambra, CA - https://www.yelp.com/biz/savoy-kitchen-alhambra
Tokyo Fried Chicken Monterey Park, CA - https://tokyofriedchicken.com/
Bossa Chill on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX2m4xSMtooam
French Jazz Cafe on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXbehaqJzJXqw
Khruangbin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khruangbin
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600179/the-gilded-ones-by-namina-forna/
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland - https://caccl-sbarbara.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CACCL_SBARBARA/19tv8bd/alma991000795249705285
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels - https://caccl-sbarbara.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CACCL_SBARBARA/19tv8bd/alma991000501079705285
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo - https://caccl-sbarbara.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CACCL_SBARBARA/19tv8bd/alma991000788349705285
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum -- print and ebook
What’s the 411? by Mary J. Blige - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_the_411%3F
Mary J Blige’s My Life - https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B095XQ59NJ/
Tina Turner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Turner
The Simpsons -
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Simpsons_Wiki
Captions provided by Zoom
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Hong Lieu: Hello and welcome to another episode of SBCC Vaquero Voices - a podcast highlighting the unique voices that comprise our campus culture, and now we're all working together to serve our students and the community at large.
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Akil Hill: as usual, I'm joined by co-host Akil Hill - what's good y'all? - and today we are honored to welcome Ellen Carey to the show. Welcome, Ellen.
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Hong Lieu: so you are the newly freshly appointed, I guess. Department chair of the literary library here on campus, and I'm excited for the show, because someone who worked at a public library for many years. I I I
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Hong Lieu: utmost respect for all the work that librarians, libraries do in general, but I admittedly don't know that much about academic libraries as opposed to public libraries. I just know the libraries that I worked with are always like who an academic library position opened up, or, you know, like they it was. It was always looked at, as you know, like a a a good deal. So if you could just go into it for some a layman like a late person like me, and just kind of break down the differences in the academic and public libraries, and then segue that into kind of what
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Hong Lieu: the goings on at the Larry Library like. I also know that from like the population numbers. You serve a ridiculous amount of students every semester every year, like how you all do the you all do. It's it's it's hard to fathom. But if you could just kind of go in that a little bit as well, sure. You know 1 one of the things I love about being in a community college library in particular is I I think it.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): There are many elements that are more similar to public libraries.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): more than say, a big university library at a big university library. The library director is kind of a CEO, and there might be hundreds of of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): faculty or not. Librarians are not even always faculty at university, so there might be
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Ellen Carey (she/her): hundreds of librarians and staff in the library, and the even though the the director will usually have a library degree, they aren't necessarily librarian in in the sense of actually working with with directly with the collection or or with students, or with researchers, or whatever. So that was one of the things that appealed to me about being
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Ellen Carey (she/her): in a community college setting in particular. The main thing that appealed to me was the the student population
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and the students themselves. But I knew when I went to library school that I wanted to be in an academic library that I've I've wanted to be on a campus and be working with students. And I had worked in a public library. briefly, While I was just before. And then, while I was in graduate school, and the things that are similar, I think, between a community, college library or small college library
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and and a public library is the the librarians. may tend to be generalists more so. We all have our specialty at Sbcc. So Sally does cataloging. And Corey does that.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): the electronic resources and sort of the the systems, the tech staff. And I'm the instruction coordinator and the assessment coordinator.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Our incoming new librarian. We just hired someone we're really excited about is the outreach and collection development librarian. So we all sort of have our areas of specialty. But we're also all working at the reference desk. We're all teaching research workshops.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): We're all working directly with students and meeting regularly about things like the the collection. So I think that, depending on the size of the public library, there might be more or less specialization, but certainly at a big university library there's a lot more specialization than than we have, and and I like being able to do more of those things.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and then I think also So back in the day when I first started at Svcc, it, anyone could use the computers. You didn't need a pipeline login.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So we had many more members of the public coming to use our computers, and we didn't have any time limit on them. The way, public libraries will often set a time limit. So that was a a big draw that since has changed. You need the pipeline login. So we don't have any computers available to the public, but we still have our guest Wi-fi and and certainly as a public institution, our library is open to the the public. So we get
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Ellen Carey (she/her): visitors, whether it's members of the Santa Barbara community, or or tourists just visiting and wanting to hang out in a library. some are are regulars, some are just sort of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): dropping by. We have a friends group that you can join for as little as $10 a year, I think, and so members of the public can can borrow our physical items if they join the Friends group. So. But we do have a a lot
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Ellen Carey (she/her): a lot less of that overlap than we used to. But I I like that sort of openness that it's it's not restricted like I used to work at Harvard and Their library was so locked down like you could you like? Even students couldn't get into most of the stacks, and it wasn't like you could just walk into the the library. And so I I like that openness here
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and and then I think we also?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I think this is happening more and more at universities, too. But we're also thinking of our students in a more holistic way, the way public libraries have been doing
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Ellen Carey (she/her): for decades and thinking of people's basic needs and whether that's the need for shelter or food or other resources. So we just started working with the basic needs center to provide free food in the the library, which we've done
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And over the years. But in a way more informal way, like, I have energy bars stashed in my desk, and I'll give you some if you're hungry. But now we're doing that more officially and hopefully in the fall. It will be even more of a sort of permanent space with food. So we're, I think, those kinds of things, of of thinking of our
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Our student population in much in the way a public library would think of the the community population in general, and what are the needs not just in terms of. I'm going to find you a book, or I'm going to find you an article for your paper. But I'm going to see you as a a whole human being who's coming for the to the library, for a sense of belonging as well as as for specific information resources.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, you you definitely said the magic words there in her. When I think of librarians, I I think openness holistic and and meeting people's needs, and and I never really realized, like worth their how wide a net that really spans, I mean as a library. You have the choice whether you probably could narrow things down. But I've never been to a library that has said, Okay, let's narrow it down. Or really you really, they really go for it all, and they the fact that they hit on as many things as they do, and do as well as as as good of a job as you all do
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Hong Lieu: it. It is impressive, because I think about, you know, as as a nerd growing up like I would go to a record store to get insight about music. I would go to a video store to get about film. You can go to a library and get insight about anything you could ask that librarian a question about music, because if they have a Vinyl collection they will tell you. You can ask them about films if they have a dB or film collection. They will tell you what it's good. And then, you know, we all know about, you know, books and research. You go to library. And first, so it just just the the the vast net that you all cast.
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Hong Lieu: and the fact that you all are as successful you are, because, of course you could always make things better. But it I mean the fact that you all are as successful as you all are, and providing
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Hong Lieu: access to the resources that people need. I mean, we don't. We don't highlight that enough? We don't commit that enough. And you know the openness aspect of it. The fight that librarians have been, you know, holding for so long about, you know, free speech and and the right to access to materials and information, I mean as a punk rocker growing up. That was always something that was very near and dear to my heart, and they and as stayed consistent, you know, post patriot act. Post.
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Hong Lieu: Dmca. All this stuff you all have roles with the legal. You'll have decent attorneys on staff, providing that counsel and insight. They'll able to provide the service you are in, whatever world we happen to be in. I mean, I guess the question for me now is
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Hong Lieu: in in terms of when people ask you for help for reference questions, you know. Traditionally, y'all, were the Google of of the day before. Google has that changed where they have Google now, and they don't need that stuff, and they they it pivots a little bit. Or is it still just kind of like asking for that insight, that record store films, film movie, we rental counter kind of insight.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): both. It's you know. It's always interesting to me when people say not that that I think you just said this when people say, what do you need libraries for now that you have people? I I I used to get offended with that, and I wasn't even a librarian, because yeah, it I've noticed even in my career. So I
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it's been almost 19 years since I graduated from library school with for my my masters and and I had started a couple of years before that, and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): there has been so much change in that time. So that was 2,004 when I started. I can't remember off the top of my head when Google first launched. But it was late nineties, you know, so not that long is less than a decade after that I was starting library school.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I've seen a real shift in the ways we support the library users.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): but it's still there's still. But then the sort of the amount of support and the needs are the the level of need is is not any different. So, for example.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): like, when I was in school, as an undergrad. And we didn't have Google or anything like that. and I. If I had a research assignment, the the challenge was to find enough resources in our library on my topic, and I might use.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): you know, get help from the librarian to like. Help me think of other subject headings that I could look for in the card catalogue, and like what you know. How can I find those things that I might be missing in this collection? And now so much of what we do is help students weed out all of the abundance of information that
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Ellen Carey (she/her): may seem like it's relevant at first glance, but like which, you know, which of these 1 billion hits on Google is going to be the the best source for my topic in terms of relevance in terms of credibility. So it's it's a lot more focus on evaluating sources and sort of dealing with that overwhelming of so much information all of the time, and now so much disinformation, too.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and and sorting through all of that. So it's in some ways the opposite issue that I doesn't undergraduate But there's but it's that sort of putting it a little too simply, too, I think it's more. It's more complex than that.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): you know, one of the things I say to students.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I I I love Google, because
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it has enabled us to all be researchers in a different way. Whether or not we have access to a really great research library.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And and I say that when I do research workshops for students is, have you ever used Google? And everyone raises their hands and like congratulations? You're already a researcher. And now we can figure out how to use those skills that you already have and apply them to this particular assignment or need that you have right now.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So it's
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it's very different it. Along with that, the knowing how to find stuff on Google, it people, I find that that younger students especially have different mental models now like, if if I said to you, you know what's The difference between a magazine and a newspaper.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): you would probably be able to articulate the difference? Or what's the difference between a book and a magazine? And many of our students are not are never engaging with physical materials, maybe a physical textbook. But so it's just information sources. And so I I I find that something where I I do a lot of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): sort of interpretation for for other faculty, too, if there are a lot of one of the things I I love about libraries, but can also be challenging. Is that a lot of us, especially older faculty, have very fond memories. You know we are all good enough students that we ended up becoming faculty. So we we had some kind of positive student experience ourselves, even if they might, our student experience might have been negative in some ways.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it was pause enough for us to want to go into education.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and we often have a fondness for libraries, and we want to give our students that experience we had of like in teaching with being in the stacks, and like the smell of the books, and like in browsing and stumbling across something. And it's so cool.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and that I I often find myself having to kind of break it to faculty like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): that's not gonna work now like, that's a wonderful memory. But if you try to improve that experience on students today who grew up in a different information ecosystem. It's going to backfire. It's going to be frustrating. If you're used to typing something into Google and getting a billion results that seem relevant. Then wandering through the stacks, you know, for hours until you find that thing serendipitously, not going to be a positive experience.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So it's it's for me, you know. One of the things I love about being a librarian is
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Ellen Carey (she/her): to finding ways to engage people wherever they're at whatever their age, whatever their experience in the academics, with with Google, you know, with neither like engaging people with where they're at in terms of their relationship with information. And how? how can we go from there? And
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And how can I? Hopefully, if it's not there already, like Spark. Some excitement about this about navigating this, this current information ecosystem.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): including things like disinformation, like there, there is a lot
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Ellen Carey (she/her): talking to students now. I find a lot of fear around like, Oh, I know, I know there's disinformation, I know, like some of it's even dangerous. And like, how do I tell
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Ellen Carey (she/her): what is
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Ellen Carey (she/her): You know what I should use and what I shouldn't. And so, if we can approach that instead with interest instead of fear. And like that, you know. Yeah, there's interesting dynamics. And if we understand how that ecosystem works itself, and then we can learn to sort of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): decipher it in in ways that that work for us, if that makes sense hopefully. Yeah, absolutely. I love. I love how you broke that down, because, you know
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Akil Hill: you know, I was in high school in the nineties, and I was all about the Dewey decimal system, and so much that, like I would send over high school, and I remember our library, and being like that old school, start starch librarian. Who was this not forgiving in any means. They want one car to be out of place in the Dewey decimal system. So I remember the last day of school. We kind of stopped in there and messed up the Dewey desk phone system. But
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Akil Hill: but I I love that though you, because the point is real, because those are the memories that I have right as as a student and and interacting, engaging in the library. And and so for you to be able to communicate that to the professor like.
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Akil Hill: Hey, like, it's not like that anymore. What's is, I think, that really benefits the students in a lot in a lot of ways.
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Hong Lieu: And I like the modern library pivot into educating about this information. Because the the same people that ask, Why do you need a librarian when we have Google are the same people that will click on a link and be like, oh, this is good! This is good stuff. Right here. Let me send it to all my friends on Facebook.
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Hong Lieu: And it's it's one of those things where a librarian's job is always been to kind of help. You kind of refine it. Because when we say Google, we just mean searching and searching has been around time immemorial. Just depends what database or archive you were searching. So you know, there's like health line for medical stuff. There's like Gail for the to the articles and things of that sort. Google just happens to be a
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Hong Lieu: search bar for everything their little robot can crawl in. So they it just just getting that that big dump of information. Yes, you're a researcher, but then you have you have the the the part of the research job that is the work of waiting through the results and picking out the from the try. This picking out the nuggets of wisdom. And that's where the librarian can save you so much time. The number of folks that came to came to a desk and said.
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Hong Lieu: Okay, I have this. I need to get it to this, and a library would either help them in the moment right there or be like, okay, I'm gonna take this back to my desk. Give me your number. I'll call you back. And usually within the same day or the day after they would get a call back and get exactly what they were looking for. I mean, that's where the magic happened that that's where really the true value of of of librarians, and the library itself is found. You. Of course you can brow the stacks. Of course you can enjoy the Wi-fi
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Hong Lieu: use a computer, you know, bask in the glory of of the building and the institution itself. But when you need that that fine tooth, that that extra bit of nuance in your assistance.
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Hong Lieu: and I mean you. You want to go to a professional, and the librarians are the professionals at at at getting, you know, separating the weed from the chaff, as they say, or whatever you know any of those, any of the cliches I could throw at it. But so
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Hong Lieu: so thank you for being here and thank you for serving our students. It. It's it's yeah. Cause I have fun memories in my library going to college only because of the librarians because I was lost in a drift as a student I mentioned many times before. I'm a terrible student librarian to tell me focus between librarians and instructor office hours. That's how I got my diploma, and it's nothing else. Very little between my ears did that. It was mostly librarians and office hours wheeling it down so I could really focus on one thing and really like ingest that
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Hong Lieu: still, yes.
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Hong Lieu: thank you very much. So best best way for students this way for anyone that needs assistance to library. I know you have you. We have libraries. you have live chat on the website. I'll get the library website up on our show notes. is it just to come in? Is it an either a generic library at Sbc email? What's the best way to in touch with you all.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): all, all of the above. We have the the chat open. Chat is available during all of our physical open hours this past spring. We also had Sundays. The chat was open, even though we were closed on Sundays, because we were short staffed hopefully. That will be a an in person day as well in the fall.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): in the summer hours are a bit more limited. We're just open Monday through Thursday, but all of those times the chat is available, and then the email is just library at Sbcc Edo.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): That's for if if for any questions, they also don't even have to be questions about the library. They can be, you know. What? What are the bookstore hours, or whatever we get lots of questions about other parts of campus, too, and we'll direct students in the right place.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): If students have questions about borrowing or returning materials, including pro books and hotspots and stuff like that. We have another email for that which is circulation at Sbcc Edu. So that goes to our fabulous circulation staff. at the front desk so they can answer any of those questions, questions about overdue materials or or anything about a student's personal library account.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And then we also have a phone number, which is 805, obviously 7, 3, 0 4, 4, 4, 4 is the reference desk phone number.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And so that's another way that people can get help during the during our open hours, and then, of course, it anyone is welcome to just drop in. We don't have we? You can schedule an appointment like if you want a 30Â min research appointment with the librarian, and you don't want to have to wait. If the librarian is helping someone else. There's a link on the website to schedule A, an appointment
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I would love for people to use that more. Actually, because I think it's a a great service, and it's It's just nice
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Ellen Carey (she/her): to to know if for me, the like, the way I work as a student is like, I want to know you're going to be there, and you can devote your attention to me for those 30Â min, because my day is busy, and I don't. You know I don't want to chance it. But most of the time, you know, people don't have to wait that long. If they just show up at the desk. And then that's also we just spend whatever time you need. So if it's
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Ellen Carey (she/her): just something quick for 5Â min, we'll do that. If it ends up being 30Â min, we'll do that, too. So
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Ellen Carey (she/her): yeah. And then, unlimited, like, you know, drop by as many times as you want in in a day, in a week whatever
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Ellen Carey (she/her): can't help but cast that wide debt. Oh, yes, email, library. S. PC's Id for library stuff. But we'll do everything as well. You just can't help yourselves. I I I I love it. But it's a lot of, especially at the start of the semesters in person. We get a lot of questions about a lot of things like it. And we're often referring people to academic counseling or to financial aid or other student services. dsp, the Ops.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and that a lot of help with parking permits figuring out the temporary parking. Permit thing, a lot of help with printing and other tech stuff, too. So yeah, that's if you're not sure where to go at Sbcc. And you can always ask a librarian, and we'll help you figure it out.
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Hong Lieu: I feel like that's just good advice in general, like, if you're in a town, you're on a road trip. Maybe you stop somewhere. You don't know where you're at. I I need help with something. I need Internet for 5Â s. Where you gonna go, go to your local library. Talk to the library, and they'll let you know where you go to eat. You know things like that sort. I mean, it just seems that all y'all
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Hong Lieu: are so helpful, cast such a wide net, and just really try to be helpful and meet people there. I mean the the Hotspots and the chromebooks, especially in, you know, when we we had the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic, a lot of folks are having issues with access to broadband access to Internet and things that sort. So y'all taking that on as well. I mean, there's just it's just as things shift. The library will shift
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Hong Lieu: with it, you know, like the the shifted digital platforms you have the, you know, canopy, new York Times and all those things access to that. So it's just the library will try to meet you where where things are going, and and it's up to you whether you want to interface with them. But we say, please do, and and make the most of it, because it's a valuable resource, and it gets ever more valuable if you use it, if you use it on, so
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Hong Lieu: I will get all those things in the show notes. Thank you for that breakdown, Ellen. Now, Segway, to what brought you to Spcc. I don't know if you're from the area, or if you you know you mentioned Harvard, so you might have gone across country. But if you want to break it down for us.
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Hong Lieu: Wow, very, very, very for.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And yeah, I grew up in a small town, small college town in New Hampshire. Went to college in Boston, and part of my experience that made me want to work in community colleges in particular.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): is that I dropped out of college after 2 and a half years. So I went to a prestigious 7 Sisters School, and I could also to back up even a little more. My mother was the first person on her side of the family to go to college. maybe even the first to graduate from high school. I'm not sure she grew up in a French Canadian family in Massachusetts, but French Canadian, French speaking Catholic schools.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): no expectation that she would ever go to college.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and she did. And she really, I think, saw that as the ticket out of the working class, and so she was determined that her kids would go to schools and go to, you know.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Good air quotes good schools, meeting prestigious schools.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and and I was the the. I am the oldest kid in my family. So so I was the first to go to college, and it was a real kind of culture shock for me. It's even though there was a lot of affluence in my town. It was an Ivy League town, but it was also very small, and here I am in a suburb of Boston with, you know, women from
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Ellen Carey (she/her): all over the world. They're like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): There was a a woman in my class who was from the Saudi Arabian royal family. There was actually the sister of the drummer for the talking heads. But yeah. So there was a lot of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): you know, like, yeah, it was. I was just sort of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): about like a little country bumpkin from New Hampshire in this big city, and I'm I'm really glad I went to college in a a a city and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and then I I stayed in Boston for many years after I dropped out, so it was a really good experience for me to to live in a city and learn to be comfortable in cities and stuff like that. But I dropped out, and then I'm in this, like big college town, and having a lot of shame for having dropped out of college. And then, you know, a failure in your quotes again like failure in that way.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And I ultimately I got a job working at Harvard, and which is also where I was a member of a union for the first time and and so taught me a lot about my value as a worker and a human, regardless of my level of education.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I ended up being a Union rep, and then being on the staff of the Union for 6 years. So my total time at Harvard and and on the Union was like 9 years.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And then after that, I I decided I was ready to go back to school and and finish my BA, and I actually originally wanted to
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Ellen Carey (she/her): major, and something related to like, I wanted to study the labor movement and women in the labor movement. In some way I ended up not doing that. I did an interdisciplinary major.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): social science, Major, basically. But that experience, I you know, having been around Harvard
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and seeing sort of you know, seeing how the sausage is made, so does this big a big, and see people who are like internationally known scholars who are just like not very nice human beings and and being a classified staff person in that environment, it really demystified a lot of that
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Ellen Carey (she/her): prestige that I felt like I was supposed to be aiming for.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and So when I went back to college, I went to another to Mount Holyoke, which is another 7 Sisters school.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I just I didn't. I had sort of shed that baggage of of shame, and also of overvaluing. You know, the prestige of these fancy schools. And so I just showed up like I. I got a a lot of scholarship money, which was great, so I was able to work part time and be a student full time, and I was in my mid 30 s. By then.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and and I was like, I'm here to learn. I was so psyched to be a student. I loved every minute of it.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I had classmates it. It was a program for women who are returning to college older, and which a lot of the women's colleges on the East Coast have, and I had classmates in my program, which is a pretty small group of us who had gone to Community college, and, like my mother, you know, had been raised without the expectation of going to college, and then had gone to community college. And now they're at this fancy, expensive school, and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): felt a lot of what I had felt at Wellesley the first time around of like maybe they made a mistake. Maybe I'm not really entitled to be here. You know this, I feel a little bit like an impostor. And there was this one woman in particular who was
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Ellen Carey (she/her): brilliant, and last I heard she was. She had become a history professor, which is awesome. But she was I I was like so impressed by her, and I thought, this is ridiculous, that
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Ellen Carey (she/her): that she has any doubts whatsoever about her place in this institution. And so that kind of motivated that that was one of the seeds. And then later, I ended up working at at Mount Holyo College as a librarian, and because my graduate program basically rented space there. It was a satellite program of Simmons University.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And and you know, certainly like not to over generalize like there's There's certainly different kinds of diversity within the the Mount Holyo student population, but but not nearly as much as there is in the general population, you know. And and I was like, I want to work with the students. before they get
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Ellen Carey (she/her): to this, you know. Fancy school I want to work with like that friend of mine, Jackie, when she's in Community college, you know, like And
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I I just wanted, you know, again. Not I'm I'm like, I'm going to say something that's going to get me in trouble because this is recorded. We're here for it. We're here for I'm like, I want to work with the real people. You know nothing, nothing, nothing controversial about that, nothing. When you. You mentioned that demystification and and and that peek behind the curtain. I mean, once you see how the sausage made the real is the only that we
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Hong Lieu: sustain you because you still have to interface with these organizations and these things where that are not as seemly as they would seem. So the only thing to get you through it is is making real connections with real people and having real interactions outside. Because, like, if you want to put music with curse words on you can only do with real people, you know. Yeah, so like, so you, nothing controversial about that. You're not doing anything wrong.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Yeah. So I after grad school I got a a job at a teeny community college in Massachusetts, Greenfield Community College. a State with only 15 at that time, anyway, I don't know what it is now. 15 community colleges, and Greenfield was one of the smaller ones. It's probably about
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Ellen Carey (she/her): a tenth of the size of the Sbcc.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And I was there for 5 years. I was co-ordinator of the library, basically Co. Co-director after my first academic year, because the director left, and and so I felt like, you know, I'd been a librarian for 5Â min, and here I am directing co-directing a library.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and and I had for years wanted to move to the West Coast and just it. It was like not the right time, you know, something keeping me in New England, and finally I I was in my mid 40 s. By then. I was like, you know, I need to either
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Ellen Carey (she/her): do this and move to the West Coast or stop pretending that I'm a West Coast person who just happens to have lived in New England our whole life. And so I started. I had actually done an aids ride from San Francisco to La in the mid nineties and And stayed in Santa Barbara
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and my my friend who did. The ride with me grew up in a taskadaro. So she had friends in Santa Barbara, and we actually stayed with them instead of staying wherever the ride was, was staying that night, and I just kind of fell in love with the town then. So it was like on my radar.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So I start looking for jobs, and there's no full time jobs at Sbcc. But I saw one at More Park, and I was like close enough, and I applied for that job. And it was also 50% cataloguing, which is not my area. I'd never cataloged professionally. So I got a lot of friends to like. Help me prepare for that interview and do little Mini, catalog trainings and stuff, and I got the job.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and it was not what I'd hoped it's here's here's the here's an example, the difference between my experience with more part. and Sbcc. And I have no idea what the more Park library is like. Now it's just a different 5.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): so I in my interview, I used to show this clip because you have to do a teaching demonstration, and I used to show this clip from the office where I've
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Ellen Carey (she/her): forget the the name of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): the character. But anyway, the the boss Guy, is saying, Wikipedia is the best thing ever cause anyone anywhere in the world can write whatever they want. So you know, you're getting the best possible information.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I would always at that time like I would do it in classes, in real life, and I did it in interviews. I would show that as as an introduction to, and then people be like my professor tells me I can't use Wikipedia and be like well, let's talk about that, and I would it would be an intro to a discussion of not just sources as good or bad, but but using sources widely for
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it it wisely, in a way that's sort of appropriate for what they are and understanding what they are. So anyway, I do that joke at more park, and it's crickets.
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Akil Hill: No one clocks a smile.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I'm like, Whoo! Tough crowd. And but I got the job. I was so surprised I got the job.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And it just you know, it just wasn't that kind of library at the time that felt welcoming to me like food wasn't allowed. We still shushed people. It was not my kind of library, and 3 or 4 months into that job. a full time position opened up at Svcc. And I was like I just committed to a full time tenure track position at another
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Ellen Carey (she/her): college. Can I? Can I do this? And I sat on it for a month over the winter break, and I I went back for my, you know, second semester at More Park, and I'm like I have to. I I I have to
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Ellen Carey (she/her): do this for myself. And I had actually there was some professional development thing that I had gone to, and the the the Gold Coast library. Gold Coasts library network. Yeah. G, and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I had met some of the the Sbcc librarians. And just even how they were in that setting, I was like, oh, these are my library people. So I go do the interview at Sbcc, and everyone laughs
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I was just like. And then the library itself was like super busy and vibrant, and the cafe was going, and like people are coming in and getting their coffee, and there's lots of conversation I was like, I'm home. This is my library, and I was so grateful to get the job. So I was like, I I don't even think I heard
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Ellen Carey (she/her): You know anything, she said after, like, I think I accepted the job before she was done with the sentence.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Yeah, it just like like the right fit. And that was 12 years ago. So
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and hindsight is served you right. You you were right. The West Coast was for you. Oh, yes, definitely. Yeah, that I had no doubt about. I remembered the president at Moore Park. Actually, when she offered me the job. She was from the the Massachusetts Community college system. And she's like, you gotta promise me you're not gonna decide. California is not for you and leave after a year, and I was like, No, no, no, no. And so I felt really horrible when I went to talk to him like, Okay.
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Akil Hill: California is for me, and I want to be by the and I want to be by the beach.
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Hong Lieu: Yes, I mean, that's just a great story, because it really speaks to the value of. I mean being able to come back whenever you're ready, because a lot of folks when they're 1819 they might not be ready for college. I was not, and I just I got by by the skin of my teeth. I was not ready, and I should have taken some time, so it's good that you were able to, you know.
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Hong Lieu: Realize not only that when it when it wasn't your time, but also realize what it is your time. So I think a lot of people missed that as well, because you might take some time off and go get a job, and then you're so busy with the rest of life, because I always thought as you got older, you have less things going on, you'd have more time, and it's the exact opposite, I, you know, like, when I'm a kid, I had all the time in the world and no money.
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Hong Lieu: Now, I'm not gonna have all the money in the world. I see I have enough money to live, but no time and and and less time as I get older, where it's not like things. So it's hard to get that that when that bell rings up it's you're ready to learn now. It's time to go back. It's hard when you have so many other obligation stuff going on now. So it's good on you to to answer that call when it came and say, Okay, I'm ready. I'm back. Let's do this
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Hong Lieu: because I wish a lot of people were we were. We're good at both, because we, you know, we we might be good at one of the other. But to be good at both, it's really and and you can see what it led to for you. So it's just a Testament that
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Ellen Carey (she/her): when you, when that call came, you answered, and see where it got you. So yeah, yeah, I'm really. I'm really glad. Yeah, I I wish I could say how I heard it sort of how I how I how that all happened. But somehow I just I knew I needed to get back to school, and I I think part of it was that I had gotten to a point where I wanted to get back because I wanted to learn things and explore things, and not because I I
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Ellen Carey (she/her): felt like I should be fulfilling some obligation.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): whether to family or you know society, or whatever like I I
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I I did it on my own terms when I I went back, and that was important. And then grad school, too. I was working
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Ellen Carey (she/her): mostly part time when I was in grad school, but I was doing both. And then, just recently,
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just before the pandemic and into the pandemic, I had decided I wanted to sort of refresh my degree because my field changes so much. So I took
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I think I it ended up being about 24 credits of worth of classes at San Jose States Library School High School, which is all online. So I did that while working full time. And
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Ellen Carey (she/her): you know, and doing other things at Sbcc. 2, like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): teaching or Senate or fa, so it was a lot. It was like, you know, and I don't have kids so that helps in terms of my flexibility. But it's like you can do It's not easy, but you can do both school and work at the same time to
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Ellen Carey (she/her): if you if you want to. I think you need to want to, because it is what what I like about listening to your story. And what brought you here? It's just the the, the.
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Akil Hill: the piece that just really fall in your dreams right? Just really being like when you say, you know, look, I gotta decide. I gotta move out to the West coast or or stop talking about it. And that takes a lot of courage and and and and how many people are that maybe tuning in or listening, or in a position where they want to do something in their lives. But just
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Akil Hill: you can't get over the hum or take that leap of faith. And that's really inspiring that way that you're able to be like, look, I'm I'm just gonna have to do it. And so you know, that's that's the media of that, you know, for me in your story is just listening to that piece of just really be like I'm going for it, you know.
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Hong Lieu: I guess the one question I would have is, when did lie being a librarian into the picture? Was it during undergrad, or is it when you went back, or when you were looking for something like, when did that. When did you decide you wanted to go get the master specifically in library science?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): after I had graduated gotten my BA, I was 36, I think when I got it.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And you know, I went back. thinking, this will answer the question of what do I really want to be when I grew up, and instead it gave me more options. And so here I was. Now I have a va
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Ellen Carey (she/her): which just kind of blew my mind because I spent so many years
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Ellen Carey (she/her): with so much shame that I had dropped out it. It was kind of like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): this earth shattering like this is simultaneously like something that is causing me to change the way I think about myself. And it's also like I just turned in one more paper. And it happened to be the last one. And now I have a degree kind of wild thing. So then I I was working for a nonprofit doing a development fundraising and and stuff and and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and that I I could tell it wasn't the right fit. So it was like And I had already contemplated grad school. I contemplated that I want to go and try to get a Ph. D. But I I knew I wanted to be back in Academia, but I wasn't sure I wanted to
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Ellen Carey (she/her): teach full time in that way, or certainly I wasn't sure if I wanted to to do
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Ellen Carey (she/her): you know. Be a researcher, you know, be at the university level, where I also there's a lot of expectation to publish and all that. And so it's sort of grappling with it. I did this.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I think it was the the woman who led this course was a former career counselor, one of the colleges in my era area. And she did this workshop for like work, life planning for women workshop. And I went. And it was really fun.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And I also came out of that. Still, not sure. It was sort of like, you know, lots of ideas. We. One of the things we had to do was our fantasy career of the week.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and I identify like what we would like about it and what we wouldn't. So you could do, astronaut, if you wanted to, and one of mine was like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): travel show host But anyway, I I had. I worked for this nonprofit, and I was. We were trying to convince the founder that we needed an Internet presence. And she's like, why do we need a website? This makes no sense. What's the Internet for running a nonprofit? This was, this was in
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Ellen Carey (she/her): 2,001. So so the contact list still flapped on rings. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I guess, because I was the one who is most like technologies. Cool. they they appointed me to convince her that the Internet was a cool thing.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And so I did this. this demonstration for her of how you can find stuff, and for some reason
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I don't know if she suggested this, or I saw it like I had. I had admired someone's handbag like in a store or something, and she had told me Oh, it's such and such company, and it's in Portland made, but I couldn't remember the name of it. So I was demonstrating to my boss like how I would do an Internet search to try to find the name of it, and we found it, and you know, just like hand handmade handbags Portland made, and eventually it. You know, we figured it out.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and my boss was so blown away that the Internet could do this, that it worked. And then the other thing was, I had a girlfriend at the time, who worked for like a a bookstore, a collective, like an employee owned bookstore in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): where a lot of the kind of lefty faculty from the University of Massachusetts would purchase their textbooks through the bookstore, and she would come home and tell me, like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): what I now think of in library terms is readers advisory kind of stuff where someone would come and be like, I really like this novel, and what? All right, or the one that librarians joke about all the time like there was this book that was really interesting. It had a red cover, but I don't remember the name or what it was about, or the author, but it was a red cover with gold lettering, and so she was telling me one of these stories. And and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I was like, Oh, I know the book they're asking for. It's called Lying Awake. It's this book about a nun with visions and and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): something clicked that Jenny, my girlfriend at the time, was was adjacent to an academic community, even though the bookstore was not the campus bookstore
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And I. I realized I liked connecting people with information, whether it was teaching you how to do a search or whether it was finding the book. That's the right fit for you. So I don't know. It was just like something clicked. And I was like librarian.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): That's and so then I because I'm super nerdy. I started doing a million informational interviews.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And I just and everyone knows the librarian. Every you know, when I was a union organizer you'd tell people you're using in organizer, and they'd be like, you're the of like negative response to it. I imagine lawyers get one of that, too. It's one of those careers that many people
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Ellen Carey (she/her): don't have any hesitation to tell you that you suck because you you have that career librarian is completely the opposite. It's and probably, like first grade teacher would be the same. It's just like, Oh, you were library, and I loved my librarian when I was a kid like.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): so I had no trouble meeting librarians that I just talked to a bunch of them, and it became pretty clear that I wanted to do academic librarianship in in particular, which I was already leaning toward. But anyway
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Hong Lieu: and and and that's a good good supplementary, you know, cor layers, because you're in your mid 30, still figuring out what you wanted to do. And so many people put these artificial time limits on things we're like, oh, I'm 24. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I I feel like I'm behind. It's like, it's hard to tell people, you know.
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Hong Lieu: You know, people don't want to listen to all people because they want to live for themselves, but to hear someone that's like in I I hear people all the time mid even late 2027280, I feel like I'm so behind. I don't know what I want to do. I'm like you're 28. You could go outside, take a walk and not get tired. I can't do that anymore. Like stuff like that where it's like, yeah, you have to realize. I feel I feel like that happens more now than ever before, because
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Akil Hill: just the instant, like gratification, the instant gratification in this the world that we live in, like everyone knows what they're doing, whereas back in the day people still had time to figure it out, and they're coming to terms. But now everyone's like
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Hong Lieu: like, what do you mean you don't know what you're doing. Yeah, if you're not confused with what you're doing, you're pretending like you know what you're doing and posting on social media for cloud. So you have this, the 2 sides of the spectrum, and they really pull in on the psych the young Psyche nowadays. Because really, I mean it's it's had not only a not only like advisable. It's kind of healthy to have some questions and mystery still in your life. You need. You need those cares to chase, you know, like
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Hong Lieu: you can't expect to know everything. Capital! T. Truth, by the time you're like 32, you know it. It just there. There's nobody that's smart that has ever been on this planet, you know, looking at previous generations, you know, Albert Einstein Steven hogging they had tons of questions like it. I feel like we're we're not. We're not giving ourselves that space to to be curious about some things. I mean, I mean, I guess there is that pressure, because, you know, the financial implications of making the wrong decisions are much, you know, they they can be very disastrous.
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and especially today's climate where you might only get one chance, where I feel like I could stumble into 8 different jobs, you know, before I and I still had an opportunity
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Hong Lieu: to turn things around. We're nowadays, you know, folks probably do for that pressure to get right, or else but at the same time I do. I do feel like that. That sense of wonder is important to you, and that just that that ability to keep asking yourself, what do you really want? And to kind of fraud and learn and and and you know.
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Hong Lieu: figure it out because I mean, look again your Testament to the system working you you. You figured it out, and you got it. And look.
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Hong Lieu: you know, Paradise quotes we use air codes as you did before Paradise. Yes.
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Hong Lieu: so thank you for that. sec. Went into our next section. Good evening. So
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Ellen Carey (she/her): a meal, whether you went to get it or you made it yourself, that is, you know, not just now, or throughout the years, you know, just growing up anything you got. Kick us off, please, Ellen, I was thinking about this, and it's so hard to decide, because I love so many different kinds of food. one thing I'm particularly proud of lately is, I made a strawberry rhubarb pie. Actually, a couple of them for 2 different occasions.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Like. A month ago one was for the the the library had a barbecue. Julio organized this barbecue for the library and a Lrc. Staff and students at the end of the year, and I hadn't made a strawberry rib our pipe forever. I hadn't made my own pie crust like rolled my own crest and forever. But I used to do that all the time, and it came out really good if I do say so myself. And I yeah, I love pie. If I had to choose one kind of dessert it would be it would be pie.
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Hong Lieu: Did you take a picture of the the the pie? I did. You have to send that to Hong Kong? We got to get that in the show notes, and you know we want to pitch your other Starbucks. I even made a little strawberry design on the top of it. Yeah, rhubarb is, is, isn't. It? Is in green that you don't use very often very many things it's meant to cut against the flavor of the strawberry and something. That's why we were 5. So then it becomes a a lot of shifting pieces there, the strawberries depending on when you get them it can be really sweet, or a little tart. So then your Rue Bar is not.
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Hong Lieu: you know, complimenting the starter flavor. It could actually be like sending it up so like there's a lot of elements that play there. So if you made it and it hit. then, you know, like you really like the got confluence of factors had to come together like that is, that's a good pick, because that is a special moment when it really seems like that.
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Hong Lieu: For first, you sound like a real connoisseur of strawberry. It is my all time favorite kind of pie. So yeah, yeah, it just it. It worked well, and I was, you know I do. I?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I've done a lot more baking than cooking
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Ellen Carey (she/her): savoring savory things. And I experiment a lot with baking. And for this, since it had been so long. And it was, you know, for parties, I was like, I'm not experimenting with with anything. I'm just gonna follow the directions.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And it works. So so that was good.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: I do love savory pies, too. Yeah, I do have savory pies as long with sweet pies, because, yeah, the turkey pot pie, I mean pie crust. You talk about rolling your own crest. That's very special, because, just like
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Hong Lieu: I could probably just eat a pie crust just by itself. If it's like cooking them properly has that little flake to it, cause it's got like that almost feel consistency when it's crisp. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Ellen, just sitting this guy down the rabbit hole man. Look at it! I thought he grew rhubarb in his backyard. And yeah, like, I mean, most of my examples of pie that I've had. Those years have not been that good. But like as I can, I can extrapolate it to that
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Hong Lieu: Platonic ideal, and I and I have had, you know, some pretty good pies. There's like the folks that do bake and roll their own crust and stuff. So if you can't make your own pie, or, if you know it's there, would you go anywhere in town and get a slice of pie? Or
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Ellen Carey (she/her): that's a good question. I don't. I don't think I've ever
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Ellen Carey (she/her): had pie anywhere in Santa Barbara. I'm trying to think, if that's true.
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Hong Lieu: I can't even think of that. Many places that we do. Besides Clementines and Carpenteria. Any other place I would get a slice of I from. But Clementine is is solid. But
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Hong Lieu: yeah.
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Akil Hill: brushcakes used to make pie. I don't know if they still do crestcakes, though only the one out in Galita, the very original. It used to be a pie shot before it turned into
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Akil Hill: crush cakes. Yeah, out of Hollister. It's like a little whimsical. It's like a house. It's like, simply pies before. Yeah, exactly. And so. But I don't know if they still make them out there. But yeah.
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Akil Hill: that's that's really interesting to kind of think. I don't think if there's any place you can actually get.
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Hong Lieu: It's hard, because, yeah, because you have to serve by a slice. You're not really ordering like a whole pie for dessert. So you want to get a slice, and a lot of times when you break it into slices like the slice with the tread. Travel travel issues, you know about so.
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Hong Lieu: But I grew up on those those
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Akil Hill: Marie Calendar my parents used to get those all the time growing up as a kid.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, I was on the home run pies, the little in the shape things, and then yes, with the swans and pop, turkey, poppy, chicken, pop! I see those all those I started with say repies. But the suite. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Apple peach, even Pcan, which is just like a gut bomb like it's ridiculous. But I do like it. And the like fruit pies. Yeah, peach is really good. Oh, yeah.
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Hong Lieu: or a cherry pie. But it depends on the preparation of the cherry pie. But it depends on the preparation of the cherries. Because, yeah, you can go. You can go way to a reward with that to be a sugar bomb. But when it done right. You get a little bit tiredness that comes through just like why you bring the rhubarb in with the strawberry rebar. You get that little bit of interplay of flavors and becomes, yeah nice, some of the parts very nice. So in terms of putting a pyrus of you in the show notes, do you have a go to place for pie recipes, or
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I don't necessarily have a go-to, but I can share the one that so the one that I use for this strawberry. We bar pie was from the best recipes cookbook.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's my friend Jerry Lynn, who's who's my mentor in all things, cooking and baking. She's a friend back in Massachusetts. She gave me this cookbook and it's the kind of cookbook you can sit, and, you know, read like not like it. It'll have a page and a half of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Why, they arrived at this particular recipe for strawberry rubber pie, and how they cooked the rebar of ahead of time, and different. You know what they use to thicken it, and why, and stuff like that. So I I enjoy reading the the narrative too
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Hong Lieu: excellent, and I will get a a recipe for reubar pie in there as well. Thank you.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Oh, I can't remember what you were.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): yeah, which interview this was. But on one of the other episodes you were talking about Indian food, which is my favorite India, and are probably my 2 favorites.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And So yeah, flavor of India is my go to in Santa Barbara. But I have to say
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Northampton, Massachusetts, which is like a quarter of the size of Santa Barbara, has 2 really excellent Indian restaurants.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So that was yeah. Like letting go of some of my my favorites when I moved across country like I used to say, it's not that I have anything against Northampton. I just except winter, like 8 months out of the year. I just like if I could have picked up all my favorite restaurants and my favorite people, and like transported them all
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Ellen Carey (she/her): to California, I would have done it. So yeah, whenever I go back I go to one or both of those. But any, what are the names? Can I can those the show notes as well for traveling? Yeah, I'm
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So I'm gonna one is India House and the other one actually opened since I moved to California, so I never remember the name of it. But I'll look it up, and
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Hong Lieu: and I share that, too. I'll I'll get in New house insurance. This flavor of India is very good. They've switched owners in the past few years, but still the recipes are pretty consistent, and they brought up a feedback which is gone for a little while during the pandemic. So it's nice to have a name of feedback, because that is kind of my preferred vessel of delivery, although more and more. I don't eat as much as I used to, so I just get the tali, which is like a combo place. I'm better. I'm better at that. But also yeah, opna on Stay Street. They're pretty good. And then
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Hong Lieu: the Msala solid spice in Galita for not as for another buffet option. Because, yeah, there aren't that many name a phase in town left. It's really flavor and mosala spice. It's a different style, because the chef in the sale spices from Sri Lanka. So it's more of that kind of it's a different. It's a different kind of look. That's there's because flavor. I think of this like family recipes, almost like the like. The spinach is not really like this. Finish. A lot of times can have a lot of the key, the clarified butter where there is just taste, like I don't know how many pounds it's been it takes to make how much they make, but it's yeah.
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Hong Lieu: so. But
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Hong Lieu: I'll definitely get all all those of the shots. But Florida specifically. And do you ever go to La for Indian food at all? Or do I mean
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I have a couple of times I'm trying to remember. So I've I've been to some really great restaurants in La with Sally. Oh, yes, because she's yeah. I'd never had Malaysian food. And I I think one time when we went down for something, we went to an Indian restaurant, but I have no idea where yeah, la is pretty good. But in Artesia and Orange County you gotta go past the orange curtain, which I don't always recommend, but at the same time
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Hong Lieu: Cartesia has a has a street. it's like it's like.
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Hong Lieu: it's like the little India of Southern California, and there the food there is unbelievable like, really. And it's in terms of like you, they're able to actually do specific regions and also do with other like other playful stuff with Indian cuisine. You know, you get the fusion takes that are rooted in traditional kind of cooking and stuff. So, yeah, that would be the spot if you like. Any of that would be
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Ellen Carey (she/her): so at least one visit before you, you know, definitely need to do that, and I need So during the Thomas fire I was staying with friends in San Rafael, and there was a little Indian market which made me so happy because they had the mixed pickle, and like a a can, and I I used to always have that stuff
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Ellen Carey (she/her): like on hand at home, and you know I go to flavor of India and order it. And it's a tiny little
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Hong Lieu: yeah, they're expecting you to nibble, but you're in there, I can handle this. Give me that. Give me that stitches rind. I can handle this. And the the nice thing about the need markets. A lot of them have that daily counter. We can go like the 3 item combo and a lot of the like, the India suite and spices in la and stuff like that. So that's always a good where you can go shopping and get a little little snack after. So
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Ellen Carey (she/her): do you like any to to kill?
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Akil Hill: Yeah, I mean my my brother in law. is a half Indian. His mother's from India, and so I kinda grew up eating Indian food when I when I would go over there. I love butter, chicken. That's kind of my go to And actually, I actually make butter chicken because I just like it so much.
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Akil Hill: But yeah, I love Indian food. The flavors are so just good. And if it's not on you, if you don't smell the second day, the day after you eat it. It's not really any of food it has to be with you for, like at least a good 24Â h. If you're cooking it if you're cooking it, especially because you have like that. Your pantry has like like a 5 set spices like you're solid, that's all. So when you and everything. Everything requires the seeds to be roasted first and all, you got to pay for it. So that just the aromatics, just like all over the place. So yeah.
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Akil Hill: so so I'll throw next. Because, you know, we were talking about pie. And so I was my choice this week is, actually, I was gonna go ice cream
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Akil Hill: so high and ice cream. So I think that it'll be good. But I'm gonna go. Rory's, which is local. Down in. There's a few different locations. I think there's one in there. There's one in public market
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Akil Hill: and the reason why I'm picking Rose is because this month I'm a big fan of peach, and so they had
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Akil Hill: a peach blunt Bellini ice cream. It was actually peach ice cream with mitt. There's no alcohol in it, but it had peach and man. And I'm telling you, man, I was there
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Akil Hill: like every day this week, over this month, actually.
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Akil Hill: I think you and Hong and I did. I did I get the milk? No, you got the you got the scoop, and I didn't get it that day, and then I ordered it the next time I went with my wife and her family, and I've been getting it almost every day, so I mean it, Peach Pulini like I'm not. I'm not a cocktail guy, but I I've never joy like those those kind of like fruity cocktails. But this ice cream, because I thought it would be a sore bay.
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Hong Lieu: but it's actually like a ice cream that is imbued with peach, and and it's just, and there's chunks of mint in it. So you get that text real to like. That's good ice cream and everyone that recommended to you like they'd be like, Oh, my God, find out about this, and I gotta say I didn't. It was a keel like I. I looked at that flavor I'm like, well, it seems all right. But then when you get it. Oh, there's something to it. It's like it is next level. Truly
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Akil Hill: I mess around. I got it. I had it. I I made a I got it made into a a shake.
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Akil Hill: And so it was, just yeah. I'm I'm actually bumped because it was only the flavor of the month, so you know When Junior was in.
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Hong Lieu: you know. One more day, hey? I may have to go after work. By the time the show is posted. It'll be gone, but I'm hoping they keep it around because there was a a flavor in the month of wild, very crisp, and it's stayed around for a long time. It only recently left the menus. I'm open that maybe, like popular demand, they'd be like all meant. Everyone loves the Peach Blini, especially because the summer time pages are in season. So in terms of local and all that, I'm I'm crossing my fingers because, yeah, I didn't know what I was missing because it's like you want to get a scoop on like.
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Hong Lieu: I'm okay. I just ate. I'm kind of full. I don't need ice cream, and I was kicking myself like, oh, I missed 2 days. A beach, Bolini. I could have had that. I was trying to be, you know, too high for looting about it. So yeah, I was socked my way. You're not going to even eat ice cream, you don't. We had wings. It was a because I okay, so full disclosure. I already eat lunch when you asked me to go to lunch. So it was like I was double lunching. So I was very, very guilty from my, you know, my stomach is yeah, like.
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Hong Lieu: yeah, I was feeling guilty. I just had doctors labs, like, you know. But any other flavors that Rory is actually really good. They do like a honey. They have a a like a brown sugar banana that's really good. They have like a honey lavender, I believe. As well. so yeah, I mean, it's the season, although
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Akil Hill: you know it hasn't been sunny as a recent. But we're starting to approach summer. What? Somewhere without ice cream. So yeah, so that's that's my choice.
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Hong Lieu: Have you been to Rory's? Ellen? Yeah. My wife does dairy free. So she does the Romans chocolate? My son is a milk chocolate chunk. I used to get the strawberry cheese cake until Pete showed up in my life, so
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I'm usually dairy-free myself, but I might have to make an exception for that peach. I make exceptions for things like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): pie crust you have like. It's not so much that it
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Ellen Carey (she/her): It bothers me. I just
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Ellen Carey (she/her): feel better if I don't need a lot of dairy like it's not. It's not like an acute thing. Yeah. The the Romans chocolate is a good there for the option. Just very chocolate. It's a nice nice punch to it. But yeah.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): gotta try that.
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Hong Lieu: All right, I'll I'll go next segue into
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Hong Lieu: Malaysian a little bit. There's a a restaurant in la called Eco is the word for coffee, so it's kind of like the queen of like coffee shop diner. So you book optm is in a hammer, California. They do a lot of like dishes from there in Malaysia. Indonesia, Singapore. Char. Quit. Yeah, they do like a, you know, roti Kenai, which is a chicken curry with the flicky dough. But I
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Hong Lieu: Tynan chicken rice is something I didn't like when I was younger. I like it a lot now. It's poached chicken with the side of rice, but the rice is cooked in the chicken broth, so it gives a really chickeny flavor, and they're high on chicken. Rice is really good, and it's like one of the best in areas. If you're down in La, you get the high net chicken rice at you. Bou go Pto. But I also wanted to mention it, because here in town there aren't very many places to have high and chicken rice.
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Hong Lieu: One place that does, and you wouldn't think it does is a place in ila visa called Kaiju.
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Hong Lieu: tied you ramen and curry that are on their, you know. That's what the the restaurant is called, because they're highlighting the ramen high in the curry, and the number one thing on that menu in terms of how you know how delicious it is compared. Yeah, it's the chicken and chicken rice. The height and chicken rice at Kaiju is excellent. They're bubble drinks are pretty good, so it's the same owners as you to boil, and fresh tea and all that you know in in other places in town. So it's just they're both pretty good.
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Hong Lieu: but in terms of if you have a taste for high-tech rice. A lot of people don't, because when you poach chicken it has a yellow look where the skin is yellow and the the meat is just really, you know, coach chicken, it's not not looking very exciting.
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Hong Lieu: but if you grew up with it, if you have a a finite for the flavor, or, if you like, rice that has, you know, you can imagine rice cooked in chicken, smalls and broth, and the flavor that will it view, you know. Then then give it a shot, because otherwise, yeah, it's not gonna be for you, because it just looks funny. It's got the poach tick and chew. It might not be for everybody. But if you have any sort of fin for it.
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Hong Lieu: Kai, do you? In town also go. Ptm. And there's no place now. They called the boy who were they were the torch bears for Heine that you can rice for many years, and now there's a bunch of places in town you can get an la side chick, etc., etc. I'll put a couple of those in the show notes. But yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Tokyo, fried chicken has a good chicken. Rice, too, is excellent fried chicken, so they're they. They have a little container, for a sides are real, a little smaller than they should be, but I can't hold it again. So me green costs are what they are, you know we are. Gonna make a living out here so that fried chicken is excellent. Yes, I'll get that in the show notes as well.
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Hong Lieu: All right.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): yeah, and rounding it out higher learning. So especially no pressure being a librarian at all, but a piece of culture movie music article, you know. I yeah, we'll we'll we'll get any media periodical thinking about this. I'm not sure I can go for a book, because it feels like choosing
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Ellen Carey (she/her): 2 on the nose, 2 on the nose. Yes, anything you like, though, although there's so many. There's so many books lately I've actually been reading a lot of
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Akil Hill: Okay, wait, wait, wait. I have to. I have to stop you real quick
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Akil Hill: you have. Don't tell us about a book, because what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna defer my pick to you. And I want to hear your top favorite 5 books. So hot? 5. Yeah, I I will hear her top 5, or at least 5 that she I'll tell you something else. Okay, okay, music. I have really eclectic tastes in music. I I
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Ellen Carey (she/her): if I'm working, I listen to a lot of jazz like classic jazz, because anything with lyrics. I'm going to be too distracted listening to the lyrics.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): cause I'm a word person. but I love jazz. I love Latin jazz. There's a I I have spotify. So I just listen to the playlist. There's like a boss at chill playlist that I yeah, there's a actually, I just found one. not that long ago that's called French Jazz Cafe, and a lot of the songs do have lyrics. And
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Ellen Carey (she/her): but it's in French, and I
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Ellen Carey (she/her): no a little bit of French, so sometimes it'll be too distracting if it's too easy for me to understand. But often it's like great great to, you know. I feel like I'm doing my work from a cafe in Paris. but the the
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Ellen Carey (she/her): the band I wanted to mention, because I just learned about them a couple of years ago is Kunbein, do you know?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And they they play around. They play through town a few times like they they could just Santa Barbara, specifically, yeah. A little while ago.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): a couple of years ago, at very long session, like 7Â h with tattooing.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And I realized a couple of hours in that I really loved the playlist that he had chosen, and so I asked him about it, and he said it. It was base. It was like a spot of 5 playlist, probably based on Chrome, Cuban and and I just I loved it. And then it also made me appreciate him more. Shout out to my favorite tattoo artist, his name is Jarrell Elli.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and he's in West Hills, and he is really thoughtful about the music he chooses based on the client and the the content of the tattoo.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So I thought, that was, Yeah, that was really thoughtful. And and yeah, and it, it's so I got an awesome tattoo. And I also got this introduction to this band that's become one of my favorites. So
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Hong Lieu: I I haven't listened to. But I'm gonna listen to it. That's a great, that's a great pick, because those are the kind of picks that like really resonate deeply like once it come with those like the, you know, serendipitous kind of circumstances of a tattoo artist
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Hong Lieu: who's really in tune and and and trying to, you know, drop some knowledge, and that when it really resonates, because, you know, you put stuff out there, you never know how people will take it, you know, because you people always appreciate it, but when it really hits and really like moves you deeply like that is the essence of like of higher learning, because even in in a class.
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Hong Lieu: you know, you lecture to a tonic son of students. But for certain students in every class it just hits. And it's like, it's like that little extra. So like that little. That little extra is what we're cultivating here. That's the person, the
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Hong Lieu: yeah, the exact kind of feeling we're going for. So you nailed it with that one. It's like the the ice cream. It's like the that resonated with Hong. After I I took a bite, and I was like, I'm an idiot for turning this day. That was me thinking too much of my brain earlier. Oh, you ate 2 lunches. Oh, big deal got to take it. You gotta take that serendipity when it comes, you know. You can't start it down because you ate 2 lunches beforehand. But yes, and it and grooming. They're excellent, they they really are. You talk about your
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Hong Lieu: you enjoy like an eclectic kind of, and that's like a band. It's like their whole shot. Their genre is just being eclectic. They throw so much in there. There's a little bit of dove. There's a little bit of Latin jazz there's like Afro, you know, Afro-centric features and stuff thrown in there their instrumentation. They're really tight. They're really they're just. And they just play like really, really great music. And it's and it's something where. Yeah, if you do your test to see him live, it really does kind of sing live, I mean, depending on the venue, of course, but
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Hong Lieu: there them as musicians in a live setting, I mean, they just play off each other so well at this point. They've been playing together for for a little while, so they're really tight when they come through your town. So, so absolutely, that's
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Hong Lieu: great. Pick.
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Akil Hill: Excellent choice. So I'm going to defer my pick because I'm like I'm we got the librarian on the show so she could only pick one thing. So I want to hear my question to you that I wanted to ask. I'm like, I want to hear
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Akil Hill: your top 5 books, and I know order. Just give us 5 good, and that's a happy 5. Could you give? Could you throw 2 or 3 at you? Because that's a lot. That's a lucky okay. Well, no, I'm no, she has more than 5. How do you? 500? Yeah, exactly. That's the that's what I was. I I knew you're going to say, because it was like some good ones. Let's do a little. Readers advisory. Here are you for fiction or nonfiction?
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Akil Hill: let's go.
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Akil Hill: Let's do this. How about 3 non-fiction into fiction?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Well, I'll tell you the fiction one that I'm reading now. So I've actually
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Ellen Carey (she/her): okay, maybe I'll stretch it a little. How about 2 different genres of fiction. And so lately I've been really interested in
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Ellen Carey (she/her): young adults. Fiction, that sort of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): fantasy
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Ellen Carey (she/her): written by women of color. And so I'm reading one right now. That's that's called the Gilded Ones. And I'm going to have to look it up to remind. You know, this book?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Yeah, my, my daughter is reading that. Oh, okay, yeah, I'm I'm loving it. No spoilers, because I don't know. I'm only like 2 of the way through. But but yeah, I I so that's one of the ones, and then another one that I would also put in that category. I think it's
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I think it was Actually, I'm not sure if it's intended as Y. A. But I think it is. Was a few years ago called Dreadnation. Do you know that book?
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Ellen Carey (she/her): It's Your your daughter might like it if she likes the gilded ones. So it's
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Ellen Carey (she/her): basically like altered historical fiction. I really like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): books that are based on some period of of history, but then totally change it. So it's kind of a a zombie story set in the Civil War era, where young black girls are trained to be warriors against the zombies.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And yeah, it's really intense. And you know so much social commentary, and it's but it I I listen to that a few years ago on a road trip, and it was just like
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I need to stop for gas. But I don't want to stop, because I'm listening to this amazing on audio. And like, I just want to keep listening. So yeah, so those are are 2 in that sort of genre.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): And let me think of oh, there's so many I don't even know how to choose.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I guess another one. This is going way back. If I'm I have. The author's name is Anne Michaels, not even sure if I'm going to remember the name of the book
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Ellen Carey (she/her): fugitive Pieces.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and it's set in World War 2 and and post war
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and The reason that one comes to mind is because she's also a poet, and I love fiction by poets just something about pros written by poets that's
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Ellen Carey (she/her): often especially beautiful. So that that was one that I haven't read it in in decades.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): But so I kind of don't want to, because I don't know what I still love it as much now. But I just remember when I read it, just really reading it really slowly, because everything was was just so beautifully written.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So okay, so that's 3 books. So nonfiction
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it's so hard to what are you doing to be a keel in any particular category of
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Ellen Carey (she/her): whatever you're feeling right now in this moment. Okay, well, I've been reading a lot of books on race and and racism and anti racism the last few years. So that's most of the non fiction I've been reading
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Ellen Carey (she/her): is about race in some way.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): So
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Ellen Carey (she/her): yeah, so like, so you want to talk about race is one of them. There's actually, if we want to go back.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): the Beverly Tatum, why are all the black kids sitting together to that? So I was fortunate enough to take 2 classes with her at Non. Holy Oak was, yeah.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Amazing, amazing teacher, amazing human. I just yeah. She's I. I love her, loved those classes. One was psychology of racism, and one was intergroup dialogue. And it I think it must have been for the psychology of racism class, we read, why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And
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Ellen Carey (she/her): it it's
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Ellen Carey (she/her): It was one of the things that was the beginning of my learning as a white person learning about my about my race as a white person and thinking, learning to think about it that way. And
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Ellen Carey (she/her): and yeah, really powerful experience. So
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Akil Hill: yeah, so one from a long time ago, one for more recent.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): let's see.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): how about? Well, that was 5. I cheated 3 fiction. You did. You did good at that. That was that was pretty quick recall, too. I'm like I can just hear all the the other books that I love in the back. Why didn't you mention me? I like you're going to be late in bed tonight. Take it. I should have said this. I should have said that 100% I'm definitely going to be doing that.
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Hong Lieu: And and why are all the black is in the cafeteria is a like hall of fame like this great book about ethnic identity. And just because you think that you, you know, it really doesn't matter who you are, you should read that book. It's not, you know, it's not like
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Hong Lieu: it's not like it speaks to a certain race more than others. It just speaks to identity. you know ethnic identity specifically. And and all the things that we think are, you know, we we, whether we're acting out or acting within.
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Hong Lieu: we're just. It just ends up being this acting just into playing it into these parts. And the way she breaks things down is really masterful. I mean, really kind of yeah, like you. You can tell just the lifetime of work in the field, but just to steals it down, and it really makes it very, very approachable. It's a very makes. It makes it very approachable from an outside reader perspective. So it's really great pick.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): I try to give you some outs, but you you handled it, and you got it
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Hong Lieu: done. I I still want to hear from you, though.
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Akil Hill: No, I didn't. I didn't. I have to go through his fix. Oh, I don't got! I don't have much. This is not much. This episodes of you got something to kill you. Go! You can brew on it. So the only thing that I've been really into lately is I've been, really I revisiting Mary J. Blize. What's the 411 album that it's like a long lost
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Akil Hill: soul. May that reappears and so! And then that's that's pretty much it. I just been really in tune with listening to that. I mean grades deadline, or last week. So you know, I'm dealing with, you know, faculty in their grades. And and and so I just been kind of really
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Akil Hill: revisiting that, and then thinking about all the place like how you you know, listening to how I remember that this song came out, I first time I heard it I was in the backseat of how this civic cruising upstate street, you know, just just really just
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Akil Hill: finding like. Just join that in and where I was at my age. And and so that's all that I I'm gonna throw in out. that's a great pick, though, right? I think I think they're making a lifetime movie of that, too. So I don't know if anyone's into lifetime movies. you know, I'm not gonna my business out on the street. But I'm saying like
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Hong Lieu: they're making a lifetime movie kind of so much like the Tlc. And the salt and pepper. How they've been doing a a lifetime. So if you watch the Amazon, I think it was Amazon that did a had a barrier. You guys documentary, I mean, it was really powerful. I I knew I knew. I like marriage as I listen to the music, but I didn't realize
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Hong Lieu: how much
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Hong Lieu: rap she had to go through to get to where she was. I mean she was famous. But before that, to get work I mean just an incredible story about perseverance and triumph. But the music is just. It truly is timeless and and marriage oblige. I mean that that was a 4 one I mean, you got Graham who bond there, Joe to see. There's a jodesy feature I mean the singles, the singles, both the deep cuts. Go. You got reminisce into real love like the early sequencing on that. Oh, yeah, like.
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Akil Hill: like, I mean, because I I got in a marriage age. And Mary J. Blanche, immediately after the method man feature, you know, the because of the the the Marvin gay sample, too. Yeah, yeah, that was the next album that wasn't even on this album. No, I had to go back, and I'm like, Whoa, you know, like it.
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Hong Lieu: And it it was like it was like peeking behind a curtain, because I I was like I knew a lot of R and B. But I didn't. I like I hadn't gone back, and that's for me, for that's the most enriching part of anything like music and books. Even reading like I I read, I would read something that's current looking to an author. See what they're influenced by, and then go back and try to read some of those things, and that's where really that I feel like the the most things get kind of filled in.
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Hong Lieu: Because when you go back, and you kind of
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Hong Lieu: have that genealog 19 to logical pull like yet that that chronological bits and pieces get added to the formula. And then I. I get
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Akil Hill: the sauce as is delicious. Yeah. Shout out to Mary J. And all the women, you know what I mean, who are in this industry that had to put up with so much. I mean, I just think about the reason the recent passing of Tina Turner, you know, and what she embodied, and what she had to go through and deal with man. So there's a lot of women out here doing their thing and and fighting, you know, down to trying to turn down these barriers. in this in the music industry. So yeah, just so fortunate to be able to listen to.
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Akil Hill: You know something that that you know was probably a labor of love for her, you know.
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Akil Hill: Oh, so yeah, that's it, that's all I had. I got what you got on. That was great man. That's good. Yeah, again, like a lot of a lot of crap.
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Hong Lieu: but a lot of crap that was there to be spoken on so much later, you know, like the Bj. Document just came out. Tina Turner didn't get her. Didn't get to see what really happened. Her back, and they till much later as well as things are, because you don't want to mess up your chance to make it, or ever. Why, you know, like.
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Hong Lieu: I hope that we are getting into world like I said. The the younger folks are having conversations that I could only dream about having when I was when I was their age. So I'm hoping these conversations will lead to a place where people can speak on these things in the moment or not, or or like close enough where they can find some healing, because because you can't really heal on things like this until we're able to speak it and let people know
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Hong Lieu: how that sausage is made as you alluded to earlier, Ellen, once you saw what more organizational things really like like once you see how it's made it. Things are demystified, pictures become clear in your head. People need that. People need to be able to speak on these things, especially when they're happening to them, and they feel like they have nowhere to go. So yeah, absolutely great big sake. For someone who is trying to trying to pass over the week you you hit it. Got it.
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Hong Lieu: See? That's where I come in with the why I pick this week
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Hong Lieu: is the Simpsons. That's it. Because I just started watching with my son, and it was I mean I I I am one of those Simpsons Elitist, where, after a certain season, I don't really watch, but that that murderers row classic run of season like
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Hong Lieu: I'd say 2 and a half up to like 12 or 30. I I I my band's a little wired, and some folks like have this season 10. I cut it, or after a certain episode, I have a good, you know, 1112 season run where the Simpsons was like.
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Hong Lieu: I like appointment, viewing where I would watch it every day, you know. Sunday at 8, when it was on Fox that would be there, but then I would also watch the reruns every day when they hit syndication. I was like
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Hong Lieu: most of my comedy, like people tell me I'm funny sometimes most of my comedy Chops, Simpsons and Seinfeld. I just I just crib slowly, and it's been long enough for people to remember where I got it from so like, Oh, man, you're funny, you know. It's like you don't even know my friend you've been. I just started watching my son. So that's the thing where he's really into it now. And it's it's it's nice to have that thing where
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Hong Lieu: a lot of things that I you know, that I always thought, oh, I can't wait to show this to my son. He doesn't. He doesn't care about half of them. I got playing music for him. He's like. Oh, it's too loud. He gets embarrassed when I dance in front of them like there's a lot of things I can't share with him that didn't hit like how I thought it would, but the Simpsons did, it maintains, and he understands as well, because I know he understands the difference. I was like, oh, that that's a new episode, right? I'm like.
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Hong Lieu: he understands. So so it's nice to see that there is. Yeah, that that that that persists. But yeah, that that classic run is undeniable, and must, if you, if you care by animation, if you care about American television history, if you care about the sitcom as a format or mediate. You know you have a TV Renaissance nowadays, and there's a lot of new stuff coming on like I said, you go back to the past and look at what influenced it. The Simpsons, yeah, absolutely is, is
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Hong Lieu: yeah, hall of fame, Pantheon, viewing for me so happy to shout it out, and
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Akil Hill: that's it. So you see, I had to throw. I had to throw in one of you. You had the good stuff this week.
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Hong Lieu: Well, yes, thank you, Ellen, for coming on the show honor to have you before we say goodbye. Anything else you like to any last words, any plugs, any final parting or any words for the audience.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): just stop by the library.
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Ellen Carey (she/her): Yeah, it's been this last year being back in person for most of our our hours, and
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Hong Lieu: and you know she's got you covered because she we put her on the spot she came through at the got the choice picks. So you know, if you come to her any of the libraries, it's the Larry Library for for assistance with any research needs. They got you. They will hold you down. So once again I will get all those contact emails, all the links in the show notes.
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Hong Lieu: Thank you again, Ellen. It was an honor to have you. Thank you. It was an honor to be here on learning a little bit more about both of you, too.