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Hail the Peep

With Easter just around the corner that can mean but one thing: It's time for Peepfest '08 in Chapel Hill's Southern Village. The theme of this year's salute to the marshmallow-y confection: Imagine World Peeps.

"What could be less threatening than a marshmallow?" asks event sponsor Market Street Books. "Yes, it's hard on the outside, but it's soft and sweet on the inside. It exists for others. It makes you feel good. It celebrates diversity in color and purpose."

And you thought the rubbery Peep was just something to throw at your brother for kiping your foot-tall milk chocolate Easter bunny. Apparently, it's so much more that it requires its own seven-hour festival with Peep MadLibs, a Peep cooking contest, Peep cooking demo, Peep jousting --

Peep jousting?

-- Peep jousting, Peeplympics a Peep concert, Peep poetry and much, much more. Starts at 11, runs till 6, at 610 Market St. in Southern Village. Details: www.marketstreetbooks.com.

We leave you with "Peep Tales -- The General Prologue" (adapted from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), by reigning Peep Poet Laureate of the Northern Half of Southern Village Tim Dolan:

Whan that Peepe with his sugare soote

The Yellow Dye numbere four hath perced to the roote

And bathed every tongue in swiche licour

Of which vertu no taste can soothe be purer;

Whan softe fowle eek with sweete skinne

Inspired hath in every mouthe, and tongues have licken

The musheye fleshe and the crustye eyes

Have filled yon gullete with marshmallowye surprise;

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And wende to ferne bookstores in Southerne Village

To speaketh in softe and ryming melodye

The speciale wonder of the yellowe and purple Peepe.