Little Village magazine issue 269: Aug. 14 - Sept. 3, 2019 by Little Village Magazine

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ISSUE 269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019

TROUBLED WATER: IOWA CITY’S PUBLIC POOLS PHOTOGRAPHING HUMANITY ON THE BORDER WHY YOUR BODY IS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS INTERVIEW

DAVID BERMAN (1967-2019)

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VOL. 27 ISSUE 269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 ALWAYS FREE LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM PUBLISHER MATTHEW STEELE DIGITAL DIRECTOR DREW BULMAN ART DIRECTOR JORDAN SELLERGREN MANAGING EDITOR EMMA MCCLATCHEY ARTS EDITOR GENEVIEVE TRAINOR Sergio Flores

NEWS DIRECTOR PAUL BRENNAN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR ANGELA PICO VISUAL REPORTER—PHOTO ZAK NEUMANN VISUAL REPORTER—VIDEO JASON SMITH FOOD & DRINK DIRECTOR FRANKIE SCHNECKLOTH DISTRIBUTION GARY GREGORY, TREVOR LEE HOPKINS, BRIAN JOHANNESEN MARKETING COORDINATOR, GRAPHIC DESIGNER JAV DUCKER ADVERTISING

Happy 70th, City Park Pool

Border Song

Purple Mountains Majesty

Creating a safe space for swimming in IC hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

An Iowan photojournalist covering the migrant crisis seeks out human stories.

Shortly before his death, David Berman shared some reflections with LV.

PAUL BRENNAN

SERGIO FLORES

KEMBREW MCLEOD

4 - Letters 6 - Interactions 7 - Brock About Town 8 - Community 12 - Iowa Dispatch

16 - Bread & Butter 18 - Sex & Love 24 - Prairie Pop 26 - A-List 29 - Events Calendar

53 - Ad Index 55 - Astrology 56 - Local Albums 57 - Local Books 59 - Crossword

ADS@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM LISTINGS CALENDAR@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM CONTRIBUTORS NATALIE BENWAY, WILLIAM BLAIR, DANIEL BOSCALJON, REBECCA BRIGHT, AUDREY BROCK, LEV CANTORAL, JESSICA CARNEY, SHARON FALDUTO, SERGIO FLORES, BLAIR GAUNTT, JOHN MARTINEK, KEMBREW MCLEOD, ERICA PARROTT, TREY REIS, MICHAEL ROEDER, TOM TOMORROW, PAIGE UNDERWOOD, SAM LOCKE WARD, KENT WILLIAMS SUBMISSIONS EDITOR@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM DISTRIBUTION REQUESTS DISTRO@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM CREATIVE SERVICES CREATIVE@LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM CONTACT (319) 855-1474, 623 S DUBUQUE ST, IOWA CITY, IA 52240

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Little Village is an independent, community-supported news and culture publication based in Iowa City. Through journalism, essays and events, we work to improve our community in the Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Rapids area according to a few core values: environmental sustainability, affordability and access, economic and labor justice, racial justice, gender equity, quality healthcare, quality education and critical culture. Letters to the editor(s) are always welcome. We reserve the right to fact check and edit for length and clarity. Please send letters, comments or corrections to editor@littlevillagemag.com. Little Village is always free; all contents are the licensed work of the contributor and of the publication. If you would like to reprint or collaborate on new content, reach us at lv@littlevillagemag.com. To browse back issues, visit us at 623 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, or online at issuu.com/littlevillage.

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ISSUE 269 AUg. 14–SEpt. 3, 2019

tROUBLED WAtER: IOWA CItY’S pUBLIC pOOLS pHOtOgRApHINg HUMANItY ON tHE BORDER WHY YOUR BODY IS NONE OF tHEIR BUSINESS INtERVIEW

DAVID BERMAN (1967-2019)

Rebecca Bright

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LETTERS LV encourages community members, including candidates for office, to submit letters to Editor@LittleVillageMag.com. To be considered for print publication, letters should be under 500 words. Preference is given to letters that have not been published elsewhere.

DEAR IOWA CITY OFFICIALS, As I write this, it is the first Monday in August 2019 and it is snowing in downtown Iowa City. Tiny pieces of Styrofoam are drifting lazily down onto my car in the Clock Tower Parking Ramp and the alley outside. They polka-dot the sidewalk and form tiny drifts up against curbs and walls, as they have done in this area of downtown for weeks now. You don’t even have to bend down to see clumps of foam in the grass and exposed dirt. Every crack in the alley is filled with Styrofoam bits. Especially the ones near the storm drain, down which the hundreds of thousands of microplastics will be washed away in tonight’s storm. For weeks I have been picking up large chunks that have blown near the back door to my office, wondering what could be the source of so much polystyrene. (Did a truckload of beanbags turn over? And why was no one else cleaning it up?) Because

Sheila Ongie

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they are tiny, and light, they blow around on the faintest breeze, and the pile is diluted and spread out. But this does not mean they are harmless. These plastics are now loose and contributing to a much larger global crisis. Globally, 83 percent of all drinking water is now found to contain plastic. Plastic is also in our food; the average American adult eats a credit card’s worth of plastic each week, and plastic is commonly found in breast milk. The equivalent of a garbage truck of plastic enters the oceans every minute, and much of it starts the journey to the sea from storm drains, like the one at the end of the alley behind my office in downtown Iowa City. At this rate, if we do nothing to slow the rate of plastic pollution, by 2050, our oceans will contain more plastic than sea life. In the sea, plastic never breaks down, but it does break up into increasingly tiny and microscopic pieces that look a lot like plankton to a fish. The plastic flurries that surrounded me today weren’t an accidental spill or beanbag mishap. They all wafted from a single point, where workers were shaving large pieces of foam placed as insulation on the Ecumenical Towers renovation. I watched as the workers, wearing face masks, grated the surface to smooth the edge where two pieces met and a current of tiny white microplastics took flight. This was the source of foam in the air, and the very likely source of the foam I’d been seeing for weeks, and which can be seen for blocks around, even still. Who, in this real-life scenario, has responsibility for the pollution and its clean-up? What is Iowa City’s enforcement of pollution prevention, and how do construction permits seek to prevent the very avoidable mess like the one that is playing out downtown? What is the plan for cleaning up this area? While each piece of plastic is small, and will surely soon be out of sight, every piece will still exist for hundreds of generations after we’re gone. If Iowa City’s current laws or enforcement cannot prevent this, something needs to change. Iowa City, what is your response? —Sheila Ongie LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 5

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Cosmic cowboys, quarter beers and nightmarish bathrooms: The history of Gabe’s

Field House Pool

READER POLL What is your favorite dead pool or water attraction?

Chapman Fun World slide

University Club pool

Wacky Waters

Learning to love ‘Iowa’s ugliest building’ I spent many happy and productive hours in EPB, some of them even when I was awake. —Jerry H.

I had all but a small few classes there. It was love/hate. In August of ‘08, 2 months after the flood filled the bottom levels, classes resumed. So. Gross. Many classmates changed their schedule that semester due to mold allergies. BUT, the few, the proud, the hardcore English majors made it through. —Sean K.

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In and out of Iowa City between 1986 to 2000, Gabe’s, with its ups and downs, was my welcome back to the University of Iowa and Iowa City site, along with the Big Ice Cream Company, better known as the Great Midwestern. Gabe’s was pure diversity. Go to the after party! Where? At his house! Gabe’s had something for everyone—the bar downstairs, the beer garden, and the long queues waiting to use the women’s bathroom upstairs, along with my favorites, reggae performers [local Tony Brown too], Louisiana zydeco and Cajun, and the blues singers, especially local and Chicago blues and good local groups that played hard rock and new wave and rap… —Herbert P.J. Rotation was Vince Woolums, Richie Heller, Kent Williams, and Darian and Jeremy Gamm. It took a village and a state full of solid local talent to sustain for af long as we did. —Michelle

The Paramount Theatre and the streaker of the opera Indeed, I do remember the streaker and the bat, as I was backstage managing the props for the performance. I can’t say about the pantyhose, but I heard multiple reports about the sock. Some said he wore three socks, other said that it was just the one. Speculation was that it was a student from Coe as a fraternity thing, but I have proof of nothing. —Heidi H.

Linn County plans Dows Farm ‘agrihood,’ a housing development based around a farm So, basically what Iowa used to be before Big Ag took over and turned our farmers into sugar and ethanol producers? —Kyle D. Hell fucking yes! What a fun experiment in the right direction. —Kyle S.

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Blood, Sweat and Beers

ight now, across America, idyllic small towns just like ours are also experiencing a heat wave of epic proportions. They’re probably cowering inside, worrying about pedestrian things like heatstroke and sunburn. Here in Iowa City, we’re a little hardier. We attend outdoor blues concerts when the heat index is 105 and let our children decorate the scalding hot asphalt streets with sidewalk chalk. We know what’s important in life. I write these big words from the safety of my kitchen, into which I have dragged my desk so I can work in front of the proppedopen freezer door, my feet fully submerged in a drawer of frozen peas. Not very environmentally friendly, I know. If this summer, the first of my so-called “real life” in the post-collegiate “real world” and one of the hottest on record, has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you can’t handle it and you fold like a complimentary umbrella, and that’s OK. We’re all human. However, most of us around here want to be the kind of humans that behave responsibly toward our fellow creatures, and to that end, here are some tips: • Nothing’s more refreshing than a cold beer on a hot day, a fact with which many Iowa City residents are clearly familiar. When you’re finished with your strawberry-lemonade Natural Ice, crush the can, on your head if you really must, and take it to the nearest recycling bin. Do not throw the can into my hydrangeas, Kevin. • Do not walk to the office in those patent-leather flats that you found for 20 bucks at Revival and just had to have. All of the skin will come off of your feet. Instead, ride your bike to work. Feel the breeze in your hair and the trees in the Amazon rainforest breathing a sigh of relief. • This time of year, all I really want is a nice, two-hour long, cold shower. To reduce water consumption, just fill the bathtub instead. For extra points, don’t drain the tub afterwards; it sounds gross, but the second you get out, you’ll want to get right back in, because you’re already sticky. Look, you have a sweat mustache! Gross. ––Audrey Brock LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 7

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s summer comes to an end, the pool in City Park reaches a milestone—70 years of service to Iowa Citians looking to float, dog paddle or simply cope with the heat. But if everything had gone according to the original plan, the pool would have opened in the summer of 1942, and it would now be celebrating 76 years of service. Of course, when that plan was written in 1941, no one knew the Japanese Imperial Navy would attack Pearl Harbor in December. World War II slowed—almost stopped— the effort to build Iowa City’s first public pool. It would take a local tragedy to motivate city officials to finish the project. Neither of Iowa City’s other two public pools have such dramatic origins as City Park Pool, but both have somewhat complicated backstories. The history of public pools in Iowa City involves a death, a fire, beaches that weren’t exactly beaches and a “non-opening ceremony.” And, of course, there was also the Big Dipper. But at the heart of this story are certain unspoken assumptions past city leaders made about the people who use public pools, and questions about whether those assumptions have finally changed.

For the first 84 years after Iowa City was founded in 1839, almost everyone who wanted to swim headed to the river. Dangerous? Often. Dirty? Usually. But there wasn’t much of an alternative for average people. Of course, the rich had their own resources—the first private pool in Iowa City was constructed at the home of Willard F. Main in 1895. (Main, who started what’s believed to be the first jewelry and watch factory west of the Mississippi, was probably never as rich as he appeared to be. In 1911, he was forced into involuntary bankruptcy by creditors who accused him of fraud.) There were efforts to make river swimming a better experience. In 1902, a group of imaginative swimmers declared the sand that had built up along the river at the foot of Davenport Street was a beach. People flocked there. But in 1906, the new Burlington Street Dam ruined the swimming spot. The sand at the foot of Prentiss Street

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became the next beach-like “it” spot, but swimmers entered the river wherever they found an accommodating slope. The Iowa City Chamber of Commerce established the “Black Springs Beach” at the south end of Rocky Shore Drive (where Crandic Park is now) in 1920. It had a refreshment stand, a slide and a raft anchored in the river for swimmers to rest on. The chamber even hired a lifeguard. The beach had to be reestablished each summer, after being submerged by high river levels each spring, but the chamber stopped rebuilding it after two years, because the Big Dipper opened.

The Iowa City Natatorium and Amusement Company (ICNA Co.) never actually built a natatorium—a building with a pool inside—but in 1923, it opened the Big Dipper, a 120-by-80-foot outdoor pool. The Big Dipper is often misremembered as the first pool in City Park. Because it was owned and operated by a for-profit company, the pool couldn’t be built on city property. So, INCA Co. built it just beyond the western boundary of the park. The Big Dipper opened on Aug. 1, 1923. Admission was 30 cents for adults ($4.50 in 2019 dollars) and 10 cents ($1.50) for kids under 12. There were four diving boards, and various family friendly features (“THE USE OF PROFANITY IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN,” the pool’s rules warned in all caps), but it was the cleanliness of the water ICNA Co. emphasized at the beginning. “Water at the Big Dipper is of the purest,” the Press-Citizen wrote three days before the pool opened. “It comes from the pool’s own well,” i.e., not the river. “The water is tested constantly by the state board of health laboratory,” the article continued. That claim seems unlikely, but every P-C story on the Big Dipper reads like the paper was just reprinting a company press release. As with the location of the pool, memories of when it finally closed have gotten foggy over the years. Most accounts—written decades later—say the Big Dipper closed after 10 or 15 years. But events at the pool are mentioned in newspapers through the summer of 1940.

Public Space One is creating a new (permanent!) home for art and possibilities in two historic houses on IC’s Northside.

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Of course, the Big Dipper didn’t satisfy all of Iowa City’s swimming needs. People still swam in the river. And by the 1930s, there was a movement to build a public pool. The 1920s and ’30s saw a boom in public pool construction across the United States. Every self-respecting city was either building or planning pools, often with the help of the federal government’s Works Progress Administration, the New Deal agency responsible for the construction of many public buildings during the Great Depression. In 1941, the Iowa City Council decided to build a pool in City Park, and asked the public to approve a $62,500 bond issue to pay for the pool in that year’s September election. The bond was easily approved. Everything seemed on schedule to complete the pool in less than a year. Then the war came.

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World War II diverted resources, reduced available manpower and drove up the cost of building materials. The bond was successfully issued, the money was banked, but very little progress was made. In 1944, a committee finally decided on the site in City Park where the pool would be built. That was about it. It wasn’t until 1946, a year after the war ended, that the city seriously took up the pool again. By then the construction cost estimate had increased to $100,000. The city council balked at spending an additional $40,000. The 1941 bond money stayed in the bank, the project remained stalled.

It took a tragedy to kick-start completion of the pool. The Iowa River surged over its

banks in the late spring of 1947. On June 5, 10-year-old Keith Howell and a friend decided to play in a flooded part of lower City Park. Keith couldn’t swim; neither could his friend. Keith climbed onto a log floating in shallow water. The log floated into deeper water. Keith fell off. His friend shouted for help. A park worker called the fire department. But it was too late. Keith’s death dominated the front page of the next day’s Daily Iowan, which even featured a ghoulish photo of his lifeless body. At the top of the front page was an editorial, “How Much Is a Child’s Life Worth?” The editorial called on the city to spend the extra $40,000 to build the long-planned pool, so children would have a safe place to learn to swim. “Mr. and Mrs. Iowa City, could your child swim if he were suddenly faced with a lifeand-death struggle in the water?” editor R. Bruce Hughes wrote. “How much would it be worth to you to know at least he would have the chance Keith Howell didn’t?”

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The DI launched a campaign to get the pool built. Community-wide fundraising efforts began. The city council relented, and a new bond issue was put on the ballot that fall. It passed. City Park Pool opened on June 11, 1949. Admission was 40 cents for adults ($4.30 in today’s money), and 15 cents ($1.61) for children. According to the DI, 1,100 people visited the pool on opening day. The final cost of the project was $130,000—the 2019 equivalent of about $1.4 million.

The pool at Robert A. Lee Recreation Center was the next to open. The building was known as the Community Center when it debuted in 1964. Robert A. Lee was the city’s recreation superintendent at the time, like he was when the previous pool-less Community Center at the same location was gutted by a fire in 1955. Lee worked hard to ensure the

new Community Center could accommodate almost every kind of recreational activity. That meant including some features that have since been removed—the building had a gun range for a while—and an important one that’s still here 55 years later: an indoor pool. Iowa City’s only other public pool is also indoors, but Mercer Park originally had an outdoor pool.

By the mid-1960s, Iowa City’s population had grown so much—from almost 27,000 when City Park pool opened in 1949 to over 41,000—there were concerns that one outdoor and one indoor pool weren’t enough. What was needed, city leaders decided, was another pool that combined the outdoors with the indoors. The Mercer Park pool project was a collaboration between the Iowa City Community School District and the City of Iowa City.

Plans called for an outdoor pool that could be covered by a movable “plastic bubble.” The bubble, combined with a heating system, would create a pool where “all-weather swimming” was possible. The city put up most of the money. Everyone was confident of success. They shouldn’t have been. The pool was scheduled to open “early in the summer” of 1968. It didn’t: construction delays, the city said. On July 27, City Manager Frank R. Smiley announced the pool might open in early August. It didn’t: mechanical difficulties, the city said. On Aug. 11, there was an official “non-opening ceremony” for the pool. Robert A. Lee, now acting director of the Parks and Recreation Department, told reporters, “I hope the pool will be open soon.” When the pool opened for its first full season in 1969, there was still no plastic bubble or bubble-related heating system. What started badly, ended badly. By 1985, the bubble-less Mercer Park pool was in such

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Iowa Dispatch

Seeking Asylum There’s beauty and resilience to be found at the border. BY SERGIO FLORES Iowa Dispatch features the voices of Iowans scattered around the country and the world, offering a local perspective on national and international issues.

y name is Sergio Flores. I am a documentary photographer and freelance photojournalist currently based in Austin, Texas. Being Mexican-American, it was really important to me to contribute to the conversations around issues that relate to people like me, or people who look like me. I have made a big push to do more stories centered on immigration, as many of these stories are still being told and photographed by white people. Media coverage from the border tends to give a sense that most of what is going on is awful—and don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is, and it’s important not to gloss over the harsh reality currently being faced by those seeking asylum in the U.S. We’re repeatedly shown photos of people at the border crying through wire fences, pleading to government agents to be allowed entry into the country. We hear about the horrible circumstances faced by those people who are forced to return to their home countries and, perhaps worst of all, placed in cages, completely dehumanizing them. But when I work scenes like this, it is important to me to look for moments that contain humanity, that show that even though these people are having a hard time, they are not a sea of sad brown faces for either side to use for their own propaganda. Here are two photos that tell two of those stories. On April 5, when the photo to the left was taken, I was working on an assignment for the Washington Post about the Trump administration’s “metering system,” which limits the number of people who can request asylum at border patrol stations, forcing migrants to stay in Mexico. The goal of metering is to lower the number of people crossing into the U.S., but a fairly predictable byproduct of this policy is that many feel that they need to cross illegally. (This reportedly included Salvadoran migrant Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his young daughter Valeria, whose bodies were photographed by AP’s Julia Le Duc on June 24, drowned on the bank of the Rio

Sergio Flores

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 13

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Sergio Flores

Grande.) I was walking with a reporter near Eagle Pass, Texas, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande when we stopped to talk with two migrants, who admitted to considering crossing illegally. As we spoke, the man stopped to point out a group of women who were crossing the river. I ran over and began taking photos. It was powerful watching these three women, grasping each other by the hand and taking the ultimate leap of faith as they waded through the historically unforgiving river. They reached the other side and were met by Border Patrol, but if they were claiming 14 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

asylum, it didn’t matter. They did what they set out to do, on their terms. The photo above was taken in Matamoros, Mexico on June 29. A group of migrants had set up a camp with tents, and many were waiting for the chance to legally cross into the U.S. to claim asylum. Many were on the list that the Mexican government had made, so there was a system in place for who got to cross next. I took some photos, but left the area not long after. I returned later in the day to try to get more coverage when I noticed a volunteer group had come to pass out food and

drinks. Once most of the food was gone, they brought out small toys and stuffed animals. The toys were mostly balls, tennis ball-sized to soccer ball-sized. I watched a boy in a green shirt take one, immediately run over to a more open space and begin bouncing it. I followed him and watched him as he bounced the ball with such joy. It may sound silly to some of us who haven’t gotten a thrill from a toy that didn’t have a screen or a battery in a long time, but I think that was what made it all the more impactful for me: watching this kid who had to escape a country where, had he stayed, he

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thursday, september 5

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WITH DEEP SEA DIVER may have been killed, completely forget that fact in the time it took for a round mass of rubber to strike the concrete and come flying back up. These are the moments that define this type of work for me, and they are moments I will continue to chase. Sergio Flores was born and raised in central Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa in 2014. His photos have been published in Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

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BREAD & BUTTER

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LV Recommends:

Edith Lucielle’s 6913 Mt Vernon Rd SE, Cedar Rapids, 319-320-6064, baitshackfun.com

dith Lucielle’s Bait Shack and Wing Depot is in the absolute middle of nowhere. Well, at least my city friends who consider Marion, where I live, to be the middle of nowhere would say this roadside restaurant is off the beaten path. Whether or not this is true—Edith Lucielle’s is a close neighbor to the Lighthouse and a Casey’s—it feels like you’ve stumbled upon a hidden gem when you catch sight of the colorful, kitschy, 1950s-style billboard the serves as its sign. The inside is decorated like it’s the Fourth of July, but I get the feeling that those decorations have been up for more than a month. It’s a cartoon version of an American diner, in the coziest, best way possible. And though its name, sign and decor would have you believe it’s been a rural Cedar Rapids mainstay for decades, Edith Lucielle’s opened just over two years ago, named in honor of the owners’ grandmothers and designed to capture the down-home experience of a stay at Grandma’s. Adding to the homespun feel are the Jenga and board games in the waiting area. I particularly appreciated the solitary pack of Uno cards on our table, laying close by just in case the urge struck. With the casual diner aesthetics, you might assume every menu item would be served to you directly from the fryer (where it arrived straight from the freezer), but Edith Lucielle’s serves a wide variety of homemade dishes, including homemade tenderloins—something

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Jav Ducker / Little Village

I had never heard of, even as a lifelong Iowan—and homemade tiramisu. They also offer homemade biscuits and gravy, and tons of other breakfast items, including my favorite, the nondescript “Flapjacks & Meat.” The diner has an interesting mix of rustic touches and laissez-faire vibes. When we ordered deviled eggs (a must) but asked for half without bacon, the staff said they weren’t sure if we would get a plate with half the amount of bacon on each or half with no bacon. Happily, it arrived as requested. The list of rules included in the menu serves as a reminder to not take yourself too seriously. “No dancing on the bar” is rule number two, and one gets the feeling that it may have been an actual problem. “No fightin’ or cussin’” is rule three. “No horses

inside” is rule number four, which also might have had precedent, given the location. It’s particularly hard to be serious if you decide to take a dive into the Fishbowl, made with who-knows-what alcohol, a pink mixer and, if you can get to the bottom, gummy worms. “Sometimes we don’t like to serve it,” the staff candidly admitted, noting that rules number two and three (and perhaps even number four) become difficult to enforce post-Fishbowl. The menu and staff implore you to be nice and have fun, which is easy to do at a place where you can enjoy handcrafted fried tomatoes, greasy-delicious cheeseburgers and deviled eggs that taste exactly like how your grandma makes ‘em. —Jessica Carney

STRENGTHEN

Preserve the historic Englert Theatre and FilmScene on the ped mall

GROW

Create a state-of-the-art cinema and nurture our festivals

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Don’t Tell Me to Love My Body Most of us have a complicated relationship with our own body that mere “positivity” can’t untangle. BY NATALIE BENWAY

“A

re you on a diet, Natalie?” a female classmate sneered. We were surrounded by my 8th grade class at a gradua-

tion party. “No,” I replied, my face hot with shame. I was wearing a new outfit and had gotten my hair done for the party. I hadn’t eaten all day; I thought I could go over to the food table and steal a few carrots without anybody noticing. “Well, you sure need to go on one.” Everybody laughed, and I couldn’t do anything but stand in front of them and cry. Since I was a kid, I’ve had a poor

relationship with my body. I remember my ballet teacher Miss Barbie telling me I just didn’t have the right body for dance, and I was humiliated. When I was 8 years old, a family member once pointed out a large-bodied woman with absolute disgust and said, “Look at her. How can she live like that? You need to make sure you watch what you eat so you never have to look like that.” My experiences are not unusual. Many of us are taught to see our bodies as something to fix or hate. A major component of my therapy practice with clients is focused on body shame and fear of being fat. In July, I attended a workshop at the 2019 American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists annual conference led by Isy Abraham-Raveson titled “Don’t Tell Me to Love My Body: Body Image and Fatphobia.” She kicked off the talk with the question, “Why do we dislike our bodies?” Responses included desirability politics, porn, capitalism, patriarchy, trauma, transphobia, the fashion industry, media, car brands, white supremacy and the wellness industry, to name

just a few. Her point: When we are told to “just love your body!” we are essentially being asked to “just” overcome entire systems of oppression. Clearly, we need a radical re-envisioning of body diversity that includes all body types and abilities. Perhaps it starts with keeping our mouths shut on other people’s physiques. “When you’re overweight, your body becomes a matter of public record in many respects,” wrote Roxane Gay in her book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. “Your body is constantly and prominently on display. People project assumed narratives onto your body and are not at all interested in the truth of your body, whatever that truth might be. Fat, much like skin color, is something you cannot hide, no matter how dark the clothing you wear, or how diligently you avoid horizontal stripes.” Many of our insecurities, particularly when it comes to relationships, can be revealed gradually, from emotional baggage to sexual preferences. But as Gay observed, one’s body is their most public feature, and one’s often

fragile relationship with their flesh prison is constantly tested by feedback from others— more often than not, unsolicited feedback. Fatphobia is clearly at work when someone is disparaged for their size, but it is also present in seemingly positive interactions. When larger women are asked, “How do you stay so confident?” the connotation is often, “How do you manage to love yourself, despite your figure?” Euphemisms for fatness, from “confident” to “curvy,” may be used with the best of intentions—but you should never presume that someone’s weight, like their gender or skin color, is something to overcome, rather than something that just is. (For more on this subject, listen to episode two of the podcast She’s All Fat, hosted by April K. Quioh and Sophia Carter-Kahn.) “Wow! Have you lost weight?” is another barbed compliment. When we congratulate someone for changing their body, we’re making assumptions about their health and some of their most personal experiences. Weight loss, for instance, may be intentionally sought through diet and exercise, but it may also be the result of a medical condition, a grieving process, an eating disorder or a drug habit. When you’re unsure of the circumstances, it’s inappropriate, perhaps even degrading, to comment on someone’s body. To put it simply, it’s just none of your business. Such comments also reflect the false narrative that weight is directly correlated with health and happiness. Thin=good; fat=worse. This is the simplistic and toxic cultural narrative that makes the diet industry—today disguised within the “wellness movement”—so lucrative. It’s what also makes the oft-evangelized concept of body positivity so elusive in practice. It can be hard to reconcile the “love the skin you’re in” messaging with the equally ubiquitous push for personal improvement—as if we were all working towards one ideal body. Many fatphobic narratives are veiled in positivity, from fitspiration to influencer endorsements of “health” supplements. (“You, too, can look like this!”) While it might sell athleisure gear and protein shakes, this constant prompting to improve yourself—to compare your body to another’s, even if it’s your past or future self— stigmatizes the body you’re in, and this can have deep psychological effects. “Researchers who study stigma have found it often leads to depression and anxiety, as well as decreased access to employment, friendship, romantic opportunities and a sense that one

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is not welcome in the wider culture,” said Virgie Tovar, author of You Have the Right to Remain Fat. Assumptions that overweight or obese people are inherantly unhealthy, lazy or lack self-control are as reductive and dangerous as any stereotype, and they are rife in media. (Though 2001’s Shallow Hal, the most fatphobic film of all time, has largely been taken out with the cultural trash, the notorious fat suit donned by a thin actor is still found in current or recent shows like How I Met Your Mother, New Girl and Netflix’s Insatiable.) Even the medical establishment can stigmatize and shame fat people. I can’t tell you

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Not yours.” What if there was no wrong body? What if we, to borrow phrasing from West’s article, fucked all that very much and took body analysis out of the conversation? For that matter, what if food was just food, and it wasn’t good or bad? What if we could make choices based on listening to what our body needs? Intuitive eating is based on nurturing your body. It is a compassionate approach that gives you permission to eat and honor your natural hunger. Our bodies are brilliant, but we learn to override our natural hunger “nudges” when we restrict what we are eating. We also learn to eat beyond hunger or ignore our bodies natural cues of hunger. EVEN THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT CAN Sue Clarahan STIGMATIZE AND SHAME FAT PEOPLE. I CAN’T TELL at Clarahan YOU HOW MANY TIMES I’VE SPOKEN WITH WOMEN Consulting in Iowa City is one practiOF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES WHO REPORT GOING tioner committed to TO THE DOCTOR FOR A SORE THROAT OR ROUTINE educating and guiding folks to develop PHYSICAL, ONLY TO BE TOLD TO LOSE WEIGHT. a positive relationship with food and their bodies. She has helped me and many others respect and understand ourselves how many times I’ve spoken with women of with a sense of curiosity, compassion and acall shapes and sizes who report going to the ceptance. I might not love my body, but I sure doctor for a sore throat or routine physical, only to be told to lose weight. Even when this as hell respect it a lot more with this approach. Because what a waste of life and limb body advice is medically helpful, it can overshadshame can be. I remember hearing a story on ow more nuanced issues—and the framing of NPR that said the number-one thing women in fat as failure, paired with the patronizing way their last days of life said they regretted was the advice is often presented, can only conhow much they worried about their weight. tribute to a person’s mental health issues. In a piece for CNN, a woman with terminal In 2011, Lindy West—whose autobiogracancer told writer and hospice chaplain Kerry phy went on to inspire the wonderful Hulu Egan that, once she had accepted her illness, show Shrill—wrote a viral blog post for she developed a new reverence for her body. Seattle’s The Stranger entitled “Hello, I am “I’d never admit it to my husband and kids, Fat.” It’s main purpose was to critique her but more than anything else, it’s my own body friend and colleague Dan Savage’s condeI’ll miss most of all,” the patient said. “This scending coverage of the obesity epidemic, body that danced and ate and swam and had but she also took the opportunity to declare sex and made babies. It’s amazing to think she had fallen “in unconditional luuuuurve” about it. This body actually made my children. with her 5-foot-nine, 263-pound frame, after It carried me through this world. years of fruitless attempts at weight loss. “This is my body,” West wrote. “It is MINE. I am not ashamed of it in any way. In Natalie Benway LISW is a psychotherapist in fact, I love everything about it. Men find it private practice in Coralville. She has a certiattractive. Clothes look awesome on it. My fication in sexuality studies from the University brain rides around in it all day and comes up of Iowa and is currently pursuing additional with funny jokes. Also, I don’t have to justify licensure with the American Association its awesomeness/attractiveness/healthiness/ of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and usefulness to anyone, because it is MINE. Therapists.

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CULTURE Prairie Pop

For the Love of Words Musician and poet David Berman discusses grief and inspiration in one of his final interviews. BY KEMBREW MCLEOD

avid Berman was a kind, sensitive artist with many formidable talents—a poet, cartoonist and musician who was often regarded as the best songwriter of his generation. He died at the age of 52 on Aug. 7, after a lifetime of struggling with depression and addiction. Berman left behind a substantial body of work that includes six studio albums recorded with his longtime band the Silver Jews, two acclaimed books of poetry and an eponymous album by Purple Mountains, his latest recording project. Purple Mountains retains everything that made the Silver Jews great—a keen sense of melody, biting humor, absurdity—while stripping away all other extraneous elements. “How does it go—‘there is a time for every season’? I’m interested in direct communication about domestic life,” Berman told me. “Guess it’s my mid-late style. Fewer jokes, misdirection, irony and ornamentation.” When he agreed to an interview about his upcoming performance in Iowa City, Berman was preparing a national tour that was to start later that week, with bandmates who, he said, he was only just getting to know. “Jarvis Taveniere, who produced the Blair Gauntt / Little Village

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record, is the bandleader and bassist. He assembled the other players,” Berman said while taking a break from the intense rehearsals. It wasn’t possible to talk, but he generously carved out the time to answer my questions via email, which arrived on the day before he hanged himself in a Brooklyn apartment. I learned the news of his death just minutes after completing a draft of this column, like an all-too-real plot twist from one of his darkly comic songs. Pithy and poetic, Berman made his wordplay seem so effortless—like anyone could do it—but that was just another one of

for the results of the 2000 presidential election in Nashville; Berman reportedly told the bellboy, “I want to die where the presidency died!” •

•

Back in 1989, Berman formed the Silver Jews with his college friends Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, well before their more famous group, Pavement, got off the ground (the title of their breakthrough album, Slanted and Enchanted, was named after one of Berman’s cartoons). It is unlikely he would have played many classic Silver Jews songs on the scheduled tour, even though Berman really wanted to. “HOW DOES IT GO—‘THERE IS A TIME FOR “It’s hard because many of the songs EVERY SEASON’? I’M INTERESTED IN DIRECT make me weep COMMUNICATION ABOUT DOMESTIC LIFE,” uncontrollably to sing,” he said. “We BERMAN TOLD ME. “GUESS IT’S MY MID-LATE are practicing now STYLE. FEWER JOKES, MISDIRECTION, IRONY and it’s unfortuAND ORNAMENTATION.” nate some great songs won’t make it because I get so choked up.” Despite being considered a writer’s writer by the underground rock gritterati, Berman’s magic tricks. His wit and lyrical that acclaim mattered little to Berman, and he sleights-of-hand also obscured very real mental health issues that sometimes led him down eschewed the spotlight. He didn’t play live throughout most of the band’s existence, and paths of self-destruction. he booted his friends out of the band (temIn 2003, Berman attempted suicide with porarily, at least) to avoid being perceived as a mixture of alcohol, prescription pills and merely a Pavement side-project. crack cocaine. This episode took place in the Berman then shocked his fans in 2005 by very same hotel suite where Al Gore waited

launching the Silver Jews’ first-ever tour. The band lineup included his wife, bassist and vocalist Cassie Berman, who started playing with the band on their 2001 record, Bright Flight. Silver Jews continued to tour and released yet another great record—2008’s Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea—leaving fans with a sense of optimism about what would be next. But then came another left turn: Berman’s surprise announcement, posted to the Drag City website in 2009, that he was ending the band. This was followed by another post later that day: “Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret,” he said. “Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction: My father.” Rick Berman, who 60 Minutes dubbed “Dr. Evil” in 2007, built a career as a lobbyist for big oil and tobacco who made millions undermining workplace safety and environmental protections, among other things. “In a way I am the son of a demon come to make good the damage,” that final post continued. “Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world.” He came to realize that this was fruitless, and what followed was a decade of musical silence. That ended in the summer of 2019 with Purple Mountains, an album that is haunted by absence—from the 2016 death of his beloved mother, Mimi Berman, to his painful separation from Cassie. Berman is at his most vulnerable on “I Loved Being My Mother’s Son,” his voice cracking: “She helped me walk, she watched

Cont. >> on pg. 34

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Cedar Rapids’ Got the Bends Fields of Yogis continues to deepen Eastern Iowa’s understanding of yoga practice. BY DANIEL BOSCALJON

ow in its fourth year, annual yoga celebration Fields of Yogis will be held Aug. 23-25 in the Czech Village/New Bohemia District of Cedar Rapids. (Little Village is a sponsor of the festival.) Tickets for the three-day festival range from $35, for individual workshops or add-ons, to a $200 full three-day pass. There will also be free events each day. NewBo Market’s regular Friday night Rock the Block will be incorporated into the fest, featuring the Cedar County Cobras that evening at 6 p.m. Fields of Yogis was designed to cultivate a sense of community for yoga specific to Iowa, as the name indicates. The event’s motto, “Choose How You Grow,” similarly combines the agricultural context of yoga in Iowa with the sense of self-determination and an orientation toward wellness that is important in the practice of yoga overall. “At yoga festivals, you’re being a participant in the practice,” said founder and organizer Ally Thompson, who also teaches the Friday evening free workshop. “You can talk to [the instructors]. It’s not just an invisible shield where you won’t meet the person and you just watch them perform … it’s a two-way conversation. It’s not just cues—it is active learning.” Check-in begins at 6:45 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 23 for this year’s expanded set of classes (including for foodies), options for meditation and art programming. The 2019 festival line-up includes local leaders in the yoga community, such as Masha Nieland of Cedar Rapids’ Fusion Studio; Betsy Rippentrop of Heartland Yoga and Megan Robertson of Muddy Feet Yoga in Iowa City; Dubuque’s Julia Theisen of Body & Soul, and a co-founder of the Midwest Yoga & Oneness Festival, and Molly Schreiber, who started the children’s yoga program Challenge to Change; and prolific Des Moines instructor Ben “Good Vibes” Spellman. Headliners for the fest include dancer Tamara “Cuchira” Levinson, a member 26 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

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of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics team and a Broadway veteran, who will lead three “playshops” based around the emotion-driven MovMEANT style of dance she innovated. Author and wellness coach Koya Webb will lead acro yoga, vinyasa flow yoga and chakra-balancing flow sessions, while Chicago’s Cassandra Justice—whose titles include everything from aerial yoga teacher to poet to lightworker—will host sound therapy meditations and dissect the eight limbs of yoga.

Fields of Yogis, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, Friday-Sunday, Aug. 23-25, Free-$200

Vendors will also be present, offering clothing, jewelry, herbal remedies and supplies, posters, CDs, cards, children’s books, adult books, journals and tarot readings. As a celebration of community in addition to supporting individual practices, Fields of Yogis is open to everyone who is interested in yoga—from new explorers to those who have practiced for decades. Overall, the festival is designed to offer a set of classes and community spaces that

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CULTURE But whereas a music festival is primarily geared toward becoming a passive member of an audience, giving back to the performers only in the form of dancing or yelling along to lyrics, a yoga fexstival emphasizes participation throughout. These events can generate a similar “level of excitement and intensity” as a music festival, Thompson noted, “but it’s about what you’re going to learn.” (Thompson also mentioned that yoga festivals were more likely to feature the fragrance of palo santo, rather than a music festival’s staple scent of pot smoke, promoting a sense of cleansed presence rather than escape.) Fields of Yogis began as an idea formed by Cedar Rapids yogis attending an out-oftown festival, who wondered, “Why can’t we do this?” It has become an event that continues to simultaneIN A TIME WHEN HUMANS FEEL INCREASINGLY ously deepen LONELY AND DISCONNECTED, YOGA OFFERS and expand, providing a A SPACE THAT ENCOURAGES THE OPPOSITE safe place to ATTRIBUTES. YOGA FESTIVALS DO SO IN A experience PARTICULARLY LARGE AND JOYFUL FASHION. a more full sense of what yoga means beyond a desire for better abs, firmer glutes or increased flexibility. lion practitioners, just between 2012 and Thompson’s message and the orientation of 2017), provides a somewhat skewed sense the festival stays consistent with the heart of this depth and breadth. For some peoof yoga overall. ple, yoga is only stretch pants, a cheerful Fields of Yogis creates a kind of conphilosophy of life and bodily postures. For sciousness in its programming and its open many, it is practiced only infrequently, as welcome to the community. Because yoga part of a larger goal of “being healthy” or presumes little more about its practitioners “being flexible.” than a willingness to explore, the 2019 It is also true that yoga has been pracfestival provides an opportunity for practiced for over 5,000 years as part of a path titioners in the area, new and experienced, toward self-awareness and intentional livto become more conscious—no matter how ing. It’s a discipline that emphasizes pracmany hours one spends on a mat. tice, not belief. It understands that remain“We have to build up that consciousing mindful of practice builds confidence ness,” Thompson said. and humility as well as a greater sense of bodily awareness. In a time when humans feel increasingly lonely and disconnected, Daniel Boscaljon is a public intellectual yoga offers a space that encourages the and experimental humanist. Find informaopposite attributes. Yoga festivals do so in tion about upcoming workshops, including a particularly large and joyful fashion. Reconceiving the Divine Feminine (with Yoga and music festivals do share Angela Amias) starting Sept. 11 and an similarities, in that each collects a local upcoming collaboration with the Iowa community and visitors for a shared exWriters House on Oct. 26, at danielboscalperience around as set of featured guests. jon.com. samples the diversity and range of what yoga offers, from physical postures to spiritual practices, in an intensive and mutually supportive way. “It takes time to see what works for you,” Thompson said, discussing her overall vision for the festival. “There are different styles and different ways to think about it … Maybe you want to get into knowing how your body works and the postures, or the spiritual dimensions and figuring out how to help your community, or how therapy happens.” The increasing popularity of yoga in the past few decades in the U.S. (a data brief released last year from the National Center for Health Statistics shows yoga participation among adults increasing from 9.5 to 14.3 percent, or 22.4 million to 35.2 mil-

28 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

EDITORS’ PICKS

STAFF PICKS

CALENDAR WHAT ARE WE DOING?

AUG. 14– SEPT. 3, 2019

EVENTS AROUND THE CRANDIC AUG. 14–SEPT. 3, 2019

via the artists’ Facebook

Planning an event? Submit event info to calendar@littlevillagemag. com. Include event name, date, time, venue, street address, admission price and a brief description (no all-caps, exclamation points or advertising verbiage, please). To find more events, visit littlevillagemag.com/calendar. Please check venue listing in case details have changed.

Wed., Aug 14 Iowa City Open Coffee, Merge, Iowa City, 8 a.m., Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: RECAP + TOUR OF THE OLYMPIC

One Million Cups, NewBoCo, Cedar Rapids, 8:15 a.m., Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: SOLARPONIX

One Million Cups, Merge, Iowa City, 9 a.m., Free (Weekly) Iowa City Wednesday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 5 p.m. (Weekly) Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, The Mill, Iowa City, 6 p.m., $5 (2nd & 4th Wednesdays) L.A. CHRISTIAN METALCORE

Silent Planet w/ Doppelganger, the Emblem Faction, Manhattan Blockade, Blue Moose Tap House, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $15-18

Run of The Mill Presents: ‘The Underpants,’ The Mill, Iowa City, Aug. 23-25, 7 p.m., $12 You can always catch

dinner and a show at The Mill, but only when Run of The Mill takes the stage does the show extend beyond music and stand-up and into full-blown theater. Run of The Mill is an up-and-coming local theater company, and will present at their titular venue Aug. 23, 24 and 25 a century-old comedy from the mind of Carl Sternheim and story adaptor Steve Martin. Underpants finds Theo, an uptight bureaucrat, in the midst of scandal after his wife Louise’s underpants slip down at a parade for the king in 1910 Germany. The consequences are severe and mixed—Theo’s professional reputation is ruined, but Louise becomes an unwitting sexual icon. Farcical reflections on fame, gender and desire are promised. Dinner and drink service are available the two hours before showtime all three nights. —Emma McClatchey

Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free (Weekly) NYC PUNK INDUSTRIAL

The God Bombs, Angel Nightmare, Buddy Danger, Iowa City Yacht Club, 8 p.m., $7-10 Sean Tyler, Hannah Frey, Joe Blesz, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $7

Dan Padley Album Release Show, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Friday, Aug. 23, 8:30 p.m., $8-10 Having just returned

home from the blissfully fun 2019 Grey Area Festival to finish up the issue you’re holding now and write this here staff pick, I would like to turn readers’ attention to Dan Padley’s upcoming album release show at Trumpet Blossom Cafe. An impressive guitarist and all-around good dude with a ton of

stylistic range, Padley actually spent more time onstage than anyone else, performing with the most Grey Area festival acts both in 2018 and ‘19 (this year with Dana T., Brian Johannessen and Karen Meat). In addition to that, touring with Elizabeth Moen and playing with a list of other musicians, Padley finds time to write, record and release his own project? Give this man a round of applause. Perfectly Whelmed features, among others, Blake Shaw on bass and I.C. legend Bo Ramsey on slide guitar. It promises to be a mega-chill listen that will whelm you quite precisely. Come out and have a live listen. ––Jordan Sellergren Blackalicious, Gabe’s, Iowa City, Thursday, Aug. 29, 9 p.m, $20 I’m calling

it right now: Blackalicious at Gabe’s will be the show of the summer. Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel last hit Iowa City three years ago, on my birthday—a fact that I expertly (*cough* drunkenly? *cough*) leveraged on the kind gentleman working the door at Gabe’s to score the giant-ass poster from the show. That show was fantastic, and this time around, they’re wielding the added weight of nostalgia: Their current tour is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut full-length, Nia, which dropped Aug. 30, 1999. When midnight hits during this show, they’ll mark that anniversary exactly. Pretty keen to have that happen here. —Genevieve Trainor

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 29

COMMUNITY >> Cont. from pg. 11 poor shape, the city closed it permanently. The city and the school district then joined together again for Mercer Park pool 2.0. This time they ensured it provided all-weather swimming by putting the pool inside a building. The Mercer Park Aquatic Center opened in 1988.

The history of public pools in America is complicated. Pools, like other public facilities, embody the accepted social norms of their times. Pools that were points of civic pride in the 1920s and ’30s seemed like threats to public order to the people in charge of some cities, as courts struck Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and ’60s. Many of those cities closed their pools, rather than allow everyone equal access.

THE “PUBLIC” CITY LEADERS HAD IN MIND WHEN PLANNING THOSE POOLS WAS ONE THAT COULD AFFORD CARS. THE FAMILIES CITY LEADERS ENVISIONED HAPPILY SWIMMING WERE ONES WITH PARENTS WHO HAD ENOUGH MONEY AND FREE TIME TO DRIVE THEIR KIDS TO A POOL.

Nothing so crude as that happened in Iowa City. But its pools are also the product of certain unexamined social divisions. Discussions about what “accessibility” meant during planning for the pools in City and Mercer parks largely focused on parking. The “public” city leaders had in mind when planning those pools was one that could afford cars. The families city leaders envisioned happily swimming were ones with parents who had enough money and free time to drive their kids to a pool. In 1949, 1964, 1968 and 1988, Iowa City had a woefully inadequate public transit system. It still does. If you don’t own a car, navigating the city can be inconvenient, if not exhausting. It’s not the sort of experience that encourages people to use public recreation facilities. That’s not the fault of the Parks and Recreation Department, it’s just a reality. Parks and Recreation is aware of the inequality of opportunity in Iowa City. As part of the “Gather Here” Parks Master Plan approved by the city council in 2017, the department undertook an analysis of how its resources are distributed in order to plan how to address the discrepancies in opportunities throughout the city. At the direction of the city council, planning initially focused on neighborhood park space needs for the next 15 to 20 years. “The plan did not address athletic facilities, recreation centers, or swimming facilities,” Park and Recreation Director Juli Seydell Johnson told Little Village in an email. “We hope to complete a public input and planning process for these areas in 2020 or 2021.” That public input process should be interesting. Iowa City has seen a population increase of more than 60 percent since it added a third public pool in 1968. Are three pools still enough? If not, what happens during the planning process? Will the city rely on the same sort of assumptions about who the public for a pool is that it used in the past? Or seven decades after City Park Pool opened, is it time for a different approach? Paul Brennan is Little Village’s news director. He does not currently own a bathing suit. 30 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

EDITORS’ PICKS Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: THE VELOCIPASTOR

Late Shift at the Grindhouse, FilmScene, Iowa City, 10 p.m., $5.50 (Weekly)

CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA/ CZECH VILLAGE

Thu., Aug. 15 I.C. Press Co-op open shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free (Weekly)

the

Meet Me at the Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

DAISY

CLOTHING • GIFTS & DECOR

Uptown Getdown ft. Dogs on Skis, City Square Park, Marion, 6 p.m., Free

Marion

Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Centre Iowa City

319-249-1898 1105 8th Ave

Meditation Class, Quaker Friends Meeting House, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

New Bo

319-362-3615 208 12th Ave

Tu, Wed, Fri 11-5 Th 11-7 • Sat 11-4 ~ closed sunday & monday ~

Thursday Night Live Open Mic, Uptown Bill’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

www.shopthedaisy.com

Novel Conversations, Coralville Public Library, 7 p.m., Free (3rd Thursday)

Black Earth Gallery

‘THE LAGER QUEEN OF MINNESOTA’

Reading: J Ryan Stradal, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) ALSO FRIDAY AND SATURDAY AUG. 16-17

Cabaret in the Courtyard: Words and Songs, Brucemore, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $25-30 Live Jazz, Clinton Street Social Club, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free (1st & 3rd Thursdays) Stressica, True Commando, Alex Body, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free COMEDY @ THE MILL!

Patrick Hastie w/ Joan La Rosa Doyle, Jake McDowell, Clara Reynan, Peter Basel, The Mill, 9 p.m., $7

Fri., Aug. 16 THIS WEEK: THE FEZ W/ THE PINK SLIPS

Rock the Block, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

f lowers • ya r n

The Garden Wren f lorist & yarn studio gifts • classes

102D 16 TH A VE . SW IN C ZECH V ILLAGE 319-241-9987 • T HE G ARDEN W REN . COM

1010 3rd Street SE, suite 2 entrance on the alley Cedar Rapids, IA #NewBoDistrict blackearthgallery.com @black_earth_gallery hours: w-sat, noon-5:30pm

REVIEW

Annalibera at Grey Area Friday, Aug. 9, 2019 Jason Smith / Little Village

EDITORS’ PICKS THIS WEEK: ADAM KEITH

Uptown Friday Nights, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 5:30 p.m., $5 THIS WEEK: THE RECLINERS AND BEAKER BROTHERS

Summer of the Arts Friday Night Concert Series, Ped Mall, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., Free ‘REDEMPTION SONGS: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A COMMUNITY PRISON CHOIR’

Reading: Andy Douglas, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa City, 7 p.m. (Weekly) ATLANTA RAP ROCK

Crucifix w/ Big Buzz, Doris Anne, DRIX, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $20-25 SINGER/SONGWRITER ON THE UPRIGHT BASS

Scott Mulvahill, The Mill, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $13-15 ALSO AUG. 17

Doug T: Hypnotist, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $15-18 NASHVILLE BLUES

The JD Simo Band with Crystal City, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8:30 p.m., $10 HIP HOP, RAP, R&B AND DANCE

Summer Slam 4 featuring B-Tho, Shakes Peare, MC Animosity, C Note Boss, A$ylumoney, Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., $7-10 SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly) Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Sat., Aug. 17 15th Annual Courage Ride For Sarcoma Cancer, Big Grove Brewery & Taproom, Iowa City, 6 a.m., Free-$85 Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30 a.m. (Weekly) Cedar Rapids Downtown Farmers’ Market, Downtown Cedar Rapids, 7:30 a.m.

CULTURE Prairie Pop >> Cont. from pg. 25 me run, she got where I was coming from, and when I couldn’t count my friends on a single thumb I loved her to the maximum.” That song, he told me, unlocked something in him that led to the recording of Purple Mountains. “The music fell out of me over the next two years. It took two more to install the words.” It all began with Berman “simply strumming the guitar as a meditative practice after my mom’s death, sitting in her little house, flabbergasted at how quickly she was gone. Thirty days from diagnosis to death. I never imagined it could happen to us.” “On her headstone I wrote ‘her friendship was the dearest gift,’” he added. “Funny, lovely and just. She was a social worker in a small town in Ohio. For so many, a bridge over troubled water.” Mimi was the nurturing yin to his father’s vampiric yang, a warm buoy he held onto during a childhood fractured by divorce, living with each parent in two different cities. “Little Wooster, Ohio and gargantuan Dallas, Texas formed the municipal cocktail of my life up till age 18,” Berman said. “That drab, weird little town and the glitzy big one shaped me for sure.” At the time of his death, he was living in a small apartment above the Chicago offices of his longtime label, Drag City, one of the many ways that his friends have tried to look after him over the years. “It’s not much bigger than a walk-in closet with a bathroom attached,” he said, “but it’s free and until I do some touring I won’t be able to resettle elsewhere, as I plan to do.” Relocating to the Midwest also influenced some Purple Mountains songs, such as “That’s Just the Way That I Feel,” the album’s opening track. “I met failure in Australia, I feel ill in Illinois,” he sang, “I nearly lost my genitalia to an anthill in Des Moines.” He admitted to mischievously adding one of his old bandmates as a character with that last line. “My friend Bob Nastanovich lives in Des Moines,” Berman said, “and I liked putting him in a song passed out while fucking an anthill ’cause I love him so much.” A bereft Nastanovich succinctly summed his good friend’s gifts, messaging me after Berman’s death, “David loved words.” Berman’s lyrics resonated because he found sad and hilarious ways to communicate something meaningful about the human condition in these depressing times. He was still alive when I began writing this column and within a day the man was dead—a jarring reminder of the precariousness of life—but at least we still have his work. That still stands. Berman may have been writing something specific about his mother in “Nights That Won’t Happen,” but he also managed to convey a far more universal sentiment: and as much as we might like to seize the reel and hit rewind or quicken our pursuit of what we’re guaranteed to find, when the dying’s done and the suffering subsides all the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).

Kembrew McLeod is sad. 34 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

LITERARY LOCALE IN THE HEART OF Iowa LITERARYDOWNTOWN LOCALE IN THEcity HEART OF

DOWNTOWN Iowa city

Visit our rocking indoor-outdoor bar, Gene’s— stocked with downhome vibes and tapped for fun.

Visit our rocking indoor-outdoor bar, Gene’s—

LITTLEVILLAGE MAG.COM/CALENDAR

via marchfourthband.com

TOP PICKS: QUAD CITIES

AUG. 14– SEPT. 3, 2019

Guest List: MarchFourth, River Music Experience Courtyard, Davenport, Thursday, Aug. 15, 5 p.m., Free Seeing

MarchFourth live is an experience. The New Orleans-styled, funk-infused brass band has been mesmerizing crowds since ’03 with their stilt-dancers, colorful costumes, onstage acrobatics and downright groove-worthy music. The Portland-based group will keep you on your toes the whole show, with surprises around every corner. Make a point to see them every chance you get.

sary dates of Woodstock, Sweatstock enlists local musicians to bring you tribute sets of Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin and many more, as well as original sets from local favorites like Joe Marcinek, the Candymakers, Condor & Jaybird, the Dawn and others. Break out your best tie-dye and favorite Birkenstocks for a weekend of peace, love and music. Tickets are $15 or $25 for the weekend, but it’s free for ages 14 and under (with a paid adult).

via the artist

Sweatstock 2019, The Bend, East Moline, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 16-17, 5 p.m., Free-$25 Taking place on the 50th anniver-

Shakey Graves & Dr. Dog w/ Caroline Rose, The Rust Belt, East Moline, Monday, Aug. 19, 7 p.m., $35 This stacked

show brings you the gritty Americana rock of Shakey Graves paired with Dr. Dog’s neo-psychedelia and Caroline Rose’s pop-infused alt-country. Don’t let the fact that this show is on a Monday night make you shy away from having a fun kickstart to your week. —Paige Underwood

EDITORS’ PICKS Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park, Marion, 8 a.m. (Weekly) Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Family Storytime, Iowa City Public Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly) I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free (Weekly) Barks & Brew 2019, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 2 p.m., $20-40 ‘VELVET EMPIRE’ ANNIVERSARY SHOW

Isaac Burris: Chapter One, Theatre Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $20-30 CLOSING PERFORMANCE!

Dreamwell Theatre Presents: ‘Visages,’ Public Space One, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., $7 THIS WEEK: BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Summer of the Arts Free Movie Series, Pentacrest, Iowa City, Sunset, Free (Weekly) GRINNELL LOUNGE POP

Pink Neighbor w/ Safari Room, Extravision, The Mill, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $7 NORTH WALES SUBHARDCORE

Spam Javelin w/ Coolzey, CR Dicks, Kane Edwards, imperfekt, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $7 THE LIBERAL REDNECK

Trae Crowder w/ Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester, Englert Theatre, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $20-55 ANAMOSA METAL

Dark Agenda w/ Six Shots ‘Til Midnight, Alborn, NonGrata, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m, $5 IC OLD SCHOOL BLUES

The Blue Dog Band, Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $10 ST. LOUIS REGGAE BLUES

QuintonsBarandDeli.com

Iowa City

319-354-7074 215 E. Washington St.

Coralville

319-625-2221 2500 Corridor Way Ste 5

36 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

Cedar Rapids

Aaron Kamm and the One Drops, Famous Mockingbird, Marion, 9 p.m., $15-20

319-200-4192 450 1st St SW #101

TEXTURED EMOTIONAL POP

Des Moines

City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., $5-10

319-625-2221 506 E. Grand Ave

Zap Tura and Goatfoam w/ Purple Frank, Iowa

LITTLEVILLAGE MAG.COM/CALENDAR

TOP PICKS: DES MOINES The Raid of Area 515!, Vaudeville Mews, Aug. 15, 10 p.m., $5 I do not know what

AUG. 14– SEPT. 3, 2019

Best of 48-Hour Film Project Screening and Awards, Fleur Cinema, Aug. 15, $10

Every year, in the dead heat of mid-July, aspiring filmmakers and creatives alike gather to write, film, edit and submit a short film in only two days. A lot of teams that sign up don’t end up finishing in time, while others begrudgingly turn in films that surely could have been better if only they had a few more hours. Some submissions, however, will surprise you. Finished films are screened together in blocks a couple weeks after the deadline, but I usually just wait for the Best Of screening and let the judges filter out the duds for me. Plus, that’s when they announce the awards and which films will be going on to compete at the national level.

Anthony Scarlati

via the artists’ Bandcamp

is going to happen on Sept. 20 when a million people descend on Area 51 to “see them aliens.” I do know, however, what is going to happen on Aug. 15 when a bunch of rave kids descend upon the Vaudeville Mews for the Raid of 515, an unofficial pre-party for the always dancey and druggy EDM offerings of the 515 Alive Music Festival that weekend. There will be lots of colorful lights beaming down from above in spiraling, dizzying patterns. There will be subsonic bass vibrating through the bodies of the attendees. And there will be lots of sweaty people rubbing up on each other. Come to think of it, that all sounds like the best possible outcome of the Area 51 raid, which I think is going to end up being a really bad idea for everyone that attempts it.

Pinback w/ Nick Reinhart, Vaudeville Mews, Aug. 16, 8 p.m., $20-22 Pinback is

Ben Folds & Violent Femmes w/ Savannah Conley, Lauridsen Amphitheater, Des Moines Water Works Park, Aug. 15, 6 p.m., $35-279 I recently

heard an interview with Ben Folds on NPR about his new autobiography and all of the crazy shit that happened to him and his family growing up. It really painted an entirely different picture of Folds for me. I mean, Rockin’ the Suburbs always felt like pretty low stakes to me, but I hear it now with something like rain clouds overhead, casting a dark, brooding shadow on what I had felt were little more than power-pop earworms. Normally, I’m one to keep the artist and the art separate, but it is interesting to hear where people came from sometimes. Also, Violent Femmes!

one of only a few bands still carrying the torch of the early-’00s melody-driven pop-punk that came to be known as emo. Yet, there was always something more to their music that seemed hard to pin down. Throughout the span of five albums released over the band’s 15-year career, they’ve derived melodies from musical styles ranging from folk to rock to dub, culminating with their most recent album, 2012’s Information Retrieved. I also feel like I have to give a shout-out to the opening act, Nick Reinhart, the main man behind the math-rock powerhouse, Tera Melos. If you’ve never had the chance to see those underground legends, you can at least catch a taste of what they do at this show. —Trey Reis

t s e b e h t s ’ What r o f t n a r u a rest C? I D N A R C n i delivery ED BY PRESENT

EDITORS’ PICKS

Sun., Aug. 18 Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge Park, Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly) FINAL DAY! INCLUDES TWO PERFORMANCES OF ‘AURORA’ AND FESTIVAL AWARDS

TCR Underground New Play Festival: Out There—Science, Technology, Fantasy and Humanity, Theatre Cedar Rapids, 1 p.m., $13-40 Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free (Weekly) ‘THE SEAL’S LAIR’

Reading: J. A. Gasperetti, Prairie Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 3 p.m., Free FEATURING CANNED HEAT AND MORE

Marion Music and Art Festival, Lowe Park Klopfenstein Amphitheater, Marion, 4 p.m., $20 LIVE ON THE PATIO SERIES

Dogs on Skis, Big Grove Brewery & Taproom, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free NORTH WALES SUBHARDCORE

Spam Javelin w/ Coolzey, CR Dicks, Kane Edwards, imperfekt, Jules Bar, Cedar Rapids, 5:30 p.m., TBD WELLRED COMEDY

Trae Crowder LIVE! w/ Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan, Englert Theatre, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $20-55 Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly)

Mon., Aug. 19 Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly) Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

0 3 . T P E S AUG. 1 lag-eMag.com/CRANDIC LittleVil

38 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

(Weekly) L.A. PROTEST ROCK

Rebel Rampage, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

IOWA CITY OLD TRAIN DEPOT LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/CALENDAR

TOP PICKS: WATERLOO/CEDAR FALLS

via the artist’s website

AUGUST 14–SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

Gladys Knight, Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, Cedar Falls, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 7 p.m. $50.55116.75 The Empress of Soul has been in this

afternoon. Don’t miss the Drag Queen Story Time on Saturday at 3 p.m. on the Kidzone Stage!

business for 67 of her 75 years, and she’s bringing the full weight of that brilliance to the only Iowa stop on her current tour.

Artist Talk: Contemporary Portraiture with Sandra Louise Dyas, Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls, Thursday, Aug. 22, Free Iowa City artist Sandy Dyas brings

OPEN 11-2AM DAILY

TRY OUR BREADED TENDERLOIN! SERVING FOOD UNTIL 1AM DAILY via the artists’ Facebook

this discussion of her exceptional eye for the people and places of the modern Midwest to Hearst Center for the Arts. Cedar Valley Pridefest 2019, Downtown Waterloo, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 23-24, $10-20 One of the latest Pride cele-

brations in the region, Cedar Valley Pridefest stretches the rainbow into the tail end of summer. Tickets are available as weekend passes ($15 in advance, $20 at the door) or Saturday only access, noon to midnight ($10). Children 12 and under are no charge. There’s a Friday night fashion show, Runway to Pride, a Rainbow Fun Run on Saturday morning, and a series of educational events Saturday

IPR Studio One Live: Pink Neighbor, Iowa Public Radio Studio One, Cedar Falls, Wednesday, Aug. 28, Free Dreamy

Grinnell lounge pop act Pink Neighbor will weave their magic spell over Studio One with tracks from their upcoming release, Time Beach Universe, out Sept. 13.

ADVERTISING • AUTOGRAPHS BACK ISSUES • MERCH

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EDITORS’ PICKS

Tue., Aug. 20 Food Truck Tuesdays, NewBo City

Dance Party with DJ Batwoman,

Iowa City Wednesday Farmers

Iowa City Yacht Club, 9 p.m., Free

Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa

(Weekly)

City, 5 p.m. (Weekly)

Comedy & Karaoke, Studio 13, Iowa

MI IMPROV PROG ROCK

City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Stormy Chromer, Blist Her, Gabe’s,

Market, Cedar Rapids, 11 a.m. (Weekly) Cultivate Hope Market, Cultivate

Iowa City, 8 p.m, Free Karaoke Tuesdays, The Mill, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Practice in the Prairie, Indian Creek Nature Center, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly)

I.C. Press Co-op open shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free

Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, 4:30 p.m. (Weekly)

Thu., Aug. 22 (Weekly) Meet Me at the Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free

Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy

(Weekly)

Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free

Wed., Aug. 21

TEXAS PUNKABILLY

Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Centre

(Weekly)

Iowa City Meditation Class, Quaker BEDROCK & PARADOX SUMMER TOUR

Friends Meeting House, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

Reverend Horton Heat w/ Delta

Iowa City Open Coffee, Merge, Iowa

Universal Sigh, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 9

Bombers, Lincoln Durham,

City, 8 a.m., Free (Weekly)

p.m, $10

THIS WEEK: HANDS UP

Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10

Uptown Bill’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free

COMMUNICATIONS

p.m., Free (Weekly)

(Weekly)

THIS WEEK: ‘FIRST BLOOD’

FUNK DADDIES

Late Shift at the Grindhouse, Film

Jazz Under the Stars, McGrath

Thursday Night Live Open Mic,

Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon, Iowa City, 7 p.m., $23.85-29.50 Blues Jam, Parlor City Pub and Eatery,

One Million Cups, NewBoCo, Cedar

Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Rapids, 8:15 a.m., Free (Weekly)

Yahoo Drummers, Downtown Iowa

THIS WEEK: THE AGENDA

Scene, Iowa City, 10 p.m., $5.50

Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m.,

City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

One Million Cups, Merge, Iowa City, 9

(Weekly)

Free

a.m., Free (Weekly) Weekly Old-Timey Jam Sessions,

Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery,

Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 7:30

Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

p.m., Free (Weekly)

CREATING

Join Little Village today with your business or nonprofit and reach over 400,000 monthly readers across eastern Iowa.

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ON SALE NOW AT LITTLEVILLAGETICKETS.COM NORTHSIDE MARKETPLACE Farm to Street Dinner 2019 August 15, 5 p.m. Northside Oktoberfest 2019 October 5, 12 p.m. TRUMPET BLOSSOM CAFE Dead Coast Presents: Dan Padley “Perfectly Whelmed” Album Release Show August 23, 8 p.m. CORALVILLE MARRIOTT HOTEL & CONFERENCE CENTER DVIP Forty Years Forward Anniversary Celebration September 20, 7:30 p.m. No fees for event organizers, low fees for ticket purchasers.

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EDITORS’ PICKS OPENING NIGHT! RUNS THROUGH

THIS WEEK: CEDAR COUNTY COBRAS

Cole Peterson Trio, Sanctuary Pub,

AUG. 24

Rock the Block, NewBo City Market,

Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

Mirrorbox Theatre Presents:

Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Dan Padley Album Release Show,

Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30

BENEFIT FOR STRENGTHEN • GROW

Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 8:30

a.m. (Weekly)

• EVOLVE

p.m., $8-10

‘Sender,’ CSPS Legion Arts, Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $15

Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park,

COUNTRY SINGER-SONGWRITER

So Long to Summer!, Big Grove

Filmore, DRIX, Wildwood Smokehouse

Brewery & Taproom, Iowa City, 6 p.m.,

BLUEGRASS AND ROCK

& Saloon, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $12-15

$35-100

Grassfed w/ the Laguna Beach

Fri., Aug. 23

THIS WEEK: GRUPO INNSTINTO

Boys, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 9 p.m, $10

FESTIVAL RUNS THROUGH SUNDAY,

Sat, Aug. 24

Marion, 8 a.m. (Weekly) SUPPORT CHILDREN’S CANCER CONNECTION

Summer of the Arts Friday Night

SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m.,

Pig Pedal Classic, Starts at Mosley’s

Concert Series, Ped Mall, Iowa City,

Free (Weekly)

North Liberty, 8:30 a.m., $55

6:30 p.m., Free ‘MULHOLLAND DRIVE’

Guest Vendor Market, NewBo

Fields of Yogis 2019, NewBo City

FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa

Bijou After Hours, FilmScene, Iowa

City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m.

Market, Cedar Rapids, 7 a.m., Free-

City, 7 p.m. (Weekly)

City, 10 p.m., Free-$6.50 (Weekly)

(Weekly)

AUG. 25

$200 OPENING NIGHT! RUNS THROUGH

Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party,

Family Storytime, Iowa City Public

Reception: I’d Rather Count Bricks

AUG. 25

Studio 13, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-

Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly)

on a Wall—Julia J. Wolfe, Public

Run of The Mill Theatre Presens:

10 (Weekly)

Space One, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free

‘The Underpants,’ The Mill, Iowa City,

Intercultural Festival, Tuma Soccer

7 p.m., $12

Complex, Marion, 11 a.m., Free (reservations requested)

42 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

LITTLEVILLAGE MAG.COM/CALENDAR I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public

Feast in the Flowers Farm Dinner,

Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free

Colony Pumpkin Patch, North Liberty,

(Weekly)

7 p.m., $65

Festival Latino Iowa City 2019,

THIS WEEK: ‘COCO’

Iowa City Ped Mall, 12 p.m., Free

Summer of the Arts Free Movie Series, Pentacrest, Iowa City, Sunset,

MATT PANEK’S ELECTRIC KOOLAID

Free (Weekly)

TRIO AND MORE

Backyard Blues Fest, Big Grove

Bluetone Jazz Collective, Sanctuary

Brewery & Taproom, Iowa City, 4 p.m.,

Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

$5 DES MOINES MULTIMEDIA “BAND OF ‘CATFISH SOLUTION: THE POWER OF

FREAKS”

POSITIVE POKING’

Lvvmaking w/ Bad Year, Julia

Reading: Nicholas Johnson, Prairie

Julian, Blankat, Blist Her, Gabe’s,

Lights Books & Cafe, Iowa City, 4 p.m.,

Iowa City, 8:30 p.m, $8

Free OH HIP HOP/JAZZ FEATURING CITY PARK, DJ

Mistar Anderson, Iowa City Yacht

COMMANDO AND MORE

Club, 9 p.m., $5-10

Market After Dark, Downtown Cedar Rapids, 6:30 p.m., Free

Elation Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

OAD L N OW

PP THE A VER ISCO TO D N

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3184 HWY 22 | Riverside, IA 52327

TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE riversidecasinoandresort.com OR IN THE GIFT SHOP 319.648.1234

EVETED BY E CURA LLAG I V E LITTL

LittleVillageMag.com/App LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 43

EDITORS’ PICKS

NEWS YOU CAN TRUST.

90.9 910

NEWS | STUDIO ONE

NEWS

Stream online: IowaPublicRadio.org or the IPR app.

Coming to CSPS Hall Coming to CSPS Hall

Aug 22-25 Mirrorbox Thu22-25 Sep 5 Dmitri Pavlotsky Aug Mirrorbox J. Wolfe Thu Sep 5 Julia Dmitri Pavlotsky Fri Sep 6 Holly Julia Bowling J. Wolfe Sat Sep 76 Halfloves w Treesreach Fri Sep Holly Bowling Tue Sep 17 Dan Bern Sat Sep 7 Halfloves w Treesreach Thu Sep 19 Nobody’s Girl Tue Sep 17 Dan Bern w Colin Gilmore Thu Sep 19 Nobody’s Girl Wed Sep 25 The Lowest Pair w Colin Gilmore Sat Sep 28 Carsie Blanton Wed Sep 25 The Lowest Pair Sun Sep 29 Hawktail Sat Sep 28 Carsie Blanton Fri Oct 4 John McCutcheon Sun Sep 29 Hawktail Sun Oct 6 Old Blind Dogs

Fri Oct 4 John McCutcheon Sun Oct 6 Old Blind Dogs Art, music and theatre

in Cedar Rapids since 1992 www.legionarts.org Art, music and theatre 319.364.1580 in Cedar Rapids since 1992

www.legionarts.org 319.364.1580

‘HEREDITARY’

‘FROM THE GRAVE’ REUNION SHOW

Bijou After Hours, FilmScene, Iowa City, 10 p.m.,

Exit, Emergency w/ Five AM, Manhattan

Free-$6.50

Blockade, Catholic Werewolves, Eugene Levy, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 5 p.m, $7

Sun., Aug. 25

NICKELODEON’S LIP SYNC BATTLE SHORTIES STAR

JoJo Siwa D.R.E.A.M the Tour w/ the Belles, Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar

U.S. Cellular Center, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., $39.50-

Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly)

69.50

Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge Park,

Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly)

Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City,

Mon., Aug. 26

2 p.m., Free (Weekly) Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community CLOSING PERFORMANCE!

Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly)

‘Doublewide, Texas,’ Old Creamery Theatre, Amana, 2 p.m., $12-32.50

Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly)

CLOSING PERFORMANCE!

Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht

‘The Mousetrap,’ Giving Tree Theater, Marion, 2

Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

p.m., $27.86

Sponsored by: Southgate Properties

2017

Iowa City Wednesday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 5 p.m. (Weekly)

PG 1h 45m

www.summeroftheARTS .org

Upcoming Events: EVERY MONDAY - PARCHMENT LOUNGE - 6:30 PM free write session hosted by Iowa Writer's House EVERY WEDNESDAY - ANDREW'S BAR EXAM - 7:00 PM

AUGUST 23 8 PM

AUGUST 24 8 PM

AUGUST 30 8 PM

AUGUST 31

Cole Peterson Trio Bluetone Jazz Collective Cole Thomas "The Piano Man"

8 PM

Ross Clowser Quartet

SEPT 6

Thrio & Dave

SEPT 13

Cedar County Cobras

8 PM 8 PM

MONDAYS ARE HAPPY HOUR EVERY HOUR! SUNDAYS ARE 1/2 OFF ALL PIZZA ALL DAY! (319) 351-5692 â&#x20AC;¢ 405 S GILBERT ST, IOWA CITY

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sept. 3, 2019 45

IOWA CITY SOUTH OF BOWERY

EDITORS’ PICKS Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, The Mill, Iowa City, 6 p.m., $5 (2nd & 4th Wednesdays) Open Mic Night, Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., Free (Weekly) Open Stage, Studio 13, Iowa City, 10 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Thu., Aug. 29

Professional Printers for 65 Years 408 Highland Ct. • (319) 338-9471 bob@goodfellowprinting.com

I.C. Press Co-op open shop, Public Space One, Iowa City, 4 p.m., Free (Weekly) Meet Me at the Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly) Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Centre Iowa City Meditation Class, Quaker Friends Meeting House, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly) Thursday Night Live Open Mic, Uptown Bill’s, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Daddy-O, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) WEST COAST HIP HOP

Blackalicious, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 9 p.m, $20 COMEDY FROM PROJECT 33

Krish Mohan w/ Donny Townsend, Spencer Loucks, Clara Reynan and host Daniel Frana, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $7

Fri., Aug. 30 ALISABETH VON PRESLEY HEADLINES; EVENT CONTINUES SATURDAY, AUG. 31

NewBo Women’s Music Festival, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., Free (Weekly) THIS WEEK: THE DAWN

Summer of the Arts Friday Night Concert Series, Ped Mall, Iowa City, 6:30 p.m., Free FAC Dance Party, The Union, Iowa City, 7 p.m. (Weekly) Buddy Guy & Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., $39146

IMPORT SERVICE SPECIALISTS Audi, VW, BMW, Volvo, Subaru, Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Acura, Nissan, Infiniti, Mazda, Mini Cooper, Jaguar, and other imports

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 47 www.whitedogauto.com

DEDICATED TO YOUR DEFINITION OF home

EDITORS’ PICKS OPENING NIGHT! RUNS THROUGH

OK COUNTRY SINGER-SONGWRITER

SEPT. 6

Jon Wolfe, First Avenue Club, Iowa

Foundry Performance Laboratory

City, 8:30 p.m., $18

Presents: ‘The 24th Day,’ Shores

CREATIVITY CRAFTSMANSHIP CUSTOMER SERVICE

Events Center, Cedar Rapids, 7:30

HI ROOTS MOVEMENT ENERGY

p.m., $10

Tubby Love w/ Amber Lily, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 9 p.m, $10

RETURN OF AN ’80S STAPLE

Sloppy Drunk Blues Band Reunion

CHICAGO FEEL-GOOD FOLK/ROOTS

Show W/ Dave Zollo, Scott Cochran,

Pete Jive w/ the Twisted Roots,

The Mill, 8 p.m., $10

Iowa City Yacht Club, 10 p.m., $5-10

Cole Thomas “The Piano Man,”

SoulShake, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 10 p.m.,

Sanctuary Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

Free (Weekly)

LED ZEPPELIN TRIBUTE BAND

Flirty Friday’s Drag & Dance Party,

No Quarter, Wildwood Smokehouse &

Studio 13, Iowa City, 10:30 p.m., $5-

Saloon, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $10-15

10 (Weekly)

ALSO AUG. 31

Sat., Aug. 31

David Dyer w/ Diego Attanalso, CALL TODAY FOR A FREE QUOTE!

319-248-0561 www.andrewmartinconstruction.com

48 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269

Penguin’s Comedy Club, Cedar Rapids, 8 p.m., $10-12

Iowa City Sunday Farmers Market, Chauncey Swan Ramp, Iowa City, 7:30 a.m. (Weekly)

LITTLEVILLAGE MAG.COM/CALENDAR Marion Farmers Market, Taube Park,

TEXAS COUNTRY

Marion, 8 a.m. (Weekly)

William Clark Green w/ Special Guests TBA, Wildwood Smokehouse &

Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City

Saloon, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $15-20

Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly) Rosemask, Glass Femur, the Family Storytime, Iowa City Public

Grapevines, Scamper, Iowa City Yacht

Library, 10:30 a.m., Free (Weekly)

Club, 9 p.m., $5-10

I.C. Press Co-op Open Shop, Public

Elation Dance Party, Studio 13, Iowa

Space One, Iowa City, 12 p.m., Free

City, 9 p.m., $5-10 (Weekly)

A festival exploring the unknown, discussing the creative process, and presenting new work

(Weekly) “THE FIRST GOOD YEAR”

Sun., Sept. 1

Bloated Kat IV, Gabe’s, Iowa City, 1 p.m, $13

Guest Vendor Market, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 10 a.m. (Weekly)

TWANG-AND-CRUNCH COUNTRY DUO

Brothers Osborne w/ Travis

Hiawatha Farmers Market, Guthridge

Denning, McGrath Amphitheatre,

Park, Hiawatha, 10 a.m. (Weekly)

Cedar Rapids, 7:30 p.m., $35-55 SUPPORT THE ARC OF SOUTHEAST

Ross Clowser Quartet, Sanctuary

IOWA

Pub, Iowa City, 8 p.m., Free

Bags and Bidding 2019, Big Grove Brewery & Taproom, Iowa City, 11 a.m., $40/team

Ignite Your Creativity Nov. 1-2, 2019 Downtown Iowa City PASSES ON SALE NOW witchinghourfestival.com

Presented by +

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the ail r t e k i b t s e b ? C I D N A R C in the

ED BY PRESENT

EDITORSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; PICKS Festival of Iowa Beers, Millstream Brewing Co., Amana, 1 p.m., $30-35 Sunday Funday, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, 2 p.m., Free (Weekly) Pub Quiz, The Mill, Iowa City, 9 p.m., $1 (Weekly) â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;BACK TO THE FUTUREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Rooftop Series, FilmScene, Iowa City, 8 p.m., $15

Mon., Sept. 2 Coralville Farmers Market, Coralville Community Aquatic Center Parking Lot, 5 p.m. (Weekly) Open Mic, The Mill, Iowa City, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Comedy Open Mic with Spencer & Dan, Yacht Club, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Tue., Sept. 3 Food Truck Tuesdays, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, 11 a.m. (Weekly) Cultivate Hope Market, Cultivate Hope Urban Farm, Cedar Rapids, 4:30 p.m. (Weekly)

0 3 . T P E S AUG. 1 Mag.com/CRANDIC LittleVillage Presented by

Practice in the Prairie, Indian Creek Nature Center, 6 p.m., Free (Weekly) Blues Jam, Parlor City Pub and Eatery, Cedar Rapids, 7 p.m., Free (Weekly) Yahoo Drummers, Downtown Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

fresh â&#x20AC;˘ local â&#x20AC;˘ organic

Weekly Old-Timey Jam Sessions, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, 7:30 p.m., Free (Weekly)

Dance Party with DJ Batwoman, Iowa City

Come to Groundswell Cafe for healthy, fresh, and locally-sourced food. Your tips and donations provide meals for those who cannot afford to pay.

Yacht Club, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly) Comedy & Karaoke, Studio 13, Iowa City, 9 p.m., Free (Weekly) Karaoke Tuesdays, The Mill, Iowa City, 10:30

Located just off I-380! 201 3rd Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

319-200-2791 â&#x20AC;˘ groundswell.hub25.org/cafe Vegan and vegetarian options available!

p.m., Free (Weekly)

Younger NIGHT MILK

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RECORD COLLECTOR 116 S LINN ST, IOWA CITY

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ADVERTISER INDEX

Classic & Contemporary Furniture Lighting Housewares & Gifts Registry Corner of Dodge & Davenport Street Iowa City, Iowa 319-354-2623 info@designranch.com www.designranch.com

BREAKFAST • DINNER • DRINKS 203 N Linn St, Iowa City (319) 351-1924 • goosetowncafe.com Open everyday except Tuesday Dinners Wednesday-Saturday

126 LOUNGE (48) ALMOST FAMOUS POPCORN COMPANY (11) ARTIFACTS (60) SOSEKI (5) BAO CHOW (37) BIOTEST (4) THE BROKEN SPOKE (45) CAFE DODICI (30) CEDAR FALLS DOWNTOWN DISTRICT (59) CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA / CZECH VILLAGE (31) - PARLOR CITY - RAYGUN - THE DAISY - THE GARDEN WREN - BLACK EARTH GALLERY - GOLDFINCH CYCLERY - MAD MODERN CHOMP (30) CITY OF IOWA CITY (19, 44) THE DANDY LION (48) DODGE STREET COFFEEHOUSE (35) THE ENGLERT THEATRE (15) FIELDS OF YOGIS (35) FILMSCENE (21) THE GAZETTE (24, 27) GRADUATE IOWA CITY (34) GROUNDSWELL CAFE (50) HANCHER (22-23) IOWA BREWING COMPANY (25) IOWA CITY DOWNTOWN (54-55) - CRITICAL HIT GAMES - DONNELLY’S PUB - THE KONNEXION - IOWA CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY - THE CONVENIENCE STORE - RELEASE BODY MODIFICATION - BREAD GARDEN MARKET - RECORD COLLECTOR - TEN THOUSAND VILLAGES - YOTOPIA - WHITE RABBIT - THE MILL - BARONCINI IOWA CITY NORTHSIDE MARKETPLACE (52-53) - OASIS FALAFEL - BLUEBIRD - JOHN’S GROCERY - ARTIFACTS

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IOWA CITY DOWNTOWN

Magic the Gathering. Video Games. Warhammer. Warmachine. RPGs. Board Games. X-Wing. Dice. LotR. HeroClix. Miniatures. GoT. Blood Bowl. L5R. Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh. Kidrobot Vinyl. Retro toys. Pop vinyl & plushies. Gaming & collectible supplies. Huge Magic singles inventory plus we buy/trade MtG cards. Weekly drafts, FNM, league play, and frequent tourneys. Now buying/selling/trading video games & toys! Bring in your Nintendo Gameboy, NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Sega, WiiU, Xbox 360, PS1-2-3, & other used games, consoles, action figures, and toys for cash or trade credit! Fun atmosphere and great customer service!

MOVIE NIGHT JUST GOT BETTER!

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115 S. Linn Street (by the Public Library), Iowa City Tel: 319-333-1260; Email: chg@criticalhitgames.net www.criticalhitgames.net @criticalhitgamesiowacity

105 S. Dubuque St. on the Ped Mall

ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNEY

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Moray eels have two sets of jaws. The front set does their chewing. The second set, normally located behind the first, can be launched forward to snag prey they want to eat. In invoking this aggressive strategy to serve as a metaphor for you in the coming weeks, I want to suggest that you be very dynamic and enterprising as you go after what you want and need. Don’t be rude and invasive, of course, but consider the possibility of being audacious and zealous.

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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): It’s relatively rare, but now and then people receive money or gifts from donors they don’t know. Relatives they’ve never met may bequeath them diamond tiaras or alpaca farms or bundles of cash. I don’t think that’s exactly what will occur for you in the coming weeks, but I do suspect that you’ll garner blessings from unexpected sources. To help ensure the best possible versions of these acts of grace, I suggest that you be as generous as possible in the kindness and attention you offer. Remember this verse from the Bible (Hebrews 13:2): “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Libra-born Ronald McNair was an African American who grew up in a racist town in South Carolina in the 1950s. The bigotry cramped his freedom, but he rebelled. When he was 9 years old, he refused to leave a segregated library, which prompted authorities to summon the police. Years later, McNair earned a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and became renowned for his research on laser physics. Eventually, NASA chose him to be an astronaut from a pool of 10,000 candidates. That library in South Carolina? It’s now named after him. I suspect that you, too, will soon receive some vindication, Libra: a reward or blessing or consecration that will reconfigure your past.

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SCORPIO (Oct. 3-Nov. 21): Scorpio author Zadie Smith wrote, “In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution—is not my solution.” I think it will be perfectly fine if sometime soon you speak those words to a person you care about. In delivering such a message, you won’t be angry or dismissive. Rather, you will be establishing good boundaries between you and your ally; you will be acknowledging the fact that the two of you are different people with different approaches to life. And I bet that will ultimately make you closer. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Nothing fruitful ever comes when plants are forced to flower in the wrong season,” wrote author and activist Bette Lord. That’s not entirely true. For example, skilled and meticulous gardeners can compel tulip and hyacinth bulbs to flower before they would naturally be able to. But as a metaphor, Lord’s insight is largely accurate. And I think you’ll be wise to keep it in mind during the coming weeks. So my advice is: don’t try to make people and processes ripen before they are ready. But here’s a caveat: you might have modest success working to render them a bit more ready. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown.” Poet A. R. Ammons formulated that shiny burst of wisdom, and now I’m passing it on to you. As I think you know, you tend to have more skill at and a greater inclination toward the small, concrete, limited and certain. That’s why, in my opinion, it’s rejuvenating for you to periodically exult in and explore what’s large, vague, unlimited, unknown. Now is one of those times. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Look into my eyes. Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.” Poet Sylvia Plath wrote that, and now, in accordance with astrological omens, I’m authorizing you to say something similar to anyone who is interested in

you but would benefit from gazing more deeply into your soul and entering into a more profound relationship with your mysteries. In other words, you have cosmic permission to be more forthcoming in showing people your beauty and value. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In his Anti-Memoirs, author André Malraux quotes a tough-minded priest who served in the French Resistance during World War II. He spent his adult life hearing his parishioners’ confessions. “The fundamental fact is that there’s no such thing as a grown-up person,” the priest declared. Even if that’s mostly true, Pisces, my sense is that it is less true about you right now than it has ever been. In the past months, you have been doing good work to become more of a fully realized version of yourself. I expect that the deepening and maturation process is reaching a culmination. Don’t underestimate your success! Celebrate it! ARIES (March 21-April 19): How did sound technicians create the signature roar of the fictional monster Godzilla? They slathered pine-tar resin on a leather glove and stroked it against the strings of a double bass. How about the famous howl of the fictional character Tarzan? Sonic artists blended a hyena’s screech played backwards, a dog’s growl, a soprano singer’s fluttered intonation slowed down and an actor’s yell. Karen O, lead singer of the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, periodically unleashes very long screams that may make the hair stand up on the back of her listeners’ necks. In accordance with astrological omens, I’d love to see you experiment with creating your own personal Yowl or Laugh or Whisper of Power in the coming weeks: a unique sound that would boost your wild confidence and help give you full access to your primal lust for life. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough,” said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former president of Liberia. In accordance with astrological imperatives, I propose that we make that your watchword for the foreseeable future. From what I can tell, you’re due to upgrade your long-term goals. You have the courage and vision necessary to dare yourself toward an even more fulfilling destiny than you’ve been willing or ready to imagine up until now. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): How did our ancestors ever figure out that the calendula flower can be used as healing medicine for irritated and inflamed skin? It must have been a very long process of trial and error. (Or did the plant somehow “communicate” to indigenous herbalists, informing them of its use?) In any case, this curative herb is only one of hundreds of plants that people somehow came to adjudge as having healing properties. “Miraculous” is not too strong a word to describe such discoveries. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Gemini, you now have the patience and perspicacity to engage in a comparable process: to find useful resources through experimentation and close observation—with a hearty assist from your intuition. CANCER (June 21-July 22): Today, the city of Timbuktu in Mali is poor and in the throes of desertification. But from the 14th to 17th centuries, it was one of the great cultural centers of the world. Its libraries were filled with thousands of influential books, which remained intact until fairly recently. In 2012, al-Qaeda jihadists conceived a plan to destroy the vast trove of learning and scholarship. One man foiled them. Abba al-Hadi, an illiterate guard who had worked at one of the libraries, smuggled out many of the books in empty rice sacks. By the time the jihadists started burning, most of the treasure had been relocated. I don’t think the problem in your sphere is anywhere near as dire as this, Cancerian. But I do hope you will be proactive about saving and preserving valuable resources before they’re at risk of being diluted, compromised or neglected. LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV269 Aug. 14–Sept. 3, 2019 55

LOCAL ALBUMS

John WIlliam Watkins The Oracle EP JOHNWILLIAMWATKINS.BANDCAMP. COM/ALBUM/THE-ORACLE

ohn William Watkins, an Iowa native living in New York City, showcases his songwriting and singing in minimal acoustic arrangements on The Oracle EP, released June 21. His lyrics deal with evergreen topics of love and loneliness, from his point of view as a gay man. Watkins sings blunt, personal lyrics in a gentle, quavering voice that belies their directness. Emotional candor fights with emotional confusion in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mr. Porterâ&#x20AC;?: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I still do not know what love is / (Well, I mean) I know love is kind / and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not really something you say but more maybe something you do.â&#x20AC;? The delicacy of the melody and the quiet precision of Williamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; voice give a prettiness that takes away some of the sting of the loneliness and self-hatred he describes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Little Wormâ&#x20AC;? is a country waltz, with a hint of a nursery

Submit albums for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240

rhyme to it: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Little worm, little worm / Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve flown to Chicago / May your bones grow as tall as a beautiful tree.â&#x20AC;? It seems to be addressed (again) to a lover, but the whimsical language leavens the emotion. The three songs of The Oracle leave you wanting moreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and, luckily, you can go back to Watkinsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; album of home recordings and demos, Olds, released in April. Taken together, you get a fuller appreciation of Watkinsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; unique voice and perspective. The Oracle is more professionally recorded and arranged, but the performances on Olds sound full and clear even though most were recorded on his iPhone. In the past, there was a â&#x20AC;&#x153;gay ghettoâ&#x20AC;? for out artists, as though their concerns and emotions were not relevant to the wider culture. A growing audience of all genders and sexualities is beginning to recognize that queer voices are human voices. Watkins has mastered the art of expressing human emotions in a way that keeps them relevant to anyone with heart, while remaining true to his specific experience. This is not the moon, or June romanticism enshrined in 20th-century pop songs. Nor is it the hyper-hetero macho of rock. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something else: lovely and valuable. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Kent Williams

Subatlantic Villains SUBATLANTICMUSIC.COM

ubatlantic is not a band that would be described as impatient. Although they have been together since 2009, playing occasional gigs that secured their place on the Quad Cities music scene, they just released their debut EP, Not Louder, But Closer, in 2015. You can hear the genesis of their new album Villains on the EPâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in fact, two of the songs come from itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but Villains is a more focused, polished effort. The architecture of the songs leave big spaces between each instrument. The huge reverb on this album implies a church-sized room without sacrificing the intimate nature of the songs. The big and chiming bell tones of the guitars provide the musical melody as well as the countermelody to Rebecca Riceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reaching and often vulnerable soprano. Adam Kaulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lead guitar provides solo arpeggiated runs, but never breaks into lick-and-riff

guitar clichĂŠ. The rest of the band provides surrounding musical embrace to Riceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emotional testimony, but it also lifts her to center stage. Track four, â&#x20AC;&#x153;State of the Birds,â&#x20AC;? is a perfect example. The big chorus is crepuscular fingers of light through the clouds lifted by harmonies that sound inspired by 10CCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Not In Love.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;And, anyway, who will take the fall for this one?â&#x20AC;? Rice sings. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You persist with the questions only you can answer.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Subatlanticâ&#x20AC;? references the current geologic age within the Holocene epoch. This is when humans industrializedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the peak of both our ability to innovate and the resulting ecological crises. That appreciation of the ironic and sadly poetic perspective of human evolution is a fitting label for their art, which has echoes of the alternative invasion in the early â&#x20AC;&#x2122;90sâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Throwing Muses, Belly, bits of the Cranberriesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; both musically and in Riceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heartfelt lyrics which, taken out of context, read like poems. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t play a lot,â&#x20AC;? bassist Sean Chapman said in a chat, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but we practice every week.â&#x20AC;? Subatlanticâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investment of time and practice to perfect their sound has paid off at every level on their full-length debut, Villainsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a release that was well worth the wait. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Michael Roeder

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Mondayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Friday, 7 a.m.-11 a.m. Saturday & Sunday, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. 517 S RIVERSIDE DR. IOWA CITY redpepperdeliandgrill.com (319) 337-5280

LOCAL BOOKS

Cheryl Stritzel McCarthy Many Hands Make Light Work SHE WRITES PRESS

any Hands Make Light Work is a primary-colored memoir of the recent past. It depicts growing up in a large family in Ames, Iowa, in the 1960s and ’70s, the tones of the story vivid and bright against a backdrop of an increasingly volatile world. Cheryl Stritzel McCarthy’s memoir is a love story to old-fashioned values and hard work. She and her four older siblings and three little brothers, affectionately called “The Lids,” don’t get to slack off in the summers and school breaks—their father puts them to work, doing what we would now call “flipping” houses to get them ready for renters and college students in the Campustown part of Ames. Implied though not outright stated is that this was the Right Way to grow up, with everyone in a family pitching in, no idle hands. Everyone was up at the crack of

Submit books for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240

dawn on a snowy day to shovel the walks in front of all the rental properties. Food and time were never wasted. There’s no central conflict to this book, no major obstacle to overcome—Stritzel considers a family with nine children an asset, rather than an obstacle. The era’s counterculture and the Vietnam war are referenced more as something happening “out there” than to the family in Ames. The outside world sneaks in through guest characters; the college kids who rent space from the Stritzels come from as near as Iowa and as far away as China. These students, and a stop at a gas station in a black neighborhood in Chicago, are treated as delightful meetings with other people, rather than viewed as a source of concern. This is a rollicking piece of Americana, and for 300 pages we get to feel that we are a part of the Stritzel family, working hard and playing together, making up songs about our families, fighting over whose turn it is to wash the dishes and making up soon after. The Stritzels are a classic example of an Iowa family: hard-working, dedicated and true to their school. —Sharon Falduto

Lori Erickson Near the Exit: Travels with the Not-So-Grim Reaper WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS

ife as a travel writer and spiritual itinerant was jolted, for Lori Erickson, by the sudden death of a brother and the precipitous progression of her mother’s dementia. Seeking in part to cope with the proximate loss and to recalibrate her own spiritual equilibrium, Erickson looked anew, far and near, upon death. She invites us to join her in travels to the edifices of ancient cultures, where she observes, contemplates and dialogues with spiritual guides and shamans. Closer to home, she takes our hand, with subtle insistence, and guides us into locations in our contemporary society—nursing homes, graveyards, funeral homes, cremation pyres—in death’s proximity, where she dialogues with just about anybody who is positioned and willing to offer their insights into end-of-life concerns.

Near the Exit collates chapters by topic, alternating between death-dealings in ancient cultures and our contemporary beliefs and customs. The organization is effective, pacing the text and shifting the focus, enhancing the educational and entertaining merits of the read. Erickson writes with insight and humility, with a gentle touch of humor, in a manner that disarms what could otherwise be an unsettling and sober topic. Her contemplations are a swell of wisdom. The effect is to open metaphorically the dark closet door of death and invite it out into the light, out onto the page. In addition to journeys to ancient cultural sites and visitations to end-of-life community settings, Erickson has the courage to travel in a third direction: inward. These meditations, as well as the meditation practices of others, remind us that one day, maybe not so far in our futures, our possessions, cherished activities and even our closest sentients will fall away. From a spiritual perspective, these realizations are liberating; to grasp the earnest sense of Erickson’s Near the Exit is to disempower the Grim Reaper, to relegate her (the Reaper, not Erickson) into the natural order of things, from the cosmic to the deeply personal. —William Blair

Kim will help you find your way HOME kimschillig@gmail.com 310.795.2133 V/T

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L E F LA

A F E TH

ity C a w et, Io

St n n i L . N 6 0 2

T N I JO

GOING WAY TOO

BY FRANCIS HEANEY

The American Values Club Crossword is edited by Ben Tausig.

In this puzzle, some entries are one letter too long to fit in their assigned space, and must extend into one of the grid’s gray squares. Some other entries are *two* letters too long, and will break through a gray square and into the square beyond it. Each gray square will be used exactly once, and the letters in them (reading left to right, line by line from top to bottom) will spell a clue to a final answer; the letters that break through the gray squares will reveal who’s responsible, and help confirm the final answer. 1

24 27

45 50

54 57

55 58

acronym 20. Wow 22. One who might be bid “cheerio” 24. Noble House author James 26. Little Women name 27. Musician Anderson with a dot before his last name 30. 22-Across’s young counterpart 31. Title for Jeanne d’Arc: Abbr.

ACROSS 1. Hell on Wheels star Mount 6. Movie, slangily 10. Frog who drinks tea in a meme 14. Place to withdraw pesos 15. Person at a lectern 16. Prepped 17. Put up 18. Ora pro ___ 19. Educational curriculum

44 47

32. Part of a doorbell sound 33. “Kate & ___” 35. Close kin of soy sauce 39. Like the phrase “nanu nanu” and the word “shazbot” 41. Color variants 42. Playground response to a taunt about the characteristic traits of one’s parents, say 43. Put up with 44. Like Mr. Burns’s

fingers, when he’s plotting evilly 46. Steak ___ 47. Stick-to-it-iveness 49. Hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster ___ 50. It’s bigger than a baryon 51. Accept, as the terms of a deal 54. Needing guidance, say 56. Hamilton and Burr, e.g. 58. Combs catch on them

62. Long Island town that’s a verb + a body part 63. Walk while sploshing 65. Groups hobbled by right-to-work laws 66. Verse 67. Love in the time of Colosseum 68. Flower worth 15 points in Scrabble 69. Low-tech dryer 70. Brand of chocolate that sounds logical 71. Patrick who painted the cover of Duran Duran’s Rio

33. Filmmaker Tarkovsky, or painter Rublev whom Tarkovsky made a movie about 34. Ones hitting Ctrl-AltDel, say 36. Course in art school or med school: Abbr. 37. University of Maine town 38. Bullet point on an agenda 40. Name that becomes another name when you add “Ev” to the beginning 45. Klein of Vox or Koenig of Vampire Weekend 48. “We’ll see you on the battlefield, then!” 50. Chest pain 51. Dominatrix, hopefully 52. Enthusiasm 53. Undergrads study it on the way to the bar 55. Substance that makes a wine taste dry 57. Hoag who writes thrillers 59. Difficult to sit through without a bathroom break, perhaps 60. Olympic skater Sonja 61. Book of prayers 64. Anonymous John

DOWN 1. “Fernando” band 2. Dramamine prevents it 3. Huffy state 4. Word heard multiple times at the start of a Bill Haley hit 5. Little bump 6. Factor in determining property taxes 7. Olympic skater Midori 8. Detroit’s ___ Center 9. Tiny creatures eaten by the largest creatures 10. “Help!” 11. “Chances Are” singer Johnny 12. Concepts 13. Set of kettledrums: Var. LV268 ANSWERS 21. Counting everything MO T I V E S S CH EMA AMOROU S PO L I T I C 23. “I will surely and definitively tame N I T R I T E O N A D A T E S T E E L E E N AME L E D the mentally deV E RD I C T ranged US ___ with A N T E P I N E A P P L E S fire”: Kim Jong-un N E A RN E S S SO L A C E T HR E E S T P S A B L E 25. It’s taught at I R O N E D E A C H Y E A R certain schools CU T T L E F I S H B L T S 27. Hairstyles with S E N SOR Y chignons, perhaps A D A P T E R S R A P I E R SO J OURN P A V L OV A 28. Major blood P L A N E T S P L E A T E D vessel S T R E S S K E N Y A N S 29. Sri ___

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