Little Village magazine issue 291: February 2021

ISSUE 291 February 2021

Love in a Polycule

A L W A Y S

Kinky Ropes

The Joy of Vasectomies

F R E E

2 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

THANK

you "Best Home Improvement Company in the CRANDIC"

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LittleVillageMag.com/Support

NEWS & CULTURE FROM IOWA CITY Since 2001 littlevillagemag.com

10 - Interactions 14 - Brock About Town 15 - Cortado 20 - Iowa Dispatch 24 - Trans, Poly 30 - Bondage 101 32 - A Vasectomy Story 36 - Bread & Butter 38 - Black Liberation 42 - A-List 43 - Events Calendar 49 - Ad Index 51 - Dear Kiki Briana Ladwig / Little Village

53 - Astrology 55 - Album Reviews 57 - Book Reviews 59 - Crossword

24

32

38

Mitchell Grauberger has love

One man’s long-anticipated

Stacey Walker reflects on the fight

Gender Bender

The Big Snip

POWERED BY CAFE DEL SOL ROASTING

What is Justice?

enough for four partners and an

vasectomy, set to CCR and

for Black liberation so far and

identity beyond the binary.

Pink Floyd.

dissects the opposition to it.

Thanks to last month’s new donors:

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NEWS & CULTURE FROM IOWA CITY Since 2001 littlevillagemag.com

EDITORIAL Publisher

Graphic Designer Chosie Titus

Issue 291, Volume 30

chosie@littlevillagemag.com

FEBRUARY 2021

Digital Director

The Sex Issue

Drew Bulman

Cover by Jordan Sellergren

Matthew Steele matt@littlevillagemag.com Managing Editor

drewb@littlevillagemag.com

Emma McClatchey emma@littlevillagemag.com Arts Editor

Sometimes the ties that Photographer & Videographer

bind are bondage ropes. In

Jason Smith

this issue, Iowans delve into

jason@littlevillagemag.com

polyamory, safe rope play, vasectomies, top surgery,

Genevieve Trainor genevieve@littlevillagemag.com News Director

Marketing Automations

D.C. statehood, Black

Malcolm MacDougall

liberation and more.

malcolm@littlevillagemag.com

Paul Brennan paul@littlevillagemag.com

SALES & ADMINISTRATION

Meet this month’s guest contributors:

Art Director

Marketing Director &

Rob Cline is a writer and critic

Michael Roeder is a self-

Jordan Sellergren

Copywriter

who would gleefully give

declared Music Savant. When

jordan@littlevillagemag.com

Celine Robins

the current state of things a

he isn’t writing for Little Village

celine@littlevillagemag.com

negative review.

he blogs at playbsides.com

Izabela Zaluska

Advertising

Oglesby Finlay is a nonbinary

Rosie Romano is an Iowa native

izabela@littlevillagemag.com

Matthew Steele

illustrator, taxidermist and

and a graduate of the University

ads@littlevillagemag.com

collector of oddities, currently

of Iowa College of Law.

Staff Writer & Editor

Copy Editor

living in Cedar Rapids with their

Celine Robins

Creative Services

celine@littlevillagemag.com

Website design

Stacey Walker is a community

fiancé. @oglesbyfinlay

organizer, essayist and local

Email marketing

Tiffani Green is a lifelong Iowan

Calendar/Event Listings

E-commerce

currently living in Coralville. She

calendar@littlevillagemag.com

Videography

loves cooking (and eating!),

Chris Wiersema is the Dave

creative@littlevillagemag.com

showering her houseplants with

Barry for the Xanax and

benign neglect and forcing

analingus generation.

Corrections editor@littlevillagemag.com

CIRCULATION

February Contributors

Distribution Manager

Addi Arp, Audrey Brock, Rob

Brian Johannessen

Mike Kuhlenbeck is a freelance

Cline, Alex Choquemamani,

distro@littlevillagemag.com

journalist and National Writers

politician.

her cats to snuggle with her whether they want to or not.

Union member based in Des

Oglesby Finlay, Tiffani Green, OFFICES

Moines, Iowa.

Martinek, Talya Miller, Zak

Little Village

Briana Ladwig is a Black queer

Neumann, Michael Roeder,

623 S Dubuque St.

illustrator based in Lawrence,

Rosie Romano, Tom Tomorrow,

Iowa City, IA 52240

Kansas whose work centers

Mike Kuhlenbeck, Briana Ladwig, Celeste Lindell, John

Black liberation, pleasure

Stacey Walker, Sam Locke Ward, Chris Wiersema

Little Village Creative Services

activism and afrofuturism.

132 1/2 E Washington Suite 5 PRODUCTION

Iowa City, IA 52240, (319) 855-1474

Web Developer

SOCIAL MEDIA

Talya Miller is a designer, artist and creative human located

Adith Rai adith@littlevillagemag.com

Facebook @Little Village Mag

in the IC/CR Corridor. Give her a follow: @talyaelaine or

Talya Miller /

talyaelaine.com

Little Village

Instagram @LittleVillageMag Twitter @LittleVillage

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Print is personal.

Little Village readers hold this magazine close to their hearts—and it’s not just because that’s where it’s easiest to read.

To get up close and personal with your community, contact Little Village today: Ads@LittleVillageMag.com (319) 855-1474

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I N T E R AC T I O N S 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.

artist conversation and virtual reception:

We cured a *symptom* with this past election.

Sadly, the *disease* appears to go merrily on.

—Robert P.

Fri, Feb 12, 7p The man who intentionally hit Iowa City protesters with his car in August avoids prison Meanwhile the people that protestors were marching for got murdered, thousands of peo-

The ‘demure white supremacy of the Midwest’

ple are incarcerated for minimal crimes and those he hurt are probably still suffering. But

I heard something on TV the other day that

yes let’s free the man who ran a car into a pro-

really struck me: We have to get over the idea

test. —Ali N.

that racism has ended when we just stop being

F U T I L E W R A T H

S A M LO C K E WA R D

mean to one another. It is so much more and it is pervasive. —Marcia C.C.

Coralville’s still unnamed hockey team is approved by the East Coast Hockey League The team’s name and mascot have yet to be announced. Any suggestions? -Little Village The NADS, in honor of the National Advanced Driving Simulator located near the arena.

—Matt A. The Coralville Magnetospheres! I guarantee you that there is no other team named this, and it ties into University of Iowa Professor James Van Allen’s contributions to the early days of NASA. The mascot could be a fun skating robot, like Gritty, only more metal. —Kristine S. The Coralville Dammed. —Stephanie C. Iowa River Wraiths. River Landing Raiders.

—Joshua W. The Coralville Hockey Team. Or the Coralville Mall Walkers, if my first suggestion was too avant garde. —Brady P. Hockey McHockey Face. —Ben S. Coralville TIF Titans. —Joe H.

Service notice

Curbside organics (food and yard waste) collection will continue throughout the winter season with no extended suspension in service.

Prevent winter organics freezing to your cart icgov.org/organics LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 11

I N T E R AC T I O N S while. Can’t consolidate or even refinance them.

It’s ridiculous. —Alexi A.P. Even if just the interest was reduced/taken away that would be tremendous. The interest alone is awful and makes it difficult to get ahead. —Kay A. I paid on my student loans for over 10 years and owed more than I borrowed. They capi-

Five Iowans share how forgiveness of student loan debt would impact them

talize the unpaid interest. There is no 10-year

Private loan help would be great. My federal

Keep this conversation going. —Patrick M.

repayment plan. —Elizabeth D.

loan was the smallest and that’s been paid for a

S T R E S S F R A C T U R E S

WE DO CURBSIDE & CARRYOUT! 1/2 PRICE PIZZAS EVERY SUNDAY ALL 27 TAP BEERS AVAILABLE TO GO! SANCTUARYPUB.COM /ORDER-ONLINE (319) 351-5692 • 405 S GILBERT ST, IOWA CITY

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JOHN

MARTINEK

How to find us these days ...

TO ENCOURAGE CONTINUED SOCIAL DISTANCING Print editions of Little Village will only be available online and in the following locations until further notice:

OUTDOOR RACKS IN IOWA CITY: • Little Village HQ 623 S Dubuque St • Dubuque & Washington NW & SE corners • Clinton & Washington NW corner and inside at the north and east entrances of the Old Capitol Mall • Ped Mall playground • Van Buren & Washington NE Corner • 110 S Linn St • Market & Linn NW Corner

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ORDER CURBSIDE OR DELIVERY from one of these local restaurants and get a copy delivered free.

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LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 13

I N T E R AC T I O N S

/LittleVillage READER POLL: How’s virtual school going at your house?

Great/prefer to in-person 17%

WATCH: Ulysses Modern, Iowa City’s newest take on vintage Great folks, awesome shop!!!

Fine/making it work

39%

Meh/getting by

17%

Very poorly/failing

27%

Iowa Senate Republicans advance bills to divert tax dollars from public to private schools, require 100% inperson instruction

—Steve Barjonah I was once proud of being a daughter of this state. Lived elsewhere in this country and Dead Kennedys with Jello Biafra—vote for me

overseas. Proudly defended it from military

and I’ll make it happen. —Tyler T.B.

brats making fun of the hick “potato state.”

I am no longer proud. A Trump sycophant

The Band. —Gary A.

is in the governor’s office and follows the self-serving path of other sycophants: follow

Uncle Tupelo. And the odds of that are the

the smell of money and feed koolaid to sup-

same as me being inaugurated. —Scott G.

porters, convincing them they’ll also benefit, but they never will. People who are *not*

Ernst wrongly claims a Trump impeachment trial would be unconstitutional

Los Campesinos! would headline. American

educators making decisions about education.

Football would play a set. The Fugees definite-

Favoring those with money and taking away

ly coming back. Jay Z in there somewhere with

from those who most need our help. This is

Bey. Rihanna in there too. Common. Fleetwood

not Christian behavior.

—Kirsty C.

Mac. And we ending with the biggest Chance Thank you, Justice Ernst. —Tony A.

the Rapper concert ever. —Stacey W.

LV ASKED: New Radicals reunited just to play at President Joe Biden’s inauguration parade. What act would you call on to reconcile and/or come out of retirement if you were getting inaugurated?

The Beatles, but you know. Impossible. —Erin S.

I do not want my tax dollars supporting private schools or home schoolers. … I’m okay with 100% in person if schools are allowed to Prince and the Revolution. *pulls out Ouija

set mask and social distancing mandates.

—Kathleen H.

board* —Rain M. Weathermen Underground and SNCC. —Ben C.

BROCK ABOUT TOWN

AUDREY

BROCK

Isn’t it amazing how since the beginning of the

vaccines have been rolled out. I know sev-

hand sanitizer. We agreed

pandemic, life is technically very eventful but

eral people who’ve had one—you probably

that Purell is the holy grail,

not especially exciting? The 46th president of

do too—and they all admit that nothing feels

but we’ll take anything that

the United States was inaugurated last month,

different. Until a sufficient number of people

doesn’t have that vitamin

with a not-inconsiderable amount of drama.

have been vaccinated to create herd immuni-

E oil in it that smells like

The less said about that the better, I think,

ty, we’re all going to have to be careful. You

sweaty feet.

but suffice it to say, your friends who built an

may have heard of the new COVID strain(s),

underground bunker in which to weather the

apparently both more contagious than the

there was anything going on in our immediate

coming collapse of civilization must be feel-

original strain and more dangerous, but only

vicinity that we were completely ignoring, I

ing a little disappointed. Bulk-buying canned

if you’re one of those unimaginably tough

set up a Google Alert for Iowa City. Absolutely

peaches and shotguns you have no idea how

people who still watches the news. It hardly

nothing. Something about a report on the use

to use is a lot more fun than watching senators

seems to have made a dent in the public con-

of tear gas during last summer’s protests and

dither about the legal definition of “sedition”

sciousness. Instead, we’re getting stuck on the

a bill that would require all schools to offer

on Twitter. Might as well just watch Bridgerton.

inconsequential stuff. The other day, I spent

100 percent in-person learning, but who cares

25 minutes talking on the phone with a friend

about that? I finally got my sourdough recipe

of mine, comparing our favorite brands of

right.

The same is true of actual pandemic news.

In the last few months, four different COVID-19 14 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

Eager to find out whether

VENMO @littlevillagemag PAYPAL lv@littlevillagemag.com

CORTADO

LittleVillageMag.com

Mexico-US border wall at Tijuana, Mexico, Tomas Castelazo, tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons

El muro de la infamia POR W. ALEX CHOQUEMAMANI

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ingún pueblo, ningún país del mundo ha logrado desarrollarse levantando muros o el cierre de sus puertos. Históricamente, en el caso de los Estados Unidos, la facilitación de la inmigración y el flujo de mercancías de un lugar a otro han sido un elemento fundamental para el desarrollo económico, cultural, artístico, jurídico, etcétera, de este enorme país.

Por ello aquel muro de cemento y acero construido en la frontera de Estados Unidos con México por el gobierno de Donald Trump, no sólo es un gasto insulso de los impuestos de los contribuyentes, sino que además no resuelve el asunto de las corrientes migratorias a través de las cuales miles de personas ingresan al país por rutas no autorizadas.

Guardando las distancias del caso, la construcción del muro equivale a cerrar la puerta de una casa en llamas, cuando el deber es abrirla para rescatar a las personas afectadas por el incendio. No hacerlo no sólo es un acto inhumano sino que tarde o temprano ese incendio terminará afectando a las casas vecinas, luego un barrio, y así sucesivamente. Y algo parecido viene ocurriendo hoy en la frontera de los Estados Unidos con México. Además del muro se está restringiendo al máximo el ingreso de solicitantes de asilo que huyen de la violencia de organizaciones criminales, de la devastación de la naturaleza, o de la persecución política que reina en sus respectivos países.

Y por si esto fuera poco el muro también ha provocado otras consecuencias en la frontera que han sido poco discutidas en el debate público. Una de ellas tiene que ver con el efecto en las costumbres y tradiciones de pueblos originarios que viven justo en la frontera de los Estados Unidos con México, tal es el caso del pueblo Tohono O’odham radicado en la zona de Arizona (Estados Unidos) y Sonora (México). Otro impacto negativo es el daño que se viene causando a la biodiversidad que existe en el lugar, como especies animales, que ahora no pueden cruzar de un lado a otro de la frontera en busca de alimentos (pastizales, por ejemplo). Tampoco es un hecho menor la destrucción del espacio físico que ocupa hoy el muro, el cual visto desde una determinada altura, parece una larga herida , una mutilación a la naturaleza.

Nuevamente, el muro no es la solución sino más bien es un problema que deberá ser resuelto por el presidente actual Joe Biden. Y para ello no bastará con suspender la construcción de más tramos del muro, o con hacer público los millonarios contratos que lo sustenta. Además de esto se requiere acciones urgentes: reformar la política migratoria de la administración Trump, la cual fue elaborada a base de más de 400 órdenes ejecutivas (lo idóneo es que sea a través de leyes dictadas por el parlamento), y que hoy son “una pesadilla” o una maraña legal para los abogados de inmigrantes y solicitantes de asilo; liberar a los más de 500 niños que aún permanecen en centros de detención de Estados Unidos y reunificarlos con sus padres que se encuentran en sus respectivos países; atender la crisis humanitaria que hay en la frontera con México, la cual fue provocada por los controversiales “Protocolos de Protección a Migrantes” (MPP, por sus siglas en inglés), que ha forzado que más de 60,000 personas permanezcan en México mientras se resuelve su solicitud de asilo, en lugares peligrosos como es la frontera de México con Estados Unidos.

Espero no ser la única persona que piensa que lo ideal sería derribar ese muro de la infamia, porque a mi juicio, representa en pleno siglo XXI xenofobia, racismo y brutalidad policial.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 15

I N T E R AC T I O N S

Iowa House Republicans push through an amendment to add anti-abortion language to the Iowa Constitution Iowa voters resoundingly rejected a Constitutional Convention on the ballot in November, yet legislators like Holt don’t care about representing Iowans and their interests.

His intent is to push his radical religious agenda on others under the guise of liberty. —Ben C. So much for “our rights we prize and our liberties we will maintain,” eh? —Danica V.R.B.

LV: Our staff made a Drake meme out of yesterday’s Kim Reynolds press conference stills, so here you go, readers. Do your worst!

—Nick Stürtz

Note from Lauren Haldeman, artist featured in issue 290: When I first drew the comic [advocating for Puerto Rico and D.C. statehood], I hadn’t fully researched the complexities of Puerto Rico statehood. I had read a few articles and I thought I understood. But I’ve since learned more (with the help of a very good friend) and now want to say instead that we should all be calling for the decolonization of Puerto Rico, as per the self-determination of Puerto Ricans, rather than either statehood or independence.

Really, the future of Puerto Rico should be decided by the Puerto Rican people only. Thanks for allowing my growth.

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Digital is real.

With over 2.3 million article views in 2020, LittleVillageMag.com’s growing audience is more than just a number—115,000 unique monthly visitors are ready to shop, dine and support local.

For advertsiing, web design, e-commerce and digital marketing support, contact Little Village today: Ads@LittleVillageMag.com (319) 855-1474

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Iowa Dispatch

LittleVillageMag.com

The State of Our Nation

Jordan Sellergren / Little Village

The Iowa Dispatch features the voices of Iowans scattered around the country and the world, offering a local perspective on national and international issues.

T

he Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021 and the two weeks of intense security in the central part of Washington D.C. that followed were a vivid reflection of the true powerlessness of the city’s residents on the national stage. As I reflect on the experience of living in D.C. over the last two weeks, I struggle to put to words the stark contrast between the celebratory anticipation I felt as President Obama’s first inauguration approached in 2009 and the hunker-down mentality that dominated the local discourse after the armed insurrection at the Capitol.

Even so, I feel some optimism that

the spotlight on D.C.—not just federal Washington—can bring about long-overdue changes to give the people who live here a voice.

Jan. 6 was an ordinary afternoon for most D.C. residents, even as Congress undertook the important task of confirming the Electoral College votes in the presidential election. Despite warnings of possible violence, we were shocked as images of a violent and deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol building and frightening first-person accounts from journalists, Hill staffers and members of Congress who hid from attackers in barricaded offices flooded the airwaves and social media. For us, these stories weren’t from faceless government employees; they were from our friends, our colleagues and our neighbors.

My phone buzzed with emergency alerts. I responded to text

20 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

messages from worried friends and family who lump together the federal Capitol with my neighborhood.

Soon, the D.C. Mayor imposed a 6 p.m. curfew. From my home in southeast Washington D.C., I heard an unending parade of sirens from D.C.’s local police force as they rushed toward the Capitol.

The Capitol riot provided a stark reminder of the deep divisions within our nation. The fear of the minority contrasted sharply against the hope of the majority. And, for D.C. residents, it was a reminder that we are stuck somewhere in between, perhaps hopeful but undoubtedly exhausted from centuries of federal disenfranchisement.

For nearly two centuries, the federal government ruled D.C. It wasn’t until the 1970s that Congress authorized D.C. to elect a city council and mayor that would be allowed to draft local laws. Even so, the federal government still has tremendous power over the basic functions of D.C.’s government. Congress reviews all laws approved by the D.C. Council and has the authority to veto provisions it doesn’t like. Federal law controls the heights of buildings in D.C., the legalization of marijuana, and even innocuous issues such as the legality of collectible antique slot machines. The president appoints D.C.’s local judges, and the U.S. attorney general prosecutes all local crimes, rather than D.C.’s own elected attorney general. D.C. residents endure this federal control without any representative or senator in Congress who can vote on our behalf.

The limits on local power mean that D.C. cannot take actions that its residents want and have democratically approved. It also means that over 712,000 people, despite living so close to the nation’s center of power, have no voice in the federal

Frederick Douglass, 1879

In the wake of Jan. 6, D.C. statehood is more urgent than ever. By Rosie Romano

On Jan. 27, a group of Democratic senators reintroduced a bill to make Washington D.C. a state.

Reintroduced, because the House overwhelmingly passed the bill in 2020, but Mitch McConnell wouldn’t allow it to be brought up while he controlled the Senate.

D.C. has a bigger population than Wyoming and a larger GDP than 16 states, but no representation in the Senate and only a delegate with limited voting privileges in the House. Since 1980, its citizens have steadily pushed for statehood. In 2016, they formally voted for it in a referendum.

As a state, the D.C. in Washington D.C. would change from the District of Columbia to the Douglass Commonwealth, in honor of the great Frederick Douglass, who liberated himself from slavery and became a leading abolitionist, orator, writer and civic leader.

Douglass lived in D.C. for the last 18 years of his life, and in 1877, he became the first Black federal officeholder ever confirmed by the Senate, after President Hayes nominated him to be Marshall of the District of Columbia.

Statehood isn’t a sure thing, but at least now it can be discussed in the Senate.

—Paul Brennan

THE ENGLERT THEATRE inspiring art in uncertain times

While our doors may be closed, we’re still working hard to create quality programming that highlights the talent of our community. In the past three months we’ve uploaded over 30 videos to our Youtube channel, including a youth acting camp, a virtual concert series, and more.

Watch and subscribe at

Youtube.com/TheEnglertTheatre Acting Out Prep School | Mission Creek Underground | Best Show Ever Nuggets of Wisdom with Sharon & Jonny | Best of the Englert

Pictured: Jessica Egli - Acting Out Instructor LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 21

Iowa Dispatch

Love! Storms! Pants!

A web series diving into Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night.

NEW EPISODES EVERY MONDAY!

SUBSCRIBE AT

government. They lack the basic human right—a right central to the principles of American democracy—to have their votes count.

Growing up in Iowa, I learned about elections and the power of voting through the lens of the Iowa caucuses. Every four years, for months on end, Iowans have access to presidential candidates in both parties. They have the power to raise their concerns directly to candidates and then, on a cold winter evening, walk into a middle school gymnasium or community center to have their votes counted. As a kid, I eagerly attended caucuses, town halls and rallies alongside my dad. I recall the near-reverence with which Iowans across the political spectrum took to the vote; the excitement that their voices could—and would—make a difference in national politics.

The voices of D.C. residents have no such power.

In recent years, the call for D.C. statehood has gained momentum. Last year, the House approved legislation to make it a reality. But progress toward statehood has stalled. Rather than viewing statehood as a basic human rights issue, many people have made it a partisan issue. In doing so, they dismiss the voices of real people— people just like you who worry about the future, but have no power to change it.

In the eight years I’ve lived in D.C., I’ve often been exhausted and disheartened by this fight and the roadblocks opponents continue to put in our way. But we will keep fighting, knowing our cause is worthy and making a difference.

Just over a year ago, my grandfather, a lifelong Iowa Republican, visited our home in D.C. He chatted with our neighbors, walked on our streets and ate in our restaurants. He saw a D.C. different than the one that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh had described for years.

When we told him that we, as D.C. residents, do not have a voting representative in Congress, he was shocked. “That isn’t right,” he said.

When he asked why, we informed him that the

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CONCERTS SPORTING EVENTS MOVIES AWARD CEREMONIES CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EVENTS MOVIES EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS CHURCH CONVENTIONS CHURCH CONVENTIONS LECTURES MOVIES FESTIVALS PLAYDATES FRIENDS SHOPPING DINING OUT HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS ENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS CONCERTS SPORTING EVENTS MOVIES AWARD CEREMONIES SCHOOL EVENTS EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS AWARD CEREMONIES PARKS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EVENTS Republican Party was blocking D.C. statehood AWARD CEREMONIES CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCE because our city will almost certainly vote difCHURCH CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EVENTS EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS PARKS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATH ferently than theyLECTURES do. He repeated, this time with PLAYDATES FRIENDS SHOPPING DINING OUT LECTURES MOVIES FESTIVALS PLAYDATES FRIENDS SHOP MOVIES FESTIVALS a little more righteous in his voice, MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS CONCERTS SPORTING EVENTS MOVIES AWARD CEREMONIES SCHOOL EVE EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTSindignation CONCERTS FARMERS EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS CHURCH CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EV “That isn’t right.”

It’s time for America to make it right. The D.C.EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS SHOPPING DINING OUT LECTURES MOVIES FRIENDS SHOPPING DINING OUT PARKS CHURCH CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EVENTS that I live in andFESTIVALS love is notPLAYDATES a faceless governLECTURES MOVIES FESTIVALS PLAYDATES FRIENDS SHOPPING DINING OUT CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS MOVIES ment bureaucracy made up of temporary workers CHURCH CONVENTIONS LECTURES MOVIES FESTIVALS PLAYDATES FRIENDS SHOPPING DINING OUT who return to their home states with the changing EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS CONCERTS SPORTING EVENTS of each administration.

We are EVENTS a diverse,CONCERTS talentEVENTS RELIGIOUS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS AWARD CEREMONIES PARKS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EVEN AWARD CEREMONIES CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HO ed and resilient bunch of teachers, restaurateurs, TURES MOVIES FESTIVALS FRIENDSveterans SHOPPING DINING OUT LECTURES MOVIES FESTIVALS PLAYDATES FRIENDS SHOPPING DINING OUT FRIENDS healthcare workers,PLAYDATES artists, lawyers, EVENTS RELIGIOUS EVENTS CONCERTS FARMERS MARKET HOLIDAY GATHERINGS CHURCH CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS MILITARY EVENTS

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WISHING YOU A HAPPY & HEALTHY NEW YEAR! HERE’S TO THE THINGS WE HOPE TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2021!

(our city has more veterans per capita than any other in the country) and accountants who chose to make this city our home. We are citizens begging for a way to have a say in not only how our city is run, but our nation as a whole.

In the days approaching the Presidential Inauguration, many D.C. residents spent too much time looking at Secret Service maps of the different security zones and road closures, trying to determine whether they could get to work, to a doctor’s appointment or to a restaurant to pick up takeout. Bridges in and out of the city were closed. (As I write this, two days before Inauguration Day, I learned that my neighborhood will be completely cut off from the rest of D.C. for 48 hours due to bridge closures.)

American soldiers and military vehicles roamed the streets.

We admit, of course, that these inconveniences are the cost of providing security for federal Washington, and cannot be solved by statehood.

They are something we accept because we choose to live here. But the militarization of our city does nothing to relieve the powerlessness that D.C. residents continue to suffer. It raises, instead, the urgent feeling that something must be done. That we need not accept the continued disenfranchisement and anti-democratic practices that have long stifled the voices of the people who call D.C. home.

The failure to provide D.C. residents with basic democratic rights is not a wrong that we can right on our own. The power to uphold this nation’s founding principles, to ensure that everyone has the right to have their voices heard, lies with you. We need you to urge your representative and senators to make D.C. statehood a priority. Just like you, D.C. residents deserve to have elected officials who can effectively speak for us and represent our interests. We deserve a voice in the federal government. We deserve to have our votes count. We deserve statehood now.

typo!

NotNot a a typo!

Kim will help you find your way HOME! Not a typo!

Rosie Romano is an Iowa native and a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law. Go Hawks!

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 23

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Trans, Polysaturated One Iowan’s genderqueer journey and multifaceted love story. By Emma McClatchey

“T

he line between friendship versus romantic attraction is very strange for me,” 24-year-old Mitchell Grauberger lamented. “I enjoy having, like, platonic cuddles with my friends. So where’s this line? Am I romantically attracted to you? Or am I just a friend?”

Last February, Mitch managed to maneuver this gray area with a friend he’d met four years ago in Iowa City, unceremoniously launching his first serious relationship.

“It took us so long to realize we were actually romantically attracted to each other,” Mitch said of his Cedar Falls-based partner. “I remember I was venting about how I wish we could just actually be a thing. And he’s like, ‘Well, I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you called me your boyfriend,’ and I’m like, ‘OK, I guess we’re boyfriends.”

About a month later, Mitch made another love connection with Ley, a friend from Rhode Island Mitch met in an online Nerdfighters fan group.

“We were flirting for a really long time before anything happened. Our partner calls us their lesbian sheep.” Mitch explained: “If you look at a flock of sheep, homosexuality turns up a lot more often, it seems, among male sheep.

But that’s because they figured out that lesbian sheep just stand there too scared to do anything when they’re attracted to another sheep.”

In July, he became official with another partner, Aric, and another, Joel, in December, forming what some polyamorous folks like to call a “polycule.”

“If I were to draw it out, you’ve got me and my four partners,” Mitch said. “One of my partners has another partner, two of my partners

are dating each other. One of them has another partner other than the two of us. One of them has two other partners.”

Mitch and his polycule are scattered across the country: Mitch moved to the Twin Cities this year to work in theater; one partner is still in Cedar Falls; two moved to Knoxville, Tennessee together; and the other lives in Grapevine, Texas. But even long-distance, even in a pandemic, Mitch said his partners—and his own adventures in gender expression—have been a beautiful source of comfort in an otherwise difficult year that included surgery, homelessness and an ongoing struggle with mental illness.

•

•

•

“There are always those posts that are like, ‘If you could say four words to yourself in seventh grade, what would they be?’ And I’m like, ‘You’re not a girl,’” Mitch said with a laugh. “I’d confuse myself a lot.”

Assigned female at birth, Mitch grew up in Marion, Iowa and graduated from Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School in 2014. He attended Cottey College, an all-women’s school in Nevada, Missouri, but dropped out just two months into the fall semester due to a mental health crisis. In the months following, he started to become more self-reflective, especially with regards to his sexuality and gender.

“With my mental health issues and my instability growing up, I didn’t really have time to sit down and think about who I was as a person,” Mitch reflected. “When I had that time and I was able to explore, it was very, very liberating.”

Mitch came out first as asexual and genderfluid, using they/them pronouns, and eventually as trans

24 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

“There are always those posts that are like, ‘If you could say four words to yourself in seventh grade, what would they be?’ And I’m like, ‘You’re not a girl.’ I’d confuse myself a lot.”

Courtesy of Mitchell Grauberger

masculine genderqueer, adopting he/him pronouns (“I have a strong sense of gender that isn’t male or female,” Mitch said. “And that’s genderqueer.”) He connected with other LGBTQ people online.

“Growing up [in Iowa], I didn’t really have exposure to people who mess with gender norms. I grew up knowing and believing that trans people are OK and cool or whatever, but I didn’t really understand what that meant,” he said.

“I had medical providers and nurses, like when I went inpatient for psych a couple times, telling me, ‘Well, you can’t be trans.’ They thought that … I was just claiming these gender things because I was latching on to the friend group that was supporting me. That’s not what it is.”

In the fall of 2015, while he was living in Marshalltown, Iowa, Mitch began consulting with Dr. Katherine Imborek, an LGBTQ health specialist at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Mitch also tried on a chest binder for the first time.

“I never really experienced chest dysphoria until I experienced the euphoria of wearing a binder,” he said. “It was like a lightbulb …

Once I experienced that and realized, oh my god, I can feel so much better, then I was dysphoric when I wasn’t wearing it.”

Mitch began binding his chest every day. He moved to Cedar Rapids to be closer to UIHC for his gender clinic appointments.

“I actually ended up in a shelter for a while—Catholic Worker House, which is a women’s shelter,” he said.

One in five transgender people in the U.S. experience homelessness, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Already underfunded shelters are Oglesby Finlay / Little Village

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often ill-suited and even dangerous for trans folks, who are targets of discrimination. While Mitch identifies as trans masculine, he said he’s more comfortable in women’s shelters, which often provide better privacy than men’s shelters and are more likely to be staffed by people trained to support survivors of abuse and trauma.

“I don’t hide the fact that I’m gender nonconforming. And I refuse to hide it,” Mitch said. “And so if I were to ever end up in that situation again, I would not go to a men’s shelter.”

Meanwhile, Mitch started taking testosterone and discussing the prospect of a mastectomy, commonly called top surgery, with Dr. Imborek.

Trans and nonbinary people often spend months or years on a waitlist for top surgery, and many must crowdfund to afford it. But in 2016, with transgender healthcare access under threat from both the Trump administration and the Republicandominated Iowa Legislature, Mitch said Dr. Imborek was determined to see that Medicaid patients like Mitch secured gender confirmation procedures in a timely fashion.

Mitch received his top surgery on Dec. 7, 2016, at the age of 20—a major step in his gender journey that included physical changes as well as experimentation with style, labels and identity. He even spoke about his experience navigating mental illness as a trans person at the 2017 Cedar Rapids Pride Festival.

“I like to mess around with kind of society’s gender norms. I wear dresses and skirts and makeup all the time,” he said. “Giving myself time to explore [pronouns] and having a group of friends that I could be like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about maybe wanting this name, could you try calling me this for the next day or so?’ and have the group do that is really amazing.”

Mitch said his sexuality can best be described as graysexual—he is somewhere near demisexual on the asexual spectrum, meaning he tends

to feel more physically attracted to someone the closer they are emotionally. But unlike some asexual people, he is not sex-repulsed and has had his share of hook-ups.

“Sex feels good!” he said.

“Figuring out your own lines and boundaries and comfort levels so that you can be transparent about it with people is big.”

2020 was a year of ups and downs for Mitch. Ups included his new relationships, the move to Minnesota and a stronger sense of self. Downs included the travel restrictions brought by COVID-19; the fact he spent three months homeless and living out of a motel in the Twin Cities; and a battle with pelvic inflammatory disease, an infection of the reproductive system.

After months of pain—and plenty of tests and treatments that provoked gender dysphoria—Mitch decided to undergo a uterus removal to eliminate the risk of future infection.

“Honestly, I have mixed feelings,” Mitch said of the procedure.

“I’m very, very happy that I don’t have to live with the anxiety of the horrific experience [again]. But at the same time, I wanted to be what I call a seahorse and carry a pregnancy at some point.”

Mitch’s ovaries were not removed in the hysterectomy, however, and he is hopeful he might be able to contribute an egg to a biological child in the future.

It was when Mitch was recovering from this latest surgery that his romance with Joel bloomed.

“He actually was messaging with me while I was in the ER after my surgery because I had some complications. And I was just absolutely miserable. And I remember he made some jokes about Florida Man.” Mitch chuckled. “I find it really funny that we became official while he was making Florida Man jokes while I was laying in the ER bed.

But it’s what I needed at that point.”

Each partner nutures different facet of Mitch’s life. For example, Joel is his go-to for geeking out

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over Dungeons and Dragons.

“Part of why polyamory is so beautiful in my eyes is if, say, one of my partners was low on emotional energy and I need somebody to support me through something, I have more than just the one partner to go to,” he explained.

The key to maintaining a healthy polycule is first having confidence in yourself.

“I think all forms of relationships require a pretty decent sense of self-worth. Because, like, if I were to just assume that my two partners who live together love each other more than they love me, that’s not trusting them to be honest with me,” Mitch said. “My relationship with my partner Ley is separate from my relationship with my partner Aric is separate from their relationship with each other.”

His partners share memes in their “Polycule” group chat, as well as host dates over Zoom. He’s pondered joining Ley and Aric in Tennessee, but Mitch is reluctant to leave the Twin Cities theater world behind.

“It’s jealousy, but it’s healthy jealousy. They get to snuggle on the couch, they get to see the dogs, they get to fall asleep together every night,” Mitch said of his cohabited partners. “I’m jealous, but I’m more happy. I love them both very, very, very much, and the fact that they get to be with each other makes me happy.”

Even from hundreds of miles away, Mitch’s partners have made his struggles with mental health less lonely.

“There’s been multiple times where I’ve had anxiety and trouble sleeping ... I would fall asleep while on video calls with partners, and it was like I was falling asleep with them,” he said. “That really helped calm my insomnia and anxiety.”

Mitch said an 18-year-old version of himself would be mind-boggled to see where he is today, but if he could send any message back in time, he’d tell himself, “Hey, you are mentally ill and that’s OK, but there’s also so much more to you than just that.”

“I’m thriving,” he said. “I say things are going good in my life, but it’s not necessarily that I’m having a lot of good days; it’s that when I’m having bad days, I’m OK. And that’s huge.”

He’s disappointed to not be seeing his partners on Valentine’s Day, but looks forward to a virtual date night. As for any new prospects, well, Mitch said his dance card is full with four partners.

“I’m calling myself polysaturated at this point,” he said.

Emma McClatchey is a single Pringle. Also Little Village’s managing editor.

28 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 29

IMPORTANT: Safety first! Stay clear-headed! Ensure mutual enthusiastic consent!

Rope Bondage 101

By Talya Miller Safety Warning: Rope can be a dangerous practice. Please use caution and communication when tying your partner. Always have safety EMS scissors within reach. Do not practice rope when consuming substances that can alter your mental state. Enthusiastic consent is mandatory for both parties. Lastly, have fun!

Materials 30-40 feet of cotton-braided rope

EMS Safety

1

Scissors

1

2 6 Basic Body Harness 1. Fold your 30-40-foot rope in half, and place over your partner’s shoulders and neck.

2. Tie four standard overhand

5

knots with your doubled rope the length of your partner’s upper half, starting at the clavicle. Each knot should be roughly one hand length from the previous knot.

4

3. Next, take both strands of leftover rope up between your partner’s legs, so the rope is now at the back of the body.

3 3

4. Finally, take one rope in each hand. Reach around the front of your partner and loop each strand of rope through the coordinating section between the knots.

5. Repeat step 4, creating a crisscross pattern in the back, and a diamond pattern in the front.

6. Once you reach the top section,

Talya Miller /

just tie in a bow in the back. Do

Little Village

NOT loop through by the neck.

7. Not recommended for longterm wear; check with your partner on comfort.

30 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

VENMO @littlevillagemag PAYPAL lv@littlevillagemag.com

Dear Reader, The dom/sub relationship can be

1

a tricky one to tease out, both for folks on the outside looking in and for interested

2

parties new to play. It’s a relationship that’s all about control and power, but it’s the sub who holds both, not the dom. Anyone who performs the actions of a dom with only their own pleasure in mind and without those truly magic words, ENTHUSIASTIC

3 4

CONSENT, isn’t a dom, they’re an abuser.

The gift of bondage and other forms of play is that it codifies and requires the kind of open communication that can be hard to

Double Column Rope Cuff

access in a more traditional relationship.

1. Fold your 10-foot rope in half,

It’s a level of intimacy

and wrap around your partner’s

and trust that takes a

wrists in an orderly manner 2.5

lot of work to achieve.

times, finishing with both ends of

And it appeals across

rope on top.

a wide spectrum of players.

2. Rotate both rope ends clockwise a half turn. This should make an L

If you’re interested

shape, as shown in the diagram.

in exploring either domming or subbing,

3. Take the folded end of your

and you’re currently

rope, also known as the bight, and

in a relationship, start

pull it down between your part-

with long conversations

ner’s arms and back up between

with your partner about

their hands. This creates the cuff

what’s truly required

shape.

of each party. Bring in an expert, if you’re

4. Use the bight to tie a knot on

confused! And always

the top of the cuffs. Do NOT try

have each other’s backs,

to cinch the cuffs to be extremely

even (especially) while

tight. There should be enough

you’re striking them.

space to fit two fingers between the rope and your partner’s skin.

xoxo, Kiki LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 31

32 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

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A Vasectomy Story

Classic rock and vasectomies go together like peas and carrots.

Built with input from a few

Or, Taking Thunderfuck Mountain by Strategy: Enter the Wyrm King. By Chris Wiersema

One.

I am prone on the table, awake, naked and aware.

The light is open and white, as are the gypsum ceiling tiles and what bit of the upper walls I can make out. I am not restrained, but I don’t think to move. My eyes scan for a fixed point to hold, over and over, to occupy my mind, but only find more gleaming light fixtures, some direct and others diffused. I opt instead to close my eyes and bask in the heat they throw off. Because I am naked, and strangers are in the room. I am thrilled.

•

•

•

When I first inquire about receiving a vasectomy, my general physician asks where a 13-year-old boy learned that word and, even more damning, why it should interest me. Unmasked as a child slut, I explain with all the grace and nuance of fawn first finding its legs that I never want children or to be the cause of them; he agrees and says, “Of course children don’t want children.” A few days later I am brought to a cold, brightly spray-painted church basement with other child sluts and for several Sundays we are shown crudely animated videos about God’s thoughts on sex—represented on screen as a cartoon duck, who, among the group, is unanimously mocked. We, kids of this quivering new flesh, laugh in the face of the god-duck.

The strangers, assistants of indiscernible ranking, bring in steel trays topped with unseen instruments and sealed with saran wrap. Others drape me in sheets of ciel cloth or paper, I’m not sure. They talk to each other as though I’m not there, so I imagine that I am dead. They tent the cloth around my face at the shoulders and cut the paper below my navel to my knee, exposing my penis and testicles to the room and its attendants, but not to me. But we’re already acquainted.

Around the eon of god-duck, Briana Ladwig / Little Village

girls I know will begin to receive the wheel of pills. Their parents are concerned with angry clusters of acne pearls, or the clouds of hormonal spells manifesting in slammed doors, sullen family dinners and eruptions of tears with unforeseen origins, or the dark portents of a treasured stuffed animal or armrest of the living room sofa worn threadbare in a matter of months. This is the only choice, the parents tell each other. They tell the daughters about the responsibility of the pill wheel and the promise of adulthood it implies. Looming larger is the expanding spectre of stranger danger. The pill spiral is a weak but necessary talisman to protect against the wolves of men and the amount of damage they can do to the new woman. “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this,” their parents whisper.

The boys are told that they will always be boys. Nothing doing.

•

Two.

•

•

An assistant briskly sterilizes my exposed testicles with the cold sting of disinfectant.

I cannot see her face, but I know that she is angry with me. There is no kindness in her labor. The sharp chill of the cleanser is piercingly reminiscent of growing up in a Dr. Bronner liquid peppermint shower soap household with parents that, for all moral ABCs provided, never made it to the bottle’s chapter on dilution. Once gifted with patience and literacy, I pointed this subsection of instruction out for the avoidance of chemical burn-like cleanliness, and my father remarked that I shouldn’t waste so much hot water reading.

So early in my development he gravely underestimated the amount of suffering I’d willingly endure for pleasure. As the good bottle says, ALL-ONE OR NONE! “If you’d done any worse a job at this, we could’ve canceled the procedure and all gone home,” the assistant

says somewhere past my paper veil, now shaving the hair I failed to adequately remove myself the night prior as instructed. “Of course then you’d probably have bled to death.” I try to keep my body hair in order, but never to skin, not even on my face. Naked, my body hair topography most resembles a satyr. Beyond the limitations of sight, there was an issue of balance and lack of proper tools to contend with, leaving my scrotum looking like half-chewed gum that had fallen behind a pet owner’s couch, then been stabbed, repeatedly.

•

•

What’s the Deferens?

•

experienced locals, here’s our curated cauterizing playlist: Foreplay / Long time Boston

Comfortably Numb Pink Floyd

Changes David Bowie

Love Spreads

The second time I ask a GP to give me a vasectomy, I am 22 and self-serious and too cool for school and my parent’s insurance. “No way, come on man, you’re still young!” says the doctor sitting splay-legged on a swivel stool at eye level. The nonchalance of his tone and posture for this pep talk incorrectly assumes that I did not grow up watching Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper every Friday night as a preteen. “I’m telling you, kids are a blast, man; I thought I’d be young and wild, probably like you’re thinking right now.”

It’s not, I tell him. I tell him about the overwhelming guilt I feel at the remote possibility of pulling a someone out of nothingness into all this— somethingness. I talk about children as a moral negative, of ancient gnostic orders like the Cathars who considered cursing a soul to the fallen vessel of man unforgivable, and most shamefully, I mention Kantian imperative. I say all of this with a fucking lip ring.

I am not smart, but I excel at appearing smart to those less clever and more trusting than me. My brilliance is in my cruelty. I smell an insecurity like an open wound, I am at the throat of the docile before they can understand my betrayal, I am Aesop’s drowning scorpion.

“Let’s give it a few years, huh, then

The Stone Roses

Thunderstruck AC/DC

Bang a Gong (Get It On) T Rex

Fortunate Son Creedence Clearwater Revival

Won’t Get Fooled Again The Who

Heroes David Bowie

Listen on Spotify: Hit “Search” and select the photo icon to scan this code:

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 33

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check back? Besides, reversal can be pricey, and insurance might not cover it,” my GP says, now sitting properly with the correct amount of solemnity, accurately sizing me up as someone who is governed by impulse rather than logic, and who does not have money or insurance in his future.

The conversation ends with a firm “no” and an open prescription for a generic of Lexapro that will prove to be the closest to a male pill the world has yet to see.

Women in my life will get upsold from their doctors. The coil of pills suspended in foil, that’s kids’ stuff these days. Now there are wires and bars of hormones; they’re surgically embedded in the arm or pushed past the cervix. How much more simple will this all be? Set it and forget it.

Though the physician often neglects to explain what pushing past the cervix actually feels like, the likelihood of the object perforating the uterine wall, the return of hormonal imbalance and its potential alien thoughts of rage and self-harm. Because we teach the women of our lives to mask pain and distrust their bodies from the time of their first stomach cramp; we discount and ignore their pain when they do mention it at all. Over a fucking apple.

•

•

•

Three. “You don’t mind a

little music, do you?”

The surgeon enters the theater in a jovial mood, and apparently ready to rock, as “Fortunate Son” by CCR’s sustained twang issues from speakers unseen.

“And we’ll have some guests.”

I hear another door to the back of the room open and sit up only briefly to see eight nursing students form two rows, like a masked choir poised at any moment to join the chorus of “It ain’t me, it ain’t me.” I try to push scenes from the film Jacob’s Ladder out of my mind. It’s a teaching hospital, this is normal, it ain’t me.

•

•

•

The last time I request the procedure I 34 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

am 34, married, without any piercings but with insurance. I say that it’s ridiculous that my partner has to endure long, difficult menstruations, that she is at battle with hormones and forced to second guess her own mind. The doctor stops me, “You had me at ‘I don’t want children’; besides, we can always undo it if you do.”

Shortly after, she schedules an appointment with the jolly surgeon who will be performing the lifelong-sought deed. He urges me several times to go to their sperm bank to freeze a potential heir. It is overly emphasized how excellent the pornography they keep there is. Though I will never go, since it is contrary to my initial goal, I will be occasionally haunted by the prospect of medicinal smut.

Women in my life will go again to the doctor, this time with tubal ligation on the tongue, well shot of the hormone tempest and the magic brass rings and the less-than-magic removals. Some of their doctors will ask if their husbands know that they’re inquiring. Even women with wives.

Some of their doctors will lean in and say, “but you’re so pretty.”

By the time we’re to the climax of “Brain Damage” by Pink Floyd, I can smell the slight acrid burning of my vas deferens being cauterized. In the distance, I am aware of a slight tug on an ancient seam, some hidden stitching that dates to my first being.

“Well, that ought to keep the pigment from mixing with the paint!” the surgeon exclaims to titters from the masked choir. “Though I wouldn’t go using the paint brush for a week or so.”

It’s the first time I feel any pain during the procedure.

Chris Wiersema lives in Iowa and is hard(ly) working on his first novel set in a militant Christian reform/conversion school for wayward American children in the Dominican Republic, loosely based on personal experience, the autobiography of Gene Genet and the disgraced graphic novelist Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. If you see him in public, please send him home; he ought to be working.

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Prithee Drink Wine A CR-raised vintner goes once more into the breach to make his mark on the Blanc generation.

O

ne happy side effect of the pandemic: It’s easier than ever to get wine delivered to

your door.

That includes Bodkin Wines, a Healdsburg, California-based winery established in 2011 by Cedar Rapids native and Stanford grad Chris Christensen.

“A breath of fresh air in an industry whose representatives can sometimes appear too buttoned up, Christensen is a self-taught vintner who drinks Coors Lite but can tell you about the fermentation process with ease,” booze blog Vinepair wrote of the winemaker in November.

A year after starting his own winery and only a few years into his career in wine, Christensen made a historic splash in the industry—he created the first sparkling Sauvignon Blanc in the U.S., a project he financed by borrowing money against two credit cards and rolling the balances to a third card.

“Making America’s first sparkling Sauvignon Blanc in 2012 is both the coolest thing and the stupidest thing I’ve done as a winemaker,” Christensen told Vinepair. “... There’s a thin line between a leap of faith and jumping to your own doom.”

It became the flagship wine for his brand, Bodkin Wines, which now boasts 15 well-reviewed styles. The name—“bodkin” is a type of arrowhead common in the Middle Ages—and the art style on the label reflect Christensen’s passion for medieval history. He’s even wielding a sword on the BodkinWines.com homepage.

Restaurant closures in California due to COVID-19 lit a fire under Christensen to optimize his online ordering system, including Bodkin’s wine club. Members can sign up to receive six bottles

Chris Christensen, a Cedar Rapids native, poses sword-in-hand with a bottle of Bodkin’s celebrated sparkling Sauvignon Blanc. via bodkinwines.com

($122 plus $22 shipping) or 12 bottles ($240 plus $35 shipping) a year.

2020 also made him aware of his power as a winemaker and business owner of color.

“It wasn’t until the BLM movement and renewed national attention on racial inequality when I started to feel that Bodkin Wines could be a vehicle that could help effect change,” he said. He plans to use his platform to promote diversity in the industry and mentor other young entrepreneurs.

“I feel strongly that the work I’ve done and the knowledge I’ve gained over the years is wasted if I’m not able to pass it on to others.”

—Emma McClatchey

36 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

“It wasn’t until the BLM movement and renewed national attention on racial inequality when I started to feel that Bodkin Wines could be a vehicle that could help effect change.”

—Chris Christensen, Vinepair

via bodkinwines.com

IOWA CITY NORTHSIDE MARKETPLACE

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 37

LittleVillageMag.com

Culture

Revolution & Beatitudes of Black Liberation (An Excerpt)

By Stacey Walker

CW: This piece contains a use of a racial slur.

This essay is part of a longer recorded performance piece presented by Little Village with Witching Hour. An in-progress version of the performance was included in fall 2020’s Witching Hour Festival; we are revisiting and expanding upon it this month. Look for the final video on littlevillagemag.com.

W

hat is Black Liberation? What does it mean to be free?

Black people have been fighting for liberation since we arrived on the shores of what would come to be called the New World. And as the generations passed, we found that it never ends; the struggle simply evolves.

And here today, we find ourselves engaged in yet another fight—one whose precursors stretch the expanse of history. A new fight with ancient roots, looking to finally achieve what has been promised to all people in this country: freedom.

And as the Movement grows stronger, it is met with fervent resistance.

Why does America fight back so hard against a people trying to claim all that they have been promised? Perhaps it’s a natural instinct to fight against the other, to resist change even if that change can benefit all people. It may be both of these things and more. Perhaps America fears that the treatment of Black bodies is a reflection of her own brokenness; a projection if you will—of a compromised morality that is given life by the corrupt mythology that whiteness is somehow more grand, more noble or more worthy.

It’s a struggle as old as the Scriptures. We’ve grown accustomed to identifying a winner in

The Witching Hour film and stage crew prepare to film a performace of ‘Revolution & Beatitudes of Black Liberation’ by Stacey Walker, seated right. Addi Arp / Little Village

every battle. But as the systems and institutions become more oppressive, it is America as a whole that suffers. All of us share in the pain of the oppressed.

And because we are all intrinsically linked—while still stubbornly affixed to a “side,” in the struggle for racial justice—the realization of liberation is elusive precisely because there is a side on which to stand. Those who are for liberation, and those who are in opposition.

There is no middle; no moderate neutrality.

And since our humanity is indistinguishable from that of any other living, sentient creature—save for the dangerous demarcations created by man—the act of liberating ourselves from the larger whole of American life presents a philosophical conundrum: As we extricate ourselves from a society built on and sustained by our oppression, the imperative question is what

38 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

becomes of a society when its lifeblood evaporates? Better a question to be pondered by the oppressor, as it’s surely not the concern of the oppressed.

When Gandhi was asked what he thought of western civilization, he responded, “It would be a good idea.”

In order to move from folklore to form a more perfect union, we must address the remnants of our Original Sin—the Birth of a Nation—and all of its permutations.

“But things are getting better,” they will say. “Progress takes time.”

They will chastise us because a Target was looted. And we will shake our heads in disappointment.

Because we know the real story: • Westerners have looted entire continents. And they have used our bodies for free labor.

And when we called for freedom, they locked us away in

metal cages.

• Black men are 6.5% of the total U.S. population and 40% of the prison population.

• 1 in 3 Black men will go to jail or prison in their lifetime.

• And one of the leading causes of death for young Black men in this country is homicide and interactions with police officers.

Don’t lecture me or my people about how to protest. Don’t preach about the sanctity of property. Don’t proscribe how a people—upon which unspeakable harms have been visited—should express their pain, one that spans the centuries and, like a tsunami, gains power as the tides of progress continue to recede. If we can be so uncaring for Black bodies in this country, I don’t want to hear about your Starbucks.

Who will survive in America?

My family story seems to begin

CORALVILLE 1401 Fifth Street, Coralville

Mike: selects our adult fiction & audiobooks Enjoys reading Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Thrillers, Classics, History, and the Performing Arts.



319-248-1850



coralvillepubliclibrary.org

Eric: keeps our circ desk running smoothly

Likes Fantasy, Satire, Science Fiction, Horror, and weird stuff that makes him think in different ways.

Ruth: cataloger

Enjoys Nonfiction, especially Self Help and Books about Horses or the band Queen.

Kate: chooses the adult nonfiction & GN Reads Paranormal/Horror, Suspense, YA Dystopia & Realistic, Graphic Novels, DIY, Nature, and Memoirs.

Matt: network administrator Likes reading Biographies, Humor, Sports, Finance, and Cookbooks.

WWWWWW AAAAA RRRRRRR MMMMM

Sara: website designer Enjoys Science Fiction, Romance, Historical Mysteries; anything with a big world, small story, & strong relationships.

Karen: programs for Teens

Reads Young Adult & Juvenile Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Realistic, Biographies, and Graphic Novels.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 39

Culture

in rural Alabama, where my grandmother Shirley Ann was born. I imagine a shack of a house, along a dirt road out in the country. She would be raised by parents, who were raised by former slaves.

My grandmother was tall and strong. Her skin was the color of the Great Pyramids and was dotted with freckles. The way her prominent cheekbones conducted her face made you wonder which Native tribe we shared a bloodline with. If she didn’t smell like Obsession perfume, she smelled of hot grease, or Comet scouring powder. She kept a pristine, three-bedroom apartment that was open to all people; a hostel for the whole hood.

She was devoted to her God and committed to serving others. Her heart was so kind. Her laughter alone could lift broken spirits.

But the beast that was the American South during that time,

swallowed many of my ancestors whole; robbing them of their dignity, relegating their lives to field hands; and turning unruly men into strange fruit that hanged from the poplar trees.

Thoughts of revolution were quieted, but never extinguished.

As my grandmother sought the warmth of other suns, she found herself in Chicago. A single mother with seven kids to raise. She moved one more time to Iowa where she remained thoroughly enveloped within the challenge of whiteness for the rest of her life. She stood in between the world and me.

I was born to a single, teenage mother and an absent father. We were on welfare and lived in a government-subsidized housing complex: Oak Park Village. I rode the city bus to school and ate the free lunches.

My mother was bright. She was

40 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

kind. She was gentle. She could get close to anyone by making them laugh. That was one of the ways she demonstrated her love. She could talk to anyone about anything, and she could make anyone feel comfortable. Black as midnight and as beautiful as they come. She raised us with love. She raised us to love ourselves, whoever it was we would become.

My mother was murdered at the hands of an unknown assailant. The case was never solved. She left two kids behind who had to make sense of this white world with little understanding of our past, and a dim outlook of the future. We went on to be raised by Grandma’s hands.

But did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

No, no, no…

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise I rise I rise.

My story did not begin in Iowa, and it sure as hell didn’t begin in Opelika.

It all started in the Motherland, and in an act of unforgivable violence, my people were stolen. We were shipped across the seas to a strange land. We were whipped, our families were torn apart, our women were raped—and we were forced to learn the new language of our oppressors and forbidden to speak the one that connected us to home.

But they never gave up hope. Their

LittleVillageMag.com

hope was built on things eternal: dreams of freedom.

With every hushed attempt to escape this wilderness in the dark of night, to a northern land that promised just a little more freedom than what they were given, they gave birth to a liberation movement.

They hid in the swamps, evaded the bloodhounds and outfoxed the bounty hunters. And one treacherous journey after another, guided by the stars of midnight, they gave life to a liberation movement.

They swallowed their pride in front of white faces and stepped aside when they walked past their former masters on the sidewalk. They drank out of separate fountains and sat in the dregs of the railcars. They feigned meekness and supplication unto a white power structure that would seek to oppress them forever. And with every fake smile, and every direct action plotted in the basement of an old

Baptist church, they gave hope to a liberation movement.

But then they took Medgar. They took Malcolm. They took Martin, right before our eyes making martyrs of these gallant young kings; showing us that you could still lynch a nigger with a bullet. And with every ounce of blood spilled, they gave fire to a liberation movement.

And as we lift ourselves out of the abyss, we are not seen as equals, but as something foreign.

Troublesome. Ungrateful. Hostile.

A gang of brutes with misplaced energies. We hear that equality has already been achieved. They point to Obama, not as a point of pride for an entire race of people or one small step for a broken country, but as their own penance; atonement for the past. They trade real action for tokenism and performative gestures.

And almost equally dangerous, are the so-called silent allies. Those who wish the brutal reality in which we live to be changed, but are unwilling and too fearful to aid in the process; they refuse to lay anything on the line.

As one King reminded us, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

They may go so far as to put a Black Lives Matter sign in their yard, or change their profile picture to an all black background. But while these acts of solidarity are appreciated, allyship calls for more.

Real friends of the Movement must seek to understand their privilege and use it to protect Black bodies and advance the aims of this freedom struggle.

Real friends of the Movement must train their ears to hear the dog whistles that Black people know

all too well. They must push back against this rhetoric and call it out for what it truly is: the witchcraft of politics; code words that keep them from saying the bad part out loud.

Real friends invest in the Movement, and they support our leaders not in private, but publicly; they support them out loud. They amplify our voices and take our stories into spaces we can’t access, into places we have yet to reach.

As America makes her way back to the altar of judgment, many are starting to ask: What must I do to be saved?

Stacey Walker is a community organizer, essayist and local politician. He focuses on racial equity, and other social justice issues. He recently served as an advisor to President Biden on criminal justice issues and continues to use his expertise for good.

CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA / CZECH VILLAGE

Come work with us

JOHN@NEWBO.CO • (319) 382-5128

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 41

Culture

Bowling for Soup The Domestic Violence Intervention Program comes up with a new recipe for their biggest annual fundraiser.

By Tiffani Green

T

he Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP) chose to reference the Super Bowl for their biggest annual fundraiser in an effort to set the record straight.

“We wanted to debunk the myth that domestic abuse gets worse during the Super Bowl,” said Alta Medea-Peters, director of community engagement for DVIP. That myth, based on a number of misleading ’90s-era reports and rumors, has been discredited, but the legend—and very real presence of

Zak Neumann / Little Village

domestic abuse in eastern Iowa— inspired DVIP’s Souper Bowl, which takes place each year in February.

The Souper Bowl was first held 24 years ago with a simple premise: Local restaurants donated soup; local shops, artisans and individuals donated bowls; and members of the community bought tickets, gathered with the like-minded and ate as much soup as their hearts desired—all in service to helping those affected by domestic violence. Over the years, the event has

42 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

kept the same essential format and grown exponentially.

“Last year we had 500 people,” Medea-Peters said. “It’s really taken on the feel of a family reunion.

The City High track team washes the dishes. Our ticket takers last year were two high school students who first came 10 years ago with their mom. People get really excited about picking out their bowl; we’ll have people in line before the event begins and the line will go around the block. There are people who have their bowls included in their wills.”

Over the years the fundraiser has grown to a staff of 150 volunteers, featured over 70 food donors, hosted live music and speeches and attracted local and national politicians, including Sen. Bernie Sanders. It has also created a vibrant and close-knit community and raised awareness of the ever-present problems of domestic and intimate partner violence.

The DVIP first came into existence in 1977, powered by grant funding. Since that time, the program has expanded to serve eight Iowa counties, offering a range of services and resources for victims of domestic violence, stalking, dating violence and human trafficking.

DVIP operates a 40-bed emergency shelter and liaises with hotels and apartment complexes to offer housing in communities that lack a shelter. Advocates can help clients make plans to leave their abuser and assist with filing protective orders. They even have facilities to house clients’ pets. All the services DVIP offers are confidential and free of charge and can be accessed by calling their 24-hour hotline at 1-800-373-1043.

While meeting the needs of

via Bread Garden

MENU Red lentil-tomatococonut soup Trumpet Blossom Tuscan tomato soup Bread Garden Corn and bacon chowder Red’s Ale House Chicken noodle soup 2 Dogs Pub Southwest tortilla chicken soup Rapid Creek Cidery Butternut squash bisque Basta Broccoli cheese soup Nodo North Dodge Green chili w/smoked pulled pork Bluebird Diner Cheesy chicken tortilla soup Monica’s Black bean chili Café Dodici

LittleVillageMag.com

domestic abuse survivors, which often push the boundaries of available resources, is always challenging, the pandemic has made these challenges even greater.

“With more people isolated at home with their abusers, situations can really escalate. When Iowa started to open back up in May, we saw a 28 percent increase in calls to the hotline,” Medea-Peters said.

“We’ve had a 76 percent increase in requests for emergency housing assistance funding because people can’t stay with family or friends.

Our housing advocates are sometimes taking 18 to 25 referrals a day.”

At the same time, DVIP has had to modify its practices to make them more COVID safe, replacing many in-person visits with phone and video options and cutting capacity at their shelter in half to 20 beds to allow for social distancing.

An overflow shelter opening this month will make up for some of that lost capacity.

The pandemic has also affected their signature event.

“We realized around late June or July that it wouldn’t be safe to get 500 people together for our family meal, and we started planning a virtual event,” Medea-Peters said.

The 24th Annual Souper Bowl will feature many of the same elements that have defined it from its inception: soup from local restaurants and a community coming together to support an important mission. But there are some major changes.

This year there are 10 different soups on offer, chosen from favorites at previous years’ events. In lieu of lining up to pick out a bowl, all participants will receive a commemorative 24th Annual Souper Bowl soup mug. Tickets are available at four levels: the Souporter at $25 comes with a commemorative mug and two 8 oz. containers of soup. The Student and Sliding Scale Souporter at $15 comes with a commemorative mug and

one 8 oz. container of soup. The Souporter Family Package is $75 and comes with two mugs and five 8 oz. containers of soup, and the Gift of Giving is $25 and can either be a gift of soup to someone else or a direct donation to DVIP. All packages include the option to choose your soup at checkout or let a DVIP advocate choose their favorite for you.

Orders can be delivered or picked up within a 15-mile radius of DVIP’s location at 1105 S Gilbert Ct in Iowa City.

Another significant change this year is a cut-off date for ticket sales.

In the past, you could walk in on the day of the event and purchase your ticket, but this year, ticket sales will end on Feb. 15 so that organizers will know how much soup is needed and so volunteers can plan delivery routes. Though many virtual events over the last year have included a Zoom meet-up or something similar, the Souper Bowl has decided to forego that element, citing the video conferencing fatigue that many are feeling in a year full of Zooms, and the desire to allow participants to create community in their own way and on their own schedule. DVIP made 300 tickets available this year and had already sold half of them by mid-January.

Super Bowl season may not be connected to higher rates of domestic violence, but the COVID-19 pandemic certainly is. So while DVIP’s Souper Bowl is different in 2021, it could be the most important year yet to rally the community around survivors—and soup.

EDITORS’ PICKS PRESENTED BY THE CITY OF IOWA CITY

EVENTS FEBRUARY 2021

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 allcaps, exclamation points or advertising verbiage, please). To find more events, visit littlevillagemag.com/calendar. Please check venue listing in case details have changed.

NOTE! We are listing only ONLINE and OUTDOOR events in this calendar at the moment. “Locations” listed for online events reference the presenting institution. Please visit our online calendar for links, or check the organizations’ websites and Facebook pages.

FRIDAY, FEB. 5,

Hot Soup/Cold Noses DRIVE THROUGH Supper,

Iowa Humane Alliance, Cedar Rapids, 5 p.m., $10 There’s no

such thing as too much soup in an Iowa winter. The annual Hot Soup/ Cold Noses benefit has been reconfigured as a drive-through, with $10 getting you a take-home meal that includes two bowls of your choice—black bean chili, creamy potato, vegetable, broccoli cheese or wild rice with mushrooms—plus bread and dessert. Proceeds benefit the Iowa Humane Alliance’s low-cost spay/neuter program.

More community opportunities this month: Wednesday, Feb. 10 at 6 p.m.

The Nest Best Thing: Building Nest Boxes for Birds, Iowa City Public Library w/ Bur Oak Land Trust (icpl.org) Thursday, Feb. 25 at 12 p.m.

39th Annual Tribute to Women of Achievement, Waypoint Services (@ waypointservices) Thursday, Feb. 25

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact DVIP’s crisis hotline at 1-800-3731043 or visit dvipiowa.org.

at 2 p.m.

24th Annual Souper Bowl, Domestic Violence Intervention

Tiffani Green is a lifelong Iowan currently living in Coralville. She loves cooking (and eating!), showering her houseplants with benign neglect and forcing her cats to snuggle with her whether they want to or not.

VENMO @littlevillagemag PAYPAL lv@littlevillagemag.com

Program (@ iowadvip), $25-75

Celeste Lindell

EDITORS’ PICKS: FEBRUARY 2021

PRESENTED BY THE CITY OF IOWA CITY

WEDNESDAY, FEB.

Internet Watch Party: ‘My Bloody Valentine,’

10,

Late Shift at the Grindhouse (@ICgrindhouse), 10 p.m., Free

Celebrate with your valentine a few days early by tuning in to this 1981 Canadian slasher flick. Starring Neil Affleck, known for his work as an animator (and occasional director) over 13 seasons of The Simpsons, starting in the mid-’90s. The film centers around a Canadian mining town plagued by the memory of horrific murders 20 years earlier. It’s known mostly for its excessive gore and violence, what a Montreal Gazette reviewer called “more than the usual m.p.g.p.—murders per gallon of popcorn.” The Irish shoegaze superstars of the same name, formed two years later, claim no affiliation.

Other Late Shift Watch Parties this month: Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 10 p.m.

‘Re-Animator’ (1985) Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 10 p.m.

‘Blade of the Immortal’ (2017) Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 10 p.m.

‘Killer Kate!’

(2018)

Also this month from Prairie Lights: Thursday, Feb. 4 at 4 p.m.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain in conversation with

FRIDAY, FEB. 12, Felicia Rose Chavez,

‘The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom,’

Prairie Lights Bookstore (prairielights.com/live), 6 p.m.,

Christopher Merrill Friday, Feb. 5 at 7 p.m Kathleen Williams Renk in conversation with Mary Helen Stefaniak Monday, Feb. 8 at 6 p.m.

Kevin Barry in conversation with Susan Orlean

Free University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program grad Felicia Rose Chavez will celebrate the

release of her memoir/teaching guide, reading from the work and engaging in a conversation moderated

by Inara Verzemnieks. Her book explores the climate and politics of privilege within creative writing classrooms and looks to guide readers toward a new pedagogy of inclusion. More information about the book and Chavez’s work can be found at antiracistworkshop.com, and the book itself can be ordered from Prairie Lights ahead of the event.

44 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

Friday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m.

Michele Morano, ‘Like Love’ Friday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.

Caryl Pagel and Lauren Shapiro

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM

FRIDAY, FEB. 12,

Artist Conversation and Virtual Reception for This Could Get Snowed On (Julia J. Wolfe, Kelly Clare, Cicelia RossGotta, Taylor Hansen), Public Space One (publicspaceone. com), 7 p.m., Free Public Space One

put out an ambitious call this summer for artists interested in engaging with the space outside their two new Northside homes this winter for an exhibit called This Could Get Snowed On. In case you missed the past couple of months, these works absolutely did get snowed on, and they have served as a pointed example of how overcoming the obstacles of the pandemic this past year (PS1’s indoor gallery space is still not open to the public) has accelerated conversations about access and public art.

Every passerby and neighborhood resident has enjoyed these works, and now everyone can hear from the artists themselves in a conversation and virtual reception.

Visual art events throughout the month

smART Talks with Ain Grooms and Joyce Tasi, Friday, Feb. 5 at 5:30 p.m.

Stanley Museum of Art (stanleymusem.uiowa.edu)

Virtual Reception—Kimberlee Rocca, Gilded Pear Gallery (gildedpeargallery.com)

Sunday, Feb. 21 at 1 p.m.

February Art in the Afternoon: Amy Dobrian,

Sunday, Feb. 7 at 1 p.m.

Artifactory (artifactory.artsiowacity.org)

Remixed Livestream: ‘PRIVY’—Deborah Goffe Performance Salon with Goffe and André

Monday, Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m.

Zachary, Center for Afrofuturist Studies

Grant Wood Fellow Talk with Margarita Blush,

(afrofuturist.center)

Stanley Museum of Art

Wednesdays, Feb. 17 & 24 at 6 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m.

Mural Materials & Methods w/ Thomas Agran,

Stanley Creates: Star Accordion Book, Stanley

Public Space One, Pay-What-You-Can $5-50

Museum of Art

Virtual theatre performances around the CRANDIC:

FRIDAY-SATURDAY, FEB. 12-20,

‘Out of Bounds,’

Friday, Feb. 19 at 11 a.m.

Theatre Cedar Rapids

Thursday, Feb. 11 at

Saturday, Feb. 20 at

7 p.m.

7:30 p.m.

2nd Thursday Series:

‘Put Your Funny

Operatini—‘Emma’s

Where Your Mouth

Misadventures in

Is’ Improv Comedy,

Fridays at 8 p.m.

Zoomland,’ Cedar

Iowa City Community

Out the Box Weekly

Rapids Opera Theatre

Theatre (@ICCT1956)

Reading Series,

(@CROperaTheatre) Friday, Feb. 12 at 7

2 p.m.

p.m.

‘Put Your Funny

Tuesdays through

‘The Zoomiverse of

Where Your Mouth

April 6

Love,’ RHCR Theatre

Is’ Improv Comedy,

Will Power: ‘Twelfth

(@RHCRTheatre)

Iowa City Community

MirrorboxTheatre)

(theatrecr.org), $25 (suggested) Originally commissioned in

2015 by Hancher Auditorium, this piece created by Jennifer Fawcett and Working Group Theatre was built from interviews with teachers, students, guidance counselors, parents, police officers and more. It’s a story about cyberbullying but, as with all of Fawcett’s work, is ultimately about how we engage each other through our shared humanity. Theatre Cedar Rapids takes it on with fantastic area talent including Rachel Korach Howell, Carrie Pozdol and Omarr Hatcher, making this a must-see for all.

Sunday, Feb. 21 at

Mirrorbox Theatre (@

Night’ Series,

Theatre

Riverside Theatre (riversidetheatre.org) LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 45

EDITORS’ PICKS: FEBRUARY 2021

PRESENTED BY THE CITY OF IOWA CITY

TUESDAY, FEB.

16, COVID’s

Lessons: End of Life and Grief,

Obermann Center (obermann.uiowa. edu) w/ Iowa City Public Library, 7 p.m., Free (registration required)

TUESDAY, FEB. 16, Ghost Creek,

Mission Creek Festival w/ Englert Theatre (@missioncreekfestival), 7 p.m., Free In early 2020, the

cancellation of the Mission Creek Festival was what truly made the COVID-19 pandemic real for many in the area. This month, the festival brings it back full circle with a short film they call “a hymn to the value of art, of gathering, and of shared experience”—exactly what we’ve all been thinking. Be in community together, remotely.

Managing, navigating and surviving the COVID-19 epidemic has been an exercise in reacquainting ourselves with our humanity in new and challenging ways. The Obermann Center has gathered a slate of experts for a conversation about grief and grieving, and the ways they have shifted in the Western experience from private to all-too-public.

Participants include Laurel Lyckholm, Clinical Professor, Hematology/Oncology and Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation; Lilian Akimpaye, on-call RN, Iowa City Hospice; Lydia Maunz, PhD in English; and Lori Erickson, author of Near the Exit: Travels with the Not-So-Grim Reaper.

Classes and seminars throughout February: Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 3 p.m.

Race and Place: Yellow Fever and the Free African Society in Philadelphia, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library (ncsml.org) Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 6 p.m.

The Settlement, Growth and Movement of the Czechs and their Institutions in Cleveland, Ohio, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library Thursday, Feb. 11 at 12 p.m.

Iowa History 101: Immigration to Iowa, State Historical Society of Iowa (@IowaHistory) Thursday, Feb. 18 at 4 p.m.

Podcasting with Purpose: Anne Strainchamps and Mark Riechers, Obermann Center Sunday, Feb. 21 at 5:30 p.m.

Free Generative Writing Workshop with Micky Bayonne, Iowa City Poetry and PromptPress (freegenerative.org) Thursday, Feb. 25 at 12 p.m.

Iowa History 101: Iowa’s Black Migration, State Historical Society of Iowa

46 February 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM

SATURDAYSUNDAY, FEB. 27-28,

Gamicon Zinc,

Gamicon (@Gamiconiowa), 8 a.m., Free-$20 For over 20 years, gamers have

gathered in eastern Iowa at the annual February Gamicon convention, an event of camaraderie and exploration, where designers and GMs get access to the region’s best gamers and vice versa. This year, inevitably, due to COVID-19, the event will take place entirely virtually, on Gamicon’s Discord server. Registration can be found at tabletop.events/conventions/gamiconzinc. There will be virtual gathering rooms, RPGs, board games, panels and events, Jackbox gaming, a DM workshop and much more.

NOTE! We are listing only ONLINE and OUTDOOR events in this calendar at the moment.

“Locations” listed for online events reference the presenting institution. Please visit our online calendar for links, or check the organizations’ websites and Facebook pages.

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.

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Help stop HIV stigma in your family and community.

Learn how at cdc.gov/together

/ActAgainstAIDS

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DEAR KIKI

D

ear Kiki, I’ve been jerking off alone for years anyway, so COVID isn’t harming my love life.

Nevertheless, I feel like I’m going insane due to lack of social interaction. Should I give up and just dig a hole in my backyard, or should I try to go on?

—Going Insane Alone

D

ear Alone, Always, always, always go on.

We’re all going to come out of this pandemic a little less sane than when we went in (I mean that in a colloquial, not a diagnostic, sense). But the important thing is that we come out of it. Things are a little brighter now, perhaps, than when you wrote. The tangible fact of seeing people receiving the COVID-19 vaccine makes the notion of an end to this feel more real. It’s not going to be soon, and it’s not going to be easy. But it will happen.

In the meantime, if you feel at risk, reach out. I don’t just mean to an anonymous advice column. If you have health insurance and can afford the co-pay, find a counselor. If that isn’t available to you, call or text CommUnity Crisis Services and Food Bank at 855-3254296 or visit IowaCrisisChat.org. They are available for non-emergency conversations, as well as crisis situations.

There is no true substitute for social interaction. I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s been a long year and it may be another long year before things are “normal” again. Online gaming groups, virtual social hours and even Facebook Messenger have been connecting people isolated by location or circumstance since before the pandemic began, and have only become more acceptable and accessible now. They aren’t the same, but they can help.

I’ll see you on the other side of this, Alone. xoxo, Kiki

H

LittleVillageMag.com/Subscribe

ello, My name is Jay, I am a freshman at the University of Iowa.

There was a girl I thought was cute so I asked her out on a date for some boba tea, and we even went back to my dorm room to watch some Batman cartoon that I love a lot. It’s a musical episode where the villain is Neil Patrick Harris and his voice mind-controls people and he takes over the world to make him rich.

I kinda didn’t hit it off beyond that, but here is my question for you. Another girl from the class asked me out. I went out on the date and we hit it off, I think. We laughed and agreed

LittleVillageMag.com/DearKiki

on some stuff I think is important. But at the beginning of the date I said, “Hey, I think we should start as friends, and if we want more we can move towards that if we want to.”

I said this in part because we hadn’t talked outside of the setting up of the date that got set back. Also because I wanted to wait for a more genuine connection, and I think it was there but I wanted to not have it be one date and then, wham, whole relationship with the expectation of romance and sex and being dedicated to one person again. The question being: Was it the right move to say, “Hey this is not a date”?

Cordially, Jay Harrison P.S. I will only remain anonymous if you can give me a name that is as cute and punny as Miles Apart.

D

ear Jay Harrison, freshman at the University of Iowa, Stop dating; there’s a pandemic on! OMG! Find your soulmate when it’s NOT literally dangerous to breathe in one another’s breath.

While you’re biding your time, you can look up for me what series and episode of Batman featured NPH, because it’s pretty important that I have that information.

Setting aside the circumstances (SIGH), yes. Being emotionally honest is always the right choice. If you aren’t ready for commitment, it’s a waste of both your time to pretend you are. And if she feels differently, then maybe you don’t agree on as much important stuff as you thought. xoxo, Kiki

KIKI WANTS QUESTIONS! Questions about love and sex in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area can be submitted to dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or anonymously at littlevillagemag.com/ dearkiki. Questions may be edited for clarity and length, and may appear either in print or online at littlevillagemag.com.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 51

IOWA CITY DOWNTOWN

Magic the Gathering. Video Games.

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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!

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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

AST R O LO GY

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian author Alice Walker writes, “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.

Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll adopt that way of thinking and apply it to every aspect of your perfectly imperfect body and mind and soul. I hope you’ll give the same generous blessing to the rest of the world, as well. This attitude is always wise to cultivate, of course, but it will be especially transformative for you in the coming weeks. It’s time to celebrate your gorgeous idiosyncrasies and eccentricities.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Though the bamboo forest is dense, water flows through it freely.” I offer that Zen saying just in time for you to adopt it as your metaphor of power. No matter how thick and complicated and impassable the terrain might appear to be in the coming weeks, I swear you’ll have a flair for finding a graceful path through it. All you have to do is imitate the consistency and flow of water.

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ARIES (March 21-April 19): Herman Hesse’s novel Siddartha is a story about a spiritual seeker who goes in search of illumination. Near the end of the quest, when Siddartha is purified and enlightened, he tells his friend, “I greatly needed sin, lust, vanity, the striving for goods, and the most shameful despair, to learn how to love the world, to stop comparing the world with any world that I wish for, with any perfection that I think up; I learned to let the world be as it is, and to love it and to belong to it gladly.” While I trust you won’t overdo the sinful stuff in the coming months, Aries, I hope you will reach a conclusion like Siddartha’s. The astrological omens suggest that 2021 is the best year ever for you to learn how to love your life and the world just as they are.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus physicist Richard Feynman said, “If we want to solve a problem we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” That’s always good advice, but it’s especially apropos for you in the coming weeks. You are being given the interesting and fun opportunity to solve a problem you have never solved before!

Be sure to leave the door to the unknown ajar. Clues and answers may come from unexpected sources.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): When we want to get a distinct look at a faint star, we must avert our eyes away from it just a little. If we look at it directly, it fades into invisibility. (There’s a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, which I won’t go into.) I propose that we make this your metaphor of power for the coming weeks. Proceed on the hypothesis that if you want to get glimpses of what’s in the distance or in the future, don’t gaze at it directly. Use the psychological version of your peripheral vision. And yes, now is a favorable time to seek those glimpses.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If the apocalypse happens and you’re the last human left on earth, don’t worry about getting enough to eat. Just find an intact grocery store and make your new home there. It’s stocked with enough non-perishable food to feed you for 55 years—or 63 years if you’re willing to dine on pet food. I’M JOKING! JUST KIDDING! In fact, the apocalypse won’t happen for another 503 million years. My purpose in imagining such a loopy scenario is to nudge you to dissolve your scarcity thinking. Here’s the ironic fact of the matter for us Cancerians: If we indulge in fearful fantasies about running out of stuff—money, resources, love, or time—we undermine our efforts to have enough of what we need. The time is now right for you to stop worrying and instead take robust action to ensure you’re well-supplied for a long time.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Judge a moth by the beauty of its candle,” writes Coleman Barks in his rendering of a poem by Rumi. In accordance with astrological omens, I am invoking

By Rob Brezsny

that thought as a useful metaphor for your life right now. How lovely and noble are the goals you’re pursuing? How exalted and bighearted are the dreams you’re focused on? If you find there are any less-than-beautiful aspects to your motivating symbols and ideals, now is a good time to make adjustments.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I invite you to try the following experiment. Select two situations in your world that really need to be reinvented, and let every other glitch and annoyance just slide for now. Then meditate with tender ferocity on how best to get the transformations done. Summoning intense focus will generate what amounts to magic! PS: Maybe the desired reinventions would require other people to alter their behavior. But it’s also possible that your own behavior may need altering.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Author Marguerite Duras wrote these words: “That she had so completely recovered her sanity was a source of sadness to her. One should never be cured of one’s passion.” I am spiritually allergic to that idea. It implies that our deepest passions are unavailable unless we’re insane, or at least disturbed. But in the world I aspire to live in, the opposite is true: Our passions thrive if we’re mentally healthy.

We are best able to harness our most inspiring motivations if we’re feeling poised and stable. So I’m here to urge you to reject Duras’s perspective and embrace mine. The time has arrived for you to explore the mysteries of relaxing passion.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Author Karen Barad writes, “The past is never finished. It cannot be wrapped up like a package, or a scrapbook; we never leave it and it never leaves us behind.” I agree. That’s why I can’t understand New Age teachers who advise us to “live in the now.” That’s impossible!

We are always embedded in our histories. Everything we do is conditioned by our life story. I acknowledge that there’s value in trying to see the world afresh in each new moment.

I’m a hearty advocate of adopting a “beginner’s mind.” But to pretend we can completely shut off or escape the past is delusional and foolish. Thank you for listening to my rant, Scorpio. Now please spend quality time upgrading your love and appreciation for your own past. It’s time to celebrate where you have come from—and meditate on how your history affects who you are now.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Luisah Teish is a writer and priestess in the Yoruba Lucumi tradition. She wrote a book called Jump Up: Seasonal Celebrations from the World’s Deep Traditions. “Jump up” is a Caribbean phrase that refers to festive rituals and parties that feature “joyous music, laughter, food, and dancing.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, you’re due for a phase infused with the “jump up” spirit. As Teish would say, it’s a time for “jumping, jamming, swinging, hopping and kicking it.” I realize that in order to do this, you will have to work around the very necessary limitations imposed on us all by the pandemic. Do the best you can. Maybe make it a virtual or fantasy jump up. Maybe dance alone in the dark.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “Perhaps we should know better,” wrote poet Tony Hoagland, “but we keep on looking, thinking, and listening, hunting that singular book, theory, perception, or tonality that will unlock and liberate us.” It’s my duty to report, Capricorn, that there will most likely be no such singular magnificence for you in 2021. However, I’m happy to tell you that an accumulation of smaller treasures could ultimately lead to a substantial unlocking and liberation. For that to happen, you must be alert for and appreciate the small treasures, and patiently gather them in. (PS: Author Rebecca Solnit says, “We devour heaven in bites too small to be measured.” I say: The small bites of heaven you devour in the coming months will ultimately add up to being dramatically measurable.)

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 53

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LO C A L A L B U M S

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

I stand by? / Seeds of the future / Rise of humanity / Everything is sacred The additional singing by Quiltman adds a lifting counterpoint to the weeping pedal steel and Huckfelt’s unadorned vocal.

There are many shining moments on Room Enough, Time Enough, and some of these are a result of his friends who joined him on the album. One particularly affecting David Huckfelt performance is the duet with Greg Room Enough, Time Enough Brown on the classic Red Hayes DAVIDHUCKFELT.COM song “Satisfied Mind.” The juxtaposition of Huckfelt and Brown avid Huckfelt’s 2021 Room trading verses is like one man singEnough, Time Enough gets its ing at two different stages of life. title from the name the Navajo used to describe their ancestral homeland, When they both sing the final verse wrapped in lush pedal steel guitar, it near where Huckfelt recorded the brings chills. “When my life is endalbum in Tucson, Arizona. Its rocky ed, and my time has run out / My landscape influenced the Western themes of the record. Being in Tucson friends and my loved ones I’ll leave there’s no doubt / But one thing’s allowed Huckfelt to take a more communal approach to recording the for certain when it comes my time / album, which also gave him an oppor- I’ll leave this old world with a satistunity to draw inspiration, collaborate fied mind.”

Tucson luminaries (and founding and elevate Native American voices. members of Giant Sand) Howe In a press release Huckfelt credits Gelb and Billy Sedlmayr bring Johnny Cash’s controversial 1964 their southwestern influence to concept album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian as inspiration Huckfelt’s retooling of the dusty cowboy standard “Bury Me Not,” for him, and that album’s approach to historical storytelling looms large. which Huckfelt describes in an email: “We turned the narrative of Cash faced harsh criticism and westward expansion on its head, ultimately censorship by the very retold here as a warning to honor radio stations who built his career.

Native lands and respect the Earth.”

He wouldn’t receive the recognition The addition of Calexico sideman he deserved for *Bitter Tears* until Jon Villa on mariachi-style trumpet many years later.

A 21st century America isn’t much solo locks in a spaghetti western flavor. more enlightened, and the use of As much as a reunion of songwriters and performers to raise awareness for issues like water rights Huckfelt’s band the Pines would and discrimination makes Huckfelt’s be welcomed, his solo albums have documented the path of a songwritalbum daring and a little edgy—not what we expect from his typical atmo- er and musician coming into his own. With the history of his years spheric, peaceful folk.

A great example of this blending is in the Pines in his rearview (for “The Book of Life,” a circular mantra now, anyway), the road ahead is one written by Native American artist and paved in the folk tradition of colsongwriter Keith Secola, who is also laboration and activism. Huckfelt says in the same email that Manifest on the album. The song is verse-byDestiny has left our spirits and the verse prose; a list of questions interplanet sick and in great need of polated with faith and hope. healing. Clearly his music is the Everybody worries / Why do we strong medicine we need. promise? / What is existence? / —Michael Roeder Why does it matter? / Who should

D

Steve Grismore Trio Better Times (Are a Comin’) GIZMOJAZZ.COM

I

f the music collection in your head includes the work of the late Ornette Coleman, there is a reasonable chance you have it filed under “weird” or “difficult” or even “unlistenable.” That may be true even if you consider yourself a jazz fan. Coleman, a multi-instrumentalist best known for his work on the saxophone, pioneered the style known as free jazz in the mid-20th century. A quick synopsis of the style from Vox: Free jazz is highly experimental even for jazz, chaotic and often dissonant by design, rejecting traditional boundaries of tonality and rhythm. It can come across as more art movement than musical style, and thus as opaque and self-serious—as work.

So, maybe not the kind of record you put on to get yourself going in the morning or to help you unwind when you get home in the evening, right? Well, maybe. But in many cases—including in Coleman’s music—the jazz-ness of free jazz takes priority over the freeness.

Case in point: the Steve Grismore Trio. On the ensemble’s new album, Better Times (Are a Comin’), primarily made up of music composed by Coleman, they remind listeners that free jazz isn’t all weirdness, dissonance and angularity. Sometimes it swings.

Sometimes it’s soulful. Frequently, it’s catchy as all get out.

Grismore—guitarist, University of Iowa School of Music jazz

faculty member and co-founder of the Iowa City Jazz Festival—is joined by Danny Oline on bass and Fabio Augustinis on drums.

The album was recorded at the University of Iowa over two days in mid-July 2018, but its uplifting title made it perfectly appropriate for a 2020 release.

The record kicks off with Coleman’s “Ramblin,’” which sounds just like you would expect a traveling song to sound, complete with a shuffling drum pattern suggesting some unhurried forward momentum and Gismore’s warmtoned guitar meandering in an appealing, relaxed style.

FREE JAZZ ISN’T ALL WEIRDNESS, DISSONANCE AND ANGULARITY The Coleman-composed tracks remain in an appealing lane for the entire record, though six tracks in, “Lonely Woman” asks a little more of the listener. The drums are forward, the guitar is a little distorted in spots, and there is a little less obvious cohesion binding what the players are up to. Nevertheless, the mood of the piece certainly does suggest a kind of melancholy loneliness befitting the title.

“Back in the O.R.R.” and “The Messaround” are easily the most “out there” tracks on the record, and neither is a Coleman composition.

Instead, they are group improvisations in keeping with the free jazz aesthetic. The fact that these two tracks are the two shortest on the record suggests the trio is well aware that these experiments may not connect with every listener. Still, they are important nods to Coleman’s overall musical legacy.

The record closes with the title track, which Grismore composed.

The number centers on a hummable central figure and brings the angularity of free jazz into a pleasing balance with its melodic and swing-driven possibilities.

—Rob Cline

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 55

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LO C A L B O O KS

Ryan Schuessler and Kevin Whiteneir, Jr., ed.

Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology From Middle America BELT PUBLISHING

T

he mythology of “the Heartland” (also called “Middle America” or the “flyover states”) is usually rooted in archaic abstractions such as “traditional family values” and conservative ideals. These parts of the American landscape are described as if they are closed off by narrow boundaries, with rigid attitudes imposed upon the diverse populations inhabiting them.

As noted by historian Kristin Hoganson, “The heartland myth does a great injustice not only to the United States but also the people it purports to depict, because it distorts their history and hides far more fascinating stories.”

Sweeter Voices Still is packed page to page with such stories.

Co-editors Ryan Schuessler and Kevin Whiteneir, Jr. have assembled an impressive anthology of essays, poems, letters and stories from LGBTQ voices gathered from across the Midwest, the Rust Belt, the Great Plains, the Upper South, Appalachia and Amish Country (areas comprising the so-called “Heartland”).

Since there are many wonderful sections of this work to choose from, I will highlight two of them from here in the Hawkeye State.

The first is titled “Excerpts from the Memoirs of Gene Dawson” (Parnell, IA). The author was born in the Armah, Iowa area in 1931 and lived in St. Louis until his death in

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

September 2020. Before his passing, he published his memoir Farm Boy, City Girl: From Gene to Miss Gina last April.

Included in this volume are excerpts from the years 1951, 53 and 54. As a young man having difficulty coming to terms with his homosexuality, Dawson says he will “lead a double life and always be on guard or be ostracized by family, friends, community and church.”

Within a few years, he instead embraces his new life of adventure.

Jocelyn Krueger, a multidisciplinary artist with degrees from the University of Iowa and Indiana State University, crafts a powerful and poetic narrative capturing the pain of when self-acceptance clashes with the perceptions others cling to, tenderly capturing the agonies and heartbreak following the demise of a friendship with the story “Before there was, blink” (Cedar Falls, IA).

“I would later learn that blinking is tied to how we remember, like bookmarking your thoughts and experiences for future recall,” Krueger writes. “Now I wish I had blinked less as a young girl. The violence throughout my life towards my girlhood hangs pearlescent over my memories.”

Even if the reader has never been to the geographic locations described, they will recognize the places visited in these pages: the lingering feelings of guilt and rejection slowly cutting into the heart like rusty barbed-wire, the joys of discovery causing pulses to quicken, the heartaches of loves lost and the jubilations of new loves found, including the love of one’s self and love toward others.

Sweeter Voices Still is a marvelous ode to humanity and its passions, but it is also a reminder that LGBTQ individuals and communities (and those who exist outside the confines of the acronym) have always kept the Heartland beating.

May their voices continue singing their songs for all to hear.

—Mike Kuhlenbeck

R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell, ed.

Kink SIMON & SCHUSTER

A

2018 study by sex toy company EdenFantasys revealed that 40 percent of respondents considered themselves kinky, with over one-third claiming a specific fetish. Still, there’s an overwhelming dearth of affirming literature out there: There’s a lot of exoticizing, quite a bit of shaming, but very little normalization.

THESE TALES TAKE US DEEP INTO THE LIVES OF A DIVERSE GROUP OF CHARACTERS, EXPLORING THEIR KINKS AND FETISHES IN EMPHATICALLY NORMAL WAYS. Enter Kink, a new anthology out Feb. 9, edited by Mission Creek Festival alum R.O. Kwon and Iowa City’s own Garth Greenwell.

The stories in this collection are delightful twists on what is often presented as twisted. From a diverse collection of writers, these tales take us deep into the lives of an equally diverse group of characters, exploring their kinks and fetishes in emphatically normal ways.

There’s a lot of sadness in these stories, but it’s not the sadness of shame—it’s the sadness that’s often found in any collection of love stories. It can be hard to write stories of successful love without devolving into triteness (although a few here, like Callum Angus’ deeply

beautiful snapshot story “Canada,” achieve it). The need for conflict to drive action and character choices often necessitates love stories that are tragic. But in this collection, it’s just another reminder that kink is simply another facet of love, another factor in our overall exploration of our partners and ourselves.

The greatest strength of Kink is in the arc of its organization. It’s a masterful tease in itself, slowly ramping up the intensity of the stories, from the relatively straightforward opener, Melissa Febos’ look at self and power, “The Cure,” all the way to the arch, heady, academic, post-coital feel of Chris Kraus’ closer, “Emotional Technologies.”

It goes from tentative to visceral to contemplative over the course of 14 fantastic stories.

Among the stand-outs of the collection is Greenwell’s own heartbreaking “Godspar,” which feels like masochism just to read. It includes the thematic observation, “... there’s no fathoming pleasure, the forms it takes or their sources, nothing we can imagine beyond it; however far beyond the pale of our own desires, for someone it is the intensest desire …”

UI Writers’ Workshop grad Carmen Maria Machado’s achingly beguiling period piece “High Priestess in the Temple of Horror,” the collection’s longest work, was a favorite of mine as well. And Kim Fu’s “Scissors” is a masterpiece of tension and perspective, binding a profoundly intimate portrait of a relationship between performers to the show they perform together.

Kink is a must-read for anyone looking to expand their understanding of their own desires. Which is to say, everyone. No matter your definition of pleasure, you will find homage to it here. There is nothing voyeuristic about the experience of reading this collection (so apologies if that is your kink): These kinks are not exoticized or othered in any way. It’s not a collection of stories about “them,” but about “us.”

Welcome home; get (un)comfortable. —Genevieve Trainor

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 57

CROSSWORD

LittleVillageMag.com

by Amanda Rafkin

The American Values Club Crossword is edited by Ben Tausig.

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ACROSS 1. Snobby 7. Fowl resting spot 12. Top liberation campaign 14. Arguably, any representational decision that involves a poll tax 15. Hard-to-find collectibles 16. Possible gifts for

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budding architects 17. Saint for whom a parish in a nursery rhyme is named 18. Healthcare giant named after a mountain 20. “___ but a scratch ...”

(Monty Python line) 21. Have a line on?

23. Cheap shot?

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speaking 28. First Saxon king of England 30. “Aw, shucks!”

31. Union platform?

32. Paid for monthly, say 34. “Welp, I was right” 37. Half or haul follower 38. Ones dealing with a lot of bull 40. Smith/Jones film

franchise, for short 41. They may be conquered 42. Perplexing passage 43. Practice of being a devil’s advocate?

48. Like many subway stations 49. They’re super sensitive 52. Trips, e.g.

53. Made a cattle call 54. Drunk, in slang

27. Holiday celebrated with DOWN small kumquat or orange 1. Things to keep down, trees perhaps 29. Journalist Nellie of Ten 2. Cello parts Days in a Mad-House 3. Go in the shower, say 33. Not totally flop 4. “___ be my pleasure!”

34. Winner of the 2019 FIFA 5. Certain sheepdog, World Cup familiarly 35. NHL legend Bobby 6. Red Queen portrayer 36. Start to many a Bonham Carter California destination 7. Pobre’s opposite 39. Lays new ground, in 8. Goes (for) a way 9. 1960s role for Ron 42. Searched for the mothHoward er lode 10. Penny lane?

43. One of many in a 11. Spots to see Hamilton patchwork quilt 12. Aries and Leo, e.g.

44. Protagonist of Pixar’s 13. Void The Good Dinosaur 14. Bewitches 45. Dorothy’s doggy 15. British singer featured 46. A Death in the Family on Iggy Azalea’s “Black playwright James Widow” 47. ’80s movie stock 18. Took a course? character 19. Send an email to 48. Reusable sack the person who you were 50. Rugrats papa talking about in the email, 51. ___ Brown Band say 21. Candy, e.g.

22. “OMG,” in days of yore LV290 ANSWERS 23. Certain B U L K GR I N E S P Y S A S I A B RUNO S T OWE submissive anHO L Y B E E F A L OS A UC E imals, as some AO L UNUM T R A P D A R K Z OR S E C A K E primatologists O L E OWE K N I F E classify them S L I D A C T I T A L O A N I MA L CROS S I NG 24. They’re (parH A D I T S U B R I L E S A L T S O T S N E T tially) measured S E A L I G E RWO O D S in cups A R L O COGS OA R F A I LWHO L P H I N K I C K 25. Pulsed A RM I E POOP S A C A I R E A D S

SO T S

N E RD

BAND • ORCHESTRA • PERCUSSION • PIANO • GUITAR • MUSIC THERAPY • LESSONS • REPAIR

Make MUSIC. Make Memories.

1212 FIFTH STREET, CORALVILLE, IA 52241 • 319-351-2000 • WESTMUSIC.COM LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV291 February 2021 59

The entire month of February is designated“Foodie February.”

The entire month of February is designated“Foodie February.”

Support our local restaurants by dining out, ordering take out, or having food Support our local restaurantsdelivered by diningdirect out, to ordering take out, or having food you. delivered direct to you.

Follow #ICFoodieFeb on social media to see many of the great dining options offered in Johnson Follow #ICFoodieFeb on social media to see County. many of the great dining options

offered in Johnson County.

Need ideas?

Need ideas?

Visit FoodieFebruary.com

Visit FoodieFebruary.com