ISSUE 292 March 2021
A L W A Y S
F R E E
owa women sw I f o y sit r team back, b imme r e v u i ei h n t U on wsuit is just be t their rs w IX la ginn ing e l Tit
A Negro League Star, Still Rising, PG. 34
Iowa City Searches for Pearl, PG. 40
Ruminating on Reubens, PG. 44
Kiki Conquers Capitalism, PG. 55
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8 - Letters 12 - Brock About Town 14 - Cortado 18 - Advertising Partners 22 - Title IX 34 - Superman 38 - En Español 40 - UR Here 44 - Bread & Butter 46 - A-List 48 - Events Calendar Still from ‘Still (a) Life’ by Meka Jean
55 - Dear Kiki 57 - Astrology 59 - Album Reviews 61 - Book Reviews 63 - Crossword
22
34
46
Swimmers are taking UI Athletics
CR baseball star Art
UI professor T.J. Dedeaux-Norris
On the Hook
A Hell of an Arm
POWERED BY CAFE DEL SOL ROASTING
“All of it’s Drag”
to task for alleged gender
“Superman” Pennington now
and rapper Meka Jean share one
discrimination.
has a path to Majors cred.
tiny frame and a stark eloquence.
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NEWS & CULTURE FROM IOWA CITY Since 2001 littlevillagemag.com
EDITORIAL
PRODUCTION
Publisher
Web Developer
Matthew Steele
Adith Rai
matt@littlevillagemag.com
adith@littlevillagemag.com
Managing Editor
Digital Director
Emma McClatchey
Drew Bulman
emma@littlevillagemag.com
drewb@littlevillagemag.com
Arts Editor
Photographer & Videographer
baseball legend gets his
Genevieve Trainor
Jason Smith
due. Iowa City rallies around
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a lost dog while an artist
News Director
Marketing Automations
Paul Brennan
Malcolm MacDougall
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Meet this month’s guest contributors:
Art Director
SALES & ADMINISTRATION
Rob Cline is a writer and critic
Avery Gregurich is a writer
who would gleefully give
living and working at the edge
Marketing Director &
the current state of things a
of the Iowa River in Marengo,
Copywriter
negative review.
Iowa.
Thomas Dean is Senior
Vicente Hernández Durán is
Presidential Writer/Editor at the
a student at the University
Advertising
University of Iowa and has been
of Iowa pursuing a degree in
Copy Editor
Matthew Steele
writing Little Village’s “UR Here”
human-computer interaction
Celine Robins
ads@littlevillagemag.com
column since 2001.
informatics, and is a technical
Creative Services
Julia DeSpain lives in Iowa City.
Calendar/Event Listings
Website design
She is the Creative Coordinator
calendar@littlevillagemag.com
Email marketing
for Iowa Valley RC&D and
Kent Williams lives, works,
E-commerce
dabbles with being artsy.
writes and complains in
Issue 292, Volume 30 March 2021 Title IX and UI Women’s Swimming Cover by Julia DeSpain UI Athletics faces a Title IX reckoning, and a Black
explores their identities.
Jordan Sellergren jordan@littlevillagemag.com Staff Writer & Editor
Celine Robins
Izabela Zaluska
celine@littlevillagemag.com
izabela@littlevillagemag.com
celine@littlevillagemag.com
sergeant at the Iowa Air
Corrections
Videography
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creative@littlevillagemag.com
March Contributors
CIRCULATION
National Guard.
Iowa City. Sarah Elgatian is a writer, activist and educator living in Iowa. She likes dark coffee, bright colors and
Audrey Brock, Rob Cline, Alex Choquemamani, Thomas
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Letters & Headlines 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.
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As a trans woman I’m tired of bullies!
I’m tired of the bullies in our state government who try to vilify us, erase us, deny us our rights based off their narrow ideology rather than modern science and medicine. I’m tired of healthcare providers and parents of trans and non binary youth being harassed by so called “radical feminists” who spend their free time writing incoherent rants about “a campaign of genocide against women and girls.” I’m tired of the conspiracy theories that claim the trans community is “erasing women and lesbians” every time a trans man or trans masculine person comes out as their authentic self. I’m tired of trans lesbians being slandered and
scapegoated as “predatory straight men” by the same type of “gender-critical feminists.” To my trans kin, it’s time to stand up to these bullies! To our cis allies, gay, bi, pan or ace/aro, it’s time to stand with us! —Heather Dunn
Would you rather have a lawn that looks like a golf course or a park? It’s a joy to be outdoors in the spring! Seasonal changes add interest to our walks in the neighborhood—until we get to that acrid odor of lawn spray. We take care not to step on that yard to avoid tracking toxic chemicals into our home. Thankfully, in Iowa City, our public
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turf grass is free from harmful effects of urban pesticide. Back in 2016 Iowa City banned pesticides in parks and trails. Soon after, Iowa City Community Schools followed suit and now Johnson County, too. And the reason is because research shows evidence of harm from pesticide exposure in so many ways—to health, water quality, pets, pollinators and biodiversity. We are blessed to live in a neighborhood where very few yards are sprayed. Our neighbors get it. Natural lawn care is simple and it saves money. Here’s what you do: Just omit pesticides and herbicides, and mow high (at least three inches). And neighbors get this part, too: Our lawns are just as aesthetically pleasing as treated lawns, while providing some great benefits. If you are interested in reconsidering the way you care for your lawn, go here for more information and science-driven evidence: goodneighboriowa.org —Linda Rice and Gary Lawrenson
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H E A D L I N E S
FEBRUARY HEADLINES Gov. Reynolds eliminates Iowa’s few significant COVID restrictions (Feb. 5)
Eliminating tenure, identifying Democrats, controlling spending: Republican lawmakers seek to change Iowa’s universities (Feb. 12) An effort by Republicans in the state legislature
Republican leaders in the Iowa Legislature are
to eliminate tenure at Iowa’s public universi-
fast-tracking SSB 1199, a Senate bill imposing
ties advanced this week. The move is meant
new restrictions on voting and stripping local
to threaten liberal professors who demand
control over elections.
“absolute conformity to their way of thinking,”
LittleVillageMag.com
/LittleVillage READER POLL: What has Grassley been reading on his “iPad-like device in his half-open desk drawer” during the impeachment case?
according to Rep. Steve Holt.
Iowa City Bike Library finds a new home, at last (Feb. 9) After more than five years of location insecuri-
Cedar Rapids is looking to bring back the city’s tree canopy ‘in the right way’ (Feb. 15)
ty, the Iowa City Bike Library is ready to settle down in its own “vast, ethereal space.” “It is
In the wake of the derecho, which destroyed
true! The Iowa City Bike Library has purchased
about 65 percent of CR’s trees, the city has
a building at 1222 South Gilbert Court,” ICBL
approved $500,000 for a “greenprint” to plant
posted to its Facebook page.
native trees in an equitable way.
Cedar Rapids establishes the second police review board in Iowa (Feb. 10)
‘Total, total shit show’: Grassley and Ernst vote to acquit Trump (Feb. 15) Neither Sen. Chuck Grassley nor Sen. Joni Ernst
The Cedar Rapids City Council gave final ap-
were among the seven Republicans who vot-
proval on Tuesday to the establishment of an
ed to convict former President Trump for his
independent citizen review board that will
alleged incitement of the Jan. 6 Capitol insur-
oversee the Cedar Rapids Police Department.
rection.
This comes almost exactly eight months after the Advocates for Social Justice unveiled their demands.
Gov. Reynolds uses elimination of COVID-19 restrictions in fundraising pitches (Feb. 11)
Locals invited to suggest new features for Jones Park as city closes golf course (Feb. 15) A pickleball court? A dog park? Pollinator space, perhaps? The City of Cedar Rapids is looking for ideas for repurposing Jones Golf
Gov. Kim Reynolds is telling supporters she is
Course. The city is collecting input from resi-
standing up to “radicals on the Left” who “want
dents through a survey.
to shut Iowa down” in a tweet linking to her fundraising page.
10 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
Gov. Reynolds cancels plans for a
Kink
22.2%
The Best of Marmaduke 1 55.6% the Bible (KJV)
7.4%
the Illuminatus trilogy 14.8%
/LittleVillage READER POLL: How worried were you about coronavirus at this time last year? Pretty paranoid
15.4%
Somewhat concerned
43.6%
“We’ll be fine.”
38.5%
Had no idea it existed
2.6%
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:
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H E A D L I N E S
‘one-stop shop’ website for COVID-19 vaccination scheduling (Feb. 17)
STRESS FRACTURES
LittleVillageMag.com
JOHN MARTINEK
Two weeks after announcing the state was going to launch a website that would be “a centralized registration and referral system” for people trying to schedule a COVID-19 vaccination, Gov. Kim Reynolds said no such site will be created.
CRCSD Superintendent Noreen Bush receives national award (Feb. 22) AASA, The School Superintendents Association, is honoring Bush for her “exceptional leadership.” Bush is Cedar Rapids’ first woman superintendent.
Grassley won’t say if he’s running in 2022, praises Rush Limbaugh at town hall meeting in Greene County (Feb. 22) The 87-year-old senator told reporters the decision would not be made for months, but said he is in good health.
Republican lawmakers advance bill that cuts off state funding to any city that reduces its police budget (Feb. 23) A bill that would halt state funding to any city
BROCK ABOUT TOWN
AUDREY
BROCK
Last week, I read an article (in a publication
present my official guide to a socially respon-
the end of a limbo competi-
which shall here remain nameless but is not
sible spring break.
tion, but they sure are tasty.
that posed the question: Where should we go
Create the right ambience. First, crank up the
Start some drama. One of the
for spring break? Since the author chose not to
heat in your apartment until it’s impossible to
mainstays of the spring break
supply for their audience the correct answer to
wear anything more substantial than booty
experience is having a knock-
that question, I will. Nowhere! For the love of
shorts and a halter top. Then, choose the ap-
down-drag-out fight with your
God, please stay home. Even if you’ve had the
propriate music—try Googling “Chainsmokers
friends. It’s inevitable, really, when you’re all
vaccine, travel could pose serious risks to those
dubstep remix”—and blast it at top volume
sharing a sleeping bag on the floor of Katie’s
around you, like the grandma you’re only going
from the moment you wake up around 3 p.m.
boyfriend’s frat brother’s room in the cheapest
to visit because her house is 45 minutes from
Finally, as soon as you’re done eating, drinking
Comfort Inn in New Orleans. It’s an experience
Miami Beach.
or smoking anything, throw the remnants on
not unlike having roommates during COVID, so
the ground. After a few days, you’ll really start
it should be easy for you to pick a fight with
to feel like you’re in a resort town.
whomever you’re living. If you’d like to expand
known for its socially responsible attitudes)
I realize that for our collegiate readers, the freshmen and sophomores in particular,
beyond your bubble, you’ll have to get creative.
this will come as a bit of a disappointment. They’ve been deprived of the opportunity to
Make some new drinks. Pinterest is rife
Maybe open your friend’s Snap and then leave
have formative adolescent experiences, like
with recipes for fun tropical cocktails, like
her on read for three hours? That should do it.
waking up on a fire escape in South Padre
Hurricanes, Painkillers, Panty-Droppers, Face-
Island with a cute townie’s initials tattooed
Destroyers and Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.
ber to have fun, stay COVID-safe and avoid
on their left buttcheek. I can’t imagine the
Most of them started life as ungodly conglom-
getting tattoos from dudes who work out of
toll that must take. So, without further ado, I
erations of the backwash-y dregs left over at
vans.
12 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
Whatever you do this spring break, remem-
VENMO @littlevillagemag PAYPAL lv@littlevillagemag.com
L E F LA
A F E TH
T N I JO
ity C a t, Iow
ree t S n in L . N 206
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 13
COMMUNITY
Cortado
or county that reduces the budget of its local law enforcement agency is making its way through the Iowa Legislature.
Linn County voters may see gambling referendum on the ballot this year (Feb. 24) Local officials in Linn County are trying to decide if they should put the county’s gambling referendum on the ballot this year.
State Republicans pass bill to restrict early voting, voting by mail and voting on Election Day in Iowa (Feb. 25) The bill will unquestionably make voting harder in Iowa, but state Republicans said it’s worth it in order to reassure the “millions and million and millions” of people who believe in Trump’s election fraud lie that Iowa’s elections are safe.
‘It really made an impact on much more than just this family’: Harris home added to National Register of Historic Places (Feb. 26) The home of Cedar Rapids civil rights pioneers Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris was added to the National Register of Historic Places earlier this month, almost 60 years after the family challenged discriminatory housing practices to build it.
UIHC warns about a COVID-19 vaccination phishing scam (Feb. 26) Scammers are reportedly calling people, pretending to be with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and asking for personal information. “We never ask for this info to schedule a vaccination,” UIHC said in a tweet. “If you get this call, hang up.”
Iowa launches website to help people find COVID vaccine providers, with senior call center promised soon (Feb. 26) The Iowa Department of Public Health launched a new site on Friday, vaccinate.iowa.gove, that is intended to make finding a COVID-19 vaccine provider for Iowans currently eligible to be vaccinated easier. “But I want to be clear: you cannot schedule an appointment on this site, or register to be contacted when scheduling is available,” Gov. Reynolds clarified. 14 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
LittleVillageMag.com
Ruta de bibliotecas de Iowa
POR W. ALEX CHOQUEMAMANI
C
ada vez que he tenido la oportunidad de visitar una ciudad o pueblo de Iowa, he encontrado bibliotecas y personas muy amables. Así, en el año 2014 (mi primera visita a Iowa), pude conocer la Biblioteca Pública de Coralville. Al ingresar a la misma mi concepto de biblioteca cambió en cuestión de segundos. Pues en esta biblioteca, además de libros, había CDs de música y películas, y varios ambientes de lectura según la edad de los usuarios (adultos, jóvenes, niños). En el caso de mi país (Perú), las bibliotecas solo tienen libros, un ambiente de lectura, horarios reducidos y una recepcionista quien luego de un saludo formal te hará la infaltable pregunta: ¿me permite su carné de lector? En cambio, en la biblioteca de Coralville, nadie me pidió carné de lector para poder consultar los materiales disponibles. Más bien había una estimulación enorme para que más personas pudieran visitarla, con horarios amplios, actividades educativas y culturales, y café a buen precio. Ese día solo me dediqué a escuchar música en un computador, experimentando una felicidad de niño cuyos nuevos juguetes ahora eran CDs de música. Allí encontré el álbum Come Sunday de Charlie Haden y Hank Jones, el cual hasta el día de hoy sigue siendo uno de mis favoritos. Cuatro años después, ya no como visitante sino como residente de Iowa, pude visitar más bibliotecas. Una de ellas es la Biblioteca Pública de Hopkinton. Ubicada al norte de Iowa, a una hora y media desde Iowa City. Pequeña, serena y tradicional. Sus paredes altas, mobiliario de madera y sofás de cuero, me transportaron a otros tiempos, quizás aquellos donde la velocidad de la vida cotidiana no era la regla sino la excepción. Otra biblioteca que también pude visitar fue la Biblioteca Pública de Anamosa, ubicada en la misma ciudad en la que nació el pintor Grant Wood. Esta es un poco más moderna que la anterior. Tiene varios estantes de libros y una amplia variedad de materiales disponibles. La visité varias veces porque en esta ciudad vivió la abuela de Allison (mi esposa). La motivación de mis visitas no era consultar libros o CDs, sino comprar libros. Pues en un rincón de la biblioteca había libros descatalogados o que tenían poca demanda de lectura y por ello eran rematados a precios ínfimos. Y, para mi buena suerte, encontré In
National Library of Norway.jpg
H E A D L I N E S
cold blood de Truman Capote. No puedo dejar pasar la Biblioteca Pública de Iowa City. En mi primera visita a Iowa pude conocerla solo por fuera. Mi esposa y yo andábamos en auto y, al pasar por la misma, Allison me la señaló: “Esta es la Biblioteca Pública de Iowa City,” y yo apenas vi un edificio largo, con puerta corrediza de vidrio y grandes ventanas. Sería a inicios de diciembre del 2018 cuando por fin pude visitarla. En aquel entonces aún no comenzaba el invierno polar que tendríamos luego, y yo no conocía mucho la ciudad. Decidí caminar en vez de tomar el bus. Una vez ya en el lugar, desde luego que vi muchos libros (incluídos aquellos en español y otros idiomas), revistas, películas y música. Pero lo que más me llamó la atención fue el descubrir que en este lugar había vida comunitaria. Un espacio en donde todos podíamos vernos los rostros y reconocernos como peregrinos sin importar nuestra condición social, lugar de origen, idioma, edad, género. Todos aquí eran bienvenidos: estudiantes, adultos mayores, oficinistas, inmigrantes, personas sin hogar, personas buscando empleo, personas con discapacidad, músicos callejeros, etcétera. No queda duda de que en la biblioteca de la Ciudad de la Literatura las personas no solo buscan libros, también buscan un abrigo, café a buen precio, un lugar para el ocio y el entretenimiento, una mesa para charlar con los demás. ¿Existirán más bibliotecas o lugares parecidos a ésta en otras partes del mundo?
IOWA CITY DOWNTOWN
Magic the Gathering. Video Games. Warhammer. Warmachine. RPGs. Board Games. X-Wing. Dice. LotR. HeroClix. Miniatures. GoT. Blood Bowl. L5R. Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh. Kidrobot Vinyl. Retro toys. Pop vinyl & plushies. Gaming & collectible supplies. Huge Magic singles inventory plus we buy/trade MtG cards. Weekly drafts, FNM, league play, and frequent tourneys. Now buying/selling/trading video games & toys! Bring in your Nintendo Gameboy, NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Sega, WiiU, Xbox 360, PS1-2-3, & other used games, consoles, action figures, and toys for cash or trade credit! Fun atmosphere and great customer service!
millions of live & active cultures
that’s a lot of culture, even by iowa city standards
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Top Stories Daily news updates, events, restaurant reviews and videos at littlevillagemag.com.
‘‘Absolutely mind-boggling’: Gov. Reynolds didn’t ask for the
‘A place like this is needed now more than ever’:
IDPH’s opinion before eliminating statewide mask mandate
Johnson County’s GuideLink Center prepares to open
By Paul Brennan, Feb. 8
By Izabela Zaluska, Feb. 12
Gov. Kim Reynolds did not consult with the Iowa Department of Public
The GuideLink Center, a mental health access center in Iowa City that has
Health before eliminating the limited statewide mask mandate that had
been in the works for more than a decade, is just days away from opening
been in place since mid-November, state Democrats were told during a
its doors. The 18,000 square-foot facility at 300 Southgate Ave will
phone briefing with IDPH interim director Kelly Garcia on Feb. 8.
provide rapid assessment, triage and stabilization for adults experiencing
“It took my breath away for a moment,” Rep. Lindsay James said. “It is absolutely mind-boggling to me.”
a mental health or substance abuse crisis, serving as a “third option” to divert individuals from unnecessary jail or emergency room visits.
Proposed development next to Hickory
VIDEO: Revolution and
Hill Park is halted amid public outcry
Beatitudes of Black Liberation
By Emma McClatchey, Feb. 23
By Stacey Walker, Feb. 24
A plan to build houses, condos and a retirement village adjacent to
In a video essay expanding on themes presented in
Hickory Hill Park hit a wall last week when the Iowa City Planning and
his Witching Hour 2020 performance, Stacey Walker
Zoning Commission voted unanimously to send developers back to
(a current Linn County Supervisor) illustrates the
the drawing board. The 0-7 vote came after dozens of community
state of Black liberation in America, “a new fight
members spoke out against the project, causing the meeting to run
with ancient roots,” dissects the opposition to racial
nearly two hours over schedule.
justice and shares his own family’s story, including the unsolved murder of his mother.
WATCH Revolution and Beatitudes of Black Liberation
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THANK YOU TO THIS ISSUE’S ADVERTISING PARTNERS This issue of Little Village is supported by: Adamantine Spine Moving (51)
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Iowa Department of Public Health
Sanctuary (55)
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Iowa Magic Shop (55)
Soseki (51)
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Troubleshoot, LLC (55)
Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre (27)
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Kim Schillig, Realtor (57)
University of Iowa Healthcare
Chomp (2)
- Release Body Modifications
Linn County Parks (28)
City of Cedar Rapids (4)
- Record Collector
Martin Construction (43)
City of Iowa City (32)
- The Konnexion
Multicultural Development Center
CIVIC (31)
Iowa City Girls Softball (36)
The Club Car (57)
Iowa City Magic (45)
Coralville Public Library (26)
Iowa City Northside Marketplace
Village co-op (52)
The Dandy Lion (54)
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Shakespeare’s Pub & Grill (57)
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Clinical Trials (51) University of Iowa Recreational Services (sponsored by Brian Morelli) (19)
of Iowa (31) New Pioneer Food Co-op (64)
West Music (63) Whitedog Import Auto Service
Nodo (34)
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Oasis Falafel (13)
The Englert Theatre (17)
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Hell or High Water University of Iowa women swimmers and divers are back in the pool, but say they’re still seeking accountability from the athletic department that left them out to dry. By Izabela Zaluska
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here were “mixed emotions” when University of Iowa Athletic and diving. The other three sports were men’s swimming and diving, men’s Director Gary Barta met with the women’s swimming and divgymnastics and men’s tennis. ing team on Feb. 15 to let them know their program, which the In an open letter, Harreld and Barta cited the financial challenges brought university had cut on Aug. 21, would be fully reinstated. on by the COVID-19 pandemic as reasons for the cuts, as well as the Big While there was excitement and optimism over the news, there was also Ten canceling its fall football season due to the pandemic. frustration over why the announcement didn’t happen sooner, and hesita“With the Big Ten Conference’s postponement of fall competition on tion to trust the athletic department. Swimmers Alexa Puccini and Sage Aug. 11, University of Iowa Athletics now projects lost revenue of approxOhlensehlen told Little Village they believe the decision to reinstate the imately $100 million and an overall deficit between $60-75 million this program should have been made back in December when a federal judge fiscal year,” the letter said. “A loss of this magnitude will take years to issued a preliminary injunction preventing the university from cutting the overcome. We have a plan to recover, but the journey will be challenging.” sport at the end of the current academic year. During a virtual news conference three days later, Barta reiterated the The team had already lost six of its members—something that might impact the pandemic has had on the athletic department and said the decihave been prevented had the reinstatement announcement happened just sion to cut the four programs was “100 percent determined and driven by a couple months earlier, said Ohlensehlen, who is COVID-19.” the team’s captain. Women who stayed on the team “The financial fallout that COVID-19 caused but planned to transfer to another school at the led to the postponement, cancellation, of fall footend of the academic year, like Puccini, now have ball,” Barta said. “Were it not for that, we would “WE’RE NOT DROPPING a “hard decision to make.” Fifteen of the team’s 35 not have been dropping those four sports.” THAT LAWSUIT BECAUSE members have put in transfers to swim elsewhere On Sept. 16, the Big Ten reversed its decision EVEN WITH THE and several coaches have left, according to court and announced there would be a limited fall footdocuments. ball season. Barta acknowledged the limited seaADDITION OF A FEMALE “A part of our frustration was that now that the son could decrease the financial deficit from $75 SWIM TEAM, WE’RE news is so late, we have to completely rebuild a million to $60 million but said the deficit would STILL NOT COMPLIANT new team, and that takes a lot,” Puccini said. “But still be “catastrophic.” then also, we’re really grateful we get an oppor“Will the announcement of football change the WITH TITLE IX. I AM ALL tunity to swim here now and that … now it is an decisions we made? No,” Barta said on Sept. 17. FOR THE ADDITION OF option for other girls who want to come and swim Barta said during a news conference on Feb. at Iowa.” 16, a day after the women’s team was reinstated, WOMEN’S WRESTLING, Six months earlier, Barta announced that the that the university will not be able to reinstate the WOMEN’S LACROSSE, women’s swimming and diving team (along with three men’s programs due to the ongoing finanWHATEVER IT MAY the men’s swimming and diving team and two othcial challenges. He estimated the deficit is still er men’s programs) were going to be cut following between $50 million and $60 million. BE. AND I’M GOING TO the 2020-21 academic year. Barta delivered the STAY ON THIS LAWSUIT news to the team in a couple of minutes and then A Fair Chance to Win TO CREATE AS MANY left, leaving staff members and coaches to answer questions from the athletes. n Sept. 25, about a month after the initial POSITIONS FOR WOMEN The reinstatement went differently—Barta met announcement, four members of the womIN ATHLETICS AS I CAN.” with the women and answered their questions for en’s swimming and diving team (who were latabout an hour and a half. Puccini said she and her er joined by two additional UI students) filed a teammates didn’t back down from asking him class-action complaint in U.S. District Court —SAGE OHLENSEHLEN tough questions, including how the move affects arguing that the university’s decision to cut the the university’s Title IX compliance. women’s program violated Title IX. The lawsuit While UI has committed to fully reinstating the team, it still faces the named the university, Harreld and Barta as defendants. Title IX suit that was brought forward by six UI student-athletes, including Title IX is a federal law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination Ohlensehlen and Puccini. in educational institutions that receive federal funding and requires schools “We’re not dropping that lawsuit because even with the addition of a to provide equal opportunities for male and female athletes. female swim team, we’re still not compliant with Title IX,” Ohlensehlen If universities aren’t in compliance with Title IX, they risk losing federal said. “There’s still quite a few positions that should be given to women that funding—which for Iowa could be more than $500 million. However, since aren’t, and actually, it’s enough positions to add another team. So I am all Title IX was enacted, no university has lost federal funding for violating it. for the addition of women’s wrestling, women’s lacrosse, whatever it may The six plaintiffs—swimmers Kelsey Drake, Christina Kaufman, Sage be. And I’m going to stay on this lawsuit to create as many positions for Ohlensehlen and Alexa Puccini, as well as Miranda Vermeer and Abbie women in athletics as I can.” Lyman—are arguing the university has failed to comply with three Title IX requirements, including providing female student-athletes with athletic opportunities at a rate that is “substantially proportionate” to their underCOVID-19 and Financial Catastrophe graduate full-time enrollment rate. The plaintiffs also allege that the university has failed to demonstrate a arta and UI President Bruce Harreld announced on Aug. 21 that four of the university’s 24 intercollegiate varsity sports programs would be “history and continuing practice of program expansion responsive to the incut following the 2020-21 academic year, including women’s swimming terests and abilities of the sex that has been historically underrepresented.”
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Alexa Puccini swims the butterfly (a stroke invented at UI) during a women’s swimming and diving meet. Puccini’s biggest dream when she was growing up was to swim collegiately, and she knew since her sophomore year of high school that she wanted to swim at the University of Iowa. Courtesy of Alexa Puccini
Lastly, they allege that the university has failed to show the interests and abilities of female athletes have been fully and effectively accommodated. On Dec. 24, the plaintiffs were granted a preliminary injunction that stopped the university from eliminating the women’s swimming and diving team (or any other women’s athletic team) until the lawsuit was resolved. “Injunctive relief is an extraordinary remedy that is not issued lightly,” U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Rose wrote. Rose found that the plaintiffs have a “fair chance of demonstrating the University is not, and has not been, in compliance with Title IX.” Sports gender equity experts quoted by the Des Moines Register also believe the plaintiffs have a solid case. Rose acknowledged the financial hardships the university is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic but offered a reminder that “financial hardship is not a defense to a [probable] Title IX violation.”
A Title IX Reckoning
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Sage Ohlensehlen and Amy Lenderink pose after a victory over Iowa State in January 2020. Courtesy of Sage Ohlensehlen
Seniors from both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams pose after their last home meet of the 2020-21 season. The Jan. 16, 2021 meet was against the University of Nebraska. Courtesy of Sage Ohlensehlen
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he University of Iowa isn’t alone in its financial hardship. The COVID-19 pandemic has added additional strain to college athletic departments across the country. Departments have cut staff, reduced salaries and eliminated teams. More than 350 teams had been cut nationally as of November 2020. But universities contemplating cutting a women’s team should first conduct a complete gender equity review, otherwise they might “face significant litigation risk” if they fail to take Title IX compliance into account, writes Sarah Hartley, a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, an international law firm. Hartley also teaches sports law at the University of Colorado Law School. Other universities—including Dartmouth, William & Mary and East Carolina—have faced
pushback over possible Title IX violations after cutting their women’s swimming and diving teams, which resulted in the schools reinstating the teams and committing to developing gender equity plans to ensure Title IX compliance. Michigan State University announced on Oct. 22 it will cut its women’s program following the 2020-21 season. MSU is facing a lawsuit from student-athletes on the school’s swimming and diving team that is similar to the lawsuit against the University of Iowa. “I think what’s important to understand is that despite being almost 50 years past the time that Title IX was passed, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of institutions don’t have gender parity yet,” Hartley told Little Village. “A lot of different institutions are certainly trying to accommodate interest from female athletes, and that has been a work in progress, if you will. A lot of courts, when they look at compliance, look at that historical data and the trend of improvement. “But I think if you have a student-athlete who’s actually willing to push on the Title IX issue, you’d find out quite a number of institutions could be doing better.”
‘Is That Forever?’
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I said in the reinstatement announcement that it “continues to disagree with the claims made in the lawsuit” and the injunction. The university had asked the district court to dismiss the case, and it had also petitioned the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals asking for the injunction to be lifted. Judge Rose denied the university’s motion to dismiss on Feb. 23. Mark Emmert, who covers UI sports for the Des Moines Register, reported on Feb. 24 that the university was dropping its appeal to the Eighth Circuit. Barta has previously said he was assured by a consultant prior to axing the women’s team and three other teams that the athletic department would be in compliance with
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Hawkeye swimmers after a dual meet in 2017. Courtesy of Sage Ohlensehlen
Title IX. According to Barta, the lawsuit and the injunction have “created additional uncertainty that could last several months or even years.” It was this uncertainty, he said, that prompted him to reinstate the team—not the lawsuit itself. When asked if he would have made this decision without the lawsuit and without the injunction, Barta responded: “The financial crisis is still real, and it’s still in front of us. When we made the decision to discontinue four sports, ... we had no intention of reinstating any of those teams. When the lawsuit occurred, we still were moving forward. When the injunction was made around the holiday season, I was still hopeful that a resolution would be made between the two sides because I knew
the attorneys were talking regularly. “It really has reached this point and the disagreements still exist. And so the reinstatement is based on that because it doesn’t look like a resolution is coming anytime soon. Again, could it last several months? Could it last a few years? I just made the decision that it was the right thing to do to move forward—reinstate the program. That gives the opportunity for current student-athletes and future student-athletes [and] staff to have certainty and move forward. So, that’s kind of how it unfolded, and that’s how it came about.” Ohlensehlen, however, believes the lawsuit played a larger role. While she appreciated the conversation with Barta during the Feb. 15 meeting with the swim team, calling it “a great step to mending
fences between the swim team and the athletic department,” she wasn’t satisfied with the answers he was giving the team. “The reason that I’m not super happy is because I felt like the athletic department is saying they decided to reinstate the team, [and they’re] the good guys; however, I believe the reason they reinstated the team is because of the lawsuit, though they’re claiming that their decision to reinstate the team isn’t because of the lawsuit,” Ohlensehlen said. “That’s a problem that I have right now with the athletic department moving forward is I don’t understand how we are supposed to trust them knowing that they’re only reinstating the team because a judge told them to. I know that this is going to take a lot of time to build
up that trust, and I’m willing to start the process… but still, it’s going to take a lot of time to rebuild that trust that we used to have.” Ohlensehlen said the swim team is working on a list of ways the relationship between the team and the athletic department could be mended, which will be delivered to Barta and his team. Barta told reporters that the team is “fully reinstated,” and he has no plans to cut any other athletic teams. “I’ve been asked why don’t I use the term ‘permanent,’” Barta said during the Feb. 16 news conference. “It’s permanent like every other Olympic sport we have. ... They are fully reinstated as full members of the athletic department, and I have zero plans to cut any sports, including women’s swimming, beyond
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this point.” “Permanent—is that forever?” Barta continued. “I can’t predict what happens with name, image and likeness and other things happening in college sports, but yes, it is a full-fledged, nolook-back, fully reinstated moving-forward decision. Irregardless of what happens in the legal process, women’s swimming remains at Iowa.” Attorney Jim Larew, who is representing the plaintiffs, said he believes the university should also agree to the release of the $360,000 bond required by Judge Rose that was posted by his clients at the request of the UI. The bond is to guarantee the plaintiffs will be able to pay UI’s legal costs, if the university wins the lawsuit. As of Feb. 25, the university has not agreed to the bond release, Larew said in an email to Little Village.
A Pattern of Gender Inequality at UI
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n November 2015, former senior associate athletic director Jane Meyer filed a lawsuit against the university, Iowa Board of Regents and the state of Iowa alleging she was demoted after she complained about the firing of her partner and former women’s field hockey coach Tracey Griesbaum, in addition to other differences in treatment for men and women in the athletics department. Meyer’s lawsuit was filed under the Iowa Civil Rights Act and included five claims: gender discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, retaliation, whistleblower violations and unequal pay. Griesbaum, who was fired in August 2014, filed a separate lawsuit against the same defendants in March 2016. Griesbaum alleged that her firing had violated her civil rights by discriminating against her based on her gender and sexual orientation. Griesbaum specifically alleged that Barta had initiated an unfair pattern of dismissing female coaches and administrators. A Polk County jury sided with Meyer on all five of her claims and awarded her $1.43 million in May 2017. Griesbaum’s trial was scheduled to follow three weeks later but was called off when the university announced it would settle both cases for $6.5 million, which included the $1.43 million the jury awarded Meyer. In the settlement agreement, the university denied engaging in any acts of discrimination or relatiation. Speaking to reporters two months after the settlement, in July 2017, Barta said he was “very confident with the decisions that we made and that I made.” Around the same time as Griesbaum’s firing,
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a complaint was filed against the university with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education. The Title IX complaint filed by four UI field hockey players alleged the university had failed to provide equal athletics opportunities to its men and women in 13 categories. OCR conducted a four-year investigation, with federal investigators visiting the UI in April 2016 to meet with administrators, coaches and students. The investigators also toured various facilities around campus and inspected equipment. While investigators said there was insufficient evidence to show the university favored male student-athletes, they did find disparities in how women and men were treated when it came to equipment, recruiting and locker rooms, the Gazette reported. OCR was unable to conclude that the university was in compliance with Title IX. The OCR suggested the university enter into a proposed voluntary resolution with the office. The matter would be considered resolved, but the university would be monitored until OCR’s questions were answered. The university sent the signed resolution agreement on Dec. 29, 2017 and learned that OCR accepted the agreement on Jan. 10, 2018. The university presented the resolution as a victory. “The OCR found no violation of any regulation under Title IX,” the university said in a statement. “The resolution concludes the OCR’s investigation and was effective January 10, 2018. The university has agreed to provide additional reporting through the spring to substantiate its continued compliance under Title IX.” OCR notified UI in October 2019 that the investigation was closed after the university submitted additional reports and data to show compliance. UI provided information to OCR showing that in 2016-17, women made up 52.6 percent of undergraduate students and 52.2 percent of athletes, according to the Des Moines Register. However, how the university determined those numbers wasn’t part of the public record.
‘We Believe What We Believe’
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hat data the university is using and how it counts its roster spots for athletes has been a focus during the swimmers’ Title IX lawsuit. Larew said he has repeatedly asked the university to make these numbers available but has been denied access. Judge Rose, in her written order granting the preliminary injunction,
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expressed frustration over the university declining to turn their numbers over, despite requests from the plaintiffs and the court. “Their position is especially disingenuous considering Defendants’ refusal to disclose the official Title IX data they claim exonerates the University—data they admit is discoverable but have nonetheless declined to produce in response to Plaintiffs’ request,” Rose wrote. Rose, again, referenced the data in her Feb. 23 order denying the university’s motion to dismiss the case. “In sum, the combination of publicly accessible data upon which [the] Plaintiffs rely and official Title IX data Defendants admit exists and concede is discoverable is enough to raise genuine factual issues that should be resolved on their merits,” Rose wrote. Lyla Clerry, the university’s associate athletic director for compliance, said in her affidavit that UI doesn’t provide official squad lists for public review “because they contain protected student education records,” information that is protected under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Larew believes the UI will be required to publish the numbers as litigation continues. As part of next steps, parties will provide “initial disclosures” to each other, which can be documents and other relevant information to the case, Larew said. The discovery process will then follow, with the parties engaging in interrogatories, requests for documents and depositions of witnesses. Discovery could take up to a year, but Larew said the plaintiffs should be getting documents and data “soon” under the initial disclosure rules. Larew told the Register he thinks the numbers for women are inflated, specifically in rowing, cross country and softball. Reporting from Henry Cordes of the Omaha World-Herald published in 2019 found that a number of schools, including many known for college football like UI, report large squads in women’s rowing. Cordes found that athlete numbers were inflated primarily by “novice” rowers who are recruited from the general student body to try the sport. If the women are on the roster at the time of the team’s first competition, the university can count them as female athletes. The national average for a women’s rowing team in 2018 was about 63 rowers. At the start of the 2017-18 season, Iowa reported 91 rowers. Cordes reported it was likely 18 never competed in a race and 18 additional rowers weren’t on the official roster. Barta denied the accusation that UI was inflating athlete numbers during his comments on Feb. 28 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
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16, saying the university uses OCR’s methodology of counting and is committed to being compliant with Title IX. When asked by a reporter if the UI is prepared to go into open court and show the numbers, Barta said he’s “going to let the attorneys continue that process.” “There’s disagreement between the two sides, and so that will continue to work its way out,” Barta said. “I don’t know how long it’ll take. We believe what we believe. The plaintiff’s attorney believes what he believes. I don’t know where that’ll go. I’ll let that go through its process.”
UI Women’s Wrestling?
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arew said his clients are likely to amend their complaint following the motion to dismiss being denied and the university dropping its appeal on the injunction. Possible amendments might include additional named plaintiffs or modifying/adding additional claims, he said. Under the current complaint, the six women are asking for immediate reinstatement of the team and for the university to add additional women’s sports team opportunities to ensure Title IX compliance. Larew said his clients “describe growing enthusiasm for contact sports for women—an interest that the UI’s Athletics Department has not recognized by the sponsorship of a championship contact sport.” In some Title IX cases, federal courts have directed the university to establish a specific sport, Larew said. In others, federal courts have directed the university to come up with Title IXcompliant plans to expand women’s sports participation without specifying what sport should be added. Two of the plaintiffs in the case—Miranda Vermeer and Abbie Lyman—have expressed interest in rugby and wrestling, respectively. Vermeer is a UI senior who has participated in a women’s rugby sports club for four years. Prior to the pandemic, between 35 and 40 female students participated in rugby club activities during the 2019-20 season, Vermeer said in her court declaration. Lyman, a UI freshman, wrestled in high school and hoped to continue the sport when she got on campus, but she found there was “no institutional support for it.” Given the support for women’s wrestling in high schools across the state, Lyman said in a written court statement she found it “unusual and disappointing” that it wasn’t offered at UI. Women’s wrestling was recognized by the NCAA last year as an emerging sport for women and was approved in all three divisions. Women’s LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 29
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wrestling, acrobatics and tumbling, equestrian, rugby and triathlon are all considered emerging sports as of Aug. 1. “We hope the UI will seize the opportunity to regain a leadership role in women’s collegiate varsity sports programs,” Larew said. “What better way to do that than a sport such as wrestling—at the university known throughout the world as visionary and accomplished in that very sport? Rugby is rapidly gaining a following and increased participation in Iowa and throughout the nation. Here, too, Iowa could, and should, reestablish a leadership role in women’s intercollegiate sports by recognizing a varsity rugby team.” During the Feb. 16 news conference, Barta said the athletic department has been considering establishing a women’s wrestling program due to the increased popularity of the sport in Iowa, history of the men’s wrestling program and the news from the NCAA. A challenge, however, is finances. “We haven’t added the sport, primarily, even before COVID and the pandemic, because we haven’t figured out a financial plan that allowed us to do that within the means that we have,” Barta said, adding that he estimates women’s wrestling would cost between $750,000 to $1.5 million a year.
‘This is Not Over By Any Means’
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oth Ohlensehlen and Puccini expressed how overwhelming the last year has been between the lawsuit, testifying in court, keeping their grades up, going to swim practice and competing. “It’s been a very heavy year,” Ohlensehlen said, adding that her teammates have had to grow up fast and make a number of difficult decisions. “This has really been weighing on me, and I know it’s not just me—it’s all my teammates. We’ve really been relying on each other this past year.” Ohlensehlen, who is graduating this year and plans on attending law school in the fall, said she will use what she’s learned from the lawsuit and the lawyers she’s worked with as she enters the legal profession herself. “It means so much to me that I was able to help with this movement, not just because of swimming but also because of women in athletics. Women as athletes are not as appreciated as men as athletes, and I don’t think that’s fair,” Ohlensehlen said. “I’m so honored that I was able to help create more opportunities for women at a D1 institution. “The support’s been really overwhelming, and 30 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
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we’re going to keep fighting. This is not over by any means.” While Puccini never expected her freshman year to look like this, she’s proud of what her teammates have accomplished during the competition season. “I think this team took every obstacle that we had our way, and we overcame that and did much more,” Puccini said. Puccini added that being part of this lawsuit allowed her to use her voice and show her love for the sport and for being a Hawkeye. Despite her longtime dream of swimming for Iowa, Puccini committed in late November to transferring to the University of Arizona once she finished her freshman year at UI. Following the news of the team’s reinstatement, she’s not sure what she’s going to do. “Going into my freshman year I never thought any of this would happen, especially being part of a lawsuit for Title IX and going to court and testifying,” Puccini said. “That was something that I was super appreciative to be a part of, even though I wish I was never a part of it if we didn’t get cut, but it taught me a lot and to use my voice.” “I really wanted to fight for this team and do everything I possibly could to try and get it back. ... We’re not out of the water yet with the lawsuit, and I think there’s a lot to come with that part.”
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Cedar Rapids’ Superman Negro Leagues are on track to be recognized as Majors, affecting the legacy of a Cedar Rapids legend. By Rob Cline
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here’s a few key facts about Superman that are pretty universally known. He’s more powerful than a locomotive. He’s able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. And Superman is renowned for being faster than a speeding bullet. Cedar Rapids had its own Superman. And Art “Superman” Pennington—who lived there from the mid-1950s until his death in 2017—had his own superpower related to the speed of bullets. Pennington described that power in a 2002 interview about his life that was conducted by The History Center as part of an oral history project in Cedar Rapids. He was telling the story of his tryout for the American Giants, a Negro League baseball club, in 1939 when he was just 16 years old. “The guys got mad at me because I had such a great arm,” he said. “Oh my, I could throw ’em like a bullet.” The manager of the American Giants was suitably impressed— and not just by Pennington’s throwing arm. In fact, he was impressed enough to offer Pennington the chance to replace one of the team’s players. “Jim Taylor was the manager, and he saw that I could run like a deer, and I could throw that ball like a bullet, and I could hit that ball,” Pennington recounted in his oral history interview. “So he took me over his shortstopper. That’s where it started.” Now, thanks to a recent recommendation by the Society for American Baseball Research, Pennington’s years in the Negro Leagues may be recognized as time in the Majors. This long-overdue recognition would finally acknowledge that many of the game’s most talented and dedicated athletes were
From the 1986 Fritsch Negro League Baseball Stars set. Courtesy of Bryan Cline
banned from competing in the official Major Leagues from 1884 until 1947, consigning their accomplishments to a lesser status than, say, extraordinary white players like Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth. A review process is currently underway. The updated designation would mean, for example, that Pennington’s status as a Negro League All-Star would be recognized as the equivalent of being a Major League All-Star. It would also officially recognize that Pennington made it to the big leagues as a teenager—a rare feat accomplished by some of the biggest stars in the
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history of the game, from Iowa’s own superstar pitcher Bob Feller to Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey Jr. and, more recently, Bryce Harper and Juan Soto. He was so young when he went to join his new team in Chicago that Taylor promised Pennington’s mother he would look after the boy. His childhood nickname, “Superman”—given to him by his mother, the story goes, after he lifted a car by its bumper to allow the placement of a jack when he was 10 or so years old—went to the Windy City with him. “People come out to see me, they
called me ‘Superman,’ and they wondered where I got that name from, so I told them my mother gave me that name when I was a young boy. That’s all they would announce: ‘Superman at bat,’ and I was fast and I could throw. Guys hit the ball to me at shortstop and it would take a bad hop and hit me in the chest. I was never in a hurry ’cuz I had such an arm. I’d pick the ball up and ol’ Pep Young over on first base would yell, ‘Throw it, Supe!’ and I’d shoot it over there. He wanted me to get rid of it so it wouldn’t hurt his hand.” In the 2002 interview, Pennington
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recounts his career in an order that doesn’t match the official record. But it is clear that in the late 1940s, after Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby had broken the color barrier in the National and American Leagues, respectively, Pennington’s contract was sold to the New York Yankees. The Yankees promptly sent him to their minor league affiliate in Portland, Oregon. “It wasn’t too good out there in Portland. They thought maybe all the stuff that Jackie Robinson went through, it might have been cooled off for the rest of the players,” Pennington recalled of the still-prevalent racial tensions. “But we went through the same thing Jackie went through. Same thing.” Pennington never got his shot at the Major Leagues as defined at
Dizzy Dean, a hurler who had pitched his way to fame with the St. Louis Cardinals. When Taylor heard someone suggest Pennington never would have made that hit when Dean was in his prime, Pennington’s manager vehemently disagreed. “He hits Satchel [Paige] sometimes,” Taylor said. It’s hard to imagine a higher compliment for a ballplayer at the time. In the early 1950s, Pennington joined the newly integrated Three-I League, leading that league in hitting in 1952 when he was 29 years old with a .349 batting average. He played Three-I League ball in Cedar Rapids in 1953 and 1954. And once again, so the story goes, he caught the eye of someone who could change his life, just as he had
THANKS TO A RECENT RECOMMENDATION BY THE SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN BASEBALL RESEARCH, PENNINGTON’S YEARS IN THE NEGRO LEAGUES MAY BE RECOGNIZED AS TIME IN THE MAJORS. THIS RECOGNITION WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MANY OF THE GAME’S MOST TALENTED AND DEDICATED ATHLETES WERE BANNED FROM COMPETING IN THE OFFICIAL MAJOR LEAGUES.
the time, but his lifetime statistics are impressive by any measure. He batted .336 in his Negro American League career, .300 during his time in the Mexican League—an experience he recalled fondly for its lack of racial tensions—and .322 in the minor leagues. Given that .300 is considered a very good batting average (baseball being the only sport in which folks are mighty impressed if you only fail 70 percent of the time), Pennington’s .336 average in the Negro Leagues stands out as a stellar accomplishment. Early in his career, he hit a home run in an exhibition game off of
when he was a 16-year-old shortstop with a hell of an arm. Pennington was working for the local railroad during the offseason of 1955, and a picture of him toting a railroad tie over his shoulder appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The caption read: “The man swinging the big bat that looks suspiciously like a railroad tie is Art Pennington, former Cedar Rapids Three-I leaguer, who … has been working on the railroad in C.R. since the season ended.” In one version of the story, Arthur Collins himself, founder of Collins Radio, saw that photo and within a LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 35
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few years, Collins had offered Pennington a job in the company’s main plant. The job offer came with one condition: Collins wanted Pennington to play on the Collins Radio ball club in the local industrial baseball league. In the oral history interview, Pennington tells the story differently. He recounts his boss on the railroad suggesting he needed to go out to Collins Radio and apply for a job. There, he encountered a woman who knew him from his exploits on the baseball diamond. She gave him some employment tests (and may have helped a bit as well). Next thing he knew, he had a job. However it began, Pennington worked for the company until he retired in 1985. His baseball career behind him, Pennington continued to rack up an impressive collection of stats in other endeavors. In the early 1960s, he was co-owner of the “Home Run Club,” the first mixed-race dance club in Eastern Iowa. The club was shut down in 1963. The official story was that the building wasn’t up to code, but Pennington was sure that the integrated club was making waves in the community—waves that eventually overwhelmed the club. Undeterred, in 1967, Pennington became the first person of color to run for Linn County Sheriff. He ran another campaign in 1969, becoming the first person of color to run for Cedar Rapids Mayor. While he did not win either race, his eagerness to serve his adopted community was historic, paving the way for social justice advances in the city. He knew from his career in baseball and at Collins Radio that a good team made up of disparate individuals can accomplish a lot. Art “Superman” Pennington passed away in his sleep on Jan. 4, 2017. He was 93 years old. His real-life adventures may not have been quite as colorful as the fictional chap who shares his moniker, but Pennington was a hero nonetheless, pushing the country to be better with his skills on the ballfield and with his devotion to the community he called home for more than six decades. Rob Cline is an avid baseball enthusiast who married into the St. Louis Cardinals fandom in 1994. He was very relieved when Yadier Molina re-signed with the Cards this offseason. He would like to thank The History Center for assistance researching this story.
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LittleVillageMag.com En Español
Historia del “mojado” The “Wetback’s” Story Written and translated by Vicente Hernández Durán
El hombre llegó desorientado
The man arrived disoriented
¿Preguntándose que es todo esto?
Questioning himself, what is all of this?
¿A dónde fue?
Where did he go?
Que es todo esto que está escrito
What are all these writings
Un idioma no conocido
A language not known by the man
El hombre llega con miedo
The man arrived scared
Pero los recuerdos de su esposa
Yet, the memories of his wife
Su familia, y de sus hijos que llevan su sangre lo guían entre lo desconocido.
His family, the sons that carry his blood, guide him through the unknown.
El hombre trabaja
The man works
Cortando naranja piscando fresa buscando limón entre las ramas
Cutting oranges picking berries and searching for lime between the branches
Con el calor en su espalda
With the heat at his back
más fuerte y feroz de lo que recuerda
Stronger than he remembers
Juzgado por la piel morena que se carga
Judged by the skin he carries
No se raja, y se acostumbra
He does not give in, and becomes used to it
Recuerda la idea de reconciliarse con su familia
He remembers the idea of reuniting with his family.
Pero necesita más dinero, más trabajo, más ganas y coraje.
He needs more money, more work, more will and courage
Busca y encuentra el lugar donde el cuchillo necesita filo
He searches and finds the place, the place where the knife needs to be sharp
Aprende que hasta el metal se cansa
He learns that even metal gets tired
Descubre, que al cuchillo con caricias se anima
He discovers that a caressed knife becomes revitalized
Sus manos se cansan, pero sin caricias continúan hasta cumplir su deber
His hands are tired, but without rest they continue until they fulfill their duty
…
…
Por fin sus hijos han llegado, con papeles en la mano.
Finally, his children have arrived, with papers at hand
Tan solo tres conocieron el valor del filo
And only three understood the value of sharpness
Los demás encontraron virtud en sus talentos
The rest found virtue in their talents
pero el más pequeño de los hombres
But the youngest of the man
el que lleva el nombre del hombre, sobresalto en educación
The one that carries the man’s name, exceeded in education
se despidió de su familia y partió hacia su destino
The boy parted from his family and departed towards his destiny
llegando solo, y desorientado
He arrived alone, and disoriented
Vicente Hernández Durán is a student at the University of Iowa pursuing a degree in human-computer interaction informatics and is a technical sergeant at the Iowa Air National Guard.
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Looking for Pearl
S
How the search for a lost dog helped heal the heart of democracy in Iowa City. By Thomas Dean
ince mid-January, much of the east side of Iowa City has actively worked to save the life of Pearl, a black lab mix who has been on the loose amidst one of the snowiest, coldest winters in recent memory. Pearl was a feral dog who was captured (with her litter of pups) and eventually adopted out to a local resident by a humane society some distance from here. Almost immediately on arrival in Iowa City, Pearl slipped her harness and has been on the run since, circumnavigating the east side. She is fast (a volunteer followed her in her car at 20 to 25 miles per hour), fearful of humans and has, as of this writing, been impossible to capture. Whether we know it or not, Pearl has actually taught us much about the “heart of democracy,” a concept detailed in Parker Palmer’s important 2011 book called Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit (Jossey-Bass). Parker Palmer’s wisdom has been an important touchstone for me during the recent fraught political years, and it is much on my mind as I prepare to teach a short online class based on his book through the Terramuse retreat center. Palmer harks back to Alexis de Tocqueville’s idea of “habits of the heart,” in which heart “comes from the Latin cor,” which in its original meaning points to the core of the human self, that center-place where all of our ways of knowing converge: intellectual, emotional, sensory, intuitive, imaginative, experiential, relational and bodily, among others. The heart is where we integrate what we know in our minds with what we know in our bones, the place where our knowledge can become more fully human. So what does this have to do with a runaway dog in Iowa City? The five “habits of the heart” that Palmer cites as necessary to heal our democracy are exactly what eastsiders have been practicing. Palmer’s first “habit” is “an understanding that we are all in this together.” As Palmer says, “Despite our illusions of individualism and national superiority, we humans are a profoundly interconnected species—entwined with one another and with all forms of life.” My wife, Susan, founded and still co-manages the Iowa City Lost Pets Facebook page, and when she first posted a notice that Pearl was missing, this unfortunate dog struck the hearts of dozens, then hundreds,
40 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
Ann Muilenburg
then thousands of people as the lost notice went viral on Facebook and other social media. It wasn’t long before dozens of expressions of desire to help poured in. Being “all in this together” came not just in the form of hopes and prayers but also the impulse to fulfill the second habit of the heart, “a sense of personal voice and agency.” Dozens of people wanted to be actors, not just spectators, desiring to “know the satisfaction that comes from contributing to positive change.”
patterns of movement, then reduce her preferred eating stations to one, where a special electronic trap could be set. This was all complicated by the two weeks of the polar vortex, which made her situation even more dire yet made ample feeding stations necessary to keep her alive, delaying their reduction in number to narrow her movements. The complications of the rescue fit one of the most challenging of democracy’s five habits of the heart: “an ability to hold tension in life-giving
WITH PEARL, OUR SYMPATHY IMPELLED OUR DESIRE TO RUSH OUT AND TRY TO CORRAL THIS PUP, ESPECIALLY AS THE FRIGID NIGHTS CONTINUED, BUT WHAT NEEDED TO HAPPEN WAS THE OPPOSITE—TO KEEP OUR DISTANCE. Pearl’s situation is tricky because she simply runs away at top speed at the sight of people. When it became clear more expert help was needed, the folks at Fur Fun Rescue of Lisbon, who have expertise in capturing dogs like Pearl, were brought into the fold. The most important actions individuals could take were reporting sightings to a central person and putting high-quality puppy chow out for the lost pup. It wasn’t long before many eastsiders were doing just those things (as well as some providing financial contributions). The ultimate plan has been to determine Pearl’s
ways.” With Pearl, our sympathy impelled our desire to rush out and try to corral this pup, especially as the frigid nights continued, but what needed to happen was the opposite—to keep our distance. Too much “help” and interference would undermine attempts to lure her to a specific location and would make her mistrust humans even more. Yet the contradiction between what we wanted to do and what we needed to do for Pearl couldn’t “shut us down and take us out of the action,” as Palmer says. If we all held that tension “to expand our hearts,” we could be of
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good service to the rescue effort. One of the most important habits in Palmer’s scheme and one that applies so fully in the Pearl rescue effort is “an appreciation of the value of ‘otherness.’” While Palmer is talking about the human “other” in order to bridge cultural and political gaps, I extend the idea here to the nonhuman other. Unfortunately, many view the nonhuman—even the entire natural world—as “other,” to the detriment of both the planet and our social systems. Expanding our empathy to an animal in distress is one of the greatest demonstrations of valuing otherness. It is remarkable how so many have spontaneously become invested in this creature who wants nothing to do with us and who will never be part of our ongoing lives. As well, despite our strenuous efforts, the outcome is far from certain. We don’t know if Pearl will survive or if she will perhaps simply take off for parts unknown. That’s another kind of tension that we must hold in order to continue on. The culmination of these habits of the heart is, of course, the fifth one: “a capacity to create community.” In drawing from the wisdom of de Tocqueville, Palmer emphasizes the importance of “the health of the local venues in which the heart gets formed or deformed: families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations, voluntary associations, workplaces and the various places of public life where ‘the company of strangers’ gathers.” Our current rescue effort for Pearl has instantaneously brought together a remarkable cooperative linkage between local strangers, neighborhoods and voluntary associations in a difficult but necessary public effort. While we’re not trying to eliminate the massive cultural and political divides we see in our country today or address the national (even global) fallout of the U.S. Capitol insurrection, the Pearl rescue is invoking and employing all the habits of the heart that are at the core of democratic health and action, which themselves are always made up of small local actions as well as large comprehensive initiatives. Those habits have been taken up instantly and enthusiastically by many in our eastside Iowa City community, and if we can do this for Pearl, we can do it for the creation of a larger politics—and a culture and society—worthy of the human spirit.
TELL THE
TRUTH
Update: Shortly after this column was completed, Pearl was hit by a car and killed. Sadly, the collective effort has transformed into collective grief.
CHANGE THE
WORLD
42 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
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Thomas Dean is triple-checking that his dogs’ collars are tight and that his backyard is secure this winter.
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1824 G Street, Iowa City
Bread & Butter
Reubens on Rye Who will honor this sandwich the way it deserves? By Jordan Sellergren
should be. The dressing was sweet with proper zang. However, points docked for using styrofoam, so not a perfect score. A
Donnelly’s Pub
110 E College St, Iowa City, 319-338-7355, donnellyspub-ic.com Donnelly’s Reuben is made with slow-cooked house-made brisket, which is definitely a selling point, though the toppings ratio was off for me: probably 80:20 meat to sauerkraut and swiss. Honestly just not enough sauerkraut. In general, everything was a bit too greasy, though I know I’ve had a good one there before, and will try again when things open up––I love the historic bar. Points docked for using styrofoam. C+
W
The best in the east: Katz’s Delicatessen in New York. Jordan Sellergren / Little Village
hen my beloved and I became a serious couple, his son asked us what our favorite foods were. We both said Reubens. The first Reuben I ever ordered was in 2000. I was out for Bloody Marys and brunch at the Uptown Diner in Minneapolis (RIP) and a friend insisted I have one. I was skeptical, but it was so good. During a trip home to Iowa City that year, I had lunch with my sister at Red Avocado (RIP) and ordered the Reuben. The vegan adaptation with tempeh was disarming but intriguing. That summer, waitressing a couple blocks away at Lou Henri (RIP), I tried a vegetarian version, and really haven’t come across another quite like it since. It was special; ask any townie. In 2018, my partner Corbin and I were taken to the sandwich Holy of Holies, Katz’s Delicatessen in New York. Our host, a meat enthusiast and New York native (pictured above rubbing his hands together), insisted we order it with the house pastrami. I can honestly say the sandwich was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted, plus, it was served with a huge plate of pickles. And, by an incredible coincidence only the stars can explain, Corbin’s and my first-date anniversary is on St. Patrick’s Day, our only major holiday celebrated with corned beef and cabbage. I like to get a good brisket from New Pi and make reubens with the leftovers. (One year due to time constraints, I had to carry a vacuum-sealed one in my backpack to a Joni Ernst town hall.) Reubens: They are romantic, they are historic, they are interreligious and they are political. Let’s see how some local candidates measure up to the legacy. (Grading on an Iowa curve and using take-out/delivery only.) 44 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
Jimmy Jack’s Rib Shack Anvil Meat Market and Deli
92 16th Ave SW, Cedar Rapids, 319-265-6328, anvilmeatmarketanddeli.com Anvil’s house-made corned beef is served a little bit crispy, which helps balance the greasiness that is built into a Reuben’s DNA. This is the kind of sandwich you can eat one-handed, if you want to–– it is well-constructed and won’t fall apart on you. Perfect proportions, in my opinion: 60:40 corned beef to sauerkraut and swiss, and served with a whole dill pickle, as it
1940 Lower Muscatine Rd, Iowa City, 319-354-7427 jimmyjacksribshack.com Jimmy Jack’s Reuben is only available in March, so get it now if you would like to try one made with smokey, barbecue-style corned beef––house-made, of course. Definitely a departure from traditional briskets and perhaps a tad hard to bite into, but impressive nonetheless. Proportions were good: 60:40 meat to sauerkraut and swiss, served on marble rye. Points docked for using styrofoam. A-
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Shakespeare’s Pub and Grill
Zeppelins, Cedar Rapids
819 S 1st Ave, Iowa City 319-337-7275 shakespearespubandgrill.com Shakespeare’s Reuben is made with a deli stock corned beef instead of brisket, but uses a good 60:40 ratio of meat to sauerkraut and swiss, and a zangy dressing that really drives home the traditional flavor one expects from this sandwich. It was greasy but not terribly so, and held together for the duration. Points docked for using styrofoam. B
5300 Edgewood Rd NE, Cedar Rapids, 319-393-3047 zeppelinscr.com Zeppelins sandwich menu lists the Reuben Royale first, and it is clearly taken seriously here. There is a lot of meat, but it’s very tender and nicely balanced with the toppings; a 60:40 meat to sauerkraut and swiss ratio. A honker, for sure. The sauce was right: a little sweet with some zang. While I preferred the Anvil, my beloved preferred the Zeppelin. Cedar Rapids, you won this round. Served in a cardboard container, not styrofoam. A+
NOTEWORTHY NON-TRADITIONAL CONTENDERS Nodo
600 N Dodge St., Iowa City, 319-512-5028 or 5 S Dubuque St, Iowa City, 319-359-1181, nodoiowacity.com C&P: Corned beef, pastrami, swiss, dijon and coleslaw
Trumpet Blossom Cafe
310 E Prentiss St, Iowa City, 319-248-0077, trumpetblossom.com Reuben (vegan): Tempeh, pickled cabbage, onions and 1000 island Did I miss your favorite? Let me know! jordan@littlevillagemag.com
Hiswtoitrh yPaul:Corned Beef In March, one’s corned beef thoughts turn to cabbage and green beer as everyone becomes Irish for St. Patrick’s Day. Which raises the question: How did the meat in an iconic Irish meal end up in an iconic, if non-kosher, sandwich associated with Jewish delis? The answer is simple. The corned beef we eat on March 17 isn’t Irish; it’s something Irish immigrants to New York learned from their Jewish neighbors. Ireland began producing beef preserved by brining it with large crystals of salt called “corns” at an industrial scale in the 17th century, but that “pickled beef” was sold to the voyaging British and French navies and merchant ships who were in need of meat that wouldn’t rot. It wasn’t eaten in Ireland, partly because the average person could seldom afford beef. In the 19th century, Irish immigrants to New York lived alongside Jewish immigrants and bought meat from kosher butchers, who introduced them to brisket that was corned and boiled until tender and delicious—nothing like the stuff being fed to sailors. Corned beef replaced bacon as the meat served with cabbage on Irish tables, since bacon isn’t something you pick up at a kosher butcher shop.
—Paul Brennan
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Culture A-List
T.J. b/w Meka Jean With a new visual LP, Meka and the maestro behind her, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, both get their say. By Genevieve Trainor
T
here’s a setting used in some of the ambient noise interstitial scenes between videos in Meka Jean’s “visual long play,” Still (a) Life, released at the end of January. It first appears between tracks two and three, “Distortion” and “Too Good for You.” It’s within the abandoned frame of a building, likely in Alabama, where most of those short scenes were filmed. There is a foundation, but no roof. The sun shines hot on Meka Jean as she exercises to the cues of an off-camera personal trainer (who makes a couple of appearances later in the piece). On the wall, there is distinct graffiti in white of doorways—all angles and lines and perspective. It catches the eye even more often than Meka Jean herself, despite her extraordinary presence. The doorways demand conversation. They seem to be saying, “Some doors just can’t open, and that’s OK,” but also, simultaneously, “I’ll make a door any-damn-where I please.” Much of Still (a) Life weaves in and out of similar themes of wayfinding, both the kind that we grasp for ourselves and the kind that comes from letting go. Track four, “Fly,” is rife with this (and it begins following a several-second camera linger on one of those doorways). “Honey, can’t you see that you’re killing yourself slowly,” it opens. “Stop walkin’ around here with your eyes closed and your mouth open, yeah—or you’re never gonna see who you’re supposed to be.” Visually, it ping-pongs between scenes of Meka Jean riding a motorcycle around Cedar Rapids, vestiges of derecho damage lining the streets, browned and withered but not yet picked up, and the recurring imagery of her lying down, spattered in glitter, opening her body as a doorway, a conversation.
Meka Jean is the performance persona of T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, an artist and a professor in the art department at the University of Iowa. Or it might be the other way around, or they might just be two personas crafted on the same scaffolding. “The whole point is that there are all these partitions of identity, and it can be whatever,” Dedeaux-Norris said in a recent interview. “In the context of the nature of the content, me being a professor is important, right? The fact that I need to build Meka Jean as an identity to talk
“TRUTH BE TOLD, I CAN NEVER HIDE MY BLACKNESS IN REAL TIME AND SPACE. ... I AM BLACK AND PROUD. I AM. I REALLY AM. AND BLACKNESS IS MANY THINGS. BLACKNESS IS MORE AMERICAN THAN FUCKING AMERICA IS.”
about some of this stuff is the point, too. Professor T.J. Dedeaux-Norris maybe doesn’t have permission to twerk in a protest environment. … Meka Jean is the persona that can do that stuff.” Meka Jean and Dedeaux-Norris move through the doorways of one another fluidly when we speak, although their roles and realities are distinct. Meka Jean internalized the stereotypes she experienced in youth, she internalized rap music and portrayals of Black and brown women in media. She both embraces and engages the problematic.
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But, says Dedeaux-Norris, “We can mold ourselves into anything— all of it’s drag.” “T.J. as a professor shows up in rectangles and triangles, doesn’t wear anything that reveals anything, really tries to be asexual … whereas Meka is all about it—and needs the controlled environment of the music video to feel safe, even, or the actual stage. The only way I can embody that language, that persona, that flirtiness is if I feel wholly safe … or to say some of the things that are being said politically or about feminism.” Meka Jean, Dedeaux-Norris said, “knows how to get the point fucking home.” “Rap as a medium is its own fucking crazy thing: It’s braggadocio, it’s hardcore. You gotta come with it.” But Dedeaux-Norris knows the world that they live in, too: As a fine artist and gallery darling, they knows that they need to contextualize their work—the visual LP was released in tandem with a press release doing so explicitly, with references to Meka Jean’s earlier work and the current political moment, calling it “a powerful response to the actual and perceived limitations of Black identity in the United States today.” That’s all true, of course. And as a piece of art, it accomplishes that. But it’s also a success inside its medium. Meka Jean and DedeauxNorris are on either side of a swinging door that they are constructing between mediums, between registers, between personas, between academia and art. “It’s not an either/or,” DedeauxNorris said. “I do a lot of the same things in my painting, but it just presents itself in a different way. I can’t make a painting that says, ‘fuck you’ to white feminism. I don’t know how to do that. I guess
I could, but I don’t even want to do that with my paintings. I want my paintings to be relieved of that responsibility,” they said. Meka Jean dives deep into that space that Dedeaux-Norris opens up for her. She does, indeed, say “fuck you” to white feminism, especially in tracks like “Ivy League Ratchet” and closer “EZ Does It,” but truly in her whole being. She embodies a feminism that is distinctly gendered, but also distinctly Black, throwing up every perceived wall that a certain class of white feminists often finds off-putting about Black women—a different kind of aggressive self-possession, that braggadocio of rap layered onto a female body that owns the space it inhabits without apology. “Black women, we’re out here, we gotta be our own mamas, our own daddies … It’s something that I feel strongly about, that I negotiate. I’m under five feet tall! I don’t give a fuck what kind of fantasy people have in their mind about the strength of Black women. Fuck you; I’m tired! And I want to not feel critiqued for being tired. … I had to create T.J. because when I go into the university environment, I don’t want to portray any level of weakness or femininity or something like that,” Dedeaux-Norris said. “It’s fucking exhausting,” Dedeaux-Norris says of existing both as T.J. and as Meka Jean “but it is the only mode of survival. Nobody gave us a fucking handbook when we showed up in this bitch. Nobody. … In that way, I feel like I am doing the most resourceful thing I can do in these times to survive in a world that requires me literally to be a lot of things at once.” Still (a) Life balances that strength and those perceptions of strength as well. There’s the interstitials where Meka Jean engages
Still from ‘Still (a) Life’
Watch ‘Still (a) Life’ on mekajean.com
in strength training exercises, as well as the other in-between scenes where she layers on clothing and stares sedately, holding a strength in stillness. There’s the strength of her gaze as she demands or rejects the viewer’s focus. There’s the strength of bravado in opener “Thought I Told Ya” and the strength of admitting weakness in “OxyContin,” two tracks that both play, in opposite ways, with the imagery of guns. Dedeaux-Norris tells a recent story of getting locked out of their new studio space in Coralville, and the refusal of facilities workers to help them get back in, and the awkwardness and discomfort of having to reach out to a colleague for help. It’s an example of the way in which they have yet to feel comfortable in a space like Iowa City, despite the
ostensible prestige that comes with being a professor. But as they prepare to move from Cedar Rapids, where they have lived since moving to Iowa five years ago, to Iowa City, they’ll have to learn to extend their notion of self and strength. “Truth be told, I can never hide my Blackness in real time and space. I can on the phone. I can suspend your belief for a little while, right, by being T.J. Dedeaux-Norris. You don’t know what the fuck that is. But Meka Jean explicitly holds the sort of ethnic, genderized—I still want to retain an identity that houses [that]. I am Black and proud. I am. I really am. And Blackness is many things. Blackness is more American than fucking America is. Obviously. We’re watching it.” The negotiations of place and identity are a third thread weaving through Still (a) Life. Many of the videos were shot in Cedar Rapids, in Dedeaux-Norris’ home and yard. One, “Too Good for You,” was shot in New Orleans. The title track was shot in Los Angeles. Each new space navigated, each threshold
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crossed, holds a new consideration of identity for Meka Jean. She is the chameleon; she makes space for herself anywhere; she opens doors. It’s not always that simple for Dedeaux-Norris. “Across many universities, most people of color, most LGBTQIA, most queer, most first generation, cannot afford to live on primary real estate of where their university is, of where they are employed. And if they are, they’re house poor. It’s hard.” L.A. was similar; DedeauxNorris lived there for 15 years, went to community college there and then UCLA—their style was honed there. They left at 30 for graduate school and found themself priced out when they tried to return, living in a warehouse in Englewood—a “tin can” with no insulation. “It would’ve been cute for me in my 20s,” they said, “but I’m fuckin’ grown.” That’s when they applied for the Grant Wood Fellowship on a whim, thinking that nine months in Iowa was manageable, and promptly
fell in love with the new art school building that had just been built. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere,” Dedeaux-Norris said—despite recent challenges: the threat of tenure elimination, the pressure in the legislature to ban the 1619 Project from schools. “There’s just more bandwidth. I can use my intelligence, I can use my resourcefulness here, and it will get me a lot longer than living somewhere else.” But making a life in Iowa work means doubling down on a conscious opening of doors—a wayfinding toward each other: the hard work of making communication and collaboration happen between BIPOC people in the region. “It’s going to require more conversations like this,” they said. “We have to do a more radical job of getting in the room with each other.” Genevieve Trainor is still trying to find an identity and a connection to place after almost 19 years in Iowa, but is starting to think of that process with excitement instead of dread.
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 47
EDITORS’ PICKS: March 2021
EVENTS: March
OPEN CALLS!
March 2021
Iowa City Community Theatre will hold virtual auditions March 5 and
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.
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.
6 for The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, which will be performed via Zoom April 9-11. Contact director Will Asmus to submit a recorded audition (Williamasmus@gmail.com) or visit iowacitycommunitytheatre. org to sign up for a slot. Casting call for feature film shooting in central and eastern Iowa summer, 2021. Zoom auditions March 6 and 7, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. To reserve an audition spot, contact marc.bauer6@gmail.com. BIPOC actors encouraged to audition. RHCR Theatre is seeking 8-10 minute plays for no more than six actors for its April production, Zoom Into Spring. Skit(s) are due to RHCR at deidra@rhcrtheatre.com no later than Friday, March 12th at 8:00 p.m. Visit facebook.com/RHCRTheatre for theme considerations. RHCR Theatre will hold online auditions for Zoom Into Spring on Saturday, March 20 at 5 p.m. Please register via Facebook, @RHCRTheatre. Call for artists: Applications are due March 29 for artists interested in submitting a concept for a mural in the Czech Village/New Bohemia district of Cedar Rapids. Email monica@crmainstreet.org for a copy of the RFP. The mural is intended to honor the historic hard-working residents of the district, now an arts hub but previously a working class neighborhood.
SATURDAY, MARCH 6,
Osmotic Radiance: the PS1 Art Auction
Public Space One
(publicspaceone.com), 12 p.m., Free The annual Public Space One
art auction is coming up this month. The 2020 auction is the last event I can remember attending, pre-COVID, so it holds an extra special place in my heart. Even with online-only bidding, things are sure to get wild with the phenomenal selection of artists and pieces involved. This year, the theme is Osmotic Radiance, and the auction features over 50 contributing artists. Bidding runs online Saturday, March 6-Saturday, March 13; work will be on view at the Chauncey Building in downtown Iowa City starting Friday, March 5, if you’d like a better look. On Saturday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m., a virtual closing reception will be streamed from the PS1 gardens. Get your hands on some fantastic local artwork!
Deadline extended! The Center for Afrofuturist Studies is seeking contributions for Let ‘Em Know We Watchin’, a broad survey of stories of the Black experience, “especially the stories that would be considered too minor to tell.” This re-thinking of documentation and presentation is open to creatives and non-creatives alike. Submissions due April 1; visit afrofuturist.center for details. Casting call for The Bridge, an upcoming short film shooting in the Cedar Rapids area in August. Featuring the talents of dir. Adam Orton, writer-producer Courtney Ball and dir. photography Ben Handler. Roles for a variety of backgrounds, including several Middle Eastern. See listing on backstage.com or contact courtney@flowmedia.com. The LGBTQ Iowa Archives and Library is accepting proposals for month-long gallery shows of visual artwork from LGBTQ-identified Iowans. Contact current curator India Johnson at thread.librarian@ gmail.com to express your interest. Visit lgbtqiowa.org/gallery for
Visual art events throughout the month
more information.
Friday, March 5 at
Tuesdays at 7 p.m.
Sunday, March 21 at
Iowa City Poetry is calling for readers and hosts for their summer
5 p.m.
Dive In with the
1 p.m.
reading, Iowa City Poetry al Fresco. A series of socially distanced,
Virtual reception/
Stanley, Stanley
Art in the
outdoor readings will occur every half hour from 5-8 p.m. on Saturday,
artist gallery talk:
Museum of Art
Afternoon:Julia
May 1 (rain date: May 8) outside businesses and residences in the
Aunna Escobedo,
(stanleymusem.
Lohrman Audlehelm,
Northside neighborhood. Interested poets should visit iowacitypo-
Mount Mercy
uiowa.edu)
Artifactory
etry.com to fill out an application. If you would like to host a reading,
University (mtmercy.
(artifactory.
please contact Lisa Roberts at iowacitypoetry@gmail.com or David
zoom.us)
artsiowacity.org)
Duer at dduer72@gmail.com.
48 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM
Still from Penny Peach’s STAGES performance
WEDNESDAYS IN
MARCH Englert
Stages Series,
Englert Theatre (englert.org), 7 p.m., $5-10 The Englert
continues its Wednesday night series of recorded showcase performances this month with LV’s own Jordan Sellergren (March 3), Erik Whittaker (March 10), Dan Padley (March 17), Ross Clowser (March 24) and Penny Peach (March 31). This powerhouse lineup of local stars is a testament to the Englert’s enduring ability to both highlight and define the Iowa music landscape, something that often went unnoticed when their bread and butter was in touring acts.
More virtual music opportunities Saturday, March 13 at 8 p.m.
Friday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Taj Mahal and Phantom Blues Band with
Alisabeth Von Presley In Concert, Theatre
special guest Jon Cleary, Mandolin and
Cedar Rapids (theatrecr.org), $25
Englert Theatre (englert.org), $18-80 Saturday, March 27 at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 20 at 8 p.m.
Taj Mahal and Fantastic Negrito, Mandolin
Roots Rising Showcase hosted by Taj Mahal,
and Englert Theatre (englert.org), $18-80
Mandolin and Englert Theatre (englert.org), Tuesday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m.
$18-80
Pacifica Quartet and Anthony McGill, clariSunday, March 21 at 1 p.m.
net, Hancher (hancher.uiowa.edu), $5
An Afternoon of Curious Music, Curious Music w/ Outer/Most (outermost.stream), $20
WEDNESDAY, MARCH
10, Internet Watch
Party: ‘Scarecrow County,’
Other Late Shift Watch Parties this month: Wednesday, March 3 at 10 p.m. ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ (1977)
Late Shift at the Grindhouse (@ICgrindhouse), 10 p.m., Free The 2019 thriller/
mystery Scarecrow County follows the tale of a smalltown librarian, the long-lost diary of a bullied teen who committed suicide long in the past and a killer scarecrow on a rampage. Director John Oak Dalton will join Late Shift at the Grindhouse viewers for a Facebook Live video commentary over the screening.
Wednesday, March 17 at 10 p.m. ‘The Beyond’ (1981) Wednesday, March 24 at 10 p.m. ‘The Sins of Dracula’ (2014) Wednesday, March 31 at 10 p.m. ‘The ’Burbs’ (1989)
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 49
EDITORS’ PICKS: March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM Classes and seminars throughout March Saturday, March 6 at 2 p.m. French Macaron Class, Becky’s Mindful Kitchen (@beckysmindfulkitchen) Saturday, March 6 at 2:30 p.m. Vepro-Knedlo-Zelo: Pork, Shelley Buffalo, photo by Cale Stelken
Dumplings, and Sauerkraut, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library (ncsml. org), $25-30 Sundays, March 7, 14 & 21 at 1 p.m. Creative Rituals, Public Space One (publicspaceone.com)
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, Native Lands:
Belonging and Reclaiming — An Obermann Conversation,
Obermann Center (obermann.uiowa. edu) w/ Iowa City Public Library, 7 p.m., Free (registration required) Shelley Buffalo, coordinator
of the Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative, and Carrie Schuettpelz, Fellow of Practice in the UI’s Public Policy Center and Vice President of the UI’s Native American Council, will explore together the question of how far and how long one can wander from home and still return. They will examine ideas of belonging, definitions of “land sovereignty” and how to circumscribe the idea of a relationship to the land.
Saturday, March 13 at 2:30 p.m. Bublanina: Famous Czech-Baked Dessert, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, $25-30 Sunday, March 14 at 3:30 p.m. Homemade Dog Treats, Becky’s Mindful Kitchen Monday, March 15 at 6:30 p.m. Journaling for Mental Health, NAMI and the Midwest Writing Center (mwcqc.org), $10 suggested donation Saturday, March 20 at 2:30 p.m. Rohlik: Czech Rolls, National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, $25-30 Wednesday, March 24 at 7 p.m. United We Swing: Louis
via Hawkeye Downs
Armstrong and the Explosion of Swing, Hancher (hancher.uiowa. edu) Wednesday, March 24 at 7 p.m.
SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 46th Annual
SaPaDaPaSo Saint Patrick’s Day Parade,
Hawkeye Downs Speedway and Expo Center, Cedar Rapids, 2 p.m., Free Down but not out!
Last year’s Cedar Rapids St. Patrick’s Day parade had to be called off due to COVID-19. But with a year’s preparation, the intrepid SaPaDaPaSo folks have created a drive-through parade that you can enjoy from the safety of your vehicle. Parade entries will be lined up along the racetrack for parade-goers enjoyment. A donation box will be available. The first 200 cars through the parade route will receive a swag bag of goodies!
50 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
United We Swing: Billie Holiday and the Art of Swing Song, Hancher (hancher.uiowa.edu) Friday, March 26-Saturday, March 27 Imagining Latinidades Closing Conference: Performing Latina/o/x Futurity, Obermann Center (imagininglatinidades.lib. uiowa.edu)
SPONSOR A RACK! By sponsoring a Little Village rack, you can: • show the community that your business supports local media • help increase Little Village’s presence in the area • be honored with a permanent sponsor recognition plaque • get a shout-out to our social media followers and email list • help us brighten up the CRANDIC, one street corner at a time!
$350 outdoor racks $75 indoor racks CONTACT: ads@littlevillagemag.com
We’re especially honored to be voted BEST MOVERS in the CRANDIC this year, when we’ve all worked so hard to keep each other safe and well. Onward! www.spinemoving.com/moving-quotes | 319-235-MOVE
Does someone you know still experience neuropathy in their hands or feet after finishing chemotherapy within the past year? Cancer survivors with persistent chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) have an opportunity to participate in a study to determine if the numbness, tingling or shooting pain of CIPN can be lessened by a form of vitamin B3. Participants will interact with oncologists and neurologists during 8 visits over the course of 6 months at the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Participants will be compensated for their participation and can be receiving their primary and cancer healthcare anywhere. Interested individuals may contact Mary Schall R.N. at mary-schall@uiowa.edu, or call 319-356-3516 for more information.
EDITORS’ PICKS: March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM
via Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre
Virtual theatre events around the CRANDIC Thursday, March 4
Thursday, March 11
Tuesday, March 16 at
at 7:30 p.m.
at 7:30 p.m.
7 p.m.
Mark Morris in
Mark Morris in con-
Work of Matt Falduto,
conversation with
versation with Nico
Our Virtual Stage (@
Peter Sellars, di-
Muhly, composer,
OurVirtualStage)
rector, Hancher
Hancher Thursday, March 18 at
(hancher.uiowa. Friday, March
7:30 p.m.
12-Sunday, March
Mark Morris in con-
Friday, March
14
versation with Alice
5-Sunday, March 21
‘Storytelling: A
Waters, chef, Hancher
‘Stages,’ Riverside
Pandemic Play,’
Theatre (riversidet-
Young Footliters
Friday, March 19
heatre.org)
Youth Theatre
Out the Box:
(coralvillearts.org),
Collaboration with
$10-50
Coe College, Mirrorbox
edu)
THURSDAY, MARCH 11, ‘The
Enchanted Forest,’
Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, (cropera.org) w/ Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre Company, 7 p.m., Free For this month’s Second Thursday series, Cedar
Rapids Opera Theatre is partnering with Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre for a presentation of Anna Young’s The Enchanted Forest. The characters in the piece will be voiced by members of CROT’s Young Artists Program, but the visuals will be provided by puppets, created specifically for this production in the likenesses of the singers. The full video presentation will also include the young musicians discussing careers in the arts.
Friday, March 5 at 8 p.m.
Friday, March 12
Picture of Two
Out the Box: ‘Bezos
Friday, March 26
Boys,’ Mirrorbox
N’ Me,’ Mirrorbox
Out the Box: TBD
Theatre (mirror-
Theatre
boxtheatre.com)
CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA / CZECH VILLAGE
Come work with us
JOHN@NEWBO.CO • (319) 382-5128
52 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
Theatre
Out the Box: ‘A
Friday, April 2 Out the Box: TBD
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 53
EDITORS’ PICKS: March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM
FRIDAY, MARCH 12,
Loren Glass in conversation with Ann Powers, Prairie Lights (prairielights.com/live), 7 p.m., Free As an English professor
at the University of Iowa and as a writer, Loren Glass explores the intersection of literature and pop culture. His newest work, Carole King’s Tapestry, is out this month as part of Bloomsbury’s 33 ⅓ series, and he’ll be discussing it with NPR Music critic and correspondent Ann Powers. The book explores King’s own development as a person and musician as well as the shifting, well, tapestry of the musical moment in which she composed.
54 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
Readings in the CRANDIC this month Monday, March 8 at
Friday, March 19 at 7 p.m.
7 p.m.
Matthew Gavin Frank,
Gregory Brown in
Prairie Lights
conversation with Mark Mayer, Prairie
Friday, March 26 at 7 p.m.
Lights
Jo Ann Beard & Melissa Febos, Prairie Lights
Monday, March 15 at 7 p.m.
Monday, March 29 at
Kevin Brockmeier in
6:30 p.m.
conversation with
The Parchment Lounge
Anjali Sachdeva,
5th Monday Reading,
Prairie Lights
the Writers’ Rooms (thewritersrooms.org)
Thursday, March 18 at 7 p.m.
Thursday, April 1 at 7 p.m.
Franci’s War Virtual
Local Libraries LIT: Saeed
Author Talk, National
Jones, Iowa City Public
Czech and Slovak
Library (icpl.org) w/ the
Museum and Library
Coralville, North Liberty
(ncsml.org)
& UI libraries and the Tuesday Agency
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D
ear Kiki, my boyfriend bought me a Kum and Gay Rights T-shirt and I called him a “Republican donor who supports big oil.” He tried to explain to me that $10 from every purchase goes to the Trevor Project and that the entire thing was set up by @justin_nick our favorite LGBTQIA+ gamer. I told him, “You’re being played” and that this was nothing more than a publicity stunt for a gas station to sell their lame T-shirts that don’t even mesh their actual logo with a design that supports gay rights. He said, “You’re mad I didn’t get you the tank top, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes.” (He knows me so well.) Kiki, am I actually in love with a Republican donor who supports big oil? —Kum&Gamer69
example? But if your passions are tempered by the nuance of other concerns, you’ll need to weigh in the balance things like (1) supporting an org you value, (2) creating a business opportunity for a celebrity you admire and (3) Kum & Go’s other policies on things like employee benefits and more. Kum&Gamer69, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but I believe there can be ethical compromise under capitalism—and it’s the same as the compromises we have to make to share our life with another person: Know your dealbreakers, and give everything else weight based on your hierarchy of values. Would it be a dealbreaker for you if your boyfriend actually was a Republican donor who supports big oil? Would it matter more to you than whether he calls his mother regularly or sells drugs to children or dances nude outside every fourth Wednesday at midnight? Only you ear Kum&Gamer69, can decide that. A close look at our own hierRepeat after me: “There is no ethical archy of values is crucial to every relationship, consumption under capitalism.” Once more: both business and personal. “There is no ethical consumption under capOf course, choosing to promote a business is italism.” Is that a cop-out? Only if you let it a bigger decision than KUM&GAMER69, THERE IS NO ETHICAL CONSUMPTION choosing UNDER CAPITALISM, BUT I BELIEVE THERE CAN BE to patronize them. ETHICAL COMPROMISE UNDER CAPITALISM—AND IT’S You could THE SAME AS THE COMPROMISES WE HAVE TO MAKE always TO SHARE OUR LIFE WITH ANOTHER PERSON. make the compromise of only wearing the shirt at home, so be. It certainly lends itself well to an “AH, you’re not out in the world hyping them up. But FUCKIT!” attitude. But it’s also a call to be gentle with yourself and others; to acknowledge ultimately, the reasons your boyfriend gave you for choosing to buy the shirt for you show that that living in this world is hard as fuck, man; he is thinking ethically, even if he is coming to and to examine our transactions through more a different conclusion than you would. In my than one lens. If we want to live wisely, we hierarchy of values, the ability and willingness have to develop a hierarchy of our own values. to do that is paramount. Take a lesson from Dougray Scott’s prince xoxo, Kiki in the 1998 classic Drew Barrymore flick Ever After (don’t question me, readers), who “used to think that if I cared about anything, I would have to care about everything, and I’ll go stark raving mad.” He learns that we make choices in life, and that while what we choose defines us, what we let go doesn’t have to. Know what your deal breakers are, and go gentle on everything else. There are Republicans in this world. Many Questions about love and sex in the Iowa individuals and businesses give them monCity-Cedar Rapids area can be submitted ey. If that truly is a dealbreaker for you, then to dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or download an app like Goods Unite Us (enanonymously at littlevillagemag.com/ courage your boyfriend to get it, too), and get dearkiki. Questions may be edited for ready to change a lot more of your habits than clarity and length, and may appear either simply what shirts you wear. Have you ever in print or online at littlevillagemag.com. looked into where you buy your groceries, for
D
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LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 55
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RENTING? Did you know you’re paying a mortgage?
Just not your own.
HELP US KEEP IT FREE.
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AST R O LO GY
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): For you Pisceans, March is Love Yourself Bigger and Better and Bolder Month. To prepare you for this festival, I’m providing two inspirational quotes. 1. “If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.” — Barbara De Angelis 2. “Loving yourself does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion.”— Margo Anand ARIES (March 21-April 19): In late April of 1969, Cambridhgeshire, U.K. hosted the first-ever Thriplow Daffodil Weekend: a flower show highlighting 80 varieties of narcissus. In the intervening years, climate change has raised the average temperature 3.24 degrees Fahrenheit. So the flowers have been blooming progressively earlier each year, which has necessitated moving the festival back. The last pre-COVID show in 2019 was on March 23-24, a month earlier than the original. Let’s use this as a metaphor for shifting conditions in your world. I invite you to take an inventory of how your environment has been changing, and what you could do to ensure you’re adapting to new conditions.
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TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Author Leo Buscaglia told us that among ancient Egyptians, two specific questions were key in evaluating whether a human life was well-lived. They were “Did you bring joy?” and “Did you find joy?” In accordance with your current astrological potentials, I’m inviting you to meditate on those queries. And if you discover there’s anything lacking in the joy you bring and the joy you find, now is a very favorable time to make corrections. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): At age 11, the future first president of the United States George Washington became the “owner” of 10 slaves. A few years later he “bought” 15 more. By the time he was president, 123 men, women and children were struggling in miserable bondage under his control. Finally, in his will, he authorized them to be freed after he and his wife died. Magnanimous? Hell, no. He should have freed those people decades earlier—or better yet, never “owned” them in the first place. Another founding father, Benjamin Franklin, not only freed his slaves but became an abolitionist. By my count, at least 11 of the other founding fathers never owned slaves. Now here’s the lesson I’d like us to apply to your life right now: Don’t procrastinate in doing the right thing. Do it now. CANCER (June 21-July 22): During World War II, the Japanese island of Ōkunoshima housed a factory that manufactured poison gas for use in chemical warfare against China. These days it is a tourist attraction famous for its thousands of feral but friendly bunnies. I’d love to see you initiate a comparable transmutation in the coming months, dear Cancerian: changing bad news into good news, twisted darkness into interesting light, soullessness into soulfulness. Now is a good time to ramp up your efforts. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Scars speak for you,” writes author Gena Showalter. “They say you’re strong, and you’ve survived something that might have killed others.” In that spirit, dear Leo, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to authorize your scars to express interesting truths about you in the coming weeks. Allow them to demonstrate how resilient you’ve been, and how well you’ve mastered the lessons that your past suffering has made available. Give your scars permission to be wildly eloquent about the transformations you’ve been so courageous in achieving.
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VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): According to novelist Doris Lessing, “Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me.” She implied that hardly anyone
By Rob Brezsny
ever gets such an experience—or that it’s so rare as to be always tugging on our minds, forever a source of unquenched longing. But I’m more optimistic than Lessing. In my view, the treasured exchange she describes is not so impossible. And I think it will be especially possible for you in the coming weeks. I suspect you’re entering a grace period of being listened to, understood, and treated kindly. Here’s the catch: For best results, you should be forthright in seeking it out. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling,” wrote composer Claude Debussy. In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll regard his words as an incitement to do everything you can to reach the naked flesh of your feelings. Your ideas are fine. Your rational mind is a blessing. But for the foreseeable future, what you need most is to deepen your relationship with your emotions. Study them, please. Encourage them to express themselves. Respect their messages as gifts, even if you don’t necessarily act upon them. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You may never wander out alone into a dark forest or camp all night on a remote beach or encounter a mountain lion as you climb to a glacier near the peak of a rugged mountain. But there will always be a primeval wilderness within you—uncivilized lands and untamed creatures and elemental forces that are beyond your rational understanding. That’s mostly a good thing! To be healthy and wise, you need to be in regular contact with raw nature, even if it’s just the kind that’s inside you. The only time it may be a hindrance is if you try to deny its existence, whereupon it may turn unruly and inimical. So don’t deny it! Especially now. (P.S.: To help carry out this assignment, try to remember the dreams you have at night. Keep a recorder or notebook and pen near your bed.) SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “What damages a person most,” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “is to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty.” Once a year, I think every one of us, including me, should meditate on that quote. Once a year, we should evaluate whether we are living according to our soul’s code; whether we’re following the path with heart; whether we’re doing what we came to earth to accomplish. In my astrological opinion, the next two weeks will be your special time to engage in this exploration. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What are your edges, Capricorn? What aspects of your identity straddle two different categories? Which of your beliefs embrace seemingly opposed positions? In your relations with other people, what are the taboo subjects? Where are the boundaries that you can sometimes cross and other times can’t cross? I hope you’ll meditate on these questions in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you’re primed to explore edges, deepen your relationship with your edges, and use your edges for healing and education and cultivating intimacy with your allies. As author Ali Smith says, “Edges are magic; there’s a kind of forbidden magic on the borders of things, always a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it.” AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to intermedia artist Sidney Pink, “The idea of divine inspiration and an aha moment is largely a fantasy.” What the hell is he talking about?! That’s fake news, in my view. In the course of my creative career, I’ve been blessed with thousands of divine inspirations and aha moments. But I do acknowledge that my breakthroughs have been made possible by “hard work and unwavering dedication,” which Sidney Pink extols. Now here’s the climax of your oracle: You Aquarians are in a phase when you should be doing the hard work and unwavering dedication that will pave the way for divine inspirations and aha moments later this year. LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 57
LORY VAN ALLEN L.M.T. 1570 S 1st Ave, Iowa City 319-310-9312
Reader Perks: Half-price gift cards to great local businesses Local businesses trade gift cards for advertising in our magazine then we sell them to our loyal readers. When you purchase a Reader Perk, you double your money at locally owned shops and restaurants, they get an affordable way to get the word out and Little Village gets a little support along the way!
SHOP FOR DEALS: littlevillagemag.com/perks
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58 March 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292
LO C A L A L B U M S
Logan Springer Coyote- “kī-yōte” LOGANSPRINGERMUSIC.COM
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oyotes tend to howl to locate each other and establish their territory, not only for the sake of those around, but also for themselves. It seems prudent then that Iowa alt-country singer-songwriter Logan Springer titled his fulllength debut, Coyote- “kī-yōte”. Engineered and mixed at Flat Black Studios by Luke Tweedy and released in collaboration with Long Play Records, it’s the first full-length album of original songs from Quad Cities-based Springer. He enlisted a few of his friends to flank him on the record, a powerhouse list of local musicians including Murray Lee, Ben Schwind and Phil Dodds. Leaning on the album’s namesake, this record contains a lot of winter echoes, a lot of white space and long nights roaming it, searching for a place to settle down. The best songs capture Springer contemplating the trying time “before” and the altered “after” of leaving home. His lyrics try to simultaneously stake his claim to the spaces he’s known and justify leaving them all behind. The album’s first two tracks, “Nowhere Fast” and “Best I Can,” are built out of fast cars and bloodshot eyes and hard times that turn “black dirt into sand.” “Foreign” details the singer walking through the fields of his youth, for once back home from the city for something other than “weddings and funerals.” Throughout, Springer emulates his influences without committing the persistent crime of “country music copycatism.” You can hear
Submit albums for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240
Jason Isbell in Springer’s pool hall duet “Together Alone” which finds Springer lamenting with fellow Quad Cities musician Angela Meyer about the type of trust it takes to make love work. Meyer also sings with Springer on “Long Winter Blues,” a pop country tune that veers straight towards Chris Stapleton territory, complete with Liz Mastalio’s gospel-soul organ backbone. “Everything Gonna Be Alright” takes up as a modern-day Merle Haggard-style working person’s ballad, full of payday Fridays and skipping out on smoke because the singer’s heard that if you “stub your toe they got some dude that’ll come collect your piss.” And Springer goes for a Springsteen ballad on “End of the Road,” the album’s best song. It’s about that motel at the end of the road with weekly rates. I’m sure you know the one. Maybe you’ve been there too. It’s always raining on the parking lot while the welcome sign flickers its manic Morse code.
Elizabeth Zimmerman Roots Of Rhythm ELIZABETHZIMMERMAN.BANDCAMP.COM
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he first song on Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Roots Of Rhythm, “The Journey,” is just her voice and piano. It brings Judee Sill immediately to mind. It combines pleasant, subtly modulated vocal style with an intricately worked melody and introspective lyrics. She presents to the listener as an inviting, fascinating mystery. The arrangement is masterfully simple. She brings in hummed backing vocals toward the end, so low in the mix that you wonder if they’re actually there. “Bending Blues” leans on the blues LEANING ON THE ALBUM’S pentatonic scale in NAMESAKE, THIS RECORD the verse but moduCONTAINS A LOT OF WINTER lates in the chorus to ECHOES, A LOT OF WHITE SPACE something poppier. You could imagine AND LONG NIGHTS ROAMING IT, Sheryl Crow coverSEARCHING FOR A PLACE TO ing this song—but SETTLE DOWN. HIS LYRICS TRY she wouldn’t use TO SIMULTANEOUSLY STAKE the light touch Zimmerman brings HIS CLAIM TO THE SPACES HE’S to her vocals. KNOWN AND JUSTIFY LEAVING Zimmerman never THEM ALL BEHIND. raises her voice or belts the chorus for It’s the type of song that is sevthe back rows. She makes you lean eral albums old, which makes its in, and her voice is most powerful inclusion on Springer’s debut all when it’s quietest. the more impressive, rounding out “Make Him a Poor Boy” stays a complete and sonically diverse in the blues pocket vocally, playing alt-country record. That’s never against a subtly dissonant repeated been an easy feat. If Coyote- “kīfigure from her Fender Rhodes yōte” is just Springer’s beginning, electric piano. The chorus breaks born out of and produced during the tension, while remaining steadan endless pandemic winter, it’s a fastly bluesy. “The Nile” uses the first howl worth hearing. same kind of “eastern” scale as you —Avery Gregurich hear in the novelty song “Istanbul,”
most recently made famous by They Might Be Giants. It carries a hint of nostalgia for a time when anything east & south of Rome was exotic. “What I Need” adds atmospheric background sounds of unknown origin—synthesizer? violin? guitar?—that underpin an emotionally bare song with mystery. “I know what I need to get by,” she sings, sounding unsure whether she’s going to get it. “The Love We Can’t Do,” like “The Journey,” strays a bit from the blues into melodic pop. “Some kind of black magic holding true,” Zimmerman sings. “There’s voodoo on me to love you.” It underlines the constant themes of the album: mystery and uncertainty. Zimmerman has an easy familiarity with the blues scale, and incorporates it into many of the songs on Roots Of Rhythm, bringing her unique spark. But the songs that seem most personal and original—“The Journey,” “Broken in Blue”—are the least tied to jazz or blues. “The Wish” is a stunning song in that vein. As she performs it, it sounds easy and natural, but it would be a difficult song to learn, with its start/stop phrasing, instrumental asides and long verses. The melody peaks in long notes on the words “All my life wishing on a star,” and their simplicity feels like the sun coming out after the sometimes stormy verse. Zimmerman is a natural singer, effortlessly tuneful and able to put great feeling into a song without shouting. Her piano playing finds a groove and rides it without unnecessary adornment, and it supports her voice perfectly. She can write and sing in a jazz/blues style, but finds her voice most purely on songs based in the pop vernacular. Still, this is a rewarding start-to-finish listen. If her music speaks to your condition, it will leave you wanting more. —Kent Williams
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 59
LO C A L B O O KS
Adrienne Raphel Thinking Inside the Box PENGUIN PRESS
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love to tell people that I want to learn everything. When I was asked to read a book about the history of crossword puzzles I thought, “well, that’s not a topic I would have picked,” and agreed. When the first page told me that the crossword puzzle was invented in 1913 I could not imagine how this book could possibly be over 300 pages. I ended so consumed by Thinking Inside The Box that I was disappointed when I realized I only had three pages left. Thinking Inside the Box, by Writers’ Workshop alum Adrienne Raphel (out March 17), is a lot of things, but it is not at all inaccessible or esoteric. I don’t do crosswords; I had to look up a lot of words. (Did you know people who like crossword puzzles are called “cruciverbalists”?) But there was something immediately welcoming both in Raphel’s voice and in her content. This felt less like a history lesson and more like being invited into a friendly subculture where everyone brings snacks. In the third chapter Raphel drops the confines of third-person narration and introduces herself to the audience like she’s been waiting to let us in on a secret. We meet Raphel at a writing residency in the Berkshires where she is slaving over construction of her own first crossword. This is the first time Raphel states that she is not a crossword person, but comes from a family of puzzle and game lovers. It’s almost meta-level narrative when she describes creating her own crossword
Submit books for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240
puzzle or going on a crossword cruise as Raphel insists that she is not on their level; meanwhile, she has lovingly crafted a treatise to honor the puzzle and those who love them. The beauty of this book is how accessible Raphel made crosswords to someone so outside of the world. She discusses their role in World War II; crossword puzzles in popular media; the work being done to Various Authors address gender, race and class inDeath of the Demon Machine equality in the puzzle world; crossSELF-PUBLISHED word puzzle vacations and tournaments; and how crosswords are he backstory begins like this: used in medicine. Raphel interviews Imagine Other Worlds with big names in puzzles like Will Authors (I.O.W.A.), a yearly multiShortz and attends the American genre book signing event that Crossword Puzzle Tournament began in the mid-2010s to uplift (where she amusingly finds herself and highlight regional writers, was tailed by her parents). once plagued by the presence of a While I really loved this book, soda machine stuck in a musical there were moments where Raphel loop. Throughout their entire event, missed her own blindspots. In adthe thing repeated and repeated dressing how crossword puzzles and repeated. So, like all creative are often used to signal intelligence, THERE WAS SOMETHING yet have historically been more acIMMEDIATELY WELCOMING BOTH cessible to middleIN RAPHEL’S VOICE AND IN HER and upper-class CONTENT. THIS FELT LESS LIKE people, she doesn’t A HISTORY LESSON AND MORE spend much time LIKE BEING INVITED INTO A discussing the FRIENDLY SUBCULTURE WHERE consequences of this gatekeeping. EVERYONE BRINGS SNACKS. When describing a rift between the old guard and new (during the professionals faced with an attack Oreo Wars!), she uses the term “the to their sanity, they decided to turn Young Turks” for the new guard madness into creative energy. They (a term that even the journalism wrote about it. group of this name has apologized The result is this anthology, pubfor using and changed their name to lished in paperback at the tail end initials). of 2020 and out this past Jan. 1 on Still, she goes to great lengths to Kindle. I was sucked in, as anyone show moments in which the crosswould be, when frequent Little word has brought people together, Village collaborator Blair Gauntt helped memory patients and caused recently shared the indelible cover military security issues. Thinking design he created for it on social Inside the Box is an educational media. His style is well-suited to romp; it inspired me to try the first this kind of tongue-in-cheek humor. crossword puzzle of my adult life His whimsy deepens the delight of and, more than anything, it is a love the reading experience. letter written by a poet to the 100 Death of the Demon Machine: A years of cruciverbalists who shaped Pop Anthology is a genre-spanning, her world. —Sarah Elgatian short and clever exercise in wish
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fulfillment. Each tale is a different author’s take on a mythology, origin story or satisfying demise for the offending beast. It runs the gamut in terms of quality, as well, with a few slow starts in an overall enjoyable experience. The collection doesn’t credit an editor, and that lack is felt in some stories more than others, as though the individual writers were each tasked with having their own pieces edited and some just— didn’t. However, the arc of the anthology works out beautifully, with the funniest stories (including Craig Hart’s “Demise of the Liquid Refreshment Dispensement Device”) landing right at the crest of the wave and the longest, most intricate tale (“Senior Year Soda,” by Stephen L. Brayton) offering a satisfying denouement. A few stories in the collection really stood out. Hart’s piece, while sometimes (intentionally) walking that thin line separating funny from corny, was at several points laugh-out-loud hilarious, easing a reader into a sense of comfort. Reading Beth Hudson’s “Daimonas Ex Machina” was like chatting with an old friend. It’s an incredibly tight story—the shortest in the collection—but manages the most honest character and scene work, and it finds time to drop gems of phrases like “caught in the fascination of the impossible.” And “Ticking,” by David Taylor II, was a surprise treat, a delightfully disturbing scifi romp. You can feel the joy and camaraderie baked into Death of the Demon Machine. Coming out in the wake of I.O.W.A. having to go virtual due to COVID-19 last year, there’s something of an ache to the nostalgia of authors gathered in a room, facing off against a common enemy. And there’s something very engaging and quintessentially Iowan about the joy that the writers take in one another, in the stories more literally set at the event itself. It’s amazing what demons we can slay when we come together. —Genevieve Trainor
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV292 March 2021 61
Libraries are for
HISTORY
Libraries are for PLAY
Libraries are for
Libraries are for CURIOSITY Libraries are for DISCOVERY
LEARNING
T RI V I
A NIGHT!
Join us for an Andrew’s Bar Exam trivia event online to benefit the Iowa City Public Library. The more fun facts you’ve tucked away in your brain, the better!
#LibrariesAre ForEveryone
Thurs, Mar 25, 7-9pm
Register at calendar.icpl.org
#LasBibliotecas SonParaTodxs
Resumé & Mock Interviews Thurs, March 11, 6pm
Career Exploration Thurs, March 25, 6pm
Saeed jones Thursday, april 1 7pm | online
Register at icpl.org/local-libraries-LIT LOCAL LIBRARIES LIT IS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN:
icpl.org/teen-works
KERNELS
for
Enjoy treats every Friday night from FilmScene knowing that part of each purchase of a Kernels for Kindness bundle will help grow the Iowa City Public Library too!
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(319)356-5200
kindness
Every Friday in March
LOBBY GRAB & GO! MON-SAT, 10AM-6PM SUNDAY, 12-5PM
icpl.org/holds
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KNEAD A NEW ENDING
LittleVillageMag.com
by Brendan Emmett Quigley
The American Values Club Crossword is edited by Ben Tausig.
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ACROSS 1. Homes for alligators or career politicians 7. TSA image 15. Oafish doofus 16. Parenthetical numbers, often 17. What a famed tidying consultant feels when something REALLY doesn’t spark joy? 19. Dead heat 20. 2018 Pulitzer Prize– winning novel by Andrew
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Sean Greer that, in a titular irony, sold more than any of his other novels 21. Version of a certain martial art in which you might plotz down on the mat and get schmutz on your uwagi? 29. Proverbial side pain sources 30. Students in the Book and Snake, Scroll and Key, and Mace and Chain secret societies
31. They get the “fuck” out: Abbr. 34. Two-legged stand 35. Took the wheel 36. Sonoran sun 37. Haitian “with” 38. Like casino slots, in ads 39. Direction shorthand 40. He “Face[d] the Music” in a 2020 film 41. Red wine grape 42. Fashion mogul von Fürstenberg
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43. Indian honorific 44. Brand for keeping up your contacts 45. Overflowed (with) 46. Where Vito Corleone might place a picture of Sonny or Michael on a wall, given his hierarchy of esteem? 49. First pass of a song, say 51. Bird that’s a source of lean meat 52. Lad known for being phony?
28. Employ 32. Like beef served on St. Patrick’s Day 33. British board game that includes a spanner among its weapons 35. “Of the Progress of the Soul” poet 38. Schreiber who narrates 24/7 39. Decadent cake feature 41. Driving instructor? 42. Calms down, as a tense situation 45. High Holidays locale 47. Yesterday director Danny 48. Gang of Four’s “___ Send in the Army” 49. Title for Olivia NewtonJohn 50. “My Country” statesman Abba 53. Citi Field team, on scoreboards 54. Brest friend forever 55. Magic Mouse computer 56. They’re in the middle of a tunnel 57. “Dinner’s getting cold ...” 58. Charlottesville sch. 59. A real dick, briefly 60. Bill for a bottle of water, perhaps
DOWN 1. Army NCO 2. [I’m not getting my way!] 3. Gastropub selection 4. Cut with a sickle, say 5. Foreshadow 6. Dirty marks 7. “I hate Christmas!” 8. Medal won by Mexican swimmer Mireia Belmonte at the 2016 Olympics, in Mexico 9. Funky fresh, to the Funky 4+1 10. Run your mouth 11. Dress down 12. Judgmental term for a protective device worn by a kitty after surgery (she didn’t know that nickel wasn’t food!) 13. Puts on the mailing list, e.g. 14. Revivalists 18. Drink involving a ball, perhaps 21. Singles scenes? 22. React to nipLV291 ANSWERS piness U P P I S H ROOS T 23. Stone also F R E E T H E N I P P L E known as Le Bijou R I GGE D E L E C T I ON du Roi R A R E S L EGOS E T S I V E S A E T N A 24. Holder of an T I S S T R I A T E B B S early McJob A S I TWE R E EGB E R T 25. Reset, as a OHGE E A L T A R timer R E N T E D T O L D Y A SO A S S T OR E ROS M I B 26. Doormat’s F E A R S MA Z E lament S A T A N I SM T I L E D 27. Proto–rock and E R O G E N O U S Z O N E S roll dance style A L T E R E D S T A T E S MOOE D
S A UC E D
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/LV292 March 2021 63
