Little Village magazine issue 293: April 2021

ISSUE 293 April 2021

COMMUNITY

One Year of Pandemic Parenting

A L W A Y S

The Art of Survival, the Survival of Art

MISSION CREEK

Chuy Renteria & Billy Dean Thomas

A-LIST

A Marathon of Sonnets

F R E E

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NEWS & CULTURE FROM IOWA CITY Since 2001 littlevillagemag.com

8 - Advertising Partners 10 - Letters & Interactions 15 - Brock About Town 19 - Cortado 20 - Parenting 30 - Survival 34 - Bread & Butter 36 - En Español 42 - Prairie Pop 46 - A-List 48 - Events Calendar 55 - Dear Kiki 57 - Astrology 59 - Album Reviews Chad Rhym / Little Village

61 - Book Reviews 63 - Crossword

20

30

36

Local parents lament the

The HIV/AIDS crisis both

Debut memoirist Chuy Renteria

disruptions, difficult choices and

diminished and galvanized a

on his childhood in West Liberty,

excess of Candy Land the last

generation of artists. What effect

love of dance and complicated

year has brought.

will COVID-19 have?

relationship with language.

Home/School Plagued

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sustaining member:

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NEWS & CULTURE FROM IOWA CITY Since 2001 littlevillagemag.com

EDITORIAL

PRODUCTION

Publisher

Web Developer

Issue 293, Volume 30

Matthew Steele

Adith Rai

April 2021

matt@littlevillagemag.com

adith@littlevillagemag.com

Managing Editor

Digital Director

Chuy Renteria

Emma McClatchey

Drew Bulman

Photo by Jason Smith

emma@littlevillagemag.com

drewb@littlevillagemag.com

Arts Editor

Photographer & Videographer

COVID-19 pandemic in Iowa,

Genevieve Trainor

Jason Smith

parents take stock, artists create

genevieve@littlevillagemag.com

jason@littlevillagemag.com

to cope, entrepreneurs perform

News Director

Marketing Automations

Paul Brennan

Malcolm MacDougall

paul@littlevillagemag.com

malcolm@littlevillagemag.com

Art Director

SALES & ADMINISTRATION

Jordan Sellergren

Marketing Director &

Sharon Falduto is a Coralville

Kembrew McLeod is a founding

jordan@littlevillagemag.com

Copywriter

resident, dog owner, mother

Little Village columnist and the

Celine Robins

of three and a nice lady (she

Chair of Communication Studies

celine@littlevillagemag.com

hopes).

at the University of Iowa.

Advertising

Avery Gregurich is a writer

Benjamin Minniear is a cook by

Matthew Steele

living and working at the edge

day, hobbyist hand-cut collage

ads@littlevillagemag.com

of the Iowa River in Marengo,

maker by night. Dad, husband

Iowa.

and hungry to learn all the time.

On the cover:

Entering the second year of the

leaps of faith and Misson Creek

Staff Writer & Editor

Festival adapts.

Meet this month’s guest contributors:

Izabela Zaluska izabela@littlevillagemag.com Copy Editor Celine Robins celine@littlevillagemag.com

Creative Services Website design

Melanie Hanson’s just tryna get

Angela Pico is a bilingual writer

Spanish Language Editor

Email marketing

her shite right and let it all go

for children and adults. She

Angela Pico

E-commerce

meow.

currently lives in Iowa City.

Darcie Hutzell lives in Iowa City

Chad Rhym is an Iowa-based

and is a freelance writer and

photographer and Sociology

mom to an amazing kid.

Ph.D. student at the University

Videography Calendar/Event Listings

creative@littlevillagemag.com

calendar@littlevillagemag.com CIRCULATION Corrections

Distribution Manager

editor@littlevillagemag.com

Brian Johannessen

Bryce Jones was born and

distro@littlevillagemag.com

raised in Cedar Rapids and is

April Contributors

of Iowa.

currently pursuing her master’s

Addi Arp, Audrey Brock, A.

OFFICES

in journalism at Northwestern

Brown, Alex Choquemamani,

Little Village

University.

Sharon Falduto, Avery Gregurich,

623 S Dubuque St

Melanie Hanson, Darcie Hutzell,

Iowa City, IA 52240

Bryce Jones, Mike Kuhlenbeck,

Mike Kuhlenbeck is a freelance journalist and National

John Martinek, Kembrew

Little Village Creative Services

Writers Union

McLeod, Benjamin Minniear, Zak

132 1/2 E Washington Suite 5

member based in

Neumann, Chad Rhym, Nate

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

Des Moines, Iowa.

Steiner, Tom Tomorrow, David Van Allen, Sam Locke Ward SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook @LittleVillageMag, Instagram @LittleVillageMag, Twitter @LittleVillage

Benjamin Minniear / Little Village

LittleVillageMag.com

Top Stories Daily news updates, events, restaurant reviews and videos at LittleVillageMag.com.

Chris Kelly, arrested for ‘walking while Black’ in 2019, sues ICPD

Iowa House passes bill allowing landlords to discriminate against

officers, a county attorney, Iowa City and Johnson County

people receiving federal housing assistance

By Paul Brennan, March 9

By Paul Brennan, March 16

Chris Kelly, an Iowa City resident who was arrested by Iowa City Police

On Monday, the Iowa House of Representatives passed a bill already

officers near the Waterfront Hy-Vee on Dec. 26, 2019, has filed a

approved by the Senate, which would overturn ordinances in Iowa City,

lawsuit against an assistant Johnson County attorney, as well as both

Marion and Des Moines that prevent landlords from discriminating

Iowa City and Johnson County. The suit contends all the defendants

against people who receive federal housing assistance. In addition to

were involved in violating Kelly’s civil rights and inflicted physical,

invalidating existing ordinances, the bill would also prohibit any local

mental and emotional damage in their treatment of him.

government from protecting those who receive housing vouchers from being automatically rejected by landlords.

Vaccine appointments can feel elusive. This Iowa Twitter account helps.

VIDEO: Studio Visit: Heith Banowetz

By Emma McClatchey, March 19

By Jason Smith, March 11

The @IAVaccineAlerts Twitter account, created by University of Iowa

Soulful eyes, sensitive hands, old-fashioned facial

Information Technology Services employee Brian Finley, is perhaps

hair, delicate lines and stippling. These and other,

the most efficient vaccine scheduling aid in Iowa. Finley automated

more subtle features make up the distinctive style

the account to tweet whenever a retail vaccine site (specifically, Hy-

of self-taught Iowa City artist Heith Banowetz, who

Vee, Walgreens, CVS and Walmart pharmacies across the state) has

crafts portraits using “humble” materials like pen,

available appointments.

pencil and charcoal.

WATCH Studio Visit with Keith Banowetz

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Libraries are for SCIENCE Libraries are for PRIDE

Libraries are for READING

Libraries are for MUSIC

Libraries are for ART

FOR TEENS & YOUNG ADULTS

#LibrariesAre ForEveryone

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Resumé & Mock Interviews Thursday, April 8, 6pm

Career Exploration

Thursday, April 29, 6pm

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THANK YOU TO THIS ISSUE’S ADVERTISING PARTNERS This issue of Little Village is supported by: Adamantine Spine Moving (58)

Fong’s Pizza (58)

- The Haunted Bookshop

Oasis Street Food (21)

Arnott & Kirk (36)

Gianna’s Italian Beef (16)

- Oasis Falafel

Phoebe Martin, Realtor (23)

Ascended Electronics (37)

Goodfellow Printing, Inc. (55)

- Russ’ Northside Service, Inc.

Pop’s BBQ (46)

Cedar Rapids New Bohemia/Czech

Honeybee Hair Parlor (37)

- George’s

Public Space One (10)

ImOn (14)

- Marco’s Grilled Cheese

Red Vespa (54)

- NewBoCo

Iowa City Downtown Co-op (33)

Iowa City Public Library (7)

Revival (41)

- Goldfinch Cyclery

- The Convenience Store

Iowa Department of Public Health

Riverside Theatre (40)

- RAYGUN

- Beadology

- The Daisy

- Critical Hit Games

Iowa Magic Shop (57)

Scratch Cupcakery (40)

- Parlor City

- RAYGUN

Johnson County Public Health (29)

Shakespeare’s Pub & Grill (55)

Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre (16)

- Yotopia

KCCK Jazz 88.3 (58)

Soseki (58)

Chomp (60)

- Release Body Modification

Kim Schilling, Realtor (47)

Teddy’s Bigger Burgers (39)

City of Iowa City (11)

- Record Collector

Linn County Conservation (35)

Troubleshoot, LLC (57)

CIVIC (57)

- The Konnexion

The Club Car (55)

West Music (63)

Coralville Public Library (54)

Iowa City Northside Marketplace

Martin Construction (56)

Whitedog Import Auto Service (2)

Micky’s Irish Pub (17)

Wig & Pen (4)

Multicultural Development Center

Willow & Stock (19)

Village Co-op (52-53)

The Dandy Lion (38)

(45)

Sanctuary (54)

(44)

Dodge St. Tire (28)

- Hamburg Inn No. 2

The Englert Theatre (62)

- Artifacts

FilmScene (27, 51)

- Pagliai’s Pizza

New Pioneer Food Co-op (25)

Fix! (17)

- High Ground

Nodo (17)

World of Bikes (55, 64)

of Iowa (57)

Little Village magazine print readership 25,000-40,000 per issue LittleVillageMag.com readership 200,000 monthly article views 74,000 unique monthly visitors

RECENT READER SURVEY DATA MEDIAN AGE: 37 25-34: 26% 35-44: 22% 45-54: 17% 55-64: 14% 65+: 10% 18-24: 9%

AVERAGE NUMBER OF CHILDREN 1.85

MEDIAN PERSONAL INCOME: $55k 26%: $40k-60k 18%: $60k-80k 17%: $100k+ 17%: $20k-40k 12%: <$20k 11%: $80k-$100k

GENDER Female: 63% Male: 34% Nonbinary/other: 3%

EDUCATION Masters: 34% Bachelors: 31% Ph.D: 18% Some college: 9% Associates: 7%

AVERAGE NUMBER OF YEARS LIVING IN EASTERN IOWA 28

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Letters & Interactions 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.

One of the ways I manage the isolation and stress of the COVID pandemic is to take long walks. I’m blessed by living in North Liberty adjacent to the Cherry Creek pedestrian trail, so I often walk or bike there, and nearly always find a plastic bag which I put to use by filling it with litter as I walk.

Yesterday I spotted a very large plastic bag, so I retrieved it and began picking up the large amounts of trash scattered along the creek.

Then I noticed a couple of young boys hanging out together near the water—a sure attraction for pre-teen males. When they saw what I was doing, they immediately began picking up the trash with me.

We introduced ourselves and proceeded to

tackle the awful mess together. Avery, 13, and Larreon, 10, were real troopers, even scrambling through the brush and out over the creek on branches to retrieve all sorts of plastic and other trash from the flowing water. Then another friend of theirs, Ashlea, 12, joined us.

We worked together with fun camaraderie and cooperation for over half an hour, filling up my large bag and making several trips to a nearby Dumpster where the kids live. They were really into it, wanting the creek to be as nature intended, not strewn with garbage—responsible young environmentalists, for sure.

So a big “thank you” to Ashlea, Avery and Larreon, my new litter buddies. You kids rock!

—Miriam Kashia

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HAVE AN OPINION? Better write about it!

Send letters to:

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The industrial animal ag industry is

now on their fourth attempt at passing an ag-gag bill in Iowa. These laws continue to be rejected because they are unconstitutional. Why is the industry trying to pass another one? It might be related to the fact that Iowa Select used a horrible process to kill pigs they couldn’t send to slaughter during the COVID crisis. They lied to the public when they said that ventilation shutdown was humane. A brave whistleblower and videos exposed the truth. When industry practices and problems are exposed, instead of making changes, they introduce bills to prevent exposure.

We already have trespassing laws. It appears that with HF 775, the industry wants to make the penalties so severe that no one would dare reveal the things that happen behind their closed doors. If this law passes, you could become a felon for taking a photo.

The public has an interest in the welfare of the animals and in the safety of our food. If the industry is proud of what they are doing, why are they trying to avoid transparency? Please contact your legislators and ask them to oppose this bill. Thank you. —Lynn Gallagher

U KNOW? DID YO of The City s Iowa City ha

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I N T E R AC T I O N S

For the love of Reuben: Grading local corned-beef beauties (March 2) I should really try the C & P at Nodo but...before the pandemic my beloved and I would sneak off for a quiet lunch and share a Reuben at Wig & Pen in Coralville. So yummy. Now that I work from home there’s no more need to “sneak off” but it would be nice to order a Reuben.

Thanks for the reviews! I should probably try the

/LittleVillage READER POLL: “A day of 99 county meetings isn’t complete without “u kno what””?

there...which has been never all year! —Andy L. Try the Reuben at Ox Yoke Inn in Amana.

LittleVillageMag.com

over completely onto houses. Which is why it’s worth considering a preemptive investment in this in other towns as well. Some of Iowa City’s neighborhoods are canopied by dangerous trees that should be replaced by other species but the price of removal and replacement is prohibitive for most residents. People should

The Best of Marmaduke 1

13.8%

Slow judicial readings

10.3%

Ethanol drip

10.3%

solid research on this in regards to damage

A good fuck behind the DQ

65.5%

of trees were the main culprits for most of the

be funded and encouraged to take out as many of these trees as possible before the next big blow. It looks expensive and a lot of people won’t want to do it but I’d bet anything that

Shakespeare Reuben as well. Can’t help but get the Monster Hot Ham and Cheese every time I’m

last summer would show that specific species damage. It would pay off in the long term and prevent danger and pain to just go after them

—Eric T.

now. —Randy K.

When Iowa City searched for Pearl (March 3)

Cedar Rapids’ derecho reforestation plan takes root March 9 with virtual meeting (March 4)

A beautiful story about a wonderful and compassionate community who came together

The types of trees that replace a lot of the

[to] help. —Lori M.

downed trees will be an advantage. We know

One day after Gov. Reynolds signs new voting restrictions into law, a lawsuit is filed to overturn them (March 9)

better than to plant things like silver maples and

Not being able to vote early isn’t “voter

sycamores where they can drop limbs or just fall

suppression.” —Linda D.

Print is personal.

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

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

OUTDOOR RACKS IN CEDAR RAPIDS: • 1100 3rd St SE By the entrance to NewBo City Market • 3rd St SE & 11th Ave SE By Raygun • 120 3rd Ave SW

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I N T E R AC T I O N S

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Is shortening the number of hours polls

about red tape or race. It’s the fact that when

people who have had to leave their homes

are open on Election Day? Is reducing

renters on section 8 move out their rental has

due to domestic violence and now have to

the number of satellite voting locations?

been totally trashed. This costs them thousands

apply for assistance because they are renting

Is reversing decades of efforts meant to

of dollars and time. The only common factor

on one income instead of two. They are

increase participation? What’s the opposite

was section 8 in every instance. And 3 of them

immediately passed over because they are on

of “increase”? Still hoping one of these law’s

have been landlords for 30+ years. —Tami J.

assistance when they just need a safe place to get back on their feet. —Lia P.

supporters will explain WHY any of these changes are necessary. What is the goal?

College students also trash apartments, but

“Restoring election integrity”? Who trashed

this town caters more to students. I have also

that integrity? —Trevor J.

rented from landlords who do not keep up their properties and when you ask them to

Iowa House passes bill allowing landlords to discriminate against people receiving federal housing assistance (March 16)

fix things, they get upset or say it’s not their

‘A denial of history’: Bill restricting racism and sexism discussions in diversity training passed by Iowa House (March 17)

problem, and then go on to say it’s my fault.

My job is working with people who often

Words fail me....one can’t even call it ignorance....

have Section 8 and are trying to find a place

it’s just pure evil and unmitigated fear....from

to live. Unfortunately I see a lot of stigma and

what? A perceived loss of power, superiority?

Oh goody. I was getting worried that Iowa

stereotyping. There is also that sometimes

What? Because to stoop to this level is as sure

wasn’t spending enough time and money on

people who have been chronically without

a sign as anything that you’ve already lost it. It’s

expanding oppression. —Sandy B.

housing may not always know what to do

only a matter of time, but they will end up on

because they have had to survive in very

the wrong side of history. —Gloria M.

Yeah, I’m in property management and I’ve dealt

different ways. We take it for granted that

with the “red tape and paperwork” a thousand

once people have housing they should know

Isn’t forbidding the discussion of something that

times. It takes about 15 minutes. —Tania D.

what to do but I think we need better rental

exists called censorship? —Lesley W.

classes for people who might not have that The landlords I know personally don’t care

knowledge or experience. I also work with

Pretty sure this won’t survive the courts.

—Chad M.

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B R O C K

A B O U T

T O W N

AUDREY BROCK

LIKE MOST REASONABLY content adults who were once painfully awkward teenagers, I prefer not to think about the first 16 years of my life, but I am reasonably sure that I spent them in Cedar Rapids. Immediately after high school graduation, I moved down to Iowa City, presumably to receive an education of some kind, and the strain of the move was so terrible that I decided never to do it again.

This town is stuck with me.

However, having recently taken a job in Cedar Rapids, I’ve had an opportunity to get both extremely familiar with Interstate 380 (Is there a more boring road to have to drive down twice a day?) and up close and personal with the city I’ve been too lazy to visit for the last six years, and I can report that hanging out there as an adult is super weird. Despite the fact that the two cities are only 27 miles apart, the people who live there have basically nothing in common. Therefore, I present my authoritative guide to the people on the north side of the CRANDIC. • When it comes to choosing an outfit for a big night out, the girl from Cedar Rapids goes all out. She’ll run to the salon to have her chunky highlights freshened up and pay extra attention to her smokey eye. She may not still fit into her jeggings from high school, but that’s OK, because they always have more at Von Maur. A girl from Iowa City, on the other hand, prefers to play it cool. She wears a 20-year-old “Frankie Says Relax” T-shirt with permanent pit stains, Birkenstocks and last week’s mascara. She knows she had a hairbrush once, but that was at least four apartments ago. All of her friends think this is fine.

• People from Iowa City have very strong opinions about which Korean restaurant is most authentic, despite the fact that they have never eaten Korean food anywhere except Iowa City. All coffee tastes the same to them, but they know they’re supposed to have an opinion about it, so they go to perilous lengths to disguise their $5-a-day Dunkin’ Donuts habit from their friends. People from Cedar Rapids think this kind of behavior is ridiculous (and they’re right). They’re just glad to finally have a Mexican restaurant they can take first dates to that isn’t Taco Bell.

• Guys from Iowa City are well-read, articulate, erudite. They take you to see a horror movie in Malayalam at FilmScene and explain the whole thing to you, even though you’ve also been reading the subtitles. Recently, they’ve been really into Kabbalah, krautrock and growing their own opium poppies. Guys from Cedar Rapids know who is on the Iowa basketball team. They take you to the coolest bar in town, which is underneath the highway overpass. Recently, they’ve been really into upselling Yeezys, History Channel documentaries about Hitler and new flavors of chewing tobacco. It might be time to move to Illinois.

Digital is real.

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

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I N T E R AC T I O N S

STRESS FRACTURES

JOHN MARTINEK

HUD may sue Iowa if bill allowing landlords to discriminate against federal housing aid recipients is signed into law (March 18) Besides Iowa taxpayers paying for court battles over a record number of bills that actually violate laws already on the books, our larger communities could lose part of to their entire HUD monies. There is very little doubt in anyone’s mind (no matter which party) that the Iowa GOP is out to punish anyone who is not wealthy, white or a potential yes vote. —Tarrill A.

Vaccine appointments can feel elusive. This Iowa Twitter account helps. (March 19) So many friends were able to find a vaccine thanks to this Twitter account. He’s literally saving lives. Such a generous act of time and

we should have gotten from our elected state

talent. —Brook E.

officials. —Carol E.

say they won’t get vaccinated for COVID-19 (March 22)

He provided the type of leadership and support

Iowa Poll: 41 percent of Republicans

To say that Iowans will do the right thing (or

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W O R T H

R E P E AT I N G

“Not a single person is

I N T E R A C T I O N S

me and told me, ‘That’s

anyone, for that matter) is the

that more students at the jr.

being banned from any …

not what I asked.’” —Des

most ridiculous and potentially

high have tested positive and

platforms for advocating

Moines Register reporter

dangerous thing to say. There

more were being quarantined.

for [conservative]

Andrea Sahouri on the stand

are tens of thousands of

So, our family does the right

positions. Not one. What

during her trial for charges

people who need guidance

thing and stays home for over a

stemming from a 2020 Black

and facts to make the safest

year only to be told they need

decision for themselves and

to return to school for testing.

those they come in contact

Tests which don’t mean crap

they’re being banned

Zak Neumann

for is advocating for things like

Lives Matter rally

violent insurrection against the United States.” —State Sen. Zach

“I think when the pandemic hit,

with. She has clouded the

to my children’s future. And

Wahls (D-37) on SF 402

there were so many people for

facts and confused many

subjecting them to trauma and

the very first time either willing to

people. Her tunnel vision has

possibly illness in the last month

“That is canceling reality. That

discuss mental health or having

jeopardized the state of Iowa

and a half of school. WTAH.

is closing our eyes and trying

that wave of something—‘I don’t

in far too many ways.

Nope!

to pretend that if we don’t say

feel well, but it’s not physical.’”

—Meg C.B.

—Brooke E.

‘implicit bias,’ it doesn’t exist. Or

—Erin Foster, director of the new

if we don’t say ‘systemic racism,’

Linn County Mental Health Access

we can pretend we don’t have

Center

Iowa Senate Republicans push through bills eliminating gun permits and giving gunmakers new legal protections (March 23)

Rita Hart drops her challenge of Mariannette MillerMeeks’ election, citing the GOP’s ‘toxic campaign of political disinformation’ (March 31)

that.” —State Rep. Mary Wolfe (D98) on HF 482

“Today none of us can say with confidence who won this election. Our answer must be

“As a lawyer, I know that fair

grounded in hard evidence,

housing is the

not bald assumptions.” —Rep.

law … You cannot

Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), about

When you solve a non-existent

house people when

Iowa’s disputed District 2

problem you don’t get a

Ms. Hart, thank you for all your

election between Mariannette

solution, you just get a bigger

efforts. You fought a good fight.

they are purposely

A. Brown

Miller-Meeks and Rita Hart.

problem... —Ben W.

of the law.” —HUD Secretary

“We are CR, Wellington Heights

The influence of massive

Wish they would have to count

Marcia Fudge on Iowa’s bill

Neighborhood Association,

amounts of outside money,

the 22 ballots even if Miller-

allowing landlords to discriminate

Advocates for Social Justice,

by the Koch brothers for

Meeks keeps the seat. Also the

against federal housing assistance

neighbors and community

one, and the media flood

$ donated to Hart’s challenge

recipients

members came together to

that they can buy, has shown

by me and others will hopefully

denounce hate and show support

that you can take a one-time

go to next years campaign to

“I have no laurels on which I

for the Black community after

reasonable, tolerant, well-

unseat MMM. —Jane L.M.

can rest / Some laurels look like

a house at 2307 Bever Ave was

educated state and turn it

a cig and a slinky dress / or big

making it more difficult for people

—Tarrill A.

to find housing. It is a violation

vandalized with hate language.

into a paranoid, xenophobic,

I am very disappointed that Rita

fat benjamins /

... [T]he sense of community,

extremist, hate-filled mess. I

did not go forward with what

rows upon rows

that feeling that was present last

was once kind of proud to be

seemed a legitimate challenge.

of men.” —Penny

summer after George Floyd’s

an Iowan, two parties, but not

The heat in the kitchen may be

Peach, “Laurelz”

death, is still here. More people

rabid dogs about it, solid, fair,

what we will have to expect

from the EP

stopped to help than what was

hardworking, tolerant, top of

from here on. I was heartened

Brain Gamez

even needed. We hope that

the country in education....

by Rita’s challenge. I have faced

the perpetrators are caught

Decent. Look at what we’ve

up against Ostergren as an

“I think it’s the right thing to

and charged accordingly.” —

become. —Edward K.

attorney when he was CA in

do for the greater good. It’s a

Advocates for Social Justice on

personal decision, individuals

Facebook

via Penny Peach

will make that.” —Gov. Kim Reynolds on COVID-19

“I am saddened

vaccination

that some Iowans’ votes will not

“I didn’t think it was a good

count through

idea to run from officers,

no fault of their

because I wasn’t doing anything

own.” —Rita Hart

wrong. I put up my hands and

Zak Neumann

Muscatine and I believed that This beautiful state is making

Rita had made the best choice

me sad. —Josh T.

by taking this to the House. I do not have confidence in Rep

Online students will have to return to school buildings for statewide standardized tests (March 29)

after dropping

Miller-Meeks count and am very sad that Rita folded. Even if she lost the House of Rep review, I would have been proud to support her in the future. At this point I will be looking for

said ‘I’m press, I’m press,’ and he

her challenge to Mariannette

I received the email yesterday

another candidate to go up

grabbed me and pepper-sprayed

Miller-Meeks

and right after it a notification

against MM. —Sally P.

18 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

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Cortado Se Busca: Mercado Laboral Inclusivo POR W. ALEX CHOQUEMAMANI

D OPEN AGAIN ON IOWA CITY'S NORTHSIDE WITH NEW, LIMITED HOURS. IN STORE SHOPPING, CURBSIDE PICK UP, AND IN STORE PICK UP AVAILABLE. Thursdays & Fridays 11am–4pm Saturdays 11am–3pm

os de mis actividades deportivas favoritas son el ciclismo y la natación. Llegué a estas no porque alguien de mi familia fuese campeón en una de estas disciplinas. Tampoco porque el colegio donde estudié haya ganado muchas medallas en estos deportes. Llegué más bien a estas actividades por una enfermedad que probablemente hoy no sea muy conocida, especialmente por las nuevas generaciones.

Cuando yo tenía un año y medio de nacido contraje la polio (también conocida como “parálisis infantil”). Esto ocurrió en el Perú a principios de la década de los ‘80. Si, en esa época, todavía había polio en mi país, a pesar que la vacuna fuera descubierta en 1954 por el médico estadounidense Jonas Salk. Y luego de muchas visitas y tratamientos médicos, me dieron una recomendación final, tal si fuese una regla de oro: hacer ejercicios físicos con regularidad y usar zapatos ortopédicos. Así es como llego a la natación y el ciclismo porque ambas se adecuaban a mi condición física. Y si quieren verlo de otro modo, la polio pasó de ser una enfermedad a un motivo para visitar la piscina, y manejar bicicleta.

Pero esta parte “recreativa” o asunto de salud es sólo un aspecto de la vida de las personas con discapacidad (incluida mi persona), pues también hay otros aspectos igual de importantes. Uno de ellos es el aspecto laboral, y sin el cual no podemos hablar de una participación plena de este grupo social en la sociedad.

Por ejemplo, la tasa de desempleo para personas con discapacidad (2019), según el Departamento de Trabajo de los EE.UU., es de 7.3%.

Es decir dos veces mayor a la tasa de desempleo de personas sin discapacidad. Y con los efectos devastadores de la pandemia la cifra indicada ha aumentado, y ya son miles de personas con discapacidad que han perdido su puesto de trabajo.

ADEMÁS, SI DE VERDAD “TODOS ESTAMOS JUNTOS” (WE STAND TOGETHER), ¿POR QUÉ NO TAMBIÉN ESTARLO EN EL MERCADO LABORAL, EN LA QUE TODOS Y TODAS, INCLUIDAS LAS PERSONAS CON DISCAPACIDAD, PUEDAN PARTICIPAR Y APORTAR A LA ECONOMÍA DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS?

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El reingreso de estas al mercado laboral no debería ser un calvario como lo fue en los tiempos de pre-pandemia. En la que era frecuente que prevalezcan temores, mitos, estereotipos asociados a sus discapacidades, y no sus habilidades y calificaciones. Además, si de verdad “todos estamos juntos” (We stand together), ¿por qué no también estarlo en el mercado laboral, en la que todos y todas, incluidas las personas con discapacidad, puedan participar y aportar a la economía de los Estados Unidos?

Finalmente, el tener un mercado laboral inclusivo, si bien es una meta importante, no debería ser el fin último, sino más bien un medio para poder ejercer otros derechos, entre ellos, los derechos políticos (elegir y ser elegido, por ejemplo). Y como ya lo dijo Aristotle, hace muchos años atrás, es solo con la política que se puede conseguir la felicidad de todos los integrantes de una comunidad; en el presente caso, la felicidad de todas las personas de la sociedad estadounidense.

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The Next Right Thing Eastern Iowa parents reflect on a year of pandemic parenting and, with some hope, look to the future.

BY SHARON FALDUTO

“I

will Venmo you to keep my kids an hour longer.”

“I became the only socialization. You can only play Candy Land so many times.”

Speaking with local parents about their experiences over the last year, a few themes resonated: resilience, struggle, anxiety and an intense desire for some kind of return to normalcy. Also a determination to simply do “the next right thing,” as Anna sings in Frozen II. It’s been over a year since most area schools shut down. When the kids went home for spring break on March 16, 2020, many of them didn’t return to the school building

LaTasha DeLoach and her twins, Nathan and Lauren. Chad Rhym / Little Village

until the following August, or even later. Parents struggled to keep the kids occupied, engaged and educated, while attending to their own jobs and responsibilities.

:

I’m sorry you have to be 12.

That’s what LaTasha DeLoach thought as she set her 6-yearold twins, Lauren and Nathan, up in their virtual school studio.

Although it may not have felt age appropriate, she needed to depend on her kids to get themselves to their school lessons while she worked on another floor of their home. DeLoach is the director of the Iowa City Senior Center,

20 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

and she was busy making sure the center was fully operational during historic building renovations, not to

family lives several hours away and can’t really help with her kids. At the beginning of the pandemic last

HER HOUSE IS NOT A SCHOOL, OF COURSE, BUT SHE HAS DONE WHAT SHE CAN. FOR P.E., THE KIDS ROLLER-SKATE IN HER BASEMENT. HER LIVING ROOM IS AN ART SPACE WITH AN UNEXPLAINED HOT GLUE STAIN ON THE CARPET. mention a historic pandemic, while her kids were busy learning how to navigate first grade.

LaTasha summed up parenting during the pandemic as “I wanted to cry, to scream, to just laugh.” Her

March, she had the mindset that they could do this for a while. It would be like summer vacation—a trying time for many parents, but one with a definitive end.

Unfortunately, what began as a

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Nate Sullivan with his sons Aaron and Charlie. Chad Rhym / Little Village

“flatten the curve” lockdown has turned into over a year of parents struggling to balance their own working lives with their kids’ social and educational needs. Due to underlying health issues, LaTasha chose to keep her children home, attending virtual classes through Grant Wood Elementary. Her house is not a school, of course, but she

has done what she can. For P.E., the kids roller-skate in her basement.

Her living room is an art space with an unexplained hot glue stain on the carpet.

Her kids have been struggling with the loss of friend groups and socialization, a harder experience to recreate at home. She’s grateful that they are twins and playmates for one

NATE SULLIVAN OBSERVED THAT SINCE THE PANDEMIC BEGAN, THE BOYS HAVE BEEN MORE VOLATILE.

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another; although, of course, they don’t like to play the same games.

Sometimes she needs to separate them, LaTasha said, because they “need to miss each other.”

When she finally allowed her children to visit a friend’s house after she had her first vaccine shot, LaTasha was so grateful for the reprieve from 24-hour parenting

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Cara Picton and her sons, Autzen and Holden, where they’ve spent the 2020-2021 academic year. Jordan Sellergren / Little Village

that she joked about sending the other parent a bribe over Venmo just to keep the kids a little bit longer.

One of the challenges she faced during the last year was what she described as “losing her kids to YouTube”—suddenly, they were hearing things that, although not really inappropriate, were certainly for children older than 6.

“They got hip to hashtags,” she said. So she restricted the computer to being used only for homework.

It’s difficult, because screen time can definitely help when a parent needs to work, but she reported that after implementing this restriction she “got her kids back.”

For all its drawbacks, there were advantages to Lauren and Nathan not going to school in person. They were able to dig into things that interested them: storm-chasing and tornadoes for Nathan, who has the uncanny ability to duplicate the sound of a tornado siren. A Black

History Month calendar on their fridge gave her kids subjects to research, which turned her firstgraders into little historians. Lauren was especially obsessed with Harriet Tubman.

father of Aaron, 10, and Charlie, 5. He and his ex-wife made the decision that Aaron would attend school at Shimek Elementary in person. With two working parents, they didn’t feel they could give their

WHEN SHE WAS TEACHING HER OWN CLASSES ON ZOOM, CARA PICTON WOULD PLUG IN HEADPHONES TO TUNE OUT THE NOISE OF HER CHILDREN. OFTEN SHE WOULD HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL HER HUSBAND RETURNED FROM WORK TO KEEP UP WITH HER OWN GRADING AND LESSON PLANNING. Another advantage LaTasha observed was that, while learning from home, her Black children were not subject to the systemic racism of being in the school system.

:

Nate Sullivan of Iowa City is the

24 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

sons the attention they would need if they attended school from home.

Fortunately, he and his ex-wife came to this conclusion together.

Nate observed that since the pandemic began, the boys have been more volatile. They’re more easily upset, and it takes more time

to talk them back from the edge of the upset.

“Going anywhere with the boys in the car has become a real landmine of emotions because they’re forced to sit close to each other in an enclosed space,” Nate said. “If either of them says anything, the other will tell them to be quiet, which sets off a chain reaction of both of them telling the other to be quiet or leave them alone until I have to step in and try to simmer them back down. It’s a real headache, and because it’s usually right after the stress of getting them ready for school, it can lead to some testy mornings.”

:

Cara Picton of Cedar Rapids is a mother of four: Aurora, 15, Logan, 13, Holden, 8 and Autzen, 7. Cara is an adjunct at two different colleges as well as a substitute teacher in Cedar Rapids schools. Her

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Sharon Falduto with daughters Samantha and Piper, and husband Matt. Chad Rhym / Little Village

younger two children attend Arthur Elementary, in person. Logan attends Franklin Middle School, also in person, although the double whammy of the pandemic and last August’s derecho delayed his return to school until January.

The family made a deal with Aurora that she could remain in online school as long as she maintained a B average, but keeping that B has been a struggle.

Cara, as a teacher, was frustrated to have a child that didn’t seem to be performing to her potential.

She feels that the choice of being online has been detrimental to her child’s motivation. If Aurora were attending school in person, Cara says, “they could harass her” to get her work done.

When Cara’s younger children were attending school from home last year, she would sit them both at her dining room table, herself seated between them. One child

headphones to tune out the noise of her children. Often she would have to wait until her husband returned from work to keep up with her own grading and lesson planning.

Being the only socialization

When she and I spoke, it was spring break for her childrens’ schools. She fully admitted to lingering longer at the office to avoid going home.

“OUR OLDEST DAUGHTER RETURNED TO COLLEGE THIS YEAR, AFTER AN ABRUPT END TO HER FRESHMAN YEAR. ‘HERE’S THE THING,’ SHE SAID AT ONE POINT LAST APRIL, ‘I’M KIND OF SICK OF YOU PEOPLE.’” —SHARON FALDUTO

Sharon Falduto of Coralville (reader, that’s me) is the parent of three daughters, Rachel, 20, Samantha, 17, and Piper, 13. I would like to insist that my children are fine, that we’re fine, that everything’s fine—conjuring up the popular image of the little cartoon dog, slowly drinking his coffee, as the room around him is consumed by flames.

I work with students and faculty at Kirkwood Community College, and I have spoken to students on Zoom calls while they bounced a baby on their shoulder. Faculty members report needing to ask students to turn off their microphones, because their children are in the background,

would be listening to school on his computer with headphones in; the other child would have the headphones unplugged so Cara could hear what was happening in the class. Since she couldn’t

listen to both of the children’s classes at the same time, she wasn’t always able to keep track of what work needed to be done. She also wondered what fueled them when they were in school, since they were in constant need of snacks. (“I know your teachers aren’t feeding you every five minutes.”)

When she was teaching her own classes on Zoom, she would plug in

26 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

outlet for her children was exhausting for Cara. Without friends, “Somebody has to listen,” she remarked. She tried to limit the kids’ screen time, but “you can only play Candy Land so many times.”

Adding to the stressors for Cara was the fact that she deals with her own mental illness, making it difficult to fully function as a teacher and a parent.

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creating noise and making it hard to concentrate. Access to classes over Zoom has been both a benefit and a detriment to students who don’t have alternate childcare arrangements.

Our daughters have attended 8th grade and 11th grade completely from our house, and their grades aren’t suffering for it. Our oldest daughter returned to college this year, after an abrupt end to her freshman year that left her attending the final few weeks of the last semester from our basement.

“Here’s the thing,” she said at one point last April, “I’m kind of sick of you people.”

My husband Matt and I consider ourselves lucky that our kids are old enough to get themselves to class and that they don’t require constant care. The kids look at their phones a lot, but then, that’s where their socialization happens. Group texts are one way kids are keeping in touch while staying apart. My youngest daughter did recently go to a friend’s house to watch a movie, and if screening Mean Girls in a garage with the door open, everyone in the audience wearing masks, isn’t an apt metaphor for attending junior high during a pandemic, then I don’t know what is.

:

Betsy Baertlein and Theo Manahan of Cedar Rapids are the parents of Alan, 2.5, and Marina, one month old at the time of this writing. Betsy is a professor for English language

Theo and Betsy started to feel more confident in rebalancing the risk/ benefit analysis, and realizing that Alan needed to be associating with his peers, a point further driven home when Alan proudly showed his mother a collection of dental floss containers and said, “Look, I made friends!”

Alan will be attending a nature school soon. The program will be outdoors, and the kids will wear masks to help mitigate risk. Betsy and Theo look forward to having date nights again, when they can get a sitter and go out.

:

Betsy Baertlein and her son Alan. Jordan Sellergren / Little Village

AFTER MARINA WAS BORN, THEO AND BETSY STARTED TO FEEL MORE CONFIDENT IN REBALANCING THE RISK/BENEFIT ANALYSIS. students at Kirkwood, and Theo is a nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Alan had just begun attending an early learning program and meeting other children when the pandemic hit. When Betsy became pregnant, they made the decision that the whole family would stay home and avoid risk as

28 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

much as possible.

Because she was teaching from home, Betsy’s second pregnancy went largely unnoticed by students and co-workers. She was grateful for the opportunity to lay down and take a nap between classes, if necessary, when she wasn’t teaching.

After baby Marina was born,

Most parents are determined to make it safely to the next school year, and to have their children back in school buildings. Alan will be going to preschool. My kids will be going to West High, my incoming freshman noting with some pleasure that some of the sophomores will be just as lost as she is whilst navigating West High on the first day of school. Aurora will be going back to Cedar Rapids Washington to be held accountable.

And when asked what it would take for LaTasha to send Lauren and Nathan back to in-person school, she responded in no uncertain terms.

“Oh, they’re going.”

Sharon Falduto lives in Coralville.

She would really like this pandemic thing to wrap up so she can go to the “Happy Together” concert that she bought tickets for two years ago.

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How to Survive a Plague (Again) Susan Sontag called illness “the night side of life.” Can Iowa’s creative communities outlast the long, dark night of COVID-19?

BY DARCIE HUTZELL

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, In sunsets, In midnights, In cups of coffee, In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife —“Seasons of Love,” Rent

J

onathan Larson, who wrote the groundbreaking rock musical Rent, spent all of his time, money and effort creating this piece of enduring musical theater.

Rent continues to be relevant to new and younger audiences, speaking in particular to young creatives. It’s a classic story of love, loss, financial strain and the unyielding drive to create, all while living in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.

In the midst and the wake of the AIDS crisis, many felt that they weren’t getting the real story about the number of people affected, how long we would be living with this new virus or when and if it would end. Back then, people largely felt that if it didn’t directly impact them, maybe it wasn’t real—and there are certainly those who believe similarly about COVID-19, despite the fact that the death toll in the U.S. has exceeded the number of minutes in a year, a number Larson’s musical made famous. (As of April 2, 566,772 Americans have died of COVID-19).

The words and themes of Rent’s quintessential ballad drive us to ask the question: How do we measure this year? Loaves of bread baked?

Zoom cocktail parties? Many of us, tired of the bombardment of numbers about COVID-19, turned to creative pursuits that were new, while others tried to hang on to their established creative communities to keep sane and continue creating.

For some, creation is a way to keep our minds focused; for others, it is a distraction from thinking about the daily loss of life caused by a pandemic that has seemed out of control. I found myself panicking when I’d hear of the deaths of friends’ parents, because in the spring of 1990, I lost my dad to the AIDS virus. This pandemic brought that trauma back for me. Watching the death toll rise, with family and friends losing loved ones to a still-little-understood disease, all 30 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

felt very familiar.

I was a teenager in the late ’80s, growing up in Mason City, Iowa. While I was aware of AIDS, I never felt like it would touch my life.

When it suddenly did, I turned to writing and musical theater in high school in part to become someone different from myself, but also to have a community of creative people that was wholly accepting of me. I was a prolific writer back then, and much of my work centered on hiding. How long did my dad hide his illness, his lifestyle?

Exploring that in writing was a necessary thing for me, and so turning to writing again during this pandemic was healing. I decided that there was an urgency to tell my story, similar to the urgency felt among many in the gay community to tell theirs during the AIDS crisis.

“Art Office is a work program in which artists are prompted to consider their creative processes more like workday office jobs,” said Carla Baudrons, managing director of Art Office.

“Our mission is to help artists focus and be more productive by prescribing a regimen based on personal responsibility, peer accountability and public engagement.”

Finding community was also crucial during the AIDS epidemic as well, as artists were isolated from their galleries, mentors, art dealers, in addition to the general public, all based on their viral status. It was because of this that a group of writers, critics and curators founded VisualAIDS. Started in 1988, VisualAIDS was a way to help the most marginalized show work, get jobs and secure funding for care and even basic art supplies.

The organization was one of the first national “THE COMMUNITY ASPECT OF ART OFFICE programs to highlight IS INTEGRAL, SO KEEPING THE ARTISTS the impact of AIDS on CONNECTED WAS OF THE UTMOST the creative community.

VisualAIDS still serves as IMPORTANCE.” —CARLA BAUDRONS a place for artists affected

by HIV and AIDS to gather, I started having conversations with my commiserate and show work. Baudrons hopes friends, many of whom are creatives, about that the Art Office will serve as a similar kind pandemics and the drive to create. Art has of place. always been political, but for many the images, “Art Office was in the planning phase when activism and communities during the AIDS the pandemic started. I had to refigure how the epidemic became truly vital for survival. The program was going to work. The community government was doing little to acknowledge that aspect of Art Office is integral, so keeping the AIDS was happening and people were dying, so artists connected was of the utmost importance,” activism turned to artists. The images from the Baudrons said. “Fortunately, everyone who was ’80s still endure today. Will we have art from this helping me test the system out was more than pandemic that will resonate 20 years from now? willing to use Zoom to connect with their fellow Will we have communities that still endure? artists, up to five times per week. In the heat of the pandemic, when everyone was hyper-diligent about staying home, Art Office provided its restling with an idea and having the participants a much-needed outlet to see people opportunity to meet and discuss ideas and practice social skills, as well as the benefits surrounding the creation of art have been a of holding each other accountable in their challenge, as has finding support for those who practices. In a lot of ways, I believe our group are marginalized. Zoom and other online video flourished because we were forced to be creative platforms have certainly been one way to stay in our restructuring of the program.”

Baudrons is also brainstorming opportunities connected, but for those creatives looking for more support, whether it be for supplies or just a to show the art created by this year’s participants.

“We have shows at the end of every session, place to see another creative face, they can turn to Art Office, founded in May 2020, in conjunction though normally these would be held in a gallery,” she said. “Because of COVID, our with Public Space One in Iowa City.

W

6

Benjamin Minniear / Little Village Mel Andringa with parakeet by David Van Allen.

Zoom stills courtesy of Art Office. Masked photos courtesy of City Circle Theatre. Keith Haring painting from Nationaal Archief Netherlands.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 31

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theater in the 1980s served as a place where actors with HIV/AIDS could find a group that would accept them, when the world at large just saw a sick person, dying of their own fault.

“Being a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, theater has always served as a safe place, and for many the only place where they are loved and accepted,” Drollinger said. “It was a struggle, the loss of the physicality and proximity of the community, for me personally. But then, these amazing videos were created, and shared all over social media. Even though we were physically apart, we were still connected emotionally, through our online artistic communities.”

spurned eventual legislation. Maybe the images of the pandemic have yet to come.

Andringa was reluctant to discuss his specific experiences creating art in the environment of the AIDS epidemic, but did say, “The conservatives were favored to win, but they underestimated the tenacity of their opponents, who either despite their personal traumas or perhaps spurred on by them, fiercely fought for their lives against the onslaught of indifference to their plight. I see no such threat facing vaccination deniers, economic Jeremiah or libertarian anti-maskers, yet they all put on the ashes of oppression to assume their any creatives enjoy making art alone, victim status.” and sequestering during the pandemic He also said that while his desire to sing his may have felt almost normal for them. But for own song is strong, he is also listening as much as creatives in theater, finding a new way to perform and collaborate was vital. Christian Drollinger el Andringa, a longtime Iowa artist, and possible to the songs of others, especially during says the connections and community he finds founder of LegionArts in partnership the pandemic, where other artists are struggling in City Circle Theatre Company have been with CSPS in Cedar Rapids, doesn’t find having in a myriad of ways. During the pandemic, lifesaving. community quite so vital as a visual artist. He’s artists and creatives have had a difficult time “In general, I think the arts communities have been producing more work than ever during the with support, both financial and emotional. But Andringa notes that financially, he’s all right. flourished during the pandemic,” Drollinger said. pandemic, specifically about the pandemic.

“Being housebound and “Initially, it was quite difficult. not shopping as much has put There was a lot of uncertainty me in a pretty good situation about whether or not theater “SOMETHING WAS TAKEN FROM [ARTISTS], LIKE for the time being. My should be happening, and how do biggest challenge has been we adapt? I remember talking to a FEELINGS OF NORMALCY, AND THEY NEED TO handling technical problems friend who was just cast in a local WRESTLE WITH THAT EXPERIENCE UNTIL IT in a much more complicated production about what their plans GIVES SOMETHING BACK, BE IT A PAINTING, A environment,” Andringa said. were, and how can we continue to “I can Zoom, but I’m in over create art amidst the anxiety and STORY, A DANCE OR A SONG.” —MEL ANDRINGA my head when I try to play with sadness that was just beginning the cool kids.” to set in. And then we shifted to online theater.”

In the early 1980s, anxiety and fear drove Larry “I am more productive during the lockdown, Kramer to write A Normal Heart, as he became and my work addresses the lockdown, but ike the AIDS crisis before it, this pandemic frustrated with the gay community’s resistance most of my artist friends are frustrated because has come with great loss. The current to take AIDS seriously. City Circle is making they’re either trying to wait it out or act as if it LGBTQ community lost many fine creators due their own foray into original work with Acting is a distraction ... from a long-standing practice,” to government inaction, misinformation and Out While Staying In, a series of short plays Andringa said. He was surprised that area artists bigotry—factors that drive the higher death counts by eastern Iowa playwrights opening virtually did not incorporate last year’s derecho experience in marginalized communities today. Fear and on April 9. It’s a trend that’s been prevalent in more into their art. uncertainty created some of the great works of the area theaters throughout the pandemic (RHCR “Disruptions like COVID, etc., are gifts to late 20th century, but at what cost? Even though also premieres Zoom Into Spring April 19). an artist,” Andringa said. “Something was taken strife and turmoil are great for a creative process, But content aside, the fact that theater survived from them, like feelings of normalcy, and they staggering loss of life is a very hefty price to pay. online at all may have had a similar effect. need to wrestle with that experience until it gives COVID-19’s devastation has been “Glitzy costumes, extravagant sets and an something back, be it a painting, a story, a dance astronomical. Art will again be a medium orchestra transformed into people on screens. It or a song.” through which we can explore what happened. felt cold and distant,” Drollinger said of the early Art as a means of processing and commenting Community and support are a constant struggle, days of virtual theater. “It was not the warm, on a crisis was central to AIDS activists. In now more than ever. Artists, writers, community welcoming community I was used to. But not addition to playwriting, Kramer used prominent theater and musicians have always been uplifted too long later, I grew to admire the actors who artists of the time to make very moving images in our community, and that support will need to approached the challenge with the same level [of that have now become iconic and instantly continue if we don’t want to risk losing another enthusiasm] they’d give a live audience.” recognizable. Keith Haring and his horned generation of creatives.

An essential worker, Drollinger found that sperm and the powerful pink triangle with the theater allowed them to breathe and live without text SILENCE = DEATH serve as reminders of Darcie Hutzell is an Iowa native and has been a fear. While this pandemic drove us farther apart a crisis that still rages. The AIDS crisis inspired writer for most of her life. She is a University of Iowa physically, as the virus spread with proximity, artists to use their art as activism, which in turn graduate and lives with her family in Iowa City.

shows are online live, either through Zoom or Facebook. Each artist presents their work, and we have a Q&A. The audience aspect is practically nonexistent, and it’s a great loss. The nuts and bolts are still there, but it just isn’t the same.”

Participants have struggled, certainly, with the lack of in-person connections and physical workspaces, but, Baudrons said, the “resilience and comradery of facing a global pandemic together” helped to mitigate that loss.

M

6

M

6

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32 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

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Bread & Butter

Scary Good Eats The owners of Cedar Rapids’ newest cafe dish about opening a restaurant with their best friend amid a pandemic.

BY BRYCE JONES

Feedwell Kitchen & Bakery

560 Boyson Rd NE Suite A, Cedar Rapids, 319-409-6905, feedwellkitchenandbakery.com Offers curbside pick-up, no delivery

C

hef Melanie Abu-Nameh, 44, and baker Holly Ervin, 45, first met at a tennis margarita league event, as best friends do, and quickly bonded over family and food. While Abu-Nameh has worked in the restaurant industry her whole career (from line cook to culinary instructor to executive chef), Ervin regarded baking as a side passion.

In October, the two combined their talents to open a breakfast, sandwich and pastry joint called Feedwell Kitchen & Bakery in Cedar Rapids. During the pandemic, they say they’ve found comfort in working together to feed people well.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How did Feedwell’s concept come to be?

Melanie Abu-Nameh: We wanted to have baked goods and make sandwiches on homemade bread. Originally, we weren’t going to be a coffee shop—but if you have pastries, you have to have coffee. We wanted to have light options with grab-and-go stuff.

Holly Ervin: We compare ourselves to Panera but with a choice. We’re not tied to any one thing, and that really was a fun idea.

Can you describe the restaurant in three words?

MA: Approachable.

HE: Community.

MA: Fresh.

HE: Community, approachable and fresh. I mean, we don’t want to have cuisine that’s too scary, but we want it to be enough that people are going out of their bounds to try something.

What challenges have you faced, and what’s surprised you about opening a restaurant during a pandemic?

HE: The format of our restaurant has always been super high-quality food and baked goods but on a quick-serve basis. The seating capacity is 99, and we never wanted to have a full-service environment—we want to know our customers.

34 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

Melanie Abu-Nameh and Holly Ervin opened Feedwell Kitchen & Bakery in October 2020. Addi Arp / Little Village

And from the very start we wanted to do a lot of to-go. So that part of [COVID-19] didn’t scare us. But other than that, it scared the hell out of me.

MA: Initially when we opened up [in October], we were so busy we couldn’t even keep up. We were only open for two weeks before we had to close. We were tripping over each other, and we were like, “This is not good for COVID-19 or anything.” It was just like: Slow it down. Figure it out.

How do you strengths?

play

to

each

other’s

HE: Recently, for one of our Monday Meals, we had tarte Tatin. I’d never done dry caramel, and Melanie does it all the time when she makes flan.

It’s great to share [our knowledge]. We’ve always said if one of us wanted to learn something, they’d be able to do that.

MA: There’s certainly a collaborative spirit. For the Monday Meals, I’ll say, “I’m making this, so what’s going to go well with it?” And then we

come up with a menu.

HE: Or, “There’s a new sandwich we’d like to try. What bread would be best with it?” Melanie has been in the industry a lot longer than I have, so she’s got things down from a business perspective. I’d be lost without her.

How would you each describe your cooking and baking style?

MA: There’s nothing better than sitting around a table with people that you know and having fresh food. I’m half Cuban, so I love cooking Cuban food. And my husband is Palestinian, so I love learning all the Middle Eastern stuff— fusing things that you didn’t even think would go together.

HE: The part of baking I like the best is just occasionally looking out to the lobby and seeing someone take a bite of something, and they’re like, “Oh, my god.” I’ve always baked for other people. Yes, I want things to be beautiful, but I don’t want it to feel like it’s a machine.

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Where do you find inspiration for the food you make?

HE: For me, my mom decorated cakes when we were kids, and we were always in the kitchen with her. I was in awe. It’s just that sense of family and doing things for people you love. As much as I enjoy doing it, I really enjoy the gifting of it.

MA: The traveling I’ve done with my students, my family.

Melanie, what’s you’ve been?

your

favorite

place

MA: Probably Cuba. I loved Italy; I love France.

I guess you just find inspiration wherever you go.

I mean, I grew up here [in Iowa], right? So I like doing stuff I grew up cooking, but maybe putting a spin on it.

What’s your favorite thing on your menu right now?

HE: Favorite sandwich, 100 times over, is the Medianoche. It’s a Cuban [a sandwich with roast pork, ham, mustard, Swiss cheese and pickles], but it’s on sweet bread.

MA: I grew up eating medianoches because I loved the bread, and the bakers just perfected it.

But personally right now I think it’s the Kale and Brussels Sprout Bobb.

What are your upcoming plans for Feedwell?

HE: There are a couple things in our business plan we had to push off [because of COVID-19], and it would be great to bring those in, like more catering.

MA: I would love to do cooking classes, even if it’s just starting small.

What’s the best part about owning a restaurant with your friend?

MA: Probably that we get to see each other every day. There’s something to be said for friends who become family. It’s nice to be able to come here and know that someone has your back. It’s a little bit of peace.

HE: The things I would have anxiety about with someone else, I don’t have that. It’s comfortable while being scary, because the venture itself is big. But having comfort and knowing you can lean on somebody, and they can lean on you, makes it so much better.

Bryce Jones was born and raised in Cedar Rapids and is currently pursuing her master’s in journalism at Northwestern University. When she’s not studying or writing, she enjoys watching British reality TV and exploring local bookstores. Feel free to hire her after she graduates in September!

(Please.)

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 35

Culture En Español

Power Moves Iowa City dancer, author and arts organizer Chuy Renteria discusses growing up and developing his identity in Iowa’s first Latino-majority town. WRITTEN AND TRANSLATED BY ANGELA PICO

L

et’s start big: who are you, Chuy? Whoo, I

could go in a rabbit hole with that one. I am an artist, an author, dancer—I mean, I have many, many different hats. Really my first love is dance. I started when I was 14; I’m 35 now. I went through undergrad at the University of Iowa.

I transitioned from breaking, I was a b-boy, from hip hop to modern ballet, jazz, basically anything.

After that I got into direct care, working with individuals with special needs. I started working the empathy muscle. I was thinking about how I could give to people. That really laid the foundation of the work that I do right now, and also my 9-to5 is Public Engagement Coordinator with Hancher Auditorium, so basically connecting artists with the community. I’m somebody who likes to connect people. And a lot of my work now is angled toward that idea.

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Jason Smith / Little Village

(missioncreekfestival.com), Thursday and Friday, April

I noticed you defined yourself with what you do, what you give to the community. Yeah,

[laughs] that’s a very American thing, I totally understand that. I have an issue with productivity and doing work—my wife will say that I do so much. And I also know that a part of me is just the relationships that

I have with people. And part of that community piece is not just, “Oh, I do this, I do that.” It’s more about, “Hey, I’m Mexican American, I was born here in Iowa City, raised in West Liberty, I have lots of friends that I feel are a very diverse group of folks and that’s very important to who I am.”

Your personal beliefs translate into your job. You mention community—how do you define community? I look at it

as a fluid term because [community is] like an individual; we’re always constantly changing.

Me growing up in West Liberty has been really interesting. We’ve

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It’s a model of what a community

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can actually be when you have very different people living next to each other and they feel like they’re really neighbors, a community.

What was it like for you, personally, growing up in West Liberty in the ’90s? The book

that I’m writing is called We Heard It When We Were Young: Tales of Growing Up Mexican American in Small Town Iowa. The way I approach it is, what was my childhood like? Was it a good childhood? And it’s a really hard question. There is this tension—growing up, we ex-

my life, that relationship with that language, my parents’ language.

People who know me say, “Oh, you have this big conflict with Spanish.” … but when I first went into kindergarten, I only knew Spanish, because that was spoken at home. I probably internalized that the norm is English in this community.

In middle school, I shed that Spanish. By the time I was in high school, I said I don’t know Spanish.

It’s such a tender topic. “So, you’re not Mexican enough because you don’t know Spanish?” Dude, I’m

GROWING UP, WE EXPERIENCED A LOT OF RACISM FROM OUR PEERS ON THE PLAYGROUND. I REMEMBER GOING TO A PARK AND THERE WERE SWASTIKAS ON THE SLIDE. I ASKED MY COUSIN, “WHAT ARE THOSE?” ... HE SAID, “THAT MEANS THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE US.” BUT THERE’S A HUGE “BUT”—THERE IS ALSO THIS INCREDIBLE INCLUSION [IN WEST LIBERTY]. perienced a lot of racism from our peers on the playground. I remember going to a park and there were swastikas on the slide. I asked my cousin, “What are those?” and he’s only like a year older than me, so a 6-year-old trying to explain to a 5-year-old, he said, “That means there are people who don’t like us.”

But, there’s a huge “but”—there is also this incredible inclusion. I had friends who fought with me against those racist kids. They were my co-conspirators. I have to talk about that piece, too.

For a Latino writer, there’s always that question about language. How do you see language? Right now, I would say

I’m 30 percent fluent in speaking Spanish and 80 percent in listening.

I can talk to my parents, and understand a good deal of it, but if I were trying to just articulate right now, it would be like marbles in my mouth.

Right now, it’s kind of a strange dynamic—it’s been a huge conflict in

Mexican, too; I’m proud of my heritage. It becomes a defiant act. For me, the Spanish that I grew up with is Spanglish. It’s this super bastardized Spanish. The Spanish you speak in West Liberty is very different.

Let’s talk about you as a dancer, using your body to communicate. How does that speak with your work? When I was 14,

dance was my refuge. If you see me dance, it’s an unbound mechanism.

It’s also like a coping mechanism.

I had all this energy all throughout school, relationships with adults that I don’t connect with, but with dance I expel and expel and expel, and have something for my own. I didn’t feel like I was Mexican enough for the Mexicans or white enough for the white people. I didn’t feel like I got school. And dance was my own.

How is performing your words in front of your audience? It’s a

huge, huge thing, to be able to pivot from being able to express myself

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Culture

through dance in front of an audience and being comfortable to read a piece—even just the idea of writing a piece. To reconcile all that, to be able to express who I am in a story is so different than expressing who I am through dance. Dance is so immediate. People know when something has moved them, through movement. Telling a story, it’s more context; you have to think of the building blocks. You have to set the tone for the gut-punch.

Movimientos poderosos El bailarín, autor y coordinador de artes de Iowa City Chuy Renteria habla de su juventud y del desarrollo de su identidad en la primera localidad del estado de Iowa con mayoría latina.

ESCRITO Y TRADUCIDO POR ANGELA PICO

E

mpecemos a lo grande: ¿Quién eres, Chuy? Whoo, creo que podría

irme por las ramas con esta pregunta.

Soy un artista, un escritor, un bailarín,

38 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

es decir tengo muchas muchas ocupaciones. En verdad mi amor principal es el baile, comencé cuando tenía catorce años, ahora tengo 35, completé mis estudios de baile en la Universidad

de la labor que hago ahora y, también mi horario de 9 a 5 es ser Coordinador de participación pública con el Hancher Auditorium, que básicamente consiste en conectar artistas con la comunidad.

CRECIENDO, EXPERIMENTAMOS MUCHO RACISMO POR PARTE DE NUESTROS COMPAÑEROS, EN LOS TIEMPOS DE RECREO. ES RECUERDO IR AL PARQUE Y VER QUE HABÍA ESVÁSTICAS EN EL TOBOGÁN Y LE PREGUNTÉ A MI PRIMO, ¿QUÉ SON ESAS COSAS? ... DIJO “ESO QUIERE DECIR QUE HAY GENTE A LA QUE NO LE GUSTAMOS.” PERO, HAY UN GRAN “PERO”—TAMBIÉN TENEMOS ESTINCLUSIÓN INCREÍBLE [DE WEST LIBERTY].

de Iowa. Evolucioné desde breaking, era un b-boy, desde hip hop a ballet moderno, jazz, básicamente cualquier cosa.

Después de eso me metí en cuidados de atención básica, trabajando con individuos con necesidades especiales. Comencé a trabajar el músculo de la empatía. Pensaba en cómo podía contribuir con la gente, eso levantó los cimientos

Soy alguien a quien le gusta conectar a la gente.

Y mucho de mi trabajo ahora está enfocado en esa idea.

Me he dado cuenta de que te identificas con lo que haces, con lo que das a la comunidad. Yeah [risas] eso es algo muy

americano, lo entiendo perfectamente. Tengo

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más sobre, “hey, soy Mexican American,” nací aquí en Iowa City, me crié en West Liberty, tengo un montón de amigos que siento son un grupo muy diverso de gente y eso es muy importante para entender quién soy yo.

Tus creencias personales se reflejan en tu trabajo, mencionas comunidad. ¿Cómo defines comunidad? Lo interpreto como un

término dinámico porque [comunidad] es como un individuo, estamos cambiando constantemente.

Jason Smith / Little Village

problemas con la idea de productividad y de hacer trabajos, mi esposa seguro que piensa que hago demasiado. Y yo también sé que una parte de mí

es simplemente la relación que tengo con la gente.

Y una parte de ese lado de la comunidad no lo es, simplemente “oh hago esto, hago eso otro.” Es

Crecer en West Liberty ha sido realmente interesante, hemos tenido tantos momentos buenos y malos si hablas de la historia del pueblo, conflictos y desigualdades, y creo que hemos hecho un gran trabajo y todavía tenemos mucho más que hacer, es un modelo de lo que una comunidad puede llegar a ser cuando tienes a gente diferente viviendo el uno junto al otro y sintiendo que realmente son vecinos, una comunidad. ¿Cómo fue para ti personalmente, crecer en West Liberty en los años 90? El libro

que estoy escribiendo se llama We Heard It When

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 39

Culture

By José Rivera Part of a month long celebration of Shakespeare's sonnets!

APRIL 9-18

We Were Young: Tales of Growing Up Mexican American in Small Town Iowa [Lo escuchamos cuando éramos jóvenes: Cuentos de un Mexican American creciendo en un pequeño pueblo de Iowa]. La manera en la cual enfoco el libro es ¿Cómo fue mi infancia, fue una buena infancia?

Y es una pregunta realmente difícil. Existe una tensión—creciendo, experimentamos mucho racismo por parte de nuestros compañeros, en los tiempos de recreo. Recuerdo ir al parque y ver que había esvásticas en el tobogán y le pregunté a mi primo, ¿Qué son esas cosas? Y él sólo era un año mayor que yo, entonces era un niño de seis años explicándole a un niño de cinco años, y dijo “eso quiere decir que hay gente a la que no le gustamos.”

Pero, hay un gran “pero”—también tenemos esta inclusión increíble, tenía amigos que luchaban conmigo contra esos niños racistas.

Eran mis co-conspiradores. También tengo que hablar de esa parte.

Hablemos del lenguaje, para un escritor latino siempre está esa cuestión. ¿Cómo percibes el lenguaje? Ahora mismo, diría

que hablando en español soy fluido al 30 por ciento, y escuchando al 80 por ciento, y puedo hablar con mis padres, y entender la mayor parte de lo que dicen, pero si tratara de articular ahora mismo, sería como tener piedras en la boca.

Ahora mismo, es una dinámica extraña. Ha sido un conflicto bastante grande en mi vida, la relación con esa lengua, la lengua de mis padres.

La gente que me conoce dice, oh tienes este gran conflicto con el español … pero cuando fui por primera vez a la escuela infantil, sólo sabía español, porque es lo que se hablaba en mi casa. Pero después en la escuela, seguramente internalicé que el inglés era la norma en esa comunidad.

Antes de la escuela secundaria ya me había desecho del español. Para cuando estaba en

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la escuela secundaria, ya decía que no hablaba español. Es un tema tan complicado. Entonces ¿no eres suficientemente mexicano porque no hablas español? Amigo, soy mexicano también, y estoy orgulloso de mi herencia. Se convierte en un acto de provocación. Para mí, el español con el que crecí fue Spanglish. Es este hijo bastardo del español. El español que se habla en West Liberty es muy diferente.

Hablemos de ti como bailarín, usando tu cuerpo para comunicarte y, de cómo eso habla de tu trabajo. Cuando tenía 14

años, el baile era mi refugio. Si me vieras bailar, es un mecanismo desatado. Es también como un mecanismo de defensa. Tenía toda esta energía durante toda la escuela, relaciones con adultos con los cuales no conectaba, pero con el baile me desahogo y me lanzo y me lanzo. Y tengo algo para mí mismo. No sentía como que fuera lo suficientemente mexicano para los mexicanos, o lo suficientemente blanco para la gente blanca.

Sentía como que no entendía la escuela. Y en el baile, podía simplemente ser.

¿Cómo es presentar tus palabras en frente de tu audiencia? Es una gran, gran cosa, ser

capaz de moverme entre el ser alguien capaz de expresarse a través del baile en frente de una audiencia y sentirme cómodo con, ya sabes, leer una pieza, o simplemente la idea de escribir una pieza. Unificar todo eso, ser capaz de expresar quién soy yo en una historia es muy diferente a quien yo soy a través del baile. El baile es inmediato. La gente sabe cuándo algo les mueve, a través del movimiento. Contar una historia, es más sobre el contexto, tienes que pensar en los bloques que construyen la historia. Tienes que preparar el tono, para el gancho emotivo.

Angela Pico is a bilingual writer and the editor of Little Village’s En Español column.

Be famous.

(Kinda.)

Little Village is looking for writers.

Contact: Editor@LittleVillageMag.com

Culture Prairie Pop

Excellence is my Presence Multi-talented performer Billy Dean Thomas navigates identity, privilege and place on their rise to success.

BY KEMBREW MCLEOD

B

illy Dean Thomas, a.k.a.

“The Queer Biggie,” is a quadruple-threat: a rapper, singer, instrumentalist and charismatic performer whose dynamic presence permeates their live shows and music videos. In “Rocky Barboa,” the Harlem-raised MC can be seen rhyming and bouncing to a sparse, retrofuturistic beat while dressed in unique, stylish outfits tailor-made for this gender-nonconforming artist.

After a New York City arts program unlocked something within them, music became a vehicle for reinvention, starting with their moniker, which emerged from a song they wrote years ago with their sister and best friend. Thomas recalled making a beat with a Biggie Smalls vibe and then began emulating the rap legend’s flow, something that inspired their sister to blurt out, “The Queer Biggie!”

“Once it was said out loud,” Thomas said, “it dawned on me how similar to Biggie I actually was, which I had never thought about before. My birthday is the day after his, we both are rappers from New York City, we both are dark skinned, chubby and not really seen as commercially ‘attractive’ by Western beauty standards.

However, we still possess our own swagger, appeal—and stand tall in our confidence.”

While they are proud of their birth name, Billy Dean was given to them by their chosen family and it deeply resonated with them spiritually. “The name Billy Dean really allowed me to reintroduce myself to myself and claim me,” they told me, “in the same way that Malcolm X did with the letter X.” Thomas grew up in Harlem and was raised by parents who played music all the time, especially R&B. Their mother gravitated to ’90s

WATCH: Billy Dean Thomas, ‘Trump Vs. via the artist

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singers like Mary J. Blige and Jaheim, while their father spun older artists such as Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles and the

42 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

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Delfonics. They lived on a major block—116th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues—and each year the African American Day Parade would pass by Thomas’ apartment, so they didn’t even need to go outside to hear the sounds of the street.

“Harlem is music,” they said. “You literally cannot walk down the street without hearing the hottest new record on the radio blasting in someone’s car or walk into the local grocery store or deli without hearing Bachata or some music in a different language. I mean, there are sounds everywhere.”

The rapper is grateful for the experience of growing up in the heart of Black art, Black creativity and Black enterprise, which helped make them who they are today—as did other opportunities that they seized. A spoken word and performance class at the Facing History School in Manhattan transformed Thomas, who entered the arts high school as a shy and insecure kid who was still very uncomfortable in their own skin.

“Wow, that class changed my life, literally,” Thomas said. “I was just surprised that my teacher saw something in me that I hadn’t seen in myself.

After I took this class, I ended up performing all over New York City and then ended up winning first and second place at my high school talent show while being the host. I mean, this moment was probably one of the most validating experiences that I had, and it made me think, ‘Wow, maybe this could really be something.’”

“I WAS IN CLASS WITH PEOPLE WHO WERE PRINCESSES IN THEIR COUNTRIES. PEOPLE WHOSE ENTIRE FAMILIES HAD GONE TO SMITH, WHEN ALL OF MY GRANDPARENTS, AUNTS AND UNCLES HAD NEVER GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL AND HAD ALL PASSED AWAY BEFORE I WAS 12.”

—BILLY DEAN THOMAS A woman from a nonprofit arts program in SoHo saw Thomas at that talent show and invited them to perform on Broadway during their senior year, which led to a $40,000 art scholarship to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The elite private women’s college wasn’t a culture shock for this Harlem native because they had always attended predominantly white schools. But the level of privilege they witnessed was a new experience.

“I was in class with people who were princesses in their countries,” Thomas said, “people whose entire families had gone to Smith, when all of my grandparents, aunts and uncles had never graduated high school and had all passed away before I was 12. Those reminders were hard, made me angry and were amplified when I went into restaurants in town where I was treated differently because I was Black and people would commit microaggressions constantly.”

Thomas was regularly reminded that they didn’t belong—in subtle and not-so-subtle ways—by the racism woven into every fiber of these kinds of educational institutions, college towns and, for that matter, the world.

Nevertheless, it grounded them; it made them far more proud and knowledgeable about who they were and about the world around them.

One positive aspect of their time at Smith was its Media Lab, which was the epicenter for Thomas’ creative explosion.

“There were no limits to how long I could sit in the recording booth and completely exercise the range of my voice and start to teach myself music production and engineering,” they said. “Throughout those years in

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Culture

the Media Lab, I wrote some of my best songs. It was pure bliss. However, I realized that access is power. Without the access to the equipment and the space to be creative, I would not have known that I possessed an ability to produce the art that has become my career and life’s purpose.”

That learning curve exposed Thomas to harsh truths about systemic racism, such as how people who enjoy certain privileges are afforded more access to artistic resources than others. Still, it allowed them to use those tools to propel them forward and give back knowledge to their family and community. And those experiences also led them to Boston, where they have thrived.

Thomas thinks they would be far more inspired in their hometown of New York City, but Boston has given them opportunities, access to resources and funding in the same way that Smith did.

“It has also provided me with the framework to transform my art into a business,” they told me. “When I was in New York City, I felt like being paid for my work was going to be impossible. Music industry circles seemed invisible and beyond reach. Boston pushed me to be the creator of my own productions and build the skills to curate my own shows and my artistic framework. So, I am grateful for both places pushing different aspects of my artistic identity.”

One deeply-ingrained societal narrative that Thomas wants to change is the romanticized idea of the starving artist.

“My goal for myself and the artist community is to unlearn ideas from systems that don’t want us to thrive,” they said. “Art is power, and it is possible to be paid for it.”

Thomas is also trying to unlearn who is allowed to be legendary or iconic—something that has largely been the domain of cis males. They see it as their mission to elevate the greats who haven’t been celebrated in the same way: artists like Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and pioneering rapper Roxanne Shanté.

“By virtue of being born in this body and not conforming to any checkbox, whether it’s about who I am attracted to or the music that I make, I push narrow perspectives without trying to,” Thomas said. “I choose to stand confidently in my existence and truth. I figure if people are going to always judge and stare at me, let’s give them something good to talk about.”

By day, Kembrew McLeod is the chair of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa; by night he is the chair of Dance Floor Wrecking!

VENMO @littlevillagemag PAYPAL lv@littlevillagemag.com

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Mon-Sat 11am-midnight Sunday noon-midnight LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 45

Culture A-List

The Poem’s the Thing Riverside partners with other area institutions to offer the month-long Sonnet Project. BY GENEVIEVE TRAINOR In April, in the month of poetry A theater raises praises to a bard The offering a simple symmetry Disarming to the ardent avante-garde

S

ince 1996, the U.S. has recognized April as National Poetry Month, a celebration organized by the Academy of American Poets. Here in the first U.S. UNESCO City of Literature, that certainly does not go unnoticed.

This year, Riverside Theatre, a decades-old institution in the community, is embracing the poetic side of theatricality with the Sonnet Project, a month-long exploration of the classic form and celebration of William Shakespeare, one of the world’s most renowned sonnet poets (in addition to writing some plays, I guess), whose birthday is generally fêted on April 23.

Events kicked off on April 5 with the first of a series of 20 virtual performances of Shakespeare’s sonnets. They’ll be recited by actors and poets in a variety of languages (reflecting the diversity of languages spoken in Johnson County) and released one every weekday on Riverside’s Facebook page. On April 8, the theater opens its stream of José Rivera’s Sonnets for an Old Century, a patchwork play stringing together vignettes from 23 fantastic performers, under the direction of Producing Artistic Director Adam Knight.

The month tumbles on with writing workshops in conjunction with Iowa City Poetry and Prompt Press, a marathon reading of all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets on the 23rd (which will also be livestreamed) and a free outdoor

46 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

Sonnet Project Still from Riverside Theatre’s production of ‘Sonnets for an Old Century,’ available for streaming from April 9 at 7:30 p.m. through April 18.

screening of the 1999 classic Taming of the Shrew update, 10 Things I Hate About You. There will also be a sonnet writing contest for youth grades 7-12, a poetry-inspired picnic hamper “Party with a Purpose” that is tragically already sold out, a Sonnet Garden continuing throughout the spring in partnership with Public Space One and their ongoing garden installation and more.

Of tragedy, old Shakespeare well could sing And comedy and his’try and romance

But some might argue that the poem’s the thing That spun the willing world into a trance The sonnet is a strict form of poetry with a strict definition, excellent for patterning your wayward thoughts and breaking through writer’s block.

There are two primary versions—one named for the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch and the other named for Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare

LittleVillageMag.com

maintained Petrarch’s basic building blocks (all sonnets are 14 lines; they frequently express romantic love) but implemented a more modern rhyme scheme and (with only rare exceptions) utilized a meter that appeared in many of his plays as well: iambic pentameter.

For the non-nerds reading, an iamb is a heartbeat, the ba-BUM that drives the racing flow of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches, leaving actors and audiences breathless. Its use in love poetry is classic and inevitable, almost torturous when implemented well. (Pentameter just means five of those units together.)

José Rivera’s Sonnets for an Old Century utilizes the form in a way that doesn’t necessarily hearken back to love, but perhaps that highlights the heartbeat even more poignantly. In a style that has drawn comparisons to Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, Rivera’s Sonnets walk a thin line between this life and the next, sometimes interpreted as the characters reading their own eulogies.

Eastern Iowa performers have been busily recording these vignettes individually over the past weeks, with the wonderful Rob Merritt at the helm for filming and editing. The format lends itself well to necessary pandemic restrictions, with just one actor, director and a few tech crew needed in the room at any given time.

The choice of a show with so many players was intentional on Riverside’s part, if a break from their standard fare. Knight told me in a recent interview that it’s important to him to involve as many of the performers in the area as possible in the work that the company produces.

“What it means to be a professional artist in this community is always expanding,” he said.

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The highlight of the Sonnet Project for many, certainly, will be the April 23 marathon reading. Scheduled for the Weatherdance Fountain Stage on the Ped Mall, the event will offer a chance for theater artists and audiences to indulge something that has been denied to many for over a year now: the opportunity to gather and share words. The event will be livestreamed as well, for those who are unable to attend or who are still uncomfortable gathering.

This experience, as well as the collaboration with Iowa City Poetry and Prompt Press on the Free Generative Writing Workshops and really, all of the programming for this month, are a proof of concept for Knight’s vision of a theater that reaches beyond itself.

“One of the things I’ve been excited about since I’ve gotten to Riverside is surprising people,” Knight said, referencing productions like Men in Boats and Feast. that pushed the boundaries of how Riverside’s former Gilbert Street space could be used. But more than that, he said, “I love the idea of expanding the experience beyond what’s in the theater.”

Part of the reason he was so thrilled with Neumann Monson Architects’ ideas and proposals for Riverside’s new home in the Crescent Block Building is, he said, that “this space gives us the opportunity to program more.”

As he and the rest of Riverside’s core team collaborated with Neumann Monson to refine and expand those ideas, “The biggest thing I cared about was that it was a flexible space,” he said.

With a dedicated elevator and first-floor entrance, the space will offer improved accessibility for both audiences and artists, also feeding Knight’s goal of expanding professional opportunities for the community.

But pandemic aside, it will be months before the space is performance-ready, and in the meantime, as the past year has shown us, you can’t keep artists from making—or facilitating—art.

Amidst a world of clamor and unrest The theater magnifies our very best Riverside’s youth programming has been a core facet of the larger community for years. Will Power, their regular Shakespeare outreach to schools, went virtual this year with a series of videos featuring the versatile and engaging Crystal Marie Stewart. Episode 10 centers on (you guessed it) sonnets, giving some framework for one core aspect of the Sonnet Project: the Youth Sonnet Contest.

Writers in grades 7-12 have until April 23 to submit their original sonnet on the prompt of reflections on the past year (or hopes for the future). Two winners will be chosen—one 7th or 8th grade poet and one high schooler—and announced on April 30. Students can get some extra practice at the Free Youth Generative Sonnet Writing Workshop on April 11, led by Lisa Roberts of Iowa City Poetry and Jenny Colville of Prompt Press.

The Sonnet Project offers a beautiful cross-disciplinary consideration of a form that, perhaps more than any other, serves as a link between theater and the more formally literary arts. From page to stage, it promises to be a delight.

Genevieve Trainor never could choose between theater and poetry— and feels most comfortable in any circumstance where such a choice is rendered moot.

EDITORS’ PICKS: April 2021

EVENTS: April April 2021 Planning an event? Submit event info to calendar@littlevillagemag. com. Include event name, date, time, venue, street address, admission price and a brief description (no 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.

FRIDAY-SUNDAY, APRIL 9-11

‘Acting Out While Staying In’: An Evening of Virtual Comedy,

City Circle Theatre Company (coralvillearts.org), all day, $12-17 Several of eastern Iowa’s most

beloved playwrights are behind this evening of short plays centered around the theme of the living room. The three original half-hour productions are “Working For A Laugh,” by Paul Story and Janet Schlapkohl; “... And Quarantine Makes Three,” by Brian Tanner; and “Scandinavian Death Cleaning,” by Christopher Okiishi. City Circle offers up comedy delights for you to enjoy from the comfort and safety of your own living room.

Virtual theatre events around the CRANDIC: Friday, April 9

Friday and Saturday,

Fridays at 8 p.m.

at 7:30 p.m.

April 9-10 at 7:30

Out the Box readings,

‘Sonnets For An Old

p.m.‘The Tragical

titles TBD, Mirrorbox

Century,’ Riverside

History of Doctor

Theatre (mirror-

Theatre (riversidet-

Faustus,’ Iowa City

boxtheatre.com)

heatre.org), $10-15,

Community Theatre

available to stream

(@ICCT1956), dona-

Friday, April 16

through April 18

tions accepted, reser-

Zooming Into Spring,

vations required (also

Rich Heritage

showing Sunday,

of Cedar Rapids

April 11 at 2 p.m.)

Theatre Company (@ RHCRTheatre), donations accepted

48 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

EDITORS’ PICKS: April 2021

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.

OPEN CALLS! Call for Proposals: Art Onsite—Public Space One in partnership with the Iowa City Downtown District is accepting proposals on a rolling basis for artwork to be placed spring 2021 in various vacant storefronts and pop-up spaces in Iowa City. Amount of locations are subject to change.

BenchMarks 2021 applications are being accepted through midnight, April 9. Artists may submit up to three designs to transform benches in original ways that surprise, amuse or alter our expectations of our shared urban space, and may be selected for more than one design. Selected artists must have their bench(es) painted and varnished by June 1.

Extended Deadline for the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission poetry contest. Students in grades 9-12 now have until April 14 to submit their original spoken word or written poetry on the theme Home and Belonging: What Home Means to Me. Visit www.cedar-rapids.org/ civilrights for more details.

The Dinner Detective Murder Mystery Show (Cedar Rapids) is holding virtual comedy auditions for paid roles on Saturday, April 17, 12-1:30 p.m. Seeking actors 18+, for hire as company members. NOTE: You will not be waiting tables; you will be performing/posing as an audience

SUNDAY, APRIL 11, Virtual Vino

Vérité: ‘Acasa, My Home,’

Bread Garden Market, Little Village and FilmScene (icfilmscene.org), 4 p.m., $40-50

Filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc joins the latest virtual installment of Vino Vérité from Romania to discuss his 2020 documentary, Acasă, My Home. The film, which follows a family of 11 living off the grid in Bucharest who are forced to adapt to city life when their home is turned into a public national park, is Ciorniciuc’s debut feature-length project. It opens April 9 to view online. The Vino Vérité bundle ($40 members, $50 general public) includes streaming access, dessert for two, a bottle of wine and access to the conversation with the filmmaker.

member.

Other film screenings and discussions this month: Auditions for The Suffragist, a new musical, will be accepted through April 25 from performers of all genders,

Wednesday, April 7 at 7 p.m. ECO Film

Wednesday, April 14 at 10 p.m.

18 and over. See suffragistmusical.com for details.

Discussion: ‘Rachel Carson—The Woman

‘Basket Case’ (1982), Late Shift at the

Who Launched the Modern Environmental

Grindhouse

CSPS Virtual Portrait Show is accepting submissions

Movement,’ Iowa City Public Library and

through May 1 for display at CSPS Hall (Cedar Rapids)

Green Iowa AmeriCorps (icpl.org)

Saturday, April 17 at 1 p.m. Wild

summer 2021. Submit via Instagram by tagging @

& Scenic Film Festival, Iowa

CSPSHall and using the hashtag #CSPSVP, or email your

Wednesday, April 7 at 10 p.m. ‘Bubba Ho-

Environmental Council (iaenvironment.

submission to emma@cspshall.org.

Tep’ (2002), Late Shift at the Grindhouse

org), $10-50

(@ICgrindhouse)

Wednesday, April 21 at 10 p.m. TBD,

Iowa Arts Council is accepting applications for Resilience

Late Shift at the Grindhouse

Grants of $500-5,000 until May 3. These grants support

Thursdays at 7 p.m. Black Lives on Screen

Iowan visual artists, filmmakers, musicians and creative

Virtual Screening Series, Obermann Center

Tuesday, April 27 The Sonnet Project:

writers in pursuing professional development.

(obermann.uiowa.edu)

‘10 Things I Hate About You,’ Riverside

Entries due June 1 for the Living Proof exhibit at the

Saturday, April 10 at 7 p.m. Bijou

Charles and Elizabeth Bisignano Art Gallery in the

Horizons: ‘Chichinette the Accidental Spy,’

Heritage Center at the University of Dubuque. This call is

FilmScene (icfilmscene.org), Free-$7

Theatre, Big Grove Brewery, Iowa City

open to all cancer survivors within a 200-mile radius of the Quad Cities.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 49

EDITORS’ PICKS: April 2021

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, Unheard

Voices: Impacts of Incarceration on Children and Families,

Inside Out Reentry Community (@ioreentry), 12 p.m., Free (registration required) via the event page

Co-sponsored by the City of Iowa City Human Rights Commission, University of Iowa Liberal Arts Beyond Bars and University of Iowa Center for Human Rights, this program from Inside Out Reentry examines how support challenges and social stigma affect the families of the incarcerated, with a goal to identifying and ultimately closing gaps in support. The event features a panel of service providers and a panel of affected family members.

Classes, community and conversations throughout April Wednesday, April

(obermann.uiowa.

Sunday, April 11

Thursday, April 15 at

American Student

Wednesday, April

7 at 7 p.m. United

edu) w/ Iowa City

at 5:30 p.m. The

5:30 p.m. Screen

Association

28 at 8:15 a.m. 90

We Swing: Duke

Public Library

Sonnet Project: Youth

Time: Leslie Nolte

Generative Sonnet

and Maureen Beran,

Sunday, April 18

Corridor Business

Ellington’s “Black,

Ideas in 90 Minutes,

Brown, and Beige,”

Thursday, April 8 at

Writing Workshop,

Englert Theatre (en-

at 5:30 p.m. The

Journal (coralvillearts.

Hancher (hancher.

7 p.m. 2nd Thursday

Riverside Theatre,

glert.org)

Sonnet Project: Adult

org)

uiowa.edu)

Series: The Last

Iowa City Poetry and

Generative Sonnet

Gasp—Opera and

Prompt Press (riversi-

Saturday, April 17 at

Writing Workshop,

Wednesday, April

Wednesday,

Epidemics, Cedar

detheatre.org)

12 p.m. The University

Riverside Theatre and

28 at 7 p.m.

April 7 at 7 p.m.

Rapids Opera Theatre

of Iowa 26th Annual

Iowa City Poetry

United We Swing:

Neighborhood

(cropera.org)

NESTS: Building

Wednesday, April 14

Powwow, Native

at 7 p.m. United We

American Council

Wednesday, April

and Wynton Marsalis, Hancher

The Democracy! Suite

community – ed-

Friday, April 9 at 9

Swing: Charlie Parker

(@uiowa.nac) with

21 at 7 p.m.

ucation partner-

p.m. An Evening with

and the Revolution of

the Latino Native

United We Swing:

ships—An Obermann

Dan Levy, University

BeBop, Hancher

American Cultural

John Coltrane and

Conversation,

Lecture Committee

Center and University

the 1960s, Hancher

Obermann Center

(lectures.uiowa.edu)

of Iowa Native

SATURDAY, APRIL 24,

Cupcake War Drive-in Edition,

University of Iowa Event Management Certificate, Riverfront Crossings Park, Iowa City, 1 p.m., $10-38 I don’t know about the rest of you, but when someone offers me the chance to support

Iowa City Shelter House simply by doing what I do best—eating cupcakes and passing judgment on others—there’s no way I’m turning it down. The University of Iowa Event Management Certificate program is offering us all just that chance, in a safe, socially distanced way to boot. Order your tickets now for a selection of mini cupcakes from local bakeries ($12 is the general price, UI students get a discount at $10 and $38 gets you a family pack of four tickets) and then drive through Riverfront Crossings Park on April 24 to pick up the goods. Then rank them! You know you love it.

Nate Steiner

Other foodie events this month: Wednesday, April

Sunday, April 11 at 4

Saturday, April

Wednesday, April 21

7 at 6 p.m. Kuře na

p.m. Free Naan Bread

17 at 2:30 p.m.

at 6 p.m. Valašsky

Paprice: Creamy

Class, Becky’s Mindful

Potato Dumplings

Frgal: large kolach,

chicken-paprika

Kitchen (@beckys-

with Smoked Meat,

National Czech and

served with dump-

mindfulkitchen)

National Czech and

Slovak Museum and

lings, National Czech

Slovak Museum and

Library, $25-30

and Slovak Museum

Library, $25-30

and Library (ncsml. org), $25-30 50 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

We’re thriilled to announce our new outdoor cinema built in partnership with the Iowa City Parks and Recreation Department and made possible by the transformative Strengthen • Grow • Evolve campaign.

We’ll be playing movies from April to August in Chauncey Swan Park!

APR 21

APR 28

MAY 8

MINARI

WOLFWALKERS

THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS

SPONSORED BY

SPONSORED BY

SPONSORED BY

MAY 12

MAY 19

JUNE 5

EMMA

NOMADLAND

THE WIZARD OF OZ

SPONSORED BY

SPONSORED BY

THE GANG OF SEVEN

A CELEBRATION OF

LEARN MORE AT ICFILMSCENE.ORG

EDITORS’ PICKS: April 2021

THURSDAY-FRIDAY,

Thursday, April 15 at

APRIL 29-30,

& the Unblessed Rest

8 p.m. Justin Comer

Mission Creek Festival 2021: DUOS,

of Us, No Touching Sessions (thresholdappsound.com) Friday, April 16 at 7

Mission Creek Festival (missioncreekfestival.com), 7 p.m., $20-195

It’s back, baby! Mission Creek Festival has returned for 2021 with an all virtual program titled DUOS, where festival guests will be in conversation with one another following their performances. Full line-up includes writers Brandon Taylor, Donika Kelly, Chuy Renteria (see pg. 36), Kiese Laymon, Gina Nutt and Andrea Gibson and musicians Nat Baldwin, Ami Dang, Billy Dean Thomas (see pg. 42), MC Animosity, SASAMI and Japanese Breakfast.

A Creek Eats box on sale separately through the Iowa City Downtown District will allow festival goers to simulate the experience even more closely through dishes from downtown restaurants. Ticket packages include a variety of merch options.

p.m. Andrea Bajani in conversation with Nick Flynn, Prairie Lights Saturday, April 17 at 3 p.m. RavenWolf Stage Grand Opening, RavenWolf Productions, Williamsburg Sunday, April 18 at 7 p.m. Ani DiFranco: Revolutionary Love Live, Englert Theatre + Mandolin, $20-70 via Ami Dang

Tuesday, April 20

More music and literature opportunities

at 7 p.m. Writers @ Grinnell: Hanif

Wednesday, April

the Literary Arts (@

Friday, April 9 at 8

Wednesday, April 14

Center (obermann.

Abdurraqib lecture

7 at 7 p.m. Esther

CenterForThe

p.m. Parker Millsap,

at 7 p.m. Stages:

uiowa.edu)

on Armando “Mando”

Newton in conversa-

LiteraryArts)

Englert Theatre +

Soultru, Englert

Mandolin (englert.

Theatre (englert.org),

Thursday, April

org), $15-75

$5-10

15 at 7 p.m. Maria Kuznetsova in con-

Wednesday, April 21

Grinnell: Ed Pavlic &

Saturday, April 10 at

Thursday, April

versation with Anna

at 5:30 p.m. Keynote

Thursday, April 8

Derrick Hall, Prairie

6 p.m. Writers of the

15 at 11:30 a.m.

Bruno, Prairie Lights

lecture by Cathy Park

at 3:30 p.m. Steven

Lights

Aether Book Launch

Graphic Histories:

Hong, Asian Pacific

Dunn, Cornell

Reading, The Writers’

A Discussion with

American Cultural

College Center for

Rooms (thewrit-

Rachel Williams and

Center (multicultural.

ersrooms.org)

Karlos Hill, Obermann

uiowa.edu)

tion with Ellen Lewin, Prairie Lights (prairi-

Thursday, April 8

elights.com/live)

at 7 p.m. Writers @

CEDAR RAPIDS NEW BOHEMIA / CZECH VILLAGE

Come work with us

JOHN@NEWBO.CO • (319) 382-5128 52 April 2021 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293

Montano, Prairie Lights

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM Wednesday, April 21

Wednesday, April 28

at 7 p.m. Stages:

at 7 p.m. Stages:

Pink Neighbor,

Precious, Englert

Englert Theatre, $5-10

Theatre, $5-10

Wednesday, April 21

Wednesday, April 28

at 7 p.m. J.S. Dewes

at 7 p.m. Writers

in conversation with

@ Grinnell: Alissa

Mary Robinette

Nutting and HBO Max

Kowal, Prairie Lights

showrunner Christina Lee, Prairie Lights

Friday, April 23 at 11 a.m. The Sonnet

Thursday, April 29

Project: Marathon

at 7:30 p.m. Layale

Public Reading

Chaker, violin/com-

of Shakespeare’s

poser Featuring her

Sonnets, Riverside

quintet and special

Theatre, Iowa City

guest Kinan Azmeh

Ped Mall

, Hancher (hancher. uiowa.edu), $5

Friday, April 23 at 7 p.m. Kim Addonizio

Friday, April 30 at

& Kate Lebo, Prairie

7:30 p.m. An Evening

Lights

of Motown with Alicia Monee, Theatre

Friday, April 23 at 8

Cedar Rapids (the-

p.m. Parker Millsap,

atrecr.org), available

Englert Theatre +

through May 9, $25

Mandolin, $15-75 Saturday, May 1 at 5 Tuesday, April 27 at

p.m. Poetry al Fresco,

6 p.m. Sarah Prineas

Iowa City Poetry (io-

in conversation with

wacitypoetry.com)

Jenn Reese, Prairie Lights

Tuesday, May 4 at 7 p.m. Geoffrey Nutter with Matthew Rohrer, Prairie Lights

FRIDAY–SUNDAY, APRIL 30-MAY 2, Dance

Into Spring, Hancher and Ballet Des Moines, Ballet Des Moines and Des Moines, Iowa City and Muscatine, Free

Hancher have collaborated on a series of free, outdoor performances crossing the state to celebrate the beauty of spring and the joy of gathering together. The program includes performances from Ballet Des Moines, members of the University of Iowa’s Dance Company and special guests from the Miami City Ballet. Performances will be Friday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lauridsen Amphitheater, Water Works Park, Des Moines; Saturday, May 1 at 7:30 p.m. at Hancher Green outside Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City; and Sunday, May 2 at 5:30 p.m. in Riverside Park, Muscatine. All are free and open to the public, with masks and social distancing strictly enforced.

Audience members should bring their own chairs or blankets.

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 53

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Write an original short poem about reading and email it to social@coralville.org.

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DEAR KIKI

LittleVillageMag.com/DearKiki

D

ear Kiki, I’m a relatively happily-married 36-year-old artist, and my partner is also an artist and 38.

We’ve been together for 10 years this spring, and we’re about as normal as two artists can be. Two years ago, both of us were prescribed medication that really helped our depression and anxiety. Seriously, these drugs have changed our lives for the much-better, and at this time, we can’t imagine life without them.

Unfortunately, as with most drugs of their kind, what we’re taking has killed our libidos. We thought it would just be temporary, so we’ve stuck it out, but we’re two years in, and still nothing. Both of us are willing to try almost anything to “get the spark back.” I think we just need someone else to tell us what to do, so I thought I would ask you before we see a therapist (flattered?). Thanks for your awesomeness.

––Happy Dry Limp

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be more fun (I like to think so!) but therapy shouldn’t be a last resort.

That said, there’s always barriers. Not all therapies are covered by insurance; not all people who seek therapy have insurance. And aside from money, therapy takes time that not all schedules can accommodate. So I’ll give my advice column answer, with the caveat that if you are able, you should use it in conjunction with therapy.

My take? Do it anyway. Not feeling that massive rush of adrenaline that makes you want to tear each other’s clothes off? That’s cool. That’s kid stuff anyway. When you’re 90—maybe even when you’re 50—you find what you thought of as a spark is more like an ember that has to be coaxed into flame. While it’s disappointing to lose that instant fire at such a young age (and yep, you guessed it: therapy can help you process the emotions surrounding that loss), the fact is it was never going to last forever anyway. So you have an opportunity to start early getting to know each other and each Dear Happy Dry Limp, other’s bodies in new ways that will remain Congratulations on seeking and finding useful to you.

Plan your physical intimacy MY TAKE? DO IT ANYWAY. NOT FEELING together. I know, right? How THAT MASSIVE RUSH OF ADRENALINE boring! Except that’s what people with kids do. And that’s THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO TEAR what fancy jet-setting movie star EACH OTHER’S CLOTHES OFF? THAT’S couples who only get to see each COOL. THAT’S KID STUFF ANYWAY. other fleetingly between projects do. Pick a time and place and forget about the spark: Coax the embers. You successful treatment for your depression and can find a new sensuality, a new intimacy that anxiety! That’s huge, Happy, and I’m so proud maybe wasn’t available to you before. Go slow. of you both for taking that step to improve your Re-learn each other. And don’t be afraid of lives and selves. And, as I’m sure you both toys, props, lotions, etc. Experiment. Explore. have realized, treating yourselves with care and Discover what you like. Doing so together with kindness is the best thing you can do for your someone you love and trust is a wonderful gift. relationship with each other, as well.

Revel in it!

That diminished libido is one hell of a kickxoxo, Kiki er, though, isn’t it? Many SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a common form of antidepressant) have that side effect, so the good news is that you’re in well explored territory. Although I’m mos def flattered that you would seek out my advice, my first piece of advice is going to be that yes, talking with a sex or couples therapist is a great next step for you.

I’m going to beat once again my drum of Questions about love and sex in the Iowa normalcy: Therapy isn’t necessarily to fix City-Cedar Rapids area can be submitted what’s broken. You (and I, and all of us, as a soto dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or ciety) should think of it more as a gym for your anonymously at littlevillagemag.com/ self-awareness than a hospital. It’s a wisdom dearkiki. Questions may be edited for workout. There’s never a bad reason for going, clarity and length, and may appear either and it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong. in print or online at littlevillagemag.com.

Alternative magazine advice columnists might

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AST R O LO GY

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Author Susan Sontag defined “mad people” as those who “stand alone and burn.” She said she was drawn to them because they inspired her to do the same.

What do you think she meant by the descriptor “stand alone and burn”? I suspect she was referring to strong-willed people devoted to cultivating the most passionate version of themselves, always in alignment with their deepest longings. She meant those who are willing to accept the consequences of such devotion, even if it means being misunderstood or alone.

The coming weeks will be an interesting and educational time for you to experiment with being such a person.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the 1930s, Taurus-born Rita Levi-Montalcini was a promising researcher in neurobiology at the University of Turin in Italy. But when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini imposed new laws that forbade Jews from holding university jobs, she was fired. Undaunted, she created a laboratory in her bedroom and continued her work. There she laid the foundations for discoveries that ultimately led to her winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I foresee you summoning comparable determination and resilience in the coming weeks, Taurus.

Improve Diversity in STEM

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Religious scholar Karl Barth (18861968) wrote, “There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.” To that perverse oversimplification, I reply: “Rubbish. Twaddle. Bunk. Hooey.” I’m appalled by his insinuation that pain is the driving force for all of our lyrical self-revelations. Case in point: you in the coming weeks. I trust there will be a steady flow of songs in your heart and on your lips because you will be in such intimate alignment with your life’s master plan.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of 6,” wrote Cancerian author John W. Gardner. But I would add that more adult Crabs accomplish this feat than any other sign of the zodiac. I’ll furthermore suggest that during the next six weeks, many of you will do it quite well. My prediction: You will blend lovability and strategic shrewdness to generate unprecedented effectiveness. (How could anyone resist you?)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Staring at flames had benefits for our primitive ancestors. As they sat around campfires and focused on the steady burn, they were essentially practicing a kind of meditation. Doing so enhanced their ability to regulate their attention, thereby strengthening their working memory and developing a greater capacity to make long-range plans.

What does this have to do with you? As a fire sign, you have a special talent for harnessing the power of fire to serve you. In the coming weeks, that will be even more profoundly true than usual. If you can do so safely, I encourage you to spend quality time gazing into flames. I also hope you will super-nurture the radiant fire that glows within you. (More info: tinyurl.com/ GoodFlames) VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Physicist Victor Weisskopf told us, “What’s beautiful in science is the same thing that’s beautiful in Beethoven. There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It connects things that were always in you that were never put together before.” I’m expecting there to be a wealth of these aha! moments for you in the coming weeks, Virgo. Hidden patterns will become visible. Missing links will appear. Secret agendas will emerge. The real stories beneath the superficial stories will materialize. Be receptive and alert!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Jungian psychoanalyst and folklore expert Clarissa Pinkola Estés celebrates the power of inquiry.

She says that “asking the proper question is the central action of transformation,” both in fairy tales and in psychotherapy.

To identify what changes will heal you, you must be curious to uncover truths that you don’t know yet. “Questions are the

By Rob Brezsny

keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open,” says Estes. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because now is prime time for you to formulate the Fantastically Magically Catalytic Questions.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In April 1933, Scorpio-born African-American singer Ethel Waters was in a “private hell.”

Her career was at an impasse and her marriage was falling apart. In the depths of despondency, she was invited to sing a new song, “Stormy Weather,” at New York City’s famous Cotton Club. It was a turning point. She later wrote, “I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn’t straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted.”

The audience was thrilled by her performance, and called her back for 12 encores. Soon thereafter, musical opportunities poured in and her career blossomed. I foresee a parallel event in your life, Scorpio. Maybe not quite so dramatic, but still, quite redemptive.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I love to see you enjoy yourself.

I get a vicarious thrill as I observe you pursuing pleasures that other people are too inhibited or timid to dare. It’s healing for me to witness you unleash your unapologetic enthusiasm for being alive in an amazing body that’s blessed with the miracle of consciousness. And now I’m going to be a cheerleader for your efforts to wander even further into the frontiers of bliss and joy and gratification. I will urge you to embark on a quest of novel forms of rapture and exultation. I’ll prod you to at least temporarily set aside habitual sources of excitement so you’ll have room to welcome as-yet unfamiliar sources.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn poet John O’Donohue suggested that a river’s behavior is worthy of our emulation.

He said the river’s life is “surrendered to the pilgrimage.”

It’s “seldom pushing or straining, keeping itself to itself everywhere all along its flow.“ Can you imagine yourself doing that, Capricorn? Now is an excellent time to do so. O’Donohue rhapsodized that the river is “at one with its sinuous mind, an utter rhythm, never awkward,” and that “it continues to swirl through all unlikeness with elegance: a ceaseless traverse of presence soothing on each side, sounding out its journey, raising up a buried music.” Be like that river, dear Capricorn!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In response to that sentiment, I say, “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” Even if you will live till age 99, that’s still too brief a time to indulge in an excess of dull activities that activate just a small part of your intelligence. To be clear, I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect in avoiding boredom. But for most of us, there’s a lot we can do to minimize numbing tedium and energy-draining apathy. I mention this, Aquarius, because the coming weeks will be a time when you will have extra power to make your life as interesting as possible for the long run.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I know of four different governmental organizations that have estimated the dollar value of a single human life. The average of their figures is $7.75 million.

So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you are personally worth that much. Does it change the way you think about your destiny? Are you inspired to upgrade your sense of yourself as a precious treasure? Or is the idea of putting a price on your merit uninteresting, even unappealing? Whatever your reaction is, I hope it prods you to take a revised inventory of your worth, however you measure it. It’s a good time to get a clear and precise evaluation of the gift that is your life. (Quote from Julia Cameron: “Treating yourself like a precious object makes you strong.”)

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 57

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LO C A L A L B U M S

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

full of haunting, whirling melodies written to relationships that have deserted her. There’s a highway longing that permeates the lyrics, which start with a question:

Mt. Umbra Not Great

Who do you think I’ve become? / Sending a note as you drive / Alone through the desert / To see your mother For no real reason / You used to be a friend.

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MTUMBRA.BANDCAMP.COM

Y

ou can find the umbra of anything by searching for the innermost, and darkest, part of its shadow. There’s secrets to be found there, but only if you can bring them back out into the light, half-busted and stained as they may be.

“Mercy” is held together by fuzzy guitars and ethereal drones, a wandering inland shanty made all the more eerie by Crosby’s cryptic lyrics. The song seems always to be descending, the sonic counterpoint to her all-encompassing apology: “I’m sorry I didn’t see / I’m sorry I

THE OFF-TIME-BUT-RIGHT-ON VOCAL STACKS REMIND US THAT THE DAYS JUST KEEP COMING. Mt. Umbra is the self-described “one woman show” built

by Iowa City-based musician Amanda Crosby. (Crosby also plays with the Iowa City band Younger.) Her newest release, Not Great, is a four-song EP made up of secrets like those and the questions that ride right along with them.

The songs on Not Great operate as cycles, cresting and falling on Crosby’s melodic vocal wanderings. There’s a lot of sonic space on these tracks, audible landscapes crafted out of lightly strummed guitars, stray piano keys and swelling bass lines.

“Days” is a sparse yet churning protopunk meditation, complete with a sincere chorus: “If we make it out alive/I won’t cancel my plans” Crosby sings, pointing toward some unknowable future with a promise. But the off-time-but-right-on vocal stacks remind us that the days just keep coming.

“Joshua Tree” is a postcard

Penny Peach Brain Gamez

didn’t know / You were ready to go / You wanted to go.”

“Phone” captures in small allegory the reality of living virtually for months on end. “I watched my hair go from brown to blonde to gray / What else can I say?” Crosby asks. By the end, her repetition of the line, “I guess I am doing fine” becomes as much a question as a mantra.

It’s a pandemic song, straight up, but it begins to question what the words “not great” meant before all of this, and what they will come to mean next.

Mt. Umbra’s Not Great is at once both wandering and concise, a thumb-tacked Polaroid in a Portrait Mode age.

Throughout, Crosby’s vocal stacks hold the four searching tracks together. In short, Not Great is pure pandemic pop music: a circuitous cycle formed from a chorus of one’s own voice.

—Avery Gregurich

2

021 is the year of reinvention, and Penny Peach’s Brain Gamez is the perfect soundtrack.

Penny Peach is the multi-talented Elly Hofmaier. The singer, writer and recent University of Iowa grad released this carefully crafted five-track EP on March 5 along with an apt message: “just tryna get my mind right.”

This album unfolds like the world’s most dangerous butterfly.

The first track is a prologue that expertly guides us into a genre-defying aural trip. Titled “Think More Deeply,” this is what would play at a prom if Fiona Apple was in charge of the music. If Donna Summer had come of age in the post-Reagan era and hired Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead to be her guitarist, this is how she might sound.

“Think More Deeply” is followed by “Self-Help,” which is best absorbed in a smoky basement while enjoying a midshelf scotch from your hip flask.

“Self-Help” is garage punk poetry that gives us our first taste of Hofmaier’s fearless vocal style. It’s the perfect lead-in to “Laurelz.”

“Laurelz” is probably my favorite song on the album. Our riot grrrl foremothers would be so proud. Inspired by the darkest of ’60s psychedelia (is doom-psych a genre? It is now), “Laurelz” also features some of Hofmaier’s most experimental vocalizations.

Her tone drifts from sarcastic to matter-of-fact, between humor and

apprehension.

This feels like a good point to reiterate the care with which this album has been assembled.

This is not the sophomore product of an overwhelmed amateur.

Even as she plays with style, her performance remains consistently self-assured.

It’s that attitude, imbued in every song, that truly unifies this body of work. Compared to “Laurelz,” the track that follows is a stylistic 1-80. “Leddin It All Go” is a soul-inspired ode to the before times and the reasons we reinvent ourselves in the first place: to put the past behind us and move forward into what is hopefully a bright new future.

The song begins, sweet and melancholic, with Hofmaier easily strumming her guitar.

This is before she exercises her full vocal range, building up to a primal yell that—one presumes—signifies the actual act of letting go, so to speak.

THIS ALBUM UNFOLDS LIKE THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS BUTTERFLY. (Disclaimer: “Leddin It All Go” contains emergency sirens, which is an audio pet peeve of mine. Are we not in agreement, as a culture and as a species, that emergency sirens in music need to go?)

Hofmaier saves her bestknown song for last. “Bangz” is relatable as hell and the perfect sign-off for the record of this era. This is Penny Peach at her most soulful. She leaves us with “Maybe I’ll go by Eleanor / or maybe I’ll cut my bangz.”

Oh man. Maybe this is my favorite song on the album.

She should perform a duet with Lizzo. They’d be perfect together singing about 2 a.m. takeout and losing their house keys.

—Melanie Hanson

LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV293 April 2021 59

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LO C A L B O O KS

John “Gene” E. Dawson Farm Boy City Girl: From Gene to Miss Gina, A Memoir MIRIONA PUBLISHING (AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM)

J

ohn “Gene” E. Dawson’s memoir Farm Boy City Girl blends personal narrative with the history of his family and the times in which he lived (1931-2020), chronicling his life as a genderfluid gay man coming of age in the changing cultural landscape of Iowa, St. Louis, Missouri and the United States.

Displaying a candid gift for storytelling, Dawson recounts his struggles for acceptance and personal growth while refusing to compromise his identity. Along the way, he survived family tragedies, legal persecution and social prejudices.

Dawson was born to a farming family in the Armah community (Dayton township, Iowa County, Iowa) on Feb. 18, 1931. Like many families during the Great Depression, the Dawsons fell on hard times.

“Being a child, I didn’t realize we were living in poverty as my parents deprived themselves so I would have milk and other necessities,” Dawson writes.

Blossoming into young adulthood, Dawson came to terms with his feelings and desires, clashing with what was commonly expected of “good farm boys” from rural Iowa. With the sense of liberation experienced by a bird freed from its cage, Dawson spread his wings across the country in the early 1950s. He explored Chicago, Greenwich Village and Miami, seeing his “first drag (female impersonator) show in Cleveland, who, to

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

me, were like movie stars.”

Dawson reminds readers this was during “the era of McCarthyism, fear of communism, the bomb and crew cuts,” where police raids on gay bars “were not uncommon and to be caught in drag in public was a crime.”

Dawson’s commitment to his Catholic faith as a source of strength is another fascinating aspect of his story, rejecting sermons preaching “punishment, fire and brimstone.”

“We gay humans are God’s children made in His own image and likeness,” Dawson writes. “I don’t think God would create gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans children if He didn’t have a plan for us. I don’t think he wants to pitch His children into the fiery abyss.”

In a heartfelt foreword, Tamara Dawson Bonnicksen, Dawson’s niece, calls him “the family matriarch,” because he was “the oldest of his first cousins on both sides of the family and the best at keeping touch and sharing stories about his childhood and relatives who have passed away.”

Dawson started writing his memoir in 2003-2004 at age 72, completing the book 10 years later and waiting another five years to publish it. Photos of Dawson along with family pictures accompany these recollections.

An excerpt of Farm Boy City Girl appeared in the anthology Sweeter Voices Still, and Dawson’s story will be featured in the upcoming documentary Gay Home Movie by filmmaker Geoff Story.

“When I reach age 95, I hope to write an updated volume,” Dawson writes in a preface from 2014.

Sadly, he died in St. Louis on Sept.

21, 2020 at age 89.

As eloquently phrased by Bonnicksen, this book “is a gift to Uncle Gene’s family, a gift to Iowa history lovers, and a gift to LGBTQ men and women.”

—Mike Kuhlenbeck

Sarah Prineas Trouble in the Stars PHILOMEL BOOKS

Sarah Prineas in conversation with Jenn Reese, Prairie Lights (prairielights.com/live), Tuesday, April 27, 6 p.m., Free

H

ow do we teach empathy?

Numerous studies have been done that attribute increases in empathy to reading fiction—any fiction. But (and this may just be my own personal biases speaking here) I’d argue that science fiction has the edge. In it, we’re faced with characters that are so, well, alien from ourselves that we have no choice but to find something more visceral to cling to, something to connect with beyond physiological similarities.

When we are first introduced to the narrator in Sarah Prineas’ new middle grades novel Trouble in the Stars (out April 27), they are an amorphous blob of goo floating in space, introducing readers to the word “pseudopod.” But, as we are frequently, explicitly reminded throughout the story, whether a blob of goo, a sweet puppy begging for scraps or (as in most of the novel) a human boy named Trouble, the narrator is (a) entirely a person and (b) entirely themself.

Trouble is a shapeshifter—the only one in the universe, he tells us.

His isolation is deepened by the fact that his blob-of-goo shape has limited mental capacity, and if he stays in that shape too long, there’s no enduring memory of what came before. Still, Trouble has an indelible sense of self and an almost religious understanding of personhood. To be

a person is to think, feel and make choices: no more, no less.

It’s a definition that Trouble manages to cling to even during a crisis of self, shapeshifting into a creature that seems mindless and uncontrollable. Prineas’ language is precise and galvanized here; in early scenes the narration of the monstrous form—the Hunter—is in third person, eventually shifting again to first by the close.

At its core, this novel is the best of what sci-fi can be: playing with philosophy like a cat with a ball of yarn, threading it throughout but never letting it get in the way of a good adventure. Even though Trouble never stops thinking about who he is, at some point the action takes center stage, and the story morphs into a high-stakes space romp with plenty of derring-do and opportunities for heroism. No one is quite what they seem, and everyone gets the chance to shape-shift into the best version of themselves.

If you’ve seen and loved the newest Disney flick, Raya and the Last Dragon, many of the prevalent themes of Trouble in the Stars will resonate deeply with you. These go beyond the explorations of personal identity and into the territory of why being independent isn’t such a great goal, actually, and what it means to trust and rely on others. They’re heady concepts for tweens, especially since (if my experience was normal in any way) that’s exactly the opposite of what the world typically teaches you at that age.

The ability to find and cling to a chosen family, to forgive choices that have harmed you, to choose peace, to choose to trust seems so alien nowadays. But it’s exactly the lesson that even adults need to learn—something that, perhaps, we can stand to learn from the kids we know. It’s possible that I’m too optimistic(!), but it feels like this is a trend in humanity being reflected, not driven, by current art. But no matter what stage of development it’s at, it’s clear that Prineas has her finger on the pulse of it.

—Genevieve Trainor

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LittleVillageMag.com

by Paolo Pasco

The American Values Club Crossword is edited by Ben Tausig.

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