ALWAYS FREEISSUE 310 S E pt E mb E r 2022 PLUS: disappearance,JohnnyTheGosch40yearslater P. 24
OCT. 8 Readings, discussions,panelbook fair and more throughout the day, featuring Sarah Kendzior, Victor Ray, McCracken,ElizabethPsalmOne (pictured) and International Writing Program participants
SEPT. 30
Anthony Doerr, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See and the new Cloud Cuckoo Land 7 p.m., Englert Theatre (ticketed event in partnership with Prairie Lights)
Paul Engle Prize ceremony with winner Rebecca Solnit, in conversation with Lyz Lenz 7 p.m., Coralville Public Library
Literary Legends event with UI Writers’ Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang, in conversation with Charity Nebbe 7:30 p.m., Englert Theatre (co-presented by the UI Center for Advancement and UI Lecture Committee)
SEPT. 29
Randall Munroe, author of What If? and the XKCD webcomic. 7 p.m, First United Methodist Church (ticketed event in partnership with Prairie Lights)
Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana, discusses her new book, How Not To Drown in A Glass of Water 7 p.m., Prairie Lights Books (co-presented by the UI Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing)
OCT. 6
OCT. 12
OCT. 3
OCT. 7 One Community One Book author Alex Kotlowitz discusses An American Summer 7 p.m., Pappajohn Business Building (in partnership with the UI Center for Human Rights) Find the full schedule at iowacityofliterature.org/icbf
A celebration of Books and Ideas in the City of Literature (all events free and open to the public unless noted otherwise) Schedule highlights include: SEPT. 28
SEPT. 28-OCT. 13, 2022
UI Professor Beth Livingston discusses her book, Shared Sisterhood: How to Take Collective Action for Racial and Gender Equity at Work 7 p.m., Iowa City Public Library
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LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 5 POWERED BY CAFE DEL SOL ROASTING LittleVillageMag.com/Support INDEPENDENT NEWS, CULTURE & EVENTS Since 2001 LittleVillageMag.com 8 top Stories 10 Advertising partners 12 Letters & Interactions 18 brock About town 22 Ur Here 24 Johnny Gosch 32 bread & butter 36 Fall Arts preview 36 Events Calendar 63 Dear Kiki 65 Astrology 67 Album reviews 71 book reviews 75 Crossword
24 40issingYears The Johnny Gosch case continues to stupefy Iowans—and the world. 32 Play Silvertheball Where to get your pinball (and pizza) fix in eastern Iowa. 36 Fall PreviewArts Fests, shows, venues and releases you’ll want on your radar.
RECYCLESHARESAVE,OR Venmo: @littlevillagemag PayPal: lv@littlevillagemag.com become a sustaining member: littlevillagemag.com/support reader support helps make Little Village a resource that everyone in the community can access and enjoy for free. Become a sustaining member at the $10/month level or more for a free copy delivered to your door each month! Support Little Village Little Village (ISSN 2328-3351) is an independent, community-supported news and culture publication based in Iowa City, published monthly by Little Village, LLC, 623 S Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA 52240. Through journalism, essays and events, we work to improve our community according to core values: environmental sustainability, affordability and access, economic and labor justice, racial justice, gender equity, quality healthcare, quality education and critical culture. Letters to the editor(s) are always welcome. We reserve the right to fact check and edit for length and clarity. Please send letters, comments or corrections to editor@littlevillagemag.com.
Chris DeLine is a music writer living in Cedar Rapids. He also curates playlists at villin.net.
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LittleVillageMag.com/Support Issue 310 , Volume 31 September 2022
SALES & ADMINISTRATION president, Little Village, LLC Matthew matt@littlevillagemag.comSteele Advertising Matthew ads@littlevillagemag.comSteele
INDEPENDENT NEWS, CULTURE & EVENTS Since 2001 LittleVillageMag.com meet this month’s contributors:
Saunia powell is a queer extheater maker and hospice chaplain. thomas Dean lives, writes and belongs in Iowa City. His column, UR Here, has run in Little Village since 2001.
Ali Hval is an avid muralist and interdisciplinary artist in Iowa City, combining ceramic, fabric, installation, and painting.
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 7
Genevieve genevieve@littlevillagemag.comTrainor
Art Director Jordan jordan@littlevillagemag.comSellergren
Cover by Ali Hval New to town or townie, we can’t wait to tell you everything going on this fall. Take a tour through all the art, music, poetry and weirdness on display in eastern Iowa. Also in this issue: The Johnny Gosch mystery endures after four decades of fear and speculation.
Amanda panda is a connoisseur of Eastern Iowa’s underbelly. You never know where you might find her lurking and twerking.
Andrea truitt is an arts administrator by day and her dog’s personal assistant by night. She is trained as an art and architectural historian and loves a good visual art experience on the streets or in museums.
Illustrators, photographers and comic artists, email: jordan@littlevillagemag.com
EDITORIAL
News Director Paul paul@littlevillagemag.comBrennan
SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook @LittleVillageMag Instagram @LittleVillageMag Twitter @LittleVillage PRODUCTION Digital Director Drew drewb@littlevillagemag.comBulman
Spanish Language Editor Spenser Santos Calendar/Event Listings calendar@littlevillagemag.com Corrections editor@littlevillagemag.com
Culture writers, food reviewers and columnists, email: editor@littlevillagemag.com
Creative Services Website design, Email market ing, E-commerce, creative@littlevillagemag.comVideography
Dana telsrow is a musician-cumartist specializing in diet prog and gently elongated portraiture in Iowa City. Kembrew mcLeod is a founding Little Village columnist and the chair of Communications Studies at the University of Iowa. Kent Williams lives, works, writes and complains in Iowa City.
michael roeder is a self-declared Music Savant. When he isn’t writing for Little Village he blogs at playbsides.com. Sarah Elgatian is a writer, activist and educator living in Iowa. She likes dark coffee, bright colors and long sentences. She dislikes meanness.
ArtspublisherEditor
Turn-offs: saltboxes and Northern Renaissance paintings.
You could see your bio here.
September Contributors Ali Hval, Amanda Panda, Andrea Truitt, Anneliese Varaldiev, Au drey Brock, Chris DeLine, Dana Telsrow, Emma Gray, Joe Tingle, John Martinek, Kembrew McLeod, Kent Williams, Lauren Haldeman, Lev Cantoral, Lindsay Thomas, Michael Roeder, Sam Locke Ward, Sarah Elgatian, Saunia Powell, Thomas Dean, Tom Tomorrow, Zak Neumann
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managing Editor Emma emma@littlevillagemag.comMcClatchey
VIDeO: Opening day at the Stanley museum of Art Video by Jason Smith, photos by Adria Carpenter; Aug. 30
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8 SePtember 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 LittleVillageMag.com
Top Stories
Iowa City leaders weigh truth, justice and hurt feelings as trC chair Amel Ali is suspended over offensive comments by Adria Carpenter, Aug. 5 Iowa City’s Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) voted 7-0 to temporarily remove Amel Ali as its chair during the commission’s regular meeting. The vote came the same day the Iowa City Council held a special session to consider removing Ali, but voted to defer the matter until their Aug. 16 formal meeting.
Amid ‘the most altered landscape in America,’ this 100acre plot in Johnson County remains rich and wild by Adria Carpenter, Aug. 10 “To find land in Iowa, open land, that has never been plowed, is like finding a needle in a haystack,” Larry Gullett, the executive director of the Johnson County Conservation Board, said about the Reilly preserve. “All of those soils, and the bacteria and microorganisms associated with soil that grow prairie plants, are still intact.”
The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art officially opened on Friday, Aug. 26, more than 14 years after UI’s previous art museum was rendered uninhabitable by the flood of 2008. The $50 million building has three floors, a light well in the center and two terraces.
Catch up on Little Village’s most-viewed headlines from last month. Read more at LittleVillageMag.com.
Iowa republican leaders line up behind trump after FbI raid: ‘We’ve got a right 2b skeptical’ by paul brennan, Aug. 9 Iowa’s leading Republicans once again followed Donald Trump’s lead and used social media to suggest corruption led to FBI agents executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. The Iowa Republican Party tweeted out a blunt claim that “Democrats are using the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents.”
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10 SePtember 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 THANK YOU TO THIS ISSUE’S ADVERTISING PARTNERS This issue of Little Village is supported by: Ads@LittleVillagemag.com(319)855-1474LittleVillagemagazineprintreadership 25,000—40,000 per issue LittleVillagemag.com readership 200,000 monthly article views 74,000 unique monthly visitors reCeNt reADer SUrVeY DAtA meDIAN INCOPerSONALme:$50k 23.4%: $40k—60k 20.9%: 12%:12%:15.8%:$60k—80k$100k+$20k—40k15.8%:<$20k$80k—$100k GeNDer Female: 69.6% Male: Nonbinary/other:27.8% 2.5% eDUCAtION Masters: SomeBachelors:35.8%38.5%Ph.D:12.3%college:7.8%Associates:4.5% NUAVerAGemberOF YeArS LIVING IN eASterN IOWA 27 meDIAN AGe: 37 18-24: 14% 25-34: 20% 35-44: 21% 45-54: 17% 55-64: 14% 65+: 10% OFAVerAGeNUmberCHILDreN Join1.85Little Village’s family of advertisers and start making a strong, personal connection with the local community today. request a media kit: Adamantine Spine Moving (12) Arnott & Kirk (48) Artifacts (16) Brides by Jessa (14) Collins Community Credit Union CommUnity(16) Crisis Services (29) Corridor Entertainment Group Crowded(6) Closet (68) Des Moines Music Coalition (66) Downtown Iowa City (70) Eddie Bowles Project (68) FilmScene (19) Firmstone Real Estate (70) Goodfellow Printing, Inc. (72) Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce & Industry (18) Grinnell College Museum of Art Hancher(18) Auditorium (41, 47) Honeybee Hair Parlor (66) Independent Iowa Downtown Iowa City (62-63) - Record Collector - Yotopia - Merge - Fix! - Alebrije - Revival - Critical Hit Games - Beadology - Release Body Modification Independent Iowa New Bohemia & Czech VIllage Village (61) - NewBoCo - Rare Bird Soap Shop - Next Page Books - The Bohemian - Parlor City Pub & Eatery - The Daisy - Chrome Horse - Goldfinch Cyclery - Iowa Running Company Independent Iowa Northside Marketplace (64) - John’s Grocery - George’s - The Haunted Bookshop - High Ground - Dodge St. Tire - Russ’ Northside Service - Hamburg Inn No. 2 - Pagliai’s Pizza
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robust use: One reason cited for closing RAL pool is low attendance. However, attendance charts undercount pool users by listing the num ber of lap swimmers seen through a security camera that shows partial views of the pool. Aquacisers, water walkers, swim-lessons, fam ily swims, Red Cross training sessions, special event participants, and deep-water pool users are excluded from daily counts. The six-lane pool often accommodates as many as 23 users at a time. Clearly, RAL pool is actively used by a wide variety of community members, many of whom simply aren’t counted.
The Iowa City Parks & Recreation Department recommends closing the Robert A. Lee (RAL) pool, but their recommendation is inconsistent with goals, data, and community feedback in cluded in reports posted online this summer.
Letters & Interactions
LittleVillageMag.com
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.
Iowa City values aquatics: The July 13 re port shows that Iowa Citians place a “high value on aquatics.” In addition, RAL’s “downtown/ central location” is “preferred” and “more ac cessible.” Aquatics account for 56 percent of the department’s programs, more than all the other programs combined. In the Aug. 10 report, survey respondents ranked indoor aquatics as one of the most import ant places to invest in future facilities, listing wa ter fitness classes/water aerobics, lap swimming, senior aquatic programs, and swim lessons as high priorities. It identifies “aquatics programs” as a “growth opportunity,” noting that “75% of ‘high priority’ pool programs involve forms of aquatic exercise.”
Send letters to:
FUTILE WRATH SAM LOCKE WARD
Better write about it!
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 13 HAVE OPINION?AN
Editor@LittleVillageMag.com
Location matters: Survey respondents do not want to shift all aquatics to the Mercer Aquatics Center (68 percent unfavorable), a location far from Iowa City’s center. Such a move would also contradict the Master Plan’s “overarching goal” “to prioritize resources to provide aquatic and recreation facilities that are equitable, acces sible … and responsive to the Iowa City com munity.” RAL’s centrally located, warm-water pool already provides what citizens want. repairs cost less than a new pool: The July 13 report says the life of the RAL pool could be extended for many years by repairing the pool, for $471,000, and pool enclosure, for $108,000 (together $579,000). These estimates are far lower than the $4.5-$5 million figure cited to repair the RAL pool. Pool renovations make far more sense than adding a smaller, less-versatile, $8-$9 million warm-water pool at Mercer, at more than twice the price. Reports do not recommend closure of RAL’s pool; instead, these data and community-in formed responses are powerful indicators of what Iowa City needs and RAL provides: a downtown
MOMBOY LAUREN HALDEMAN
LETTERS & INTERACTIONS pool in a central location, ac cessible to all, with diverse programming and opportuni ties for aquatics growth. In 1968, Iowa City deter mined it needed two indoor public pools. Since then, Iowa City’s population has grown by 60 percent and continues to increase. The recommendation to close RAL pool contradicts data and citizen’s priorities. Please join our efforts to save this valuable and well-uti lized community resource. Send an email to council@ iowa-city.org and ask city councilors to approve repairs for and prevent closure of the RAL pool.
Mark Cannon Carin Crain
Jill AnneMitziSusanAmyJustinFishbaughFishbaughKretkowskiMelleckerReadStapleton
Iowa Capital Dispatch: Iowa continues to lead the nation in puppy-mill violators (Aug. 4) Iowa will continue to lead the nation in animal abuse be cause animal abuse is Iowa’s primary industry. It’s hard to write legislation to protect dogs that doesn’t scare the hell out of hog farmers, and it’s their money that buys all the politicians. —Bruce B. ‘rats with hooves’: Iowa City Council’s deer management program is under fire as pop ulation grows (Aug. 9) Let them be and adjust our ways. Maybe start growing native plants for them to eat in our yards, instead of grass sprinkled with poisons? Would be beneficial for pollinators too. No need to cull the deer population. —Katya B. Where are they supposed to go? They are losing all of their
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“Transparency brings accountability & if the FBI & DOJ aren’t transparent about raiding a former presidents home they risk further damaging their credibility I’ve already raised issues from whistleblowers abt political bias in investigations so we’ve got a right 2b skeptical.” —A skeptical tweet from Sen. Chuck Grassley in the aftermath of the Mar-A-Lago raid “Right now, it’s kind of the goal with my work to show that communities of color exist here [in Iowa]. That they are thriving, that they are beautiful, that they’re alive.”
the“Despitecallby the mayor and others to have me resign, I can’t walk away and turn my back on the trust, hope and responsibilities entrusted to all of us on this commission. I truly believe in the notion that forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
“It’s just the most Iowan thing. And I don’t love Iowa most of the time. But this is just the epitome of Iowa to me. The people you meet, literally listening to bird calls, learning the history of the whole fair. It’s the top thing I love about Iowa.”
Amid ‘the most altered landscape in America,’ this 100-acre plot in Johnson County remains rich and wild (Aug. 10)
—Amel Ali addresses the Iowa City Council after controversial comments she made during a podcast interview came to light. The Ad-Hoc Truth and Reconciliation Commission voted to temporarily suspend her as chair.
“BURST OF TELEPATHIC ENERGY TELLING HIM SOMETHING IS HAPPENING AT THIS ADDRESS.” —Iowa City Police Log (@IC_ ActivityLog on Twitter)
INTERACTIONS
I have no solution, however I’m really not a fan of amateur bow hunting and ‘sharp shooters’ within city limits. —Georgia C. This isn’t an all-or-nothing scenario. I sat on the volunteer deer management com mittee (required by the NRC for the city to consider sharpshooting) in 2018; we held diverse views and did not agree on some fundamental principles, but learned a lot from each other and from White Buffalo about the factors influencing deer population and management. —Laura G. Deer are NOT rats with hooves. They are thrivers in an artificial urban area. Humans are the problem. (Having said that, I am for managed shoots to keep the population down and healthy).
I’ve heard Iowa didn’t have much public land, but this is a whole new level. In all seriousness, though, this is really cool and I hope the project is a huge success.
Carol H.
—Iowa State Fair megafan Caroline Stump
—Samm Yu, a studentphotographerChinese-AmericanandUI
… As someone who just moved to Iowa from Arizona, I’m spoiled. This is reas suring. Now if we can just get some real campsites around here. —Brian I am still advocating for a Prairie National Park in Iowa. Thanks! —Jim M.
YuSamm
16 SePtember 2022= WORTH REPEATING habitat due to development. They have as much right to live as we do. —Terry K. Shame on the DNR for forcing this in effective plan on Iowa City. I have lived in my east side Iowa City home for 35 years and the deer (long legged rats I call them) are the worst in all that time. There are no nonlethal methods that work any more that the bow hunting. Science, peo ple. —Susan C. Here’s an idea: get urban sprawl under control. I much prefer the deer to having anymore human neighbors. —Blaidd D.
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 17 By sponsoring a Little Village rack, you can: show the community that your business supports local media help increase Little Village’s presence in the area be honored with a permanent sponsor recognition plaque get a shout-out to our social media followers and email list help us brighten up the CRANDIC, one street corner at a time! Sponsor a rack! Little Village is distributed free of charge in the following areas: • Iowa City/Coralville/North Liberty • Cedar rapids/marion • Cedar Falls/Waterloo • Solon/mt Vernon • West Liberty/West branch • Hills/Washington • riverside/Fairfield • Quad Cities To request copies in your area, or to add your business as a distribution location, Copiesdistro@littlevillagemag.comcontacttoday!ofLittleVillage are available at more than 400 locations in Eastern Iowa. Check out the live map of all our locations to find your neighborhood rack: CONtACt: ads@littlevillagemag.com Where is your Little Village? 1. Receive a $150 Visa gas card when you secure an auto loan of $15,000 or more. The gas card will be mailed to your mailing address and can be used at any gas station that accepts Visa. Please allow 4-6 weeks after your loan is funded to receive the gas card. Certain restrictions apply. All loans subject to approval. Must be or become a Collins Community CU member to obtain a loan. Rates, terms, and conditions subject to change at any time. Offer valid July 5, 2022 –September 30, 2022. © 2022 Collins Community Credit Union. Find an affordable auto loan. Hit the road with a $150 gas card.1 Get pumped with Free Gas! collinscu.org
—Connie F.
—Megan R. That really just isn’t true for a lot of people who live here and that’s exactly what the JOHN MARTINEK
• Don’t be a crank. Yes, football as a sport is plagued by ethical issues, and yes, in the Midwest, it has become emblematic of a certain type of masculinity that not many men can or even want to live up to, and yes, to many of us, it just sort of looks like a bunch of dudes in tights rolling around together on a lawn. However, when you loudly complain about those things in order to redirect the conversation towards a topic that you know a lot about, you are, in fact, the one who looks like a brain-damaged Neanderthal.
Wonderful. I love the story of Tibbles. I love your work. I spent several years doing scratchboard art for publishing back in the 90’s, and it’s not easy to do but you make it look easy. I love your animals and your drawing/cutting style and colorizing! —Ursula R.
STRESS FRACTURES
—Genie M. It’s not a heart at 6 weeks. It’s a cluster of less than 50 cells with an electrical charge that causes the cells to “wiggle”. No brain, no limbs no lungs.
It’s brave of you to share your deeply personal story. I’m so sorry for both of your losses and hope like crazy we can protect and respect women in our state.
• Stock up on the essentials beforehand. And by essentials, I mean alcohol. Trust me when I tell you, you’re not going to want to be in any bar with a TV, which is all of them. (The Foxhead usually uses theirs to blast TCM, so they might be a safer bet, but I digress.) Should you, against your training and better judgment, choose to go out, you will be fighting for barstools with girls in black-and-gold-striped overalls and their dads, who, despite being in late middle age, have still not figured out how to have fun without getting three sheets to the wind and trying to beat up the bartender for not calling them “sir.” It’s not worth it.
• Get out of town. Seriously, this is the best way to handle this. I’m spending the Iowa-Iowa State game at a cabin in Clear Lake. I realize you can’t do that every weekend, but a college football game is like your friends’ breakup; it’s better to just not be around for it than to get sucked into it. If you leave on Saturday morning, the road out of town should be clear for miles.
Johnson County is so fortunate to have such a passionate, hard working group of visionaries on the JCCC team trying to preserve our piece of the planet. Thank you all. —Dave C.
Letter to the editor: I dodged a bullet (an abortion story) (Aug. 11)
BROCK ABOUT TOWN AUDREY BROCK Summer is drawing to its close. The students have returned, shattering the temporary illusion of peace and quiet, and the very first signs of fall have appeared in the form of days with a humidity index below 80 percent. That can mean only one thing—football season is upon us once more. For many University of Iowa alumni, the kind who can be said to pos sess “school spirit,” football season is a time of excitement and nostalgia for their glory days, which they spent majoring in accounting and accumulating liver damage. For the rest of us, it’s akin to a very boring zombie apocalypse, in that the highway is at a complete stand still and you’re suddenly surrounded by shells of human beings that make unintelligible noises in unison. I’ve survived nine football seasons in this town, and I’ve been to exactly one football game. Below are my tips for the football averse:
18 SePtember 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310
—Melissa A. Dana James: State rankings lists are out once again. Here’s where Iowa (actually) stands. (Aug. 18)
Seriously, can’t you just be proud for a second? The entire country is messed up, but Iowa is a great place to live, relatively speaking.
INTERACTIONS
• -If you see the Beer Band, turn in the opposite direction and run for your life.
Wonderful that Little Village took a tour and a behind the scenes look at Claudia’s art and studio! She is one of the most talented artists in Iowa City, and the im pact of her work and imagination reverberates all over Iowa.
Studio Visit: Claudia mcGehee sketches and scratches her fa vorite parts of nature (Aug. 17)
INTERACTIONS writer addressed. I’ve lived here my entire life and it’s always been *fine* but now that’s not even the case depending on where you live and what kind of person you are. It is not a universally welcoming or even safe state for non white and non straight people to live. You have to find pockets where you feel your presence will be tolerated and those are becoming fewer and further between. Insisting that we be proud no matter what is why things never improve. —Tiffani G. You can feel very lucky that that is your experience of Iowa. For many others, (think: single, LGBTQIA, elderly, non-white, non-Christian, to name a few) we don’t have that experience. —Ash L.H. Iowa’s decline is sad but hardly un predictable. I grew up in rural Iowa in the 70s/80s, and most of the pieces were there already for right-wing populism. It just needed decades of right-wing talk radio, Fox “News,” and social media to stoke it. Iowa City was “sin city,” a place you should never send your kids. Degrading nick names, often based on racial/ethic characteristics, were common. Gossip was omnipresent as a means of so cial control. Outsiders were suspect. Etc. Add to that genuine economic catastrophes for agriculture and the decline of small towns, stir in an un healthy dose of agitation, and you get what you got. —Jim P. Could not agree more. On the sur face, there’s…surface. But if you live deeper, you start to feel a different reality. —Tania D. I call bullshit on “Iowa Nice”. I’ve seen all sorts of horrible things here that are not. —Michelle A.
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UPCOMING EVENTS ALMOST FRIDAY FEST THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 5PM - 8PM RIVERFRONT www.almostfridayfest.org FOOD TRUCK FIGHT SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 12PM - 8PM RIVERFRONT www.foodtruckfight.com SATURDAY,OKTOBREWFESTSEPTEMBER 24 12PM - 4PM RIVERFRONT www.almostfridayfest.org PEARL CITY VINTAGE MARKET SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 10AM - 3PM RIVERFRONT muscatine.com/event/pearl-city-vintage-market �uscatine WWW.VISITMUSCATINE.COM September 27–December 10, 2022 PAPER TRAILS: MODERN INDIAN WORKS ON PAPER FROM THE GAUR COLLECTION Above: Anupam Sud (Indian, b.1944), Your Huddled Masses, 1990. Multiple plate etching, 18 1/4 × 23 3/4 in. Courtesy the Gaur Collection. REVERENT ORNAMENT: ART FROM THE ISLAMIC WORLD Visit GCMoA’s website for updated information about events, as well as the latest health guidelines before you visit. Grinnell.edu/museum
No doubt, ritual can be put to bad, even dan gerous, uses, most insidiously for control and ex clusion. (And yes, that can happen in the world of the arts, too.) But ritual’s higher purposes of reverence and belonging cannot be denied and must be nurtured and honored. So as the Witching Hour series approaches, as the fall concert season raises its curtains, as our homes for the visual arts are renewed and reopened, remember to inten tionally participate in the ritual in order to strive ever closer to the apotheosis of “This is what we honor and value. This is who we are. This is how you are a part of us.” The greatness of our small city of the arts lies in our shared reverence for creative expression and collective building of the community to which we all belong. Thomas Dean lives, writes and belongs in Iowa City.
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Welcome to the Englert.” And once having reen tered the century-old performance space and jo vially greeting familiar fellow community mem bers, you await the appearance of the Englert’s Katie Roche on stage to perform the invocation: to affirm the community purpose of this nonprof it organization, to “bless” your presence through a sincere thank-you, and to call forth the art that is about to unfold. A couple blocks away, a dif ferent invocation is likely happening as Andrew Sherburne or another FilmScene stalwart pre pares you in a similar way for your arrival into the magical realm of the motion picture arts. The communal experience of a very special visitor’s art is the core of the ritual of a live per formance, but art is often most meaningful when you are awash in the joy of your friends, neigh bors and children sharing their talents with you and the rest of the community. Some of my most memorable Englert experiences have been the Corridor Jazz Project concerts that my kids and their fellow area students performed in, as well as the old “Festival of Carols” holiday concert when a broad swath of our community’s talents helped us celebrate the season. Similarly (although the prelude to any act we’re about to enjoy at Jazz Fest is crossing the Clinton Street barricades, processing through the local vendor tents and gathering along our city center streets or on the Pentacrest lawn), the highest calling for me is to the stages with the high school bands and combos, the Silver Swing Band (our over-50 ensemble who perform thanks to the Senior Center, UI music programs and West Music), and local legends such as Saul Lubaroff. These performances have brought me into reverence of the art realm but also, more than others, have affirmed my belonging to this place.Granted, sometimes the ritual—or even the art space itself—should or must change. The flood of 2008 fated the original Hancher Auditorium and Voxman Music Building to demolition, and the original UI Museum of Art building to re purposing. But it didn’t take long for the new Hancher to become beloved once again. The new Voxman Concert Hall was also new, but what never changed was, for example, the universal, timeless protocol of the UI Symphony Orchestra members entering the stage and tuning up, the concertmaster’s quieting of the instruments, the pregnant silent pause, the onstage arrival of the conductor, our collective applause, the ensemble leader’s gesture for the entire orchestra to rise— it all tells us exactly where we are and why we are there, and does so whether we’re in Voxman or New York’s Kennedy Center.
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tHE rEpEAtED pAttErNS OF rItUAL prOVIDE US WItH A COHErENt FrAmEWOrK tO ENACt tWO OF tHE mOSt SIGNIFICANt ASpECtS OF HUmAN EXpErIENCE: rEVErENCE AND bELONGING.
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And just this past month, our community joy fully gathered for the dedication ceremony and opening of the new UI Stanley Museum of Art, 14 years in the making. Our pilgrimage to Pollock’s Mural and to the Stanley’s collection of African Art will require a new path and the “temple” will be different, but we will become accustomed to our altered ritual space quickly. It won’t take long to know that, yes, this is a signif icant place of community belonging for all of us.
the Art of ritual ...and the ritual of art.
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A few years ago, the Englert Theatre and FilmScene initiated a campaign to make Iowa City “the Greatest Small City for the Arts.” And that title is justified. Not only do our local arts organizations bring us incredible per formances, but we also boast a highly talented home-grown community of artists and perform ers. As the fall season opens before us, we see all this on full display—in arts festivals such as the Witching Hour, in the return of the full comple ment of university arts programs and much more. As the leaves fall, the arts programs available to us just keep increasing after the richness of our Summer of the Arts festivals. But what makes Iowa City a “great” arts com munity is not just the content. Yes, the perfor mances themselves and the rich array of venues are primary. There is no art without art. But our wonderful world of the arts offers us something else fundamental to our community: ritual. The repeated patterns of ritual provide us with a coherent framework to enact two of the most significant aspects of human experience: rever ence and belonging. Whether it’s in a religious service or a rite of passage ceremony (the two types of rituals most of us today are likely famil iar with), the ultimate message is the same: “This is what we honor and value. This is who we are. This is how you are a part of us.” Rituals are defined in part by recurrence. Yet despite their repetitive nature, they are very spe cial, even sacred. Entering into ritual requires that we cross a threshold into a numinous space and time that simultaneously grounds us in our place and elevates us to an extraordinary realm. And this is what happens when we fully enter into a live performance. So it’s crucial that we cultivate and participate in these ritualistic ele ments of the arts experience. These elements can be simple, such as set tling in at “your” spot on the Ped Mall for a summer Friday night concert or following your habit of visiting your favorite mural during each downtown visit. But ritual experiences can also be more complex. Granted, for a night at the Englert, I’m really looking forward to enjoy ing the talents of Trombone Shorty, Joan Baez or Paula Poundstone. But essential to entering that art space is crossing the threshold with Kent Smith, dapperly attired in his beautiful long maroon coat, holding the theater door open and saying gently and respectfully, “Good evening.
n Sept. 20, 1984, President Ronald Reagan gave a reelection cam paign speech in Cedar Rapids. In it, he pledged his “full support in the search” for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin, Des Moines-area paperboys who had gone missing in the past two years.
True crime podcasters, populist politicians and QAnon influencers have made a meal of Iowa’s milk carton kids, muddying the waters between established fact and speculation. Noreen Gosch, who is convinced her son is still alive, has both seeded and embraced conspiracy theories regard ing Johnny’s disappearance.
Forty years after the disappearance of Johnny Gosch, the case remains a constant source of speculation— and a reminder that America’s “predator panic” never ended.
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“Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin epito mized boyhood innocence and vulnerability,” writes historian Paul M. Renfro in his 2020 book Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, which began as his history dissertation at the University of Iowa. “Their disappearances symbolized not just physical losses but also the losses of innocence, childhood, whiteness, middle-classness, and mid westernness.”Overthepast four decades, names of missing children like Gosch were attached to legislation that continues to shape the U.S. justice system, popular culture, political movements and no tions of what (and who) are considered threats to the American way of life. Every president since Reagan has found ways to uphold and expand pol icies passed in the name of child safety, from man datory sex offender registries to survelliance pro grams to laws restoring voting rights to formerly Community incarcerated citizens that specifically exclude those convicted of sex crimes.
These laws are broadly popular, but “given the low recidivism rates of sex offenders,” Renfro notes, “these daunting mechanisms and the culture of fear that enables them demand reevaluation.”
Jordan Sellergren / Little Village
24 SePtember 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 ShadowsChasing
tHE mOrE SENSAtIONAL A tHEOrY WAS, tHE QUICKEr It SprEAD, ESpECIALLY ONCE bLOGS AND CHAt rOOmS ENtErED tHE SCENE. SINCE tHErE WAS NO pErSON tO CONVICt, IOWANS bLAmED WHAtEVEr VAGUE CULtUrAL ILLS tHEY FELt mOtIVAtED tHE AbDUCtIONS.
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“We must continue cracking down on crime,” Reagan said. “We say with no hesitation, yes, there are such things as right and wrong. And yes, for hardened criminals preying on our society, punishment must be swift and sure.” Despite the support of Reagan, the formation of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 1984, FBI involvement, the hiring of private investigators, five America’s Most Wanted episodes on the Gosch disappear ance, countless news segments and editorials, hundreds of called-in leads, thousands of letters mailed to elected officials, hundreds of thousands of fliers and milk cartons distributed featuring the boys’ faces and a 2014 documentary on Gosch, the cases remain unsolved. With his speech, Reagan tapped into—and perpetuated—a feeling very real to Iowa’s over whelmingly white populace in the 1980s: fear.
Johnny Gosch was 12 years old. He enjoyed the outdoors, the Iowa State Fair and buying loved ones the perfect gift, his parents said. He took a job delivering newspapers for the Des Moines Register to save up for a dirt bike. Just before 6 a.m. on Sept. 5, 1982, Johnny
Police Chief Orval Cooney made matters worse by antagonizing the Goschs in the press, specifically Johnny’s mother. “I really don’t give a damn what Noreen Gosch has to say,” he complained to the Register. “I real ly don’t give a damn what she thinks. I’m interest ed in the boy and what we can do to find him. I’m kind of sick of her.” To Noreen, such pushback represented a lack of concern for Johnny systemwide, despite the fact multiple local, state and federal agencies were investigating. “You can almost become catatonic. You can almost go into a state of mind where you don’t want to talk to anybody ever again, not trust
LittleVillageMag.com departed his home in suburban West Des Moines to begin his Sunday morning paper route, accom panied by his dachshund Gretchen. He collected his papers in the parking lot of a neighborhood church with fellow paperboys, who say a man in a blue car stopped to ask the boys for directions.
“Witnesses disagreed on what happened next,” according to Renfro. “Some insisted that a man followed Johnny around a street corner before snatching him. Others claimed they heard a car door slam and tires screech before watching a vehicle run a stop sign and travel northbound to wards Interstate 235 ‘at a high rate of speed.’ In addition to the blue vehicle, another witness re called seeing a silver Ford Fairmont around the time of the disappearance.” But there was little physical evidence to be found, apart from the ominous image of Johnny’s red wagon full of rolled-up newspapers, aban doned two blocks from home, Gretchen left be hind. News coverage at the time reported 25 to 30 law enforcement officials joined a search for Johnny in the immediate hours after he vanished. Within days, dozens of officers from the West Des Moines Police Department, Polk County Sheriff’s Department and Iowa State Patrol were part of searches, as well as an estimated 1,000 volunteers, combing local parks, woods, fields, lots and build ings. Police set up checkpoints on streets where Johnny was last seen. “They are working overtime like I’ve never seen anybody in my life work before,” Johnny’s dad John Gosch Sr. told the Register in praise of the police. The confidence wouldn’t last. In TV appear ances and letters to the editor, Noreen and John Gosch became critical of law enforcement’s fail ure to locate either of the vehicles suspected in the abduction. Moreover, they resented being asked to submit to a polygraph test. But investigators said they had little to work with. Leads fizzled, and those coming in from callers across the nation provedWestbogus.DesMoines’
“We live in a sick and rotten society that is get ting sicker and rottener every day,” an Iowa state senator proclaimed as legislators debated a bill named for Johnny Gosch. “I don’t know what’s happened to the United States, but it has become more animalistic, not more humanistic in recent years.”
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ASL services with designated seating available on request. anybody ever again,” she told reporters. The Goschs papered Iowa with fliers, made dozens of TV appearances and partnered up with politicians and national figures like America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh. When someone suggested to the Des Moines dairy AndersonErickson that they help in the search, Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin became the first miss ing children’s images printed on milk cartons in 1984.Within two months of Johnny’s disappearance, the Goschs established the Help Find Johnny Gosch Foundation, holding fundraisers to hire private investigators, leading letter-writing cam paigns to elected officials and giving talks around the region focused on a central message: This can happen to you. FBI special agent Herb Hawkins said drawing intense publicity to the case, as the Goschs had, is not generally advised. Too much attention can cause an abductor to panic, endangering the child. It can also make inside information that can be used to narrow down suspects part of the public narrative.Butthe Goschs (who divorced in 1993) had other advisors telling them the opposite. In a rare interview in 2018, John Gosch Sr. recalled that researcher Kenneth Wooden, who was in the area to deliver a lecture at Iowa State University on missing and murdered children, told Noreen, “Whatever you have to do to keep the story alive, do it, because if you don’t, law enforcement will move on with their lives and go on their merry way.”“She really latched onto that,” John told pod caster Sarah SubsequentDiMeo.disappearances seemed to support the notion of a child kidnapping epidemic. Almost two years after Gosch went missing, another Register paperboy, 13-year-old Des Moines resi dent Eugene Martin, vanished as well, followed two years later by the disappearance of another Des Moines 13-year-old, Marc Allen. Allen was not a paperboy, but the circumstances were simi lar to the others. Still, investigators had no phys ical evidence tying the cases together, no serious suspects and no idea of the motives. The climate of frustration, fear and speculation created by the cases and the massive media coverage surround ing them yielding the perfect conditions for con spiracy theorizing.
Lawn at Saturday,BrucemoreSeptember 17 Gates open at 5:30 pm Concert at 7 pm Experience the magic of Brucemorchestra! Broadway star Melissa Errico shares personal stories, poignant moments, and hilarious memories of her time shared with Sondheim and his music. Backed by the power of Orchestra Iowa, iconic and beloved selections will delight audiences of all ages! For tickets scan the code, go to orchestraiowa.org, or call 319.366.8203. 17 and under FREE with a paid adult. Contact the Ticket Office for information.more
SINCERELY, SONDHEIM
The Johnny Gosch Bill, co-written by Noreen, was signed into law by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad in July 1984. The bill bars police from enforcing a waiting period before investigating a report of a missing child. (Despite claims from the bill’s sup porters, such waiting periods were not part of the protocol for WDPD, nor state or federal agencies, and were rare on the local level.) Similar laws were subsequently adopted by eight other states. Noreen took an offer from Ted Gunderson to conduct a private investigation into the vanish ings. Gunderson, who died in 2011, was a retired FBI agent and far-right figure who helped per petuate the infamous allegations of satanic ritual abuse at the McMartin preschool in California, perhaps the definitive case of the satanic panic. Like Infowars’ Alex Jones, Gunderson believed government mind control and anti-Christian New World Order forces are behind America’s most deadly terrorism events. In the pages of the Des Moines Register, Iowans lamented the “stain” the child disappearances left on the region—that a “once-quiet, ‘great-place-toraise-kids’ city may become the crime capital of the“Thatworld.”was the most bothersome thing,” one Register interviewee said, “was that this kind of stole our innocence from us.” “God is speaking through [Noreen] to alert us of the growing operation of molesters and abduc tors,” a Story City woman wrote to Gov. Terry Branstad. “I have never heard of any incidents of this nature in Story City. Could it possibly be that this never happens here? I doubt it.”
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Midwestern moms and dads found themselves researching Anton LeVey, subliminal messaging and satanic holidays. The more sensational a theo ry was, the quicker it spread, especially once blogs and chat rooms entered the scene. Since there was no person to convict, Iowans blamed whatever vague cultural ills they felt motivated the abduc tions.“Another child has been snatched from our streets. Why? We are obsessed with sex!” wrote a Sioux City resident in a letter to the Register “Nothing pinpoints its vulgarities and sadist plea sure more than porno material.” The Register’s executive editor James Gannon published his own editorial proclaiming to be “mad as hell” about the spate of disappearances. He directed his anger at bureaucrats and liberal ism, the antithesis to what he saw as the all-Amer ican Midwestern family, complete with a hand some paperboy son. “I didn’t move my family to Des Moines to live in fear behind locked doors. I do not cede the night to shadowy figures who hide by day. … The sun should never set on freedom and personal
Community LittleVillageMag.com Bread & ReleaseButterParty!RiversideSept.Wednesday,21,5-7P.M.TheatreinIowaCity SAVE THE DATE!
security.”Stranger-danger fears wormed their way into the American consciousness. A 1987 NBC sur vey of children found 76 percent were “very concerned” about kidnapping, more than nuclear war or HIV/AIDS. In a 1997 Newsweek poll of parents, the majority viewed abduction and mur der as greater threats to their family than illness or accidents.“Disinformation,” Renfro writes in his 2020 book, “grew out of unfathomable devastation and uncertainty, as the parents of missing and exploit ed children generally had no sense of where to turn following their respective losses.” Runaway or “thrownaway” children comprise the overwhelming majority of missing youths, and kids in poverty, kids of color and those who iden tify as LGBTQ are far more vulnerable to preda tion—particularly after cuts to social services and increased community policing. Yet they are far less likely to be portrayed as victims in the media. Systematic violence is overshadowed by crimes seen as more meaningful—signals of cultural, moral“Perhapsdecay.by transferring blame onto a faceless monster like a child prostitution ring or a religious cult operating outside the Midwest, Iowans could absolve their communities, their state, and their region,” Renfro continued. As online conspiracy theories festered and thrived during the onset of the COVID-19 pan demic, the Johnny Gosch mystery reentered the public consciousness anew. Today, Noreen corresponds directly with fol lowers in a private Facebook group of 3,500 members, Official Johnny Gosch Group. Ahead of the 40th anniversary of her son’s disappearance, Noreen agreed to the ultimate AMA: trying to an swer 1,000 questions from the group before Sept. 5. It appears Noreen’s perspective on the case has not shifted much since she published her book in 2000, Why Johnny Can’t Come Home: Kidnapped While Delivering Newspapers…… Forced into Pornography, Prostitution, Mind Control, Espionage “Yes I do believe it is linked to the large pe dophile network in the U.S., Satanic abuse, MKUltra, all of these or a combination is at their finger tips [sic]. I was on the right track with my investigation from Day 1,” she declared in early August.The Facebook group’s main moderator has posted Benghazi conspiracy theories, blamed “liberal agitators” for the Jan. 6 insurrection, and called the media “corrupt” on his personal Facebook page. At least a few members of the Official Johnny Gosch Group give credence to
ILITY RENTALS & MUSEUM MEMBERSHIP T H E I C M O R G • 3 1 9 6 2 5 6 2 5 5 • L O C A T E D I N C O R A L R I D G E M A L L IMAGINE. CREATE. PLAY! DISCOVER. EXPLORE. T r a i n e d c r i s i s c o u n s e l o r s a r e a v a i l a b l e t o p r o v i d e f r e e , c o n f i d e n t i a l s u p p o r t t o p e o p l e e x p e r i e n c i n g t h o u g h t s o f s u i c i d e o r i n n e e d o f e m o t i o n a l s u p p o r t T e x t o r c a l l 9 8 8 , o r c h a t o n l i n e a t 9 8 8 l i f e l i n e . o r g / c h a t . T o h a v e m o b i l e c r i s i s c o u n s e l o r s d i s p a t c h e d t o a n y l o c a t i o n i n J o h n s o n o r I o w a C o u n t y , c a l l 1 8 5 5 5 8 1 8 1 1 1 a n d a s k f o r m o b i l e c r i s i s 9 8 8 D o n ' t h e s i t a t e t o r e a c h o u t . Y o u a r e n o t a l o n e . 9 8 8 L I F E L I N E . O R G / C H A T September is National Suicide Prevention Month M O B I L E C R I S I S R E S P O N S E 1 8 5 5 5 8 1 8 1 1 1 LittleVillageMag.com
To her credit, Noreen has never tied her son’s case to a specific political movement, and doesn’t advocate vigilantism. But she frequently shows her ignorance on the science of pedophilia, claiming the death penalty is the only way to stop a sex criminal from reoffending, when in fact sex offenders have notably lower recidivism rates than other offenses, especially when an indi vidual receives treatment during their incarceration.
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The missing-person cases of Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin and Marc Allen remain unsolved. Their faces continued to grace milk cartons until the prac tice fizzled out around 1990, after too many parents complained it was scaring their kids at the breakfast table. (Milk carton campaigns weren’t especially ef fective anyway, it turns out, and the AMBER Alert system took over in 1996.)
“In the ideal world [Johnny Gosch] is alive and he comes home and every body’s happy,” WDPD Lt. Jeff Miller told WHO-TV in 2010. “But in the real world more than likely our best lead will come when his body is found. And at that point it becomes a crime scene.”
Emma McClatchey was born in Iowa City in 1993. She can’t remember not knowing the name “Johnny Gosch.” Visit LittleVillageMag.com to read a longer version of this article that delves deeper into the conspiracy theories surrounding the Gosch case.
QAnon, one proclaiming that, “Q helped wake me up.” Noreen has expressed belief in the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory, and has recommended the work of QAnon influencer Liz Crokin and prominent British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who sees 5G and COVID-19 as weapons designed by reptilian overlords.
Plus, in Noreen’s reality, Johnny is alive. We haven’t seen or heard from him because he isn’t safe out in the open, but according to his mother, he’s out there somewhere, safe in hiding.
“I have a friend who said to me once through all of this ‘you are lucky,’” Noreen replied to a question about the role faith has played in her activism. “I asked why she would say that and she replied ‘You know what your purpose is for being here.’”
In the conclusion to Stranger Danger, Renfro paints a portrait of a nation that has shed its boogeymen—where every child is looked after.
Her narrative gives Johnny’s case the importance it feels like a missing child’s case should have. It is a convincing (enough) answer for many; se cret pedophile organizations, however elite or satanic, are in many ways less frightening than the relatives, guardians, care providers and friendly neigh bors on the local news arrested for harming a child who trusted them—much less the sacred, all-American institutions we know protected even the most prolific abusers, from Larry Nassar to Catholic clergy.
“If American adults wish to ‘save our children’ ... they will instruct chil dren and adolescents not to fear strangers but to maintain a healthy skepticism of those they do not know—and those they do. They will care about young people as much when they are nonwhite as when they are white; as much when they are homely as when they are adorable; as much when they are born as when they are unborn; as much when they are found as when they are missing.”
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• Wednesday: BOGO well drinks • thursday: $4 vodka Red Bulls, $2 Pink Whitney vodka lemonades • Friday: $3 rum & $2 off craft cocktails until 8 p.m.
• tuesday: $3 domestics & $4 draft pours (which this reporter can attest are well-curated, craft options)
Lancer Lanes bowling Center 3203 6th St SW, 319-3641506, lancerlanesbowl.com Westside Lounge 325 Edgewood Rd NW, 319-396-9548
Double tap beercade
Got a hankerin’ for some pinball? Find machines throughout the CRANDIC! Jason Smith / Little Village
The highlights of this lowdown: Come for Guitar Hero, two-player Mario Kart and Pong, and four-player Pac-Man; stay for the good times and an escape from the rest of it all. Nothing beats the kindness of underground beercades. Like, literally, nothing. P.S. There were whispers in the air regarding the formation of leagues. So, if you crave to compete, please don’t hesitate to form a posse and to start an under ground world of your own around ice ball, pinball, whatever floats your boat. There are many willing adversaries for various levels of play. For more details, contact psager@paramountbarco.com.
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Grizzly’s South Side Pub & Grill 1210 Highland Ct, 319-337-7536 2 Dogs Pub 1705 S 1st Ave, 319-408-8238, 2dogspub.com Colonial Lanes 2253 Old Hwy 218 S, 319-338-1573, coloniallanesbowling.com
WEEKLY SPECIALS:
• monday: Half off pizza & $4 Jameson pours
Quail Creek Golf Course 700 Club House Rd, North Liberty, 319-626-2281, quailcreekiowa.com the Leaderboard Sports bar 680 Meade Dr, North Liberty, 319-289-0152, theleaderboardbar.com
32 SePtember 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 LV trecommendsaptap
121 E College St, paramountbarco.com/brand/double-tap-iowa-city319-855-5230,
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Dance-mor ballroom 77 2nd St SE, Swisher, 319-784-8208, dancemorballroom.com Iowa City Gabe’s 330 E Washington St, icgabes.com Joystick Comedy Arcade 13 S Linn St, www.playatjoystick.com Spareme bowl & Arcade 407 E Washington St, 319-5196350, sparemeic.com Deadwood tavern 6 S Dubuque St, 319-351-9417 tap tap | Double tap beercade 121 E College St, 319-8555230, paramountbarco.com/brand/double-tap-iowa-city
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he people of Iowa City love a good ball game, as we all know, and there’s a new practitioner in town—a peddler of parlor games, pinball and pizzas. Double Tap is located at 121 1/2 E College St, in the Ped Mall of downtown Iowa City, right between construction and corrup tion. If you squint and peek, you’re sure to see some spectral remnants in the underground tunnels, but that’s part of the adventure! It’s hard to play a good game of arcade-anything above ground and the semi-hauntedness of Ped Malllocked College Street lends itself well to the recently reclaimed space. Double Tap’s fresh take on beercadia has the momentum and vision to thrive, plus, pizza! (This re porter was encouraged to mention the specialty pizzas for their extra deliciousness, by trusted sources.) The manager, Paul Sager, was generous and willing to answer my inquiries regarding this underground funhouse. So here you go→
Source: Pinball Map, an open source, crowdsourced worldwide map of public pinball machines
First turn Games 3645 1st Ave SE, 319-826-1289, firstturngames.com Pedaler’s Fork 2010 Sylvia Ave NE, 319-826-2490, thepedalersfork.com Collins road theatre 1462 Twixt Town Rd, 319-377-4555, collinsroadtheatres.com Cedar rapids bowling Center 265 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, 319377-9481, cedarrapidsbowl.com big Shots bar & Grill 1803 6th Ave, Marion, 319-200-1117 brogan’s Pub & Grub 806 1st St, Palo, 319-851-3278
P.P.S. No champagne, no gain. ––Amanda Panda
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Cedar Rapids Quarter barrel 616 2nd Ave SE, 319-200-4140, thequarterbarrel.com the bohemian 1029 3rd St SE, 319-213-2051, newbohemian.com Green Gable Inn 1227 J Ave NE, 319-366-4640
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LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 35 OTHERDON’TLETPEOPLE’SOPINIONSWIN
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The information gleaned from this study will help arts organizations like the Englert, and people in Roche’s role both locally and across the country, build talking points and snapshots that show how vital the arts are to local economies, leading to better chances at grant funding and more leverage for lobbyists to drive legislative change. As you attend events in Johnson County this fall, including many of those featured in this issue, please take a moment to fill out the survey if it’s handed to you. It’s a small way to deepen the vibrancy of your community! Roche spoke to Little Village via email about the survey and its potential impact.
The art of data
What have you learned of value from previous AEp surveys? In what ways will Johnson County data be valuable to sim ilar communities across the nation? I’ve used the metrics from prior AEP studies in my work as an arts advocate and encouraged other arts organizations to reference the studies in their advocacy. The economic impact number was a key metric for making the case for the Englert and FilmScene’s Strengthen Grow Evolve cam paign by benchmarking how our current econom ic impact would be expanded by the investments the campaign would make in our facilities and program. In the past I’d used their general for mula to calculate impact. With our county-wide participation we’ll have numbers that directly reflect the impact of our local arts community. All of the communities that participate across the country will have added value of that direct impact and the ability to compare themselves to similar communities. Aside from the impact of the pandemic, what do you see as the biggest shift be tween now and 2017 that will drive dif ferences in findings between AEp5 and AEp6? By establishing a benchmark with our participation in AEP6 my hope is that our coun ty will participate in the future AEP7, in order to gain a deeper understanding of how arts and cultural organizations truly impact our economy. This is definitely a challenging time to admin ister a study, asking organizations that are even more under-resourced than they were before the pandemic to volunteer to take on survey collec tion at some of their events ... We’ve been met with concerns of not having enough staff or volunteers, feelings that asking people about their spending is challenging during a time where many are experiencing economic crisis, and situations where organizations are just trying to dig back out and re-establish their annu al operations and don’t have the capacity to look that far forward. This tool will help all arts orgs to inspire supporters to give generously, can in fluence government appropriations, and can give our community a sense of pride for the ways in which arts and culture make our communities a great place to live.
SEPTEMBER 2022 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.
What excites you most about this, per sonally? Do you enjoy nerding out on data or are you interested only in the hu man impact of the results? I am someone who can look at a spreadsheet and see a story. I joke that data sings to me, but truly, I’ve seen data inform decisions that change peoples lives and our community for the better. Making informed decisions helps under-resourced organizations to conserve resources in ways where they can have the most impact. I’m most excited to see how we can harness the power of these results to improve funding for the arts and expand service to under served and marginalized people. Arts access is why I go to work every day because I believe in the power of the arts to transform people’s lives for the better.
TingleJoe ARTS PREVIEW
—Genevieve Trainor “I JOKE tHAt DAtA SINGS tO mE, bUt trULY, I’VE SEEN DAtA INFOrm DECISIONS tHAt CHANGE pEOpLES LIVES AND OUr COmmUNItY FOr tHE bEttEr.” LEARN MORE
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thursday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. David Bromberg Quintet, Englert Theatre, Iowa City, $15-39 thursday, Sept. 8 at 8 p.m. Texas Hippie Coalition, Wildwood Saloon, Iowa City, $20-30 Friday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. Brotherhood Tour Featuring Kevin Burt and Ken Valdez, James Theater, Iowa City, $20 Friday, Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. Local Rock Showcase: Knubby, Maaaze and The Funky Prettys, Moco Game Room & Hot Dog Bar, Cedar Rapids Saturday, Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. The Feralings, CSPS Hall, Cedar Rapids, $10-13 tuesday, Sept. 13 at 5:30 p.m. Music on the Move with Dave Zollo, Cardigan Park, Iowa City, Free tuesday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. Live from the Artisan Studio: Matt and Kristin Brooks, Brucemore, Cedar Rapids, $10-15 tuesday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. Goo Goo Dolls, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, $32.00 - $126.00 thursday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Haley Reinhart w/Charlotte Blu, Englert Theatre, $20-40
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 37Ali Hval / Little Village
SEPTEMBER EVENTS EVENTS
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oughly every five years, Americans for the Arts, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit founded in 1960, conducts a nationwide impact study on how individual communities are affected eco nomically by the arts programs they foster and support. This year, the sixth of the study, Englert Theatre Development Director Katie Roche made sure that Johnson County would be part of it. The Englert is leaning into the process, folding administration of the Arts & Economic Prosperity study (AEP6) into Roche’s job duties (they also received a grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs that allows for a paid intern to support Roche’s work, Coe College student Alex Tomes).
n a magical summer evening in 1986, after a fiery performance by the Cult, the sun refused to set. The band’s shows radiated a mystical quality that could re align heavenly bodies, though this anomaly of nature occurred because Finland’s Provinssirock Festival took place north of the Arctic Circle. “You have this strange situation where it still feels like daytime during high summer,” front man Ian Astbury said, “even at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. I remember walking around the grounds and just observing everybody at the festival. The whole town had been taken over by mostly young people who were attending Provinssirock, and everybody was dressed in a way that expressed a real sense of individualism, connectedness and intimacy.” Astbury was also struck by the fresh flow ers covering the edge of the stage. It’s a visual impression that remains with him four decades later.“It’s one of those lived experiences that you carry with you that helps shape your character and form your worldview,” Astbury told me. “Because it’s such a rich moment, and I could still access that feeling through that memory, it still rings in the essence of my core.” That touchstone moment directly influenced the title track of the Cult’s new record, Under the Midnight Sun, which is anchored by a qui et acoustic guitar and a lush cinematic string arrangement that swirls around Astbury as he croons, “Under the midnight sun / with creatures of the “Thewild.”festival was a really beautiful experi ence coming from where we had been, because we came out of punk rock, which was definitely much more volatile, violent, frenetic, urban and gritty—and this experience was far more tran scendent and liberating.”
In 2022, Astbury exudes the vibe of a hippiegoth-punk elder who speaks of frequencies that can open the doors of perception and liberate hu mankind—an invisible cultural web that perme ates everything and links us all together.
Prairie Pop Life Cult cut a particularly dramatic figure with his long black hair and French Revolution-era aristocratic clothes that consisted of a long black dress coat with tails and a ruffled white lace Jabot collar, like something a rock-and-roll Napoleon would wear.Musically, the past four decades have found the band shifting stylistic gears in ways that made it hard to sustain mainstream success (though they continue to cultivate a large, devot ed “I’veaudience).never arrived at a moment where I think, ‘Eureka, we have a formula!’ It was always about building it, destroying it, rebuilding, destroying,” Astbury said. “I’m talking about scorched earth. Burn it to the ground, forget everything and look at what’s coming. Let’s immerse ourselves in this moment, our environment and its frequen cies. I don’t carry the coffin of my youth around with me. I don’t weep for those earlier periods in my life, though sometimes you can look back to those touchstones and respond to its echoes.”
FALL ARTS PREVIEW VillageLittle/TelsrowDana
“I DON’t CArrY tHE COFFIN OF mY YOUtH ArOUND WItH mE.”
“One of the wonderful things about live mu sic is that you’re right there in that moment, and then it’s gone,” he said. “But that experience at the Provinssirock Festival is something I can ac cess through memory. It was a really beautiful the Cult, Hoyt Sherman place, Des moines, Saturday, Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m., $70-$320
Kembrew McLeod navigates the psychic frequen cies and comes in contact with outer entities, to paraphrase Blondie’s “(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence, Dear.”
“I try to be the best version of myself right now, and as a group we are so connected and the perfor mances have been particularly intense,” Astbury said. “We don’t do a ‘concert.’ We don’t do a ‘performance’—we create an environment. We’re creating cathedrals, creating spaces for expression and connection to a community. Unfortunately, the essence of that Provinssirock Festival expe rience is sadly lacking in today’s hyper-commer cial, hyper-commodified world.”
The Cult got its start after Astbury, who had formed the Southern Death Cult in 1981, began collaborating with Billy Duffy a couple years lat er. After a brief stint as the Death Cult, which released an EP in 1983, Duffy and Astbury short ened their name to the Cult by the time the band released its gothic post-punk debut, Dreamtime, the following year. Their follow up, Love, earned them more visibility after the international success of “She Sells Sanctuary,” a majestic single that the Cult performed at Provinssirock, where the blackclad band stood out in the summer sun. Astbury
era—that period in the mid-’80s—in terms of self-expression and the cultivation of conscious ness. We were living through the Cold War, and we were very much in harmony with environ mentalist organizations like Greenpeace. ... You can draw so many correlative and connective lines that run through those frequencies.”
With Under the Midnight Sun, the Cult tap into that cosmic form of networked communica tion by simultaneously peering in the rearview mirror and steadily marching forward to the beat of their own drum.
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20221922Your NewsTrustedSource for 100 Years Support Our Next 100 Years Give at ipr.org/donate. Fri, Sept. 23 Wetherby6-8pm Park Wed, Sept. 21 Big5-8pmGrove september is Get a library card month!ka-pow! icpl.org / cards
The centennial season, which kicks off Sept. 17 with Brucemorchestra, includes three world premieres by composers with Iowa ties: UNI Professor Nancy Hill Cobb, Dubuque native Michael Gilbertson, and Coe College’s Jerry Owen. The anniversary season will also include pianist Conor Hanick, who grew up in Iowa City. Hanick’s first performance with the symphony was in the wake of the 2008 Cedar Rapids flood.
“Our audiences have seen soloists of color way more often than they have in the past,” Hankewich said. “We have presented new music of composers of color as well as a lot more diversity and sort of gender representation in the music that we play.”
“Switching from a donor base of a few high profile patrons and benefactors to a much more broad based support system from our audience and supporters has been probably the biggest change in our financial planning since my ten ure,” Hankewich said.
After enduring and flourishing for a century, Orchestra Iowa’s future seems secure.
Theback.”audience for classical music has been largely white over the years, but Orchestra Iowa is trying to change that.
“HE
The Paramount’s sale to the city and subse quent restoration was funded in large part by donations from businessman and philanthropist Peter Bezanson. But things have changed since the ’70s. Financial support for Orchestra Iowa, the name the organization adopted in the after math of the 2008 flood, has become more diffuse.
“I am very grateful and very honored and very thrilled that our orchestra has not only survived for 100 years,” Hankewich said, “ but we also live in a community that loves its orchestra.” —Kent Williams Conor Hanick, who grew up in Iowa City, will perform with Orchestra Iowa in November.
Anneliese Varaldiev WAS A tErrIFIC pIANISt tHEN, bUt tO SEE HIm GO ON AND pErFOrm WItH NEW YOrK pHILHArmONIC...It’S NEAt tO SEE HOW tHE INVEStmENt A COmmUNItY HAS mADE IN ItS LOCAL tALENt HAS pAID OFF AND tO CELEbrAtE tHEIr ACHIEVEmENtS bY brINGING tHEm bACK.”
SeasonCentennialCymbal-ic
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Orchestra Iowa masterworks II, Homecoming, featuring Conor Hanick, piano Saturday, Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m., paramount theatre, $17+; Sunday, Nov. 20, 2 p.m., Coralville Center for the performing Arts, $17+ “He was a terrific pianist then,” Hankewich said, “but to see him go on and perform with the New York Philharmonic … and to perform with great artists like Pierre Boulez—it’s neat to see how the investment a commu nity has made in its local talent has paid off and to celebrate their achievements by bringing them
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asting 100 years is clearly something for any arts organization to celebrate. “It gives an illusion of perma nence,” says Orchestra Iowa music director Timothy Hankewich. “But nowhere is it written that a community will have a symphony orchestra.” In recent decades, many orchestras have fold ed in the United States. The continuous existence of Orchestra Iowa (known as the Cedar Rapids Symphony for much of its existence) deserves to be lauded as a remarkable achievement, the aggregate work of many people down through theFullyears.disclosure: my father, Richard Williams, was the music director from 1970 through 1981. There were previous directors: Joseph Kitchen (1923-1952) and Henry Denecke (1952-1970). Christian Tiemeyer (1981-2006) succeeded my father. Hankewich has been director since 2006. When it began, Maestro Kitchen and the or chestra members were unpaid volunteers. It wasn’t until Denecke took over as director that it became a professional orchestra. The Cedar Rapids Symphony performed its first concert on April 13, 1923, in Coe College’s Sinclair Auditorium, and continued there for over 50 years. In 1975, the newly restored Paramount Theatre became the orchestra’s permanent home. The symphony started out with just a few concerts each year before the arrival of Richard Williams. In 1970, the orchestra’s board of direc tors hired Williams to fulfill their ambitious plans for expansion. During Williams’ tenure as con ductor, the orchestra grew its season to a series of eight pairs of concerts on Friday and Saturday nights.“The community has decided to pursue a course of professionalism,” Hankewich said of that transition. This changed the nature of the orchestra as a business. “It becomes a mathe matical problem to solve because tickets that audience members will purchase will only cover perhaps 20 to 30 percent of the actual expense.”
FALL ARTS PREVIEW
WE ALL RISE $10 STUDENT & YOUTH TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR MOST SHOWS Order online hancher.uiowa.edu Call (319) 335-1160 or 800-HANCHER Accessibility Services (319) 335-1160ONTICKETSSALENOW Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Hancher in advance at (319) 335-1160. American Ballet Theatre Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott Soweto Gospel Choir Leslie Odom, Jr. Patti LaBelle, Celebrate the SeasonSTOMPAnnie LEVITT LECTURE Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein September 14 SOLD OUT Leslie Odom, Jr. September 24 Soweto Gospel Choir September 29 Aaron Diehl and Brandon Patrick George, Songs of Black America October 14 All Rise – Symphony No. 1 (Marsalis) Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis October 22 Brentano String Quartet and Dawn Upshaw October 25 UI DEPARTMENT OF DANCE Dance Gala 2022 November 11–12 Annie November 14–16 Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis November 19 Cantus December 1 Patti LaBelle, Celebrate the Season December 9 STOMP January 21 Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti January 29 Pilobolus, Big Five-Oh! February 4 Kronos Quartet, At War With Ourselves – 400 Years of You February 11 Dan + Claudia Zanes, Let Love Be Your Guide February 18 Academy of St Martin in the Fields March 2 CLUB HANCHER Alexa Tarantino Band March 8 CLUB HANCHER Isaiah J. Thompson Quartet March 23 CLUB HANCHER Vuyo Sotashe Group March 25 Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott March 28 Conor Hanick with Keir GoGwilt and Jay Campbell April 14 Emerson String Quartet April 21 American Ballet Theatre May 6 Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis THE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION Pilobolus, Big Five-Oh! CLUB HANCHER Isaiah J. Thompson Quartet SumulongLawrencePhoto:TornerJustinPhoto:ScenefromZigZag O’Connor.RosaliePhoto: PhotographicGasPhoto: Esto/GoldbergJeff©Photo:MannMarkPhoto:ThomasWhitneyPhoto:DuranTonyPhoto: HANCHER AUDITORIUM 50 YEAR S 19 72 –2 02 2
“Punk is just anything oppo site of a square,” he told Little Village. “That’s exactly what it is.”Blending beats, vocals and raps, the upcoming album will also feature work from teenage producer TB.
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This fall will see a wide range of re leases from Iowan artists spanning the diverse rap and hip-hop spec trum. While this is far from a com prehensive list of what’s on tap for the next several months, here’s a cross-section looking at five releases from young, up-andcoming artists who have new projects on the way.
Expanding on Shaky Shawn999’s conceptual bridge between rap and punk will be the new EP from Antiluv, titled Anti-Pop Rockstar, which more literally connects the two genres. It will see a stylistic split, with one half bearing a vocal and beat-propelled sound and the other leaning into instrumentally driven pop-punk. The tracks were recorded at Carousel Studios in Des Moines, where Antiluv also serves as an audio engineer, and individual songs will see a staggered release before the full collection drops as a unit some time around Halloween.
—Chris DeLine
Saturday, Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. Mary Gauthier, CSPS Hall, $15-25 Sunday, Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. Qwanqwa, CSPS Hall, $10-12 Sunday, Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Englert Theatre, $20-55 monday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. Dawes & Bahamas, Englert Theatre, $20-49.50 Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 7:30 p.m. Jake Shimabukuro, Englert Theatre, $20-35 thursday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m. Black Opry Revue, Englert Theatre, $10-20 Friday-Saturday, Sept. 23-24 Soul & Blues Festival, Downtown Iowa City, Free Friday, Sept 23 at 7:30 p.m. Three Dog Night, Paramount Theatre, $49-99 Saturday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. Leslie Odom, Jr., Hancher, $40-95 Saturday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. Bear’s Den, Englert Theatre, $20-33 Saturday, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. Critical Mass w/Ill Omen, Dolliver, Fishbait, Gabe’s, $10 Sunday, Sept. 25 at 7:30 p.m. Joe Purdy, Englert Theatre, $10-28 tuesday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. Lucinda Williams and Her Band, Englert Theatre, $20-53
“I just want to look at it in a negative way so people stop glorifying it,” he told Later in September, Shaky Shawn999 will is sue an expanded deluxe edition of his I Die EP. Born in Chicago, the 21-year-old framed his intention behind his music as influenced by an aesthetic rather than specific style.
Up first in early September is the debut al bum from XManjin, titled Hate Me. XManjin self-produced roughly half of the tracks, and the release will be rounded out by several features including the likes of DRXCULV (whose own album, Antiporn, is also being readied for re lease). Thematically, Hate Me looks to serve as an outlet for the 20-year-old rapper and produc er to challenge the glorification of drug-culture within music, following his own challenges with substance abuse.
The horizonhip-hop
Bridging September and October are a pair of releases from Quan Draper, titled Viice and Viirtue. Piggybacking off his original Virtue (2018) and Vice (2019) EPs, the rapper and vo calist said the music will find him trying out new sounds and experimenting with songwriting con ventions.
SEPTEMBER EVENTS TheZeffster, Emma Gray / Little Village FALL ARTS PREVIEW via the artist
“I make music that puts you in high spirits,” he said.
“The shit that he does at his age is mind blow ing,” Shawn said.
Out of Iowa City, TheZeffster will be return ing this November with a new release com bining a series of new recordings with several re-mastered and re-released songs. With production from Lugi Beats, the stillto-be titled EP is being recorded and released through Hit Island Studios in Chicago. Calling his brand of sound “ascension music,” TheZeffster told Little Village his focus with the upcoming collection is to help promote progression in himself and his listeners.
Friday, Sept. 16 at 6:30 p.m. Monuments w/Essenger, Gabe’s, Iowa City, $20 Saturday, Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m. WH: Debit, James Theater, $10-23
“[2021 full-length] Snowfall was very intro spective and expressive,” Draper said, whereas “you’ll get two sides of me with these next EPs: the fun, light side” with Viirtue, and the “harsh, competitive side” with Viice.
Wine with the Witch, Bloomsbury Farm, Atkins, Thursday, Oct. 20 at 6 p.m., $49.95 Dark Harvest Halloween Parade, NewBo/Czech Village, Cedar Rapids, Saturday, Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m. Crooked Path theatre Presents: Creepy Campfire Cabaret, Country Camp Farm, Iowa City, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 29-30, $10-15; Saturday ticket holders are invited to stay for the Creepy Campfire Ball after the show
VillageLittle/TelsrowDana
morbid Curiosities & mabbott Poe, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Monday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m., Free misery, Theatre Cedar Rapids, Oct. 14-29, $15-27 the Weir, Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, Oct. 14-30, $15-35 Knight of 1,000 Papercuts: a Knights of the round Pasties Halloween and Anniversary burlesque show, CSPS, Cedar Rapids, Saturday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m., $15-20 Halloween Cover Show trumpet blossom Cafe, thursday, Oct. 27, 8:30 p.m. Halloween benefit for rVAp trumpet blossom Cafe, Saturday, Oct. 29, donations
It’s never too early to start planning your halloweekend. Halloween officially lands on Monday this year, so the fun’s starting early. On Thursday, Oct. 27, perform ers––amateur and professional alike––can sign up to cover 1-3 songs at Trumpet Blossom Cafe. The eve ning will be hosted by the House Stark Band, a merry group of reanimated Game of Thrones cosplayers performing Grateful Dead tunes. Here’s your chance to get creative – they’re giving you more than a month’s notice to sign up! If you want to play, you must wear a costume and sign up in advance. PA, drum kit, two mics, bass and guitar amp will be provided. Already getting a band together and eager to sign up? Email Jordan at jsellergren@gmail.com (Little Village’s art director) to reserve your spot. On Saturday, Oct. 29, there’s a benefit show that you don’t want to miss. All proceeds of door donations will be donated to the Rape Victim Advocacy Program (RVAP). Come costumed and ready to watch four acts hit the stage. The lineup for the show will include four local acts: Cactus 5, Tomato Boy, Trophy Wives, and Bryn Lovitt. Each act is planning on dressing up as an indie artist; plan on seeing fits resembling the Strokes, St. Vincent, Hole and Angel Olsen. No promises, but right now, Kane Edwards, the organizer of the event, is considering dressing as the famous pro-wrestler Glenn Jacobs, AKA Kane. Due to Trumpet Blossom’s small capacity, if you’re interested in either of these delightful events, commit sooner rather than later. Spots for the House Stark Band’s cover show are filling up fast, and a limited number of tickets will be available soon for the show on Saturday. ––Sid Peterson
OTHER OCCULTISH OCCASIONS
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Swingin’Back
Thorp is aiming for one event per week once the venue goes live, and the plan is for the Ideal to remain open seven days a week as a bar. While she’s a lifelong music fan, this is the aspect of the business which really brings the excitement out of Thorp as she expounds on her passion for bartending.“Ilovehearing the stories, meeting the char acters, watching the rise and fall of love stories,” she said. “I come from a long line of whiskey drinkers and saloon goers,” Thorp added. “My great-grandmother bartended until she was 84. It runs in my blood, I guess.” —Chris DeLine A.K.A. LittleVillageMag.com/Subscribe Follow facebook.com/idealtheaterandbar stay up to date as shows are Kenyon thorpe at Ideal theater Malcolm MacDougall / Little Village
THE WEEKENDER stuff to do YOUR WEEKLY EDITOR-CURATED ARTS COMPENDIUM,
nce on the brink of demolition, a building constructed over 100 years ago is about to be reborn as Cedar Rapids’ newest bar and mu sic venue. First opening as the Ideal Theatre over a cen tury ago, the building at 213 16th Ave SE will start a new chapter of its story, written by its new owners, when it reopens as the Ideal Theater & Bar this LocatedOctober.between Cedar Rapids’ Czech Village and New Bohemia districts, the property was once on the brink of demolition before being purchased in 2014 and developed into the Ideal Social Hall three years later. After serving as an event space for the past several years, the prop erty changed hands again this spring when local business owner Jon Jelinek sold the building. “I sold him my vision for it,” new owner Kenyon Thorp told Little Village. “And I took it back to its original name, the Ideal Theater, be cause I won’t be showing movies, but it will be a theater of music.” While the renovated Social Hall helped ush er the Ideal back to life, Thorp’s vision for the building is one based around the concept of res toration.“Ithink that history is extremely important,” Thorp said. “And it was extremely important for me, not only to keep the name, but to do an en tire build-out that did justice to the history of the building.”
A cool new saloon will open this fall in an historic Cedar Rapids space. This includes offsetting its original tin ceiling with a beautiful, newly constructed wooden bar that runs the entire length of the venue. While Thorp partnered with her father and sis ter to invest in the building as a team in March, she alone will be responsible for the management of the venue. A long-time bartender with consul tation and management experience, Thorp’s vi sion for the new Ideal is one with a social empha sis that nevertheless strives to remain clear of any pretense of exclusivity. “In Cedar Rapids you either have fine dining or you have sports bars. There’s really no place right up that middle lane where you can dress nicely and come to and hang out without having to buy an expensive meal or anything like that. And that is exactly what I aim to be here at the Ideal.”With an estimated standing capacity of around 150, the Ideal aims to showcase what Thorp cals “high-quality music.”
Come
booked
FALL ARTS PREVIEW
“My focus will be blues, funk, soul; I’d love to get some big band swing bands in here,” Thorp said. “Stuff that people can really really dance to.”
to
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The two originally met as choreographic fellows at Hubbard Street in Chicago. While dancing for the company, they began experimenting and creating choreography together in their free time. After years of creating dances together, they committed to FLOCK full-time in 2019 and have been per forming original work and working with international collaborators for film and stage. They’re also choreographers for dance companies, universities and cultural institutions.
Birds of a feather
This isn’t FLOCK’s first time as guest choreographers at the UI; they worked with students in the 2020-21 school year. In an email to LV, Klock described UI’s dance program as “multilayered” and “unique in its broad and open approach to dance.” FLOCK became acquainted with Armando Duarte, UI’s contemporary dance professor, at a Hubbard Street dance show and the three hit it off right away. The duo appreciates Duarte’s desire to build a platform at Iowa for future voices in dance.
For more information on FLOCK and their upcoming whereabouts, be sure to check out their Instagram: @flocks. They have a following of 84.2K and post dance videos frequently.
ThomasLindsay
IllighadaddeFillesLesviaChoirGospelSowetovia
This year will be their first time creating a piece for the Dance Gala with students.
Iowa’s Dance Gala, Auditorium,HancherNov. 11 & 12, 8 p.m., $6-24
“We’re very excited for this creation and plan on making an energetic piece that really celebrates the individuality of each of the dancers while also emphasizing the power of the collective,” Klock noted.Inaddition to collaborating with the UI, FLOCK is involved in many other projects this fall. They’ll be working for an emerging dance company in the U.K., holding a dance intensive in Los Angeles and preparing for their upcoming tour in the spring.
Storytelling is an important part of Klock and Lochner’s styles as choreographers. They strive to create routines that bring their audiences into a different world, where daily lives are forgotten for a moment. And they’re excited to incorporate this mentality into their teaching this fall, challenging students to explore their voices while creating work for the Gala.
he University of Iowa’s Dance Gala is still months away, (mark your calendar for Nov. 11 and 12!) but we’re already eager to attend one of the two shows at Hancher. As always, Gala-goers can expect to spend the evening watching dancers perform faculty members’ new, innovative choreography. This year, they’ll also be introduced to FLOCK, a co-cho reography dance company consisting of Alice Klock and Florian Lochner. (FLOCK is both the duo’s names combined and their dance philosophy: representing the idea that their work is always expanding and including new artists).
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thursday, Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Soweto Gospel Choir, Hancher, $10-50 Friday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. Jonathan Scales Fourchestra, Englert Theatre, $10-27 Friday, Sept. 30 at 8 p.m. Harbour w/ America Part Two & Kelsey Bou, Gabe’s, $12 Saturday, Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Little Feat, Englert Theatre, $25-99 Sunday, Oct. 2 at 6:30 p.m. Carnifex w/ Spite, Oceano, Wildwood Saloon, $25 Sunday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. Les Filles de Illighadad, Gabe’s, $15-20 Sunday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. WH: Nakatani Gong Orchestra, Englert Theatre, $10-20 PERFORMANCE tuesdays, Sept. 6, 13, 20, 27 at 7 p.m. Open Mic Comedy, Lucky Cat Comedy, Cedar Rapids, Free Opening Friday, Sept. 9 Chipmunk’d, Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, $15-35 Friday-Saturday, Sept. 9-10 Chicago Comedy Takeover, Joystick Comedy Arcade, Iowa City, $5 Sunday, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. Lions Variety Show, CSPS Hall, Cedar Rapids, Free-$15 Closing Sunday, Sept. 11 Once, Brucemore, $23 Friday-Saturday, Sept. 16-17 POOL, James Theater, Iowa City, $35 Opening Friday, Sept. 16 Little Shop of Horrors, Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, $17-30 Opening Friday, Sept. 16 Yellow, Giving Tree Theater, Marion, $23
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—Sid Peterson
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Hancher in advance at (319) 335-1160. HANCHER AUDITORIUM 50 YEAR S 19 72 –2 02 2 Thursday, September 29, 7:30 pm HOPE: It’s Been a Long Time Coming commemorates and celebrates South Africa’s Freedom Movement and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The incomparable voices of this three-time Grammy Award-winning choir will once again bring joy and inspiration to the Hancher audience as they sing songs of liberation and justice that have moved generations of those invested in fairness and freedom. EVENT PARTNERS SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR HOPE: IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING AdultsTICKETS $30 / $40 / $50 College Students $10 / $10 / $40 Youth $10 / $10 / $40 Order online hancher.uiowa.edu Call (319) 335-1160 or 800-HANCHER Accessibility Services (319) 335-1160 A HANCHER COMMISSION AND WORLD PREMIERE Loretta Angerer Dale and Linda Baker Norma and David Carlson Michael S. and Renee Favo Kris Jones Chuck Peters Mary Ann Peters $10 STUDENT & YOUTH TICKETS
OUR SERVICES, WITH DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS AND UI EMPLOYEES: • Unbundled Legal Services • Family and Juvenile Law • Business Law and Litigation • Business Formation - LLCs and Corporations • Uniform Commercial Code • Estate Planning and Probate • Real Estate • Criminal Defense • Insurance • Expungement • Drivers License Reinstatement 209 E. WASHINGTON, SUITE 304,
Existential Questions), provided a peak into what Crooked Path is all about and a promise of what is to come: In turns serious and funny, personal and communal, this big-hearted production brought a great talent back home, while including more than a dozen local performers who burst into the final song with a flourish of sass and joy.
The very next weekend is Crooked Path’s Creepy Campfire Cabaret at Janet Schlapkohl’s farm. And rest assured that Crooked Path’s an nual holiday cabaret will be rocking mid-De cember at the James Theater, with more fun and thoughtful projects coming in 2023 (including a February production of Well, by Lisa Kron). But first, don’t miss this month’s “fierce re telling” of a millennium-old epic poem and ex perience a thoroughly performative aspect of the annual Iowa City Book Festival. In collaboration with Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, Crooked Path will bring a new Beowulf, adapted by Charlie Bethel and starring Minneapolis actor John Heimbuch, to the James Theater stage Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. When asked what it’s like to work together as a couple, Okiishi replied, “We have a tre mendous respect for the other person and their abilities, and we respect each other enough to be able to say when we know we can do better. We constantly strive to hold each other to a loving but rigorous standard.” I can’t help but think this response translates well to Crooked Path’s relationship with Iowa City theater. Du Laney and Okiishi’s deep love and respect for this community shows in how and why they continue to do theater here, and specifically why they are committing to produce theater in earnest here. And the corridor is all the richer for their love of community and magic making. —Saunia Powell
CrookedPerfectly
It seems that Crooked Path is looking to ex pand the borders of the corridor’s theater scene until its magic spills into all the margins and dark alleys that persistently lurk around the usual spotlights.Champions of the small musical, scrappy play and gutsy venue, Okiishi and Du Laney love to upend the expected theater experience.
Crooked Path kicked off that season in August. At its home base of the James Theater, Crooked Path produced a one-woman musical written and starring a performer and costume designer with deep ties to Iowa City, Jill Van Brussel. This first show, Why Do I Own a Thong? (And Other
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“There are more and more reasons to stay home now,” Du Laney said. “Between the pan demic and the ubiquity of what’s available on TV, you need to give an audience something they can’t get from Netflix, something immersive, un expected and, we hope, thrilling.”
Iowa City book Festival and Crooked path theatre present: beowulf, James theater, Iowa City, Friday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 1 at 2 p.m., $20
Their first endeavor together in 2015, when Crooked Path was still just a twinkle in its fa thers’ eyes, was a production of the Sondheim musical Company staged at the Northridge Pavilion in Coralville. The audience was includ ed as partygoers, attending the lead character’s birthday party. Okiishi remembers it as “a magi cal, all-star production.” Their next full production was in 2017; Sense and Sensibility was performed in Jan Finlayson’s Iowa City design store, Luxe Interiors. The next year, they produced Marjorie Prime, a play about loss and technology-assisted grief, staged at the Iowa City Recycling Center. These brilliant pair ings of location with production became Crooked Path’s calling card. That leads to their season’s first October of fering. Ghost-Writer, by Michael Hollinger, cen ters on a prolific author in the 1930s. Audiences will find this riveting piece of theater at the same location they might, on another night, attend a IOWA CITY, IA 52240 ttkirklaw.com (not fictional) author reading their more current work: Prairie Lights Bookstore’s second floor. Note that you will only have two chances to be in the audience of Ghost-Writer—Oct. 22 and 23.
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t can be hard to keep up with the absolute explosion of theater happening in the cor ridor. Talent and passion keep sprouting in this fertile Iowan soil, and “so much the ater” is an incredibly delightful (and covet ed) problem for any town to have. Not new, but positively blossoming this fall is one company you may or may not be familiar with: Crooked Path Theatre. What started as a side/seed project of long-time local theater artists Patrick Du Laney and Chris Okiishi, now brings its first full season of shows to Iowa City, from straight plays to musical cabarets.
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… But I will say that in a given year, I probably read about 200 plays in total, like actually read the full play. And let’s say at least 100 or 200 more where, you know, you get 10 pages in and it’s just not going to be. And is that typically, just in terms of spa tial fit, casting fit? Or is there a trigger that you look for, that tells you that, you know, it’s just not a piece for you? I think it’s less of a thing that I see that says no; it’s more of the absence of surprise. … whether it is a char acter whose perspective I’ve never heard before, whether it’s an environment that I’ve never seen staged before … there are a million ways for it to occur. But I’m looking for something that has that element of surprise. —Genevieve Trainor
Artistic Director Caven Hallman at mirrorbox theatre Malcolm MacDougall / Little Village
Drive, mirrorbox theatre, Cedar rapids, Nov. 3-20, $20 batman returns returns, mirrorbox theatre, Dec. 14-18, $20
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As a company that focuses on these new plays, how many plays do you personally read in a month? Or in a week? Oh, gosh, you know, there, there are seasons of work, right?
Opening Friday, Sept. 16 Stupid Fucking Bird, Dreamwell Theatre, Artifactory, Iowa City, $10-15
Keep Truckingon
Opening Friday, Sept. 16 Dogfight! Iowa City Community Theatre, $14-22 Friday, Sept. 16 at 9:30 p.m. Best of Iowa Comedy Show, Joystick Comedy Arcade, $5 Friday-Saturday, Sept. 16-17 at 7 p.m. Brent Terhune, Lucky Cat Comedy, $15-20 Friday-Saturday, Sept. 23-24 Jessica Misra, Joystick Comedy Arcade, $5 Friday-Sunday, Sept. 23-25 Titanic The Musical, Theatre Cedar Rapids, $22-46 thursday, Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Anastasia, Paramount Theatre, Cedar Rapids, $55-85 Friday, Sept. 30 at 9:30 p.m. Roast of Travis Coltrain, Joystick Comedy Arcade, $5 Friday and Saturday, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 ICbF: BEOWULF, James Theater, $20 Saturday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. GTT Comedy Night: Andy Hendrickson, Giving Tree Theater, $23 Sunday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. Bread & Puppet: Our Domestic Resurrection Circus, Mercer Park, Iowa City, Free LITERATURE tuesday, Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. Adria Bernardi with Katie Runde and Louisa Hall, Online, Prairie Lights, Free mondays and Wednesdays, Sept. 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28 Fall Storytime, Sidekick Coffee & Books, Iowa City, Free thursday, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. Belinda Huijuan Tang and Sanjena Sathian, Prairie Lights, Online, Free Friday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. Edward Carey, Prairie Lights, Free Sunday, Sept. 11, 18, 25 and Oct. 2 International Writing Program Sunday Reading Series, Prairie Lights, Free
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What can you tell me about Drive? What can folks expect? And why did you choose that for your first new play in the space? The number-one factor in choosing a play is, do I love it? You know? And I love this play. Drive ... primarily takes place in a bar, in a small, generalized town in the shadow of the I-80 World’s Largest Truck Stop. ... And it is about a cross section of the Iowa population, a variety of people who are all working in the trucking indus try, and who have almost all just lost their jobs to automation. ... I didn’t know until I started div ing a little further into the world of this play, that truckers make up … the largest segment of the Iowa workforce. If and when automation takes over this industry, it’s going to displace a huge number of people; it’s going to have a huge im pact on our state and our country.
W hen the COVID-19 pandem ic hit, Mirrorbox Theatre’s founder and artistic director Cavan Hallman brought to gether local and national per formers for a Zoom reading series, Out the Box, creating community while hewing to the the ater’s mission to present Iowa premieres. Now, that community is giving back, in support of their first physical space, a building in Cedar Rapids’ Time Check neighborhood renovated into an intimate black box theater. They’ve got an out door seating permit for the space, are applying for their liquor license and are excited to partner with area food trucks to establish a true destina tion for an evening out, when weather permits. Hallman spoke to Little Village about the ex citing path forward for the company. What are you most excited about? You know, what I’m really excited about is that we are able to extend the runs of our shows, to really let the work flow in the way that these new plays deserve. … I think that having that extra bit of time is really going to be important for letting the work breathe and be introduced to new people.
Support local journalism with a donation and have Little Village delivered right to your mailbox! Join littlevillagemag.com/supporttoday $10/month Every print issue of Little Village Eastern Iowa or Central Iowa delivered ... TO YOUR MAILBOX!! $20/month Both Eastern Iowa AND Central Iowa ...deliveredissuesTOYOURMAILBOX!!! $50/month Both issues plus a YOURDELIVEREDyourmerchandiseitemofchoiceTOMAILBOX!!!! thanks to our August donors: Debbie Ackerman, Peter Kunau, Lora Fraracci and Katherine Hutchison ARE YOU AN EVENT ORGANIZER? Start selling tickets today it’s free! Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 3-5, Various Iowa City Locations Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Lubomyr Melnyk, Joe Rainey & more
—Allie Torkarski, Assistant Curator of Student Engagement
Besides the Mural
—Amanda Lensing, Senior Living Communities Program Coordinator –Andrea Truitt elizabeth Catlett, Glory (Glorie)
“It is a gorgeous textile located in Gallery 13. I would urge visitors to simply stand before it and take in the intense colors of the vertical strips of ribbons in red (blood), black (earth) and white (spirits). To me the three-dimensional fab rics feel intensely present in the space, a very different type of presence than the paint equiva lents. The textile is a total WOW!”
and very personal painting.”
“You should follow one of our self-guided tours! They’ve been thoughtfully designed for guests to explore objects as they relate to the tour themes. A fun and new way of experiencing the Stanley collection. My favorite is Color Tour – Red. Color tours focus on the significance of particular hues across time and cultures. The fea tured color changes periodically.”
“I feel something strong each time I am near it. You’ll see the amazing, rich texture achieved by the innovative way Gilliam handled the canvas before it was stretched—folding and painting and saturating, then applying additional elements as the canvas was stretched. The painting com memorates the pain and strife of the assassination of Martin Luther King. It is a rich, deep, enigmatic
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—Barbara McFadden, docent Abdoulaye Konate, Rouge Kente et Monde
Alma thomas, Spring Embraces Yellow
—Cory Gundlach, Curator of African Art earthenware, Stoneware and Ceramics Collection
—Laurie Zaiger, docent mark rothko, Untitled “I’d recommend people spend time with smaller works … My favorite is probably the small un titled Mark Rothko painting we have—I love it because it’s a bit funky and enigmatic (you don’t have to “get” everything you look at!). It’s also an artists,interestinganotherworksHomecoming—seeingaboutscale,ownworksabstractcounterpart/precursorinterestingtomoreworkslikeMuralorthethatlaterdefinedRothko’scareer.AndIthink,onalargertoo,that’swhat’ssogreat[currentmuseumexhibit]alltheseinconversationwithonereallyhelpsyoumakeconnectionsbetweenmediumsandcultures!”
—Kathryn Reuter, Academic Outreach Coordinator Hervé Youmbi, bamilékéDogon Ku’ngang mask, Series: Visages de masques (VI)
“I recommend UI Stanley Museum of Art visitors view the museum’s earthenware, stoneware and ce ramic art collection in the Savin and Fieselmann Galleries (Galleries 3 and 4). Each individual vessel is a gorgeous masterpiece on its own, and the wall arrangement of all of them together is absolutely stunning. It took my breath away when I saw it.” —Anne Welsh
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University of Iowa Stanley museum of Art hours: mon., closed; tue., Wed., Fri., Sat., 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.; thu, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sun., 12–4:30 p.m.; stanleymuseum.uiowa.edu
—Eliza Rose, docent
“Her work honors Black women and connects art from central Africa brought by slaves to the U.S. and interpreted by Leigh in an exquisite sculpture/portrait. The curators have placed it in conver sation with a Grant Wood portrait and a Gordon Parks photograph.”
“This work is visually powerful, conceptually disruptive and it highlights the vitality of contem porary artistic practice in Africa. It also complements the strength of historical masks from Africa in the museum collection.”
“You should look at Spring Embraces Yellow [accession num ber 1975. 103] because it will warm your soul. Alma Thomas’ works are vibrant and inspiring; they can brighten up the dreariest of days.”
“This 1981 bronze bust exhibits [Catlett’s] ability to celebrate the strength and beauty of Black women. Glory Van Scott was a performer and educator wellknown for her work as a principal dancer with several dance compa nies in the latter half of the 20th century.”
—David Duer, docent Sam Gilliam, Red April
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—Pat Hanick, docent Simone Leigh, #103 (Face Jug Series)
Stanley insiders tell us what to look for on a visit to the museum Sure, Mural represents a breakthrough, American ascendency in the art world. Yeah, yeah, it has its own documentary film. And sure, the new University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art where it’s housed is gorgeous, sexing up Burlington Street like the Voxman before it. But what else should you look for in the Stanley’s collections? I asked museum staff, interns and docents to provide their personal favorites and must-see objects. You may have already gotten some of these recommen dations from the museum’s recent social media posts, but here are a few more. All of the works are from the 20th or 21st century, and some are recent additions, acquired in the last five years. We’ve listed objects in alphabetical order by the artist’s last name, because we felt like it. A re minder that the museum is free of charge, so please take advantage of this old/new cultural resource in Iowa City. eric Adjetey Anang’s Fantasy Coffins “[They have] a rich history from the country of Ghana. These coffins, sometimes referred to as “receptacles of proverbs,” are figurative coffins that relate to the life of its inhabitant; in many ways it is a final tribute to the lives lived, because of the images carved in the wooden receptacle.”
—Ann Donahue, docent “These hand carved coffins have several meanings. The fish coffin would be utilized traditionally for a fisher person, fishmonger or, in a social awareness context, British colonial authority in Ghana and the rules for burial forced upon the Ga peoples. Eric is using a traditional art form that is part of his family’s legacy to make state ments about current events.”
“Ringmaster,” as the name suggests, is focused on his prolific imagery of circuses and circus performers. CRMA Curator Kate Kunau wrote that all works in this show are from the museum’s permanent collection: “Some of the most vibrant Burford works in the CRMA’s collection are circus-related and this exhibition celebrates the artist’s great enthusiasm and facility for this imagery.”
The masterRing- byron burford: ringmaster, Cedar rapids museum of Art, opens Saturday, Nov. 19
“Byron Burford: Ringmaster” is an exhibition opening on Nov. 19 at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art (CRMA). The artist (1920-2011) was a fixture in Iowa City since 1938, when he came from Jackson, Mississippi to the University of Iowa to study art under Grant Wood, Emil Ganso and Philip Guston. After four years of service in the Air Force during World War II, he came back for his MFA and joined the faculty.
In the meantime, stop by the Iowa City Public Library to see one of his works on the second floor. Homage á Court hangs just outside of the Business Office, in the northeast corner of the building. Look for the blue tigers.
—Andrea Truitt
scene)(CarnivalUntitledBurford,Byron
Saturday, Sept. 10 at 10 a.m. Racial Reckoning and Social Justice Through Comics, Iowa City Public Library, Free monday, Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. Anthony Marra, Prairie Lights, Free Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. Sarah Derbew and Nell Irvin Painter, Online, Prairie Lights, Free thursday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. William Kent Krueger, Prairie Lights, Free Friday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. Joe Meno, Prairie Lights, Free tuesday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. Tom Montgomery Fate, Prairie Lights, Free Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. Ama Codjoe, Donika Kelly, Evie Shockley, Online, Prairie Lights, Free thursday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. Yiyun Li and Lan Samantha Chang, Prairie Lights, Free Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. ICbF: An Evening With Anthony Doerr, The Englert Theatre, Iowa City, $25 thursday, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. ICbF: The Paul Engle Award Ceremony with Rebecca Solnit and Lyz Lenz, Coralville Public Library, Free Friday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. ICbF: Randall Munroe, First United Methodist Church, Iowa City, $30 monday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. ICbF: Beth Livingston, Iowa City Public Library, Free FILM Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 10 p.m. Late Shift at the Grindhouse: The Children, FilmScene— Chauncey, Iowa City, $7 Friday-thursday, Sept. 9-15 Unshakeable Belief: The Dr. Christine Grant Story, FilmScene—Chauncey, $8.41-12 Sunday, Sept. 11 at 7:30 p.m. Akira, FilmScene—The Ped Mall, Iowa City, $15 thursday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. Pride at FilmScene: Go Figure: The Randy Gardner Story, FilmScene—Chauncey, $9.50-12 Friday to Wednesday, Sept. 16-21 Three Colors: Blue, FilmScene—The Ped Mall, $9.50-10.50 Friday-thursday, Sept. 16-22 Three Colors: White, FilmScene—The Ped Mall, $9.50-12 Friday, Sept. 16 at 10 p.m. Late Shift at the Grindhouse: Thrust! FilmScene—Chauncey, $7 Saturday, Sept. 17 at 1 p.m. How (Not) To Build a School in Haiti, FilmScene— Chauncey, $10 SEPTEMBER EVENTS
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I had the good fortune about a year and a half ago to see Burford’s work at Art Mission, a gallery and framing service in Iowa City. The canvases were large and his treatment of his subjects thoughtful, as he observed and developed relationships with performers over seasons and years. The works draw viewers in because the subject matter is both exotic and mundane, a reminder that temporary events and ordinary people are extraordinary. The vernacular is where it’s at, everywhere, all the time.
The artist had a lifelong love of the circus, and it is one of Burford’s central themes of his long career.“When he was growing up in Greenville, Mississippi, his father, director of the local Y.M.C.A., booked the circuses and carnivals that came to town. Byron Jr. combined his artistic talent with a fascination with those unusual performers and, at 14, went on the road with the Tom Mix Circus,” Kunau wrote. “Later in his career when he was teaching at the University of Iowa, Burford spent many summers on the road with traveling circuses, playing drums in the band and, of course, painting.”
Friday’s highlights include Poetry In Motion, a multi-genre performance of poets and a live band, and a panel on the intersection and divergence of spoken word poetry and academia featuring Iowa Writers’ Workshop faculty Tracie Morris and alum Steven Willis. “We are in a moment where the elitism [of po etry] is starting to break down,” Rainey stated. Roberts added, “There’s a niche in the City of Literature to bring living, breathing, sweating spo ken word to the prime stage.” Rainey said he moved to Iowa City as a spo ken word artist, hoping to find connections and be immersed in literature, only to find a dearth of options for the performance poet. He and Roberts agreed that a major catalyst for the work they do is to create the world they once needed. As such, they both hold accessibility as a priority for the festival and will maintain a hybrid format and mostly free programming. One of their goals in producing the festival is to break barriers for potential poets.
Rainey and Roberts also view themselves as students of the craft. Both work in literature plan ning and attending workshops frequently, coming to art to learn and to express. This is why they want everyone who is able to participate in the poetry“Thisfestival.artform makes better people,” Rainey said. “It demands empathy, it demands connection.” “It demands,” Roberts added, “self-reflec tion.” —Sarah Elgatian
MIC CHECK POETRY FESTIVAL SCHEDULE 5:30Fridayp.m. Spoken word panel, Prairie Lights 7:30 p.m. Poetry in Motion, the James theater 11Saturdaya.m.Youth and Adult Workshops, mErGE and Iowa City public Library 1:30 p.m. Youth and Adult Workshops, mErGE and Iowa City public Library 4 pm. p.m. Showcase, Englert theatre 6 p.m. Q & A with Headliners, Englert 8theatrep.m.SlamOVision International, mErGE 9 p.m. Slam, riverside theatre
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While both Rainey and Roberts believe that po etry is for everyone, they hope to see established poetry lovers at the festival in addition to laymen. “For folks who have a background with poet ry,” Roberts said, “this is revivifying.”
Art-a-ThonPS1’sisback!September24-25SmithPatriciavia StewartEbonyvia
“In the festival itself there are a lot of points of entry,” Roberts said, referencing the many public events, the affordable (and free for youth) programming, and the approachability of spoken word poetry.
Newcomers to the form are encouraged to come, Rainey stated, and in the end, “the humani ty of the form becomes the entry point.”
Poems for The People
owa City Poetry’s Mic Check Poetry Festival will return Nov. 11-12 after orga nizers Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey and Lisa Roberts received what Rainey called a “phenomenal showing” of support and en thusiasm last year. The November festival will be only two days this year instead of three, but it will include expanded offerings and an entirely new line up of performers and instructors. This year’s festival features two headliners: Patricia Smith and Ebony Stewart. Both artists are award-winning interdisciplinary spoken word poets who will perform their work in a Showcase at the Englert Theater, participate in a Q + A, and present two workshops—a free workshop for youth aged 18 and younger and an all-ages workshop for $25 each. A new event for 2022 is SlamOVision, during which an international Slam will take place in UNESCO Cities of Literature throughout the world and will be broadcast Saturday night after the Showcase event and be fore Mic Check’s final event, the Slam. All events are concentrated in downtown Iowa City with sev eral local businesses and venues hosting events.
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In the North Country region of Minnesota, hockey is as central to life as football is to Alabama and Texas. Part slick sports doc, part small-town coming-of-age story, Hockeyland follows two rival high school hockey teams as they prepare to face off in a state championship game that will define their legacy at home and, with potential NHL contracts at stake, in the an nals of hockey history.
prompt for the planet: Community Creates, Englert theatre, Iowa City, Sunday, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m., Free
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Mighty Pucks working at all levels of experience,” Prompt Press founder Jennifer Coville said in an email to Little Village. “Every time a person shares a response, it’s like they’re shooting out a little tendril of energy for others to latch onto, or draw from. The project shows how art like nature is always in collaborative flux.”
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W hile the current political land scape tries to frame so much of what I once considered com mon sense in environmental discourse as radicalism, young people are still rising up to the challenge of pro tecting this place we call home. In 2018, Shannon Nolan, a student at the University of Iowa, devel oped a senior creative capstone project with her instructor, David Gould, aimed at eliciting creative responses to the environment. Gould got Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman involved, and the resulting piece that she wrote became the Prompt for the FourPlanet.years later, Gould, Prompt Press and the Lena Project are returning to the begin ning. They’ve decided the time is ripe for a new prompt. Following a massive gathering effort, community members engaged with Gorman’s prompt, resulting in responses that will be shared in a publication from Prompt Press and on the Englert stage at a celebratory event. At that same event, the new prompt will be revealed, and peo ple will once again be asked to raise their artistic voices in defense of the only home we have. “This project looks at art as down-to-earth, messy, and rhizomatic—not coming from on high, but grown from communities of people
t’s been 17 years since Minnesota-born filmmakers Tommy Haines, JT Haines and Andrew Sherburne founded their inde pendent production company, Northland Films, with a focus on nonfiction storytell ing. In that time, they’ve produced, directed and released six film projects—all while Sherburne was busy founding and expanding Iowa City’s
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And for those hoping Haines and Sherburne will turn their lenses Iowa-ward again, never fear—Northland Films is currently in production on The Workshop, a documentary promising to offer an intimate portrait of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Release date, TBA. ––Emma McClatchey nonprofit cinema FilmScene. Their best-known documentary to date, Saving Brinton (2017), fol lows an Iowa man’s attempts to preserve a rare and fragile film collection from the first decades of moving pictures.
Dear ThereHumans,werewide arms I stretched, a roof above your roof and hurried heads. I was a betweenbarrieryouand raw sun, a cool spot, a breath untaken. Watch me bear these last climbers, their spiked shoes, ropes and hot saws tied to their ascent. They lift a crane to catch my mass and hold it for flight? No, down, dropping me gently in pieces on your changing ground.
Coville says the program “hope[s] to spread shoots of interconnection” by involving a wide variety of community members, including respon dents from Oaknoll, Shelter House, preschool classrooms, the Diversity Market and more. “We hope people from different stages and situations of life will look at their work archived on-line or come to the show and find delight in how others have responded to the same prompt.”
Down-to-earth verse
Dictation From a tree (removed) bY mACKIE GArrEtt
—Genevieve Trainor national documentary festivals. But thanks to being picked up by independent distribution company Greenwich Entertainment (Free Solo), it will make its way to theaters starting Sept. 9 in Minnesota and Sept. 16 nationwide.
Northland’s latest release harkens back to its first—2008’s Pond Hockey, which ESPN com mentator John Buccigross dubbed the “best and purest hockey movie ever.” Hockeyland, di rected by Tommy Haines, has already enjoyed screenings at DOC NYC, Big Sky and other Hockeyland, FilmScene, Iowa City, opens Friday, Sept. 23
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“ReFocus Film Festival is a celebration of the relationship between art forms, and it’s a festival tailor made for a City of Literature, examining the origin of films and how they come from the page, or other art forms,” Sherburne said. “But you know, we want to also bend the rules as much as FilmScenepossible.”willhave artists and entertainers to fill the festival ambience as festival go-ers walk between theaters. Before the lights dim, patrons can listen to musicians like Dan Padley and watch slideshows from local artists.
“Sometimes a good adaptation might be in credibly faithful to the original source material or might do something incredibly new with it,” he He’ssaid. recently been reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, a graphic memoir about her life in Iran and Austria during the Islamic Revolution. Sherburne watched the 2007 film adaptation first, which is faithful in story and artstyle. But the live motion elevates the original text, he said.
Ben Delgado, FilmScene’s programming di rector, thinks an adaptation has to know what to keep and what to change. A standout mov ie for him is White Knights, the 1957 Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation, transported to Italy from the original Russian setting.
A Lit New FestivalFilm
Delgado thinks the festival will elevate small films that people might not see otherwise. Many of the films in ReFocus are only available on the festival circuit. He hopes people will take chanc es on movies they don’t know.
FALL ARTS PREVIEW
Author Lizzy Goodman will appear with the documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom (2022), based on her oral history which details the rebirth of the New York rock scene in the 2000s. refocus Film Festival, FilmScene, thursday, Oct. 6–Sunday, Oct. 9, $12–230
FilmScene wanted a unique festival that con tributed to the national and international festival landscape. They started with Iowa City’s literary history and its growing film culture. But while ReFocus continues the UI festival’s tradition of medium mixing, it broadens the scope. The fes tival will feature adaptations from any medium: podcasts, poetry, plays, comedy shows, archival material and so on.
ReFocus will purposefully coincide with the Iowa City Book Festival, encouraging each at mosphere to seep into one another. FilmScene will pair special guests from the book festival and ReFocus to have conversations about differ ent art forms and how they interact. Sherburne is always excited to see how films adapt stories from other mediums.
—Adria Carpenter
“It’s a film festival, right? So there’s we’re putting two things together: a lot of films, some really great films, and then we’re making it fes tive,” Sherburne said.
owa City’s literary history casts a long shadow. It’s the first UNESCO City of Literature in the country, home to the Iowas Writers’ Workshop. But next month, Iowa City will enter the film festival world with FilmScene’s long awaited ReFocus Film Festival, an event dedicated to the relationship between literature and film. Andrew Sherburne, executive director and co-founder of FilmScene, always imagined hold ing an annual film festival. Conversations began nearly six years ago, but now with the theater’s Chauncey and Ped Mall locations, FilmScene’s blueprints are ready. “We’ve got five screens, two blocks apart. We’ve got this vibrant downtown area that sur rounds us. It’s just begging for a film festival,” Sherburne said. The festival, however, is two years late. FilmScene originally announced ReFocus for September 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic stretched throughout the summer, the festival was delayed until 2021, and then again until 2022. But ReFocus is less of an inaugural film fes tival, and more of a revival. From 1965 to 1979, the University of Iowa held Refocus, which spot lighted student photography and filmmaking. That festival, sponsored by the Student Union Board, presented UI student films and those from other universities, as well as still photography exhibits.“Weare happy to light the torch again, and re imagine Refocus as a festival that examines the relationship of film with other art forms, espe cially literature,” Sherburne said.
“Most of these films are going to be that way, films that people haven’t heard of, from directors who they haven’t heard, and actors they don’t know,” Delgado said. “But all of that is just part of the ReFocusfun.” will also help educate people about film festivals and how they work. Delgado and Sherburne recommend newcomers show up ear ly, stay hydrated and eat snacks, bring a friend but also talk to strangers, watch a movie you know nothing about and stay for the Q&A.
Festival passes are available online or at the FilmScene box office. There are three different levels available: an all access pass, a nine film pass and a five film pass. Passholders have first choice of movies, and higher passholders have more access to the parties, happy hours and artist conversations.ReFocuswill also have free events, including a VR Showcase, where people can watch a short film in virtual reality. Some conversations and other events will also be free. The full slate of films, conversations and events will be available in mid-September.
Foundation.
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Glory Museum1981purchase P. Catlett Luce
with support from the Joyce
©2022 Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA at Artist Rights Society (ARS), NY. Homecoming is supported by a grant from the Henry
Summerwill Art Fund, 2022.1 Elizabeth
ON VIEW NOW Always free and open to all stanleymuseum.uiowa.edu
A Venue for the Ages
60 SePtember 2022 LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310
Last Night at the mill, Englert theatre, Friday, Sept. 23, 7:30 p.m., $10–20
FALL ARTS PREVIEW
In addition to Olive’s doc, a short film pro duced last spring by students at the Daily Iowan will be presented. Remembering the Mill high lights the venue’s history and stories from com munity members. It was created in 2022 in re sponse to the Mill’s closure during the pandemic. The DI’s film, which features archival footage and interviews, complements and gives context to Olive’s concert film. Presented together, the two films will undoubtedly honor the Mill one last time—showing its impact on the Iowa City arts community and perhaps even offering clo sure to audience members. —Sid Peterson
“Even though this film takes place long before I ever moved to Iowa City,” Johannesen said, “that same vibe of community, respect and love that I experienced at the Mill is alive in the film.”
Saturday-thursday, Sept. 17-22 Three Colors: Red, FilmScene—The Ped Mall, $9.50-10.50 Saturday, Sept. 17 at 7:15 p.m. North by Northwest, FilmScene in the Park, Free thursday, Sept. 22 at 6:30 p.m. Inhabitants: Indigenous Perspectives on Restoring our World, FilmScene—Chauncey, $10 Friday, Sept. 23 at 7:30 p.m. Last Night at the Mill, Englert Theatre, $10-20 Saturday, Sept. 24 at 10 p.m. Dog Day Afternoon, FilmScene—Chauncey, Free-$7 Sunday, Sept. 25 at 7:30 p.m. Boogie Nights, FilmScene—The Ped Mall, $15 thursday, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. The Spanish Dancer, FilmScene—Chauncey, $8.41-12 Saturday, Oct. 1 at 10 p.m. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, FilmScene— Chauncey, Free-$7 COMMUNITY thursday, Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m. An Evening with Gabby Douglas, Hancher, Iowa City, Free Sunday, Sept. 11 at 1:15 p.m. Eco-Themed Joy March, PS1, Free Sunday, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. Prompt for the Planet: Community Creates, Englert Theatre, Iowa City, Free Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 5:30 p.m. Taste & Tour, North Liberty Community Pantry, Free Friday, Sept. 16 at 4 p.m. Artists at SUI: Closing Reception, PS1 Close House, Iowa City, Free Saturday, Sept. 17 at 7:30 a.m. Cedar Rapids Farmer’s Market, Greene Square Park, Free Saturday, Sept. 17 at 4 p.m. Color Experience w/Jimmy Miracle, PS1 Close House, $10-60 Sunday, Sept. 18 at 11 a.m. Festival Latino, McGrath Amphitheatre, Cedar Rapids, Free Sunday, Sept. 18 at 1 p.m. Public Space One Art Market, Big Grove Brewery, Iowa City, Free Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. The Impact of Schools on Mental Health, Online, Obermann Center, Iowa City, Free Friday-Saturday, Sept. 23-24 Kalona Fall Festival, Kalona Historical Village, Free-$6 Saturday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 a.m. Kids Market, Chauncey Swan Parking Ramp, Iowa City, Free Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 24-25 Art-a-Thon, Public Space One, Free Sunday, Sept. 25 at 9:30 a.m. Farm Cycle, Iowa City Bike Library, $45-55 thursday, Sept. 29 at 5 p.m. Opening Reception: Dreamscape and Collector’s Eye, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Free
Mill’theatNight‘Lastfromstillvideo
SEPTEMBER EVENTS
Olive described his film as primarily a mu sic documentary, capturing “a very vibrant performance.” He frequented the Mill in the ’70s when he was a student at the UI. “My film doesn’t really deal with the Mill being torn down or anything like that,” Olive said. “I was focusing on the music, which I thought was re allyWhengood.”Olive approached the Englert asking if they’d like to do a showing of the film, it was around the same time that the building was be ing demolished. Brian Johannesen, a local mu sician and the senior programming manager at the Englert, said the film does an excellent job highlighting the fact the Mill was always more than just a music venue.
For those still mourning the loss of Iowa City’s beloved, iconic venue the Mill, this one’s for you! Come out to the Englert on Friday, Sept. 23 to sit back and reminisce on the venue that impacted so many. There’s going to be a screening of the Last Night at the Mill, a concert film created by filmmaker Dave Olive in 2003, and a showing of University of Iowa students Daniel Huyer and Grace Keber’s short film, Remembering the Mill The Mill’s history begins in the 1960s, orig inally opening as a coffee shop in 1962. Ten years later, it moved to its well-known spot on Burlington Street. In the early days, the venue was a folk music club that allowed primarily bluegrass and acoustic artists to play. As time went on, the Mill expanded to booking a vari ety of genres and began to host non-music-relat ed events such as literary readings and political meet-ups. It’s also been a popular festival venue, hosting acts for Mission Creek, the Floodwater Comedy Festival and more. Throughout the years, the ownership changed only once, in 2003. Keith Dempster retired and Marty Christensen and Dan Ouverson became the new owners. Olive’s film captures the Mill’s 40th anniversary and Dempster’s retirement cel ebration. That evening, musicians Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, Rick Cicalo and Dave Zollo came together for an intimate performance.
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I FEEL LIKE WHAt YOU’rE ASKING HErE rEALLY bOILS DOWN tO, “DO ASSHOLES EXISt?” AND YES, CrOSSED. YES, tHEY DEFINItELY DO. tHErE ArE pEOpLE OUt tHErE WHO tHINK tHAt SOmEONE WHO ENtHUSIAStICALLY ENJOYS AND SEEKS OUt SEX ISN’t WOrtH SEttLING DOWN WItH. WHICH, OK, I GUESS. tHAt’S tHEIr prErOGAtIVE.
If you’re cool with diving in bits first, if you’re not going to hold it against either your partner or yourself, then you can trust that there are others who feel the same way. Failure is not inevitabile along this path.
D ear Kiki, Do you think having sex with a man on the first date/encounter with him ruins the chances of a future relationship ever working out? —Legs and Fingers Crossed D earI’mCrossed,going to be blunt here and say there are far, far too many variables for me to possibly offer a conclusive answer to this query. It depends on the man, of course. It depends on your own views on the matter (are you all-in, you—both—defewtogether,out”meanpendsintoyoustill-guilty,eager-but-ordofeelpressuredsex?).Itdeonwhatyouby“working(alifetimeagoodyears;howdo fine success?). However, I can say, unequivocal ly, that if you both enter the encoun ter rarin’ to go and then he bolts? Good ingwhatSee,riddance.Ifeellikeyou’reaskherereallyboils down to, “Do assholes exist?” And yes, Crossed. Yes, they definitely do. There are people out there who think that someone who enthusiastically enjoys and seeks out sex isn’t worth settling down with. Which, OK, I guess. That’s their prerogative. But any potential partner has the responsibility to make that known at the outset. Radical sincerity, radical honesty, radical self-awareness: These are what correlate with longevity in any relationship. It’s not the spe cific choices you make, but how you make them and how you communicate about them.
Submit questions anonymously at Questionsdearkiki@littlevillagemag.com.littlevillagemag.com/dearkikiornon-anonymouslytomaybeeditedforclarity and length, and may appear either in print or online at littlevillagemag.com.
But, Crossed, if you’re asking because you’ve been receiving warnings along those lines from family, you might want to re-examine your own biases—when you’re raised with certain val ues imbued in you since childhood, you might KIKI
QUESTIONS!WANTSKIKI
discover that they affect your perspective more than is obvious on the surface. The bottom line is: Sex doesn’t determine the worth of a relationship. No doubt you’re familiar with the nauseating common axiom, “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” Ask yourself, Crossed: Do you want to be bought? Do you want to be owned? Or do you want to be in equal partnership with someone who trusts your ability to make decisions about your own body? Remember, you’re always giving the milk for free, even if someone “buys the sinceillegalrapecow”—maritalhasonlybeenintheU.S.…( double checks) (dies a lit tle inside) 1993! You need to make the call for what you want out of any given situ ation. If you find someone who is compatible with you on an ethical level, and if you’re forthright with one another, then enjoying yourself shouldn’t be a drawback. If you don’t share a base line understanding of right and wrong, or if you find that you’re not able to communicate openly, then the relationship won’t have much of a fu ture, first encounters aside. —xoxo, Kiki
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 63 Magic the Gathering. Video Games. Warhammer. Warmachine. RPGs. Board Games. X-Wing. Dice. LotR. HeroClix. Miniatures. GoT. Blood Bowl. L5R. Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh. Kidrobot Vinyl. Retro toys. Pop vinyl & plushies. Gaming & collectible supplies. Huge Magic singles inventory plus we buy/trade MtG cards. Weekly drafts, FNM, league play, and frequent tourneys. Now buying/selling/trading video games & toys! Bring in your Nintendo Gameboy, NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Sega, WiiU, Xbox 360, PS1-2-3, & other used games, consoles, action figures, and toys for cash or trade credit! Fun atmosphere and great customer service! 115 S. Linn Street (by the Public Library), Iowa City Tel: 319-333-1260; Email: chg@criticalhitgames.net www.criticalhitgames.net @criticalhitgamesiowacity
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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): To be the best Aquarius you can be in the coming weeks, I suggest the following: 1. Zig when others zag. Zag when others zig. 2. Play with the fantasy that you’re an extraterrestrial who’s engaged in an experiment on planet Earth. 3. Be a hopeful cynic and a cheerful skeptic. 4. Do things that inspire people to tell you, “Just when I thought I had you figured out, you do something unexpected to confound me.” 5. Just for fun, walk backward every now and then. 6. Fall in love with everything and everyone: a D-List celebrity, an oak tree, a neon sign, a feral cat.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?” Virgo-born Mary Oliver asks that question to start one of her poems. She spends the rest of the poem speculating on possible answers. At the end, she concludes she mostly longs to be an “empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.” Such a state of being might work well for a poet with lots of time on her hands, but I don’t recommend it for you in the coming weeks. Instead, I hope you’ll be profuse, active, busy, experimental, and expressive. That’s the best way to celebrate the fact that you are now freer to be yourself than you have been in a while.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In her book Tales From Earthsea, Libra-born Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “What goes too long un changed destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives.” I trust you’re embodying those truths right now. You’re in a phase of your cycle when you can’t afford to re main unchanged. You need to enthusiastically and purposefully engage in dissolutions that will prepare the way for your rebirth in the weeks after your birthday. The process might sometimes feel strenuous, but it should ultimately be great fun.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Author Zadie Smith praised Sagittarian writer Joan Didion. She says, “I remain grateful for the day I picked up Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem and realized that a woman could speak without hedging her bets, without hemming and hawing, without making nice, with out sounding pleasant or sweet, without deference, and even without doubt.” I encourage Sagittarians of every gender to be inspired by Didion in the coming weeks. It’s a favorable time to claim more of the authority you have earned. Speak your kalei doscopic wisdom without apology or dilution. More fiercely than ever before, embody your high ideals and show how well they work in the rhythms of daily life.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn novelist Marcia Douglas writes books about the history of her people in Jamaica. In one passage, she writes, “My grandmother used to tell stories about women that change into birds and lizards. One day, a church-going man dared to laugh at her; he said it was too much for him to swallow. My grandmother looked at him and said, ‘I bet you believe Jesus turned water into wine.’” My pur pose in telling you this, Capricorn, is to encourage you to nur ture and celebrate your own fantastic tales. Life isn’t all about reasonableness and pragmatism. You need myth and magic to thrive. You require the gifts of imagination and art and lyrical flights of fancy. This is especially true now. To paraphrase David Byrne, now is a perfect time to refrain from making too much sense.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In his poem “Autobiographia Literaria,” Aries-born Frank O’Hara wrote, “When I was a child, I played in a corner of the schoolyard all alone. If anyone was looking for me, I hid behind a tree and cried out, ‘I am an or phan.’” Over the years, though, O’Hara underwent a marvelous transformation. This is how his poem ends: “And here I am, the center of all beauty! Writing these poems! Imagine!” In the coming months, Aries, I suspect that you, too, will have the potency to outgrow and transcend a sadness or awkwardness from your own past. The shadow of an old source of suffering may not disappear completely, but I bet it will lose much of its power to diminish you.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): “My own curiosity and interest are insatiable,” wrote Cancerian author Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). Inspired by the wealth of influences she absorbed, she created an array of poetry, plays, novels, essays and transla tions—including the famous poem that graces the pedestal of America’s Statue of Liberty. I recommend her as a role model for you in the coming weeks, Cancerian. I think you’re ripe for an expansion and deepening of your curiosity. You will benefit from cultivating an enthusiastic quest for new information and fresh influences. Here’s a mantra for you: “I am wildly innocent as I vivify my soul’s education.”
ASTROLOGY
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Blogger Scott Williams writes, “There are two kinds of magic. One comes from the heroic leap, the upward surge of energy, the explosive arc that burns bright across the sky. The other kind is the slow accretion of effort: the water-onstone method, the soft root of the plant that splits the sidewalk, the constant wind that scours the mountain clean.” Can you guess which type of magic will be your specialty in the coming weeks, Leo? It will be the laborious, slow accretion of effort. And that is precisely what will work best for the tasks that are most important for you to accomplish. By Rob Brezsny
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 65
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): As a Scorpio, novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky was rarely guilty of oversimplification. Like any in telligent person, he could hold contradictory ideas in his mind without feeling compelled to seek more superficial truths. He wrote, “The causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.” I hope you will draw inspiration from his example in the coming weeks, dear Scorpio. I trust you will resist the temp tation to reduce colorful mysteries to straightforward explana tions. There will always be at least three sides to every story. I invite you to relish glorious paradoxes and fertile enigmas.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In his poem “Auguries of Innocence,” William Blake (1757–1827) championed the ability “to see a World in a Grain of Sand. And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, Taurus, you are primed to do just that in the coming days. You have the power to discern the sacred in the midst of mundane events. The magic and mystery of life will shine from every little thing you encounter. So I will love it if you deliver the following message to a person you care for: “Now I see that the beauty I had not been able to find in the world is in you.”
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time,” said philosopher Bertrand Russell. I will add that the time you enjoy wasting is often essential to your well-being. For the sake of your sanity and health, you periodically need to temporarily shed your ambitions and avoid as many of your responsibilities as you safely can. During these interludes of re freshing emptiness, you recharge your precious life energy. You become like a fallow field allowing fertile nutrients to regener ate. In my astrological opinion, now is one of these revitalizing phases for you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A blogger who calls herself HellFresh writes, “Open and raw communication with your part ners and allies may be uncomfortable and feel awkward and vulnerable, but it solves so many problems that can’t be solved any other way.” Having spent years studying the demanding arts of intimate relationships, I agree with her. She adds, “The idea that was sold to us is ‘love is effortless and you should communicate telepathically with your partner.’ That’s false.” I propose, Pisces, that you fortify yourself with these truths as you enter the Reinvent Your Relationships Phase of your astro logical cycle.
OCT. 23 Conference* 10:30AM - 5:30PM DRAKE UNIVERSITY FREE | ALL AGES Showcase 6:30PM ft. Dessa & Open Mike Eagle XBK LIVE $20 ALL AGES Conference & Showcase Des Moines Music Coalition presents DESSA *Additional conference guests to be announced
What even is “Black culture,” right? Black culture is all these specif ic things that block you in and if you’re not that then you’re not Black. But if you ask somebody “what is white culture,” nobody knows. Where that’s not the same as for Black people, where it’s seen as Black culture is a box and if you’re not inside then you’re not living the true authentic Black experience that people want to buy and have sold to them. As you related it to trauma and having to wear that trauma on your sleeve, that makes full sense. It’s like, if you come from too privileged of a background, that’s somehow not enough to be a “true” black experience. Right, and the Black experience is defined by how it can be commodified and sold to other people, because that’s always been where our art is valued. Right? Not even the value that we put on it, but that’s what people wanted.
bUt
LOCAL ALBUMS
From “Friends,” can you clarify a lyric for me? You say,
The I & I TELLERBANKS.BANDCAMP.COM t he album opener to The I & I by Teller Bank$ finds the Des Moines-based rapper reflecting on the practical value of processing his trauma through his art. In “Friends,” he comments on the market forces which encourage work that perpet uates negative stereotypes: “I had to swing my sword before I use my pen / I had to use my pain to go and make me a profit / ‘til we get our reparations that’s the least they can offer.”Bank$ is thinking out loud here, asking what he’s supposed to do as he continues to grow as an artist and human. Does he abandon references to his past when doing so jeopardiz es the financial and social rewards that come from wearing his trauma for all to see? Many of the album’s 14 tracks pursue similar avenues, provoking questions surrounding identity and integrity, revealing a human trying to reconcile his es cape from inhuman conditions.
LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 67 and Iowa’s own Rent Money (fka H the Prodigy), but whether it’s Bank$ or one of his collaborators on the mic, the album remains rich with creative wordplay throughout. “Pages” showcases a lyrical style akin to classic Method Man, utiliz ing syncopated vocals to create a counterbeat within AJ Suede’s flow. This isn’t the only callback to mid’90s rap, with Bank$ incorporating a few bars from Busta Rhymes on “Cain & Abel” and a lyrical hat tip to LL Cool J in “Finders Keepers.” Beyond its lyri cal
the title The I & I is ad opted from a Rastafarian concept that God is within all people, it can also represent a duality between separate parts of the self. For some lacking a cohesion between their intention and actions, this can re sult in an I against I scenario. For Bank$, however, his own I and I appear to be drawing near, with his work helping him usher in a new life while making sense of an in creasingly distant past.
What’s bought and consumed by white people, for the majority, is going to be of a certain brand. It’s going to be 12 Years a Slave, it’s going to be Precious, it’s going to be Moonlight, even Boyz N The Hood back when that first came out. It’s going to be those stories that are seen as “Wow, those are so moving and meaningful.” That’s what we’re about, and so we’ve adopted that as a survival [mechanism]. Where it’s like any type of trauma—whether it’s poverty, not having a father, all of these different things—we wear that as a badge that we wear and people look at it and go “Oh, wow, he grew up on the South Side of Chicago with a single mom and gang banged and got shot twice and here are paintings that he does. What an amazing story.” And they’ll gravitate toward that, whereas if you’re just a regular dude [who paints] people are going to look at it like, “This is lacking.” You know what I mean? We perpetuate it now, as well, but it’s also something that’s put upon us. And breaking out of it is hard because of how much of it is imposed from the outside and the inside. —Chris DeLine
teLLer bANK$
internalilluminatingstylehooditiestheestrackhowever,playfulness,thealsofocusonbalancingresponsibiloffatherwithalifeofhustling,anstruggle of a man being pulled by opposing forces. “Hollywood” finds Bank$ as suming a darker tone, with lyrics further reflecting an unbalanced mind. “Demons” acknowledges an ever-present threat of violence in his past, while also speaking to the ongoing impact trauma has long af ter attempting to move beyond it. A determination to do better for him self remains clear in these tracks, but the rapper also emphasizes that it’s the unconditional love of his children which continues to aid him in combating these demons from hisWhilepast.
Submit albums for review: Little Village, 623 S Dubuque St., IC, IA 52240
WHAt EVEN IS “bLACK CULtUrE,” rIGHt? bLACK CULtUrE IS ALL tHESE SpECIFIC tHINGS tHAt bLOCK YOU IN AND IF YOU’rE NOt tHAt tHEN YOU’rE NOt bLACK. IF YOU ASK SOmEbODY “WHAt IS WHItE CULtUrE,” NObODY KNOWS.
The I & I is the third in a trilogy of releases produced by Indianabased Ed Glorious, and it marks the eighth full length album from Teller Bank$ in the last year and a half alone. Despite this prolific out put, the release is neither flush with filler nor stylistically incohesive, remaining musically consistent due in large part to the quality of soulful boom bap served up by Glorious. The album is rounded out with fea tures from Aakeem Eshú, AJ Suede
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“I had to swing my sword before I use my pen, I had to use my pain to go and make me a profit.” A concept that I address a lot throughout the album is, Black people are taught and conditioned to wear our trauma. Any kind of trauma that we experience becomes a badge of honor. It becomes what makes us special, what makes us important, especially when you think about the history of America, all of our biggest accomplishments are escaping something, right? Escaping slavery, making it out of civil rights, avoiding the po lice, all of these different things that our value is based in the negative that has been done to us at the hands of America and other people. We haven’t gotten any reparations for any of the pain and trauma or stuff that we’ve endured at the hands of America, right? But we do routinely make fortunes out of parading our pain or selling our trauma.
Q&A
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I received, I am a more well-rounded guitarist who knows the fretboard in detail and understands not just how to play but knows what I’m playing. ... I don’t use very advanced theory in my writ ing process but since I have that knowledge, I can actually dissect and understand fully what I’m playing.
GR!DSM is … so much more than music—it centers around empow erment, identity, social awareness/social justice and a place where you can unequivocally be your authentic self. There are very few places in the world like Girls Rock, where you are constantly celebrated and uplifted. Your identity and expression are honored every day and brought to the forefront.
Allegra Hernandez Album release w/ Haploid, Double Dice, xbk Live, Des moines, Friday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m., $15-20 m usician, guitarist and educator Allegra Hernandez returned to Des Moines in 2018 after their stint at McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota was cut short when the school closed. That time afforded them a solid basis in music theory and performances at Twin Cities venues like the ven erable 7th Street Entry. Hernandez finished this education online at Berklee, all the while also teaching music at Des Moines institutions like School of Rock and Girls Rock!. In 2020, Hernandez released a three-track EP titled Pearl, which unfortunately wallowed in obscu rity as they were unable to bring these songs to audiences during the lockdown. On their new album, Gift Exchange, which comes out Nov. 4, they sing “I wrote a song it’s two years long / So please know that I’m here yes I’m here yes I’m here / I just take a long time to respond.”
Your bio mentions a couple of stints at colleges of mu sic—were you able to work on this style of music there or was that more heavily focused on theory? Music edu cation was something I have always valued growing up. ... In high school, that was when I decided to pursue going to college for music. Throughout high school, I seriously focused on playing guitar and writing songs all the time, taking lessons and learning from other music mentors. When I was in 11th grade, [Mary Anne Sims, director of City Voices, a non-profit music education program based in Des Moines] saw a video of me playing guitar and encouraged me to apply to colleges such as Berklee and other contemporary music colleges … Interestingly for me, what I learned in college doesn’t always direct ly apply to my own style of playing. In college, there was a big focus on jazz, blues, funk and of course some rock. The focus for me was ap plied music theory for the guitar, technique, sight-reading and other gui tar-based classes ... What influenced my playing was the bands and shows that I got gig experience from in the music scene and my own influences
beforehand.Withtheeducation
Q&A
Gift Exchange, while much more accomplished and polished, picks up where Pearl left off and is a suit able bookend to it—beautiful vocal harmonies and melodies ensconced in fantastic guitar work delivering first-person vignettes like pages ripped from a diary. That two-yearlong song clearly resulted in some serious chops.
—Michael Roeder
This album is a perfect example of how strong songwriting and vo cals can be paired with exceptional guitar skills. The fatigue from flashy guitar histrionics common during the hair metal and grunge eras makes Hernandez’s approach novel and fresh—supporting the melodies and harmonies while also allowing the guitar to speak as part of the archi tecture of the songs. They don’t shy away from big chunky distortion and searing leads, which are used effec tively where they appear.
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I wondered if working with students in Girls rock! and School of rock on their instruments has paid off in helping you sharp en your playing. As an instructor at School of Rock, I have to learn or at least familiarize myself with dozens of songs every few months. … I can learn songs quickly and efficiently, chart out songs for my students, etc. I have sharpened a lot of my fundamental skills on guitar from a beginner to an advanced level. I have students as young as 6, teens and also some adult students of all ages ... I have to meet my students where they’re at and take into account their learning styles. If I can successfully teach them concepts, that confirms how well I know it myself and fortifies that skill. … As a younger guitar instructor (24) and being the person I am (being non-binary/queer) I find that I don’t see a lot of guitar/bass/drum instruc tors like me ... I never had the chance to study under a non-male guitar instructor growing up and I feel passionate about teaching and inspiring girls and LGBTQ+ youth to play music, which is why I’m so passionate about Girls Rock! Des Moines. ... Girls Rock! has been so important in my growth as a young adult navigating the music industry.
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The lead track, “Time and Surface,” opens with a few bars of a deliciously slinky four chord motif decorated with harmonics that echo the verse. There’s violence and hurt alluded to. When we return post-cho rus, the song leans somewhat “djent,” with crunch and bombast punctuated with halts filled with ringing disso nant guitar chords and siren notes, reminding us of the “angry fists / making the dents.” A perfect marriage of music and theme. The track likely to get the most attention on Gift Exchange is the anthemic protest tune “Use My Fkn Pronouns.” Delivered with su per-catchy, hook-filled energy, I found myself singing along. “And how many times does it take for you / To address me in the right way? / (It’s) just as important as my name”—a message couldn’t be de livered more effectively than this ral lying cry in a song. And the message doesn’t supersede the music here— the skanking bridge with bouncing and sliding bass could have been ripped from a Red Hot Chili Peppers album.There’s a lot to discover and di gest on Allegra Hernandez’s debut album. In many ways they have a unique voice—delivered with ear nestly uncompromising songwriting. Hernandez summed it up best in an email to me about Gift Exchange, “My music is for anyone to listen to and en joy but is dedicated to the communities that I come from and where I am cel ebrated, especially for queer people.” ALBUMS
ALLeGrA HerNANDeZ Gift Exchange ALLEGRAHERNANDEZ.COM
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tOm mONtGOmerY FAte
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The Long Way Home ICE CUBE PRESS tom montgomery Fate, Prairie Lights, Iowa City, tuesday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m., Free t o be born in the Midwest is to become acutely aware of the term “flyover country.” And once you are aware of it, you must decide whether or not you’ll embrace your life here regardless or denounce it and move somewhere else, some where more conventionally beauti ful and Maybe,wild.if you’ve chosen the for mer, you might harbor some guilt, fed by backhanded comments from people who have left or people who are aiming to leave. But if you find a little bit of beauty in where you are regardless, or if you’re trying to, Tom Montgomery Fate just wrote the perfect book for you.
WHEN YOU GO tO ANOtHEr CULtUrE, WHAt IS It? WHAt IS prIVACY?
HOW DO pArENtS rELAtE tO CHILDrEN?
Regardless, I found a lot of peace in Fate’s new release. It’s clear by the end that the only thing Fate is advocating for is for readers to slow down: physically, mental ly, spiritually—and give ourselves over to the epiphanies that we only find with time and presence. Considering his incredible experi ences across the globe accompa nied by his honest self-reflection, I think it just might be worth a try. The Long Way Home is the Iowa native’s fourth release. It is avail able now on Ice Cube Press.
The Long Way Home is a memoir that does not follow the rules of a traditional narrative. Rather, it com bines themes of prayer, belonging and fishing into essay-style chap ters anchored by Fate’s experiences traveling across the globe. Each bite-sized essay reflects on a different journey Fate embarked on: from a writing residency at H.J. Experimental Forest in Oregon, to a revolution in Managua, Nicaragua, to a sabbatical at a Benedictine ab bey in Maquoketa, Iowa. Through each chapter, readers ponder the relationship between life and death, prayer and fact, religion and
One of the most interesting parts to me was your experi ences in the benedictine abbeys. Would you ever go again? Yeah, I would. In the academic world, there’s a lot of negativity about religion, almost as if you’re stupid or diminished because you haven’t gotten over that yet. And of course, I’m thinking of Kathleen Norris and Wendell Berry and all the writers who still haven’t gotten over it yet. But one thing I’m trying to do in this book is to open up the idea of religion a little bit. Yes, there are right-wing nuts. One of them was president, who used religion as a marketing tool and read the Bible like it was an instruc tion manual rather than a work of art.
Q&A
HOW DO pEOpLE LIStEN HErE?
—Lily DeTaeye
WHAt DOES It mEAN tO bE COUrtEOUS? WHAt’S A LINE? WHAt’S A CLEAN bAtHrOOm?
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WHAt’S pUbLIC trANSpOrtAtION?
In your book, you mention feeling like a tourist or out of place in some of your travels. What do you think is valuable about that discomfort? So, it’s a lens on your own culture. When you go to another culture, what is it? What is privacy? How do people listen here? What does it mean to be courteous? What’s a line? What’s a clean bathroom? What’s public transportation? How do parents relate to children? So I mean, it’s hard because everything’s new. But again, it teaches you what all of those ideas mean in your own culture. What was the process like to get this book to where it is now? Well, the process I used to go through is, I used to write a 400-word essay. I used to call those framed moments. There’s some charged moment that I see in memory or see in front of me, and I get it down. And then I’d go from those 400-word snapshots to about 1,000word essays, which I would try to publish in the Chicago Tribune or Christian Century or other places that typically take my work. And then from there, when I got a sabbatical, a few years later, I would flesh all that stuff out to 2,000 to 3,000-word chapters. So there was a systematic lengthening, from an emotionally charged moment to a complicated, more developed essay over time. With this book, I would say it was more going from the 1,000-word essay in the Tribune, which a lot of these pieces are from originally, to the longer chapter. But I sit with these pieces for years.
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The benefit of going to the abbey for me is a kind of intellectual and spiritual discipline.
there are a lot of very big topics at play in The Long Way Home. How many of these discoveries happened as you were writing the book? Well, you know, this is a memoir in essays. When memoirs became bestsellers all of a sudden, people understood that a memoir was not an autobiography, but looking through some aspect of your life, through the lens of that experience. It could be a birth memoir, cancer memoir, whatever. And so, for me, the challenge is always trying to figure out how to thematically link the disparate pieces. And travel, which is a pretty big frame, allowed me to connect these together. And the idea of journey, or journeying of course, is another huge idea. So journey can be internal, external; trav el can be internal, external. And so that idea kind of made more sense to me as I worked on the book. That would be the thematic unifier.
spirituality, relationships and the self.Fate reminds us persistently that the journey itself is the destination; home is not a place, but a feeling.
And while these are cliches every reader has heard once or twice, Fate contextualizes them in a very personal way that is accessible, es pecially to those of us who share his midwestern roots. Fate’s stories take place throughout different periods of his life, from childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic. Such a long time frame is necessary to frame the complex themes that are being discussed here. But there are times when conversations about life, meaning and prayer are accompa nied by conversations about the pandemic, politics and social me dia. These are the only moments when the 160-page book edges on preachy and decentralized. There is a world where all of these topics fit together cohesively, but in such a small sample size, these parts feel like a lot to chew on.
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You wrote a novel before ATCBD. How were those two writing experiences different? I wrote All This Could Be Different, in a fever dream, mostly over the summer and fall of 2020, after working for seven years on a completely different proj ect, after having written nearly 800 pages of attempt at it. That project ended up feeling bloated with too many characters, digressions and themes. I felt determined to put every lesson of failure from that previ ous project to use when writing ATCBD, which felt in many ways like my second round in the ring. I left the characters and setting and premise of that previous project behind, thanking them for what they’d taught me. “Keep it tight and propulsive this time around,” I warned myself. ‘Seduce the reader; first withhold and then give them something good, again and again. Make them laugh. Pay attention to structure. Only one year of time will be covered in this novel. No more than four important characters at any point. Separate yourself emotionally from the protagonist. Everything that happens has to have a downstream effect or it gets cut.’ Sneha’s development as a person changes the shape and tone of the narrative. I wanted to show this young person growing up and becom ing themselves. In order to do that, you have to show change. I wanted to show a self being formed through other people, write a novel of interdependence and, if you will, a compound love story. I believe that the sentences and the thematic choices have to be in a happy marriage, as a novel. I would watch YouTube timelapse videos of plants bloom ing over months, and it supplied me with an effect I tried to recreate for the reader: petal by petal, this prickly, compressed narrator opens up, to her world, but also us, the readers. Did you intend to write about othering / trauma / identity or was it a consequence of the story you ended up telling?
Q&A
I wanted to write a novel where the main characters were as deeply imagined as I could pull off. Sometimes, for me, there is a flattening, overly causal quality to centering trauma in literary narratives. I pre fer to think about it through the lens of personal history: What is the sum total of this person’s past, and how do they relate to the different pieces of the past, with denial or acceptance or nursing of wounds or something else entirely? Sneha does not cher ish the fact of her trauma—she denies it. She’s a proud, pained, spiky, multifaceted character who sometimes hurts, sometimes gets hurt, and I saw my job as repre senting the intricacies of her full self, as she navigates the painful, glorious journey of what it means to find a home and make a life. Has your work in mutual aid influenced your writing? Has your writing influenced your work in mutual aid? Ultimately both deal in stories we tell ourselves about who has worth and who has power. And the fact that the world as it is is a made thing, and by that logic can be remade. I think that’s a quiet throughline that runs through ATCBD.
“bOOKS SAVED mE AGAIN AND AGAIN WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND LONELY. I WOULD LIKE tO DO tHAt FOr SOmEbODY ELSE, SOmEDAY.”
Why do you write? Books saved me again and again when I was young and lonely. I would like to do that for somebody else, someday.
All This Could Be Different VIKING W hen I started reading All This Could Be Different (Viking, 2022) by Sarah Thankham Mathews, I was nervous about the passive voice, tonally similar to other books I’ve recently read which I felt lacked substance. But this is intentional. Our narrator, Sneha, is apathetic, barely teasing interest, she merely exists for the first part of her own story. When Sneha does express some thing early in the book it’s haunt ing and familiar: “This is what my parents wanted for me, what every body wanted. To be a dish laid out before a man’s hunger. To be taken, to be quiet. Disappear into hair and parts. Disappear, in time, into mar riage and motherhood.” Subtly, cleverly, as Sneha gains interest in her own life, her voice changes, the book becomes harder to put down, her interests not just alluding to a future in which she has something to say but finally saying things. Mathews gives an expertly crafted example of how to write character growth. Sneha may be the most multi-dimensional character I’ve read in recent years. Her com ing-of-age is (like it is for many of us) framed as a love story, but is far more about finding out what love is than holding on to romance. It is heartwarming and challenging. All This Could Be Different deals with trauma and coming-of-age, the relationships we have and reject as we find ourselves as young adults, but while we follow Sneha through her revelations and crises, we are not forced to endure any of those horrors. Mathews saves us the trig ger warning by showing impact in stead of its catalyst. Sneha’s opacity and malleability challenged me to look inward—it felt like learning a funhouse mirror was not at all warped—in moments when she was honest with herself: “I did not know how to explain this stubborn love for my parents that I staggered under, iridescent and gigantic and veined with a terrible grief, grief for the ways their lives had been compost for my own.” For a book that could be difficult and dated (it takes place in 2013), Mathews has created something universal and lingering. We have all experienced the feeling of being alone with ourselves and longing for something else. We have all been surprised by love. Sneha “felt dizzied by all of it, by how in my hands her hips felt like the time I found an animal’s skull in the underbrush of my family’s home when I was a child and lifted it into the air: this hard, breakable, animal thing.” It is a fast read with a satis fyingTheending.shiftin Sneha’s ideologies, prejudices and self-image as she comes to live outside of her head is slow and raw and palpable. That’s one of the things that makes the shape of Sneha’s story so powerful: it could be a day in the life but it is, instead, an evolution.
SArAH tHANKHAm mAtHeWS
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I think doing language is what makes us human, is one of the greatest measures of us as a species, the closest thing I have found to a “mean ing of life.” I write to think through what’s difficult to me, to address and commune with people I’ve never met and to give myself to the future. ––Sarah Elgatian
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LITTLEVILLAGEMAG.COM/LV310 SePtember 2022 75 20. Cane product with a crunchy texture 23. Hybrid fitness system popular in the ’90s 25. Shake 26. Cynthia who portrayed Harriet Tubman 27. ___ list 28. Hip hop subgenre 29. Supped, say 31. ___ faire (event with 32.jousting)Beout of left field 36. Moonlight actor 38.SandersSimple dwelling 39. Basketball sitch also known as 1v1 40. See 75-Across 41. Hog parlor 43. Stretch between rest stops, or something stretched at a rest stop 45. 1960s TV role for Ron 49. Breathable footwear 52.itemBits of text that de scribe what’s on a webpage 55. Rear end, in Bath 56. “Letter BirminghamFromJail” author, 58.familiarlyCured bagel topping 59. Guest verse, perhaps 60. “___ are not 78.Trevino(40-Acrosshitevenuplightning,areacourseonare75.e.g.to74.refus73.ent(sadly)mascotschool72.slow67.65.Banner”Spangledinto-last63.ments”endorseTwelfth-word“TheStar-BegentleChancetodownYpsilantiwhoseisadifferbirdMotdeRemindersgetboosted,“Ifyoucaughta___duringstormandafraidofholda1-iron.NotGodcana1-iron.”quip)Puton,as 80.foundationGenrefor N.K. Jemisin 82. Happen regularly, as a 83.nightmareLanguage teacher’s prompt ... and a feature of five answers in this puzzle 86. “i c it this way ...” 87. Qamutiik or toboggan 88. System in which Alireza Firouzja is 2800-rated 89. Jeannie (and Jeannie II!) portrayer Barbara 90. Exams on a 5-pt. scale 91. 2nd and 3rd, often, but rarely 1st: Abbr. 92. Legendary guitarist Paul 93. “___ Leave Me This Way” (Thelma Houston hit) 94. Solution for a pretzel baker DOWN 1. ___ Regency 2. Wedding dress tradition ally made with red fabric 3. Game whose only dif ference from the standard version is that we lose 4.fasterCtrl+Y command 5. Former PM Shinzo 6. Citizen journalist’s tool 7. Mascara target 8. Tablet you can FaceTime 9.fromChest of drawers 10. Hoppy beer initials 11. Stimulate 12. Hand-pressed sushi 13. Ditches 18. Harmonizing bagpipe note, often 21. Drag queen who co-starred in But I’m a Cheerleader 22. Oozes 24. ___ disk (computer recovery aid) 28. Lowest point-earning position in a Formula 1 race 30. Swim-bike-run compe tition, for short 33. Purported natural navigation aid that you should not rely on 34. Vertical part of a quarter note 35. Source 36. ___ mater 37. Cassandra or 42.LaocoönHebrew “day” 44. Manicure option 46. Like your rela tionship with the host of your favorite podcast, more likely than not 47. Alternatives to Krogers 48. The Jimmy V Award, for one 50. Location often marked with a star 51. North Carolina university 53. Some Shakespeare 54.costumesNerve cell part that can be up to a meter long 57. “I don’t need that back” 61. Tony-winning actress Pinkins seen on Gotham and Fear the Walking Dead 62. Lead-in to Caps or Cats 64. Google Reader (RIP) 66.fodder“___ of Seventeen” 67. Signs of stress, perhaps 68. Galvanizes 69. Animal, for example 70. Discounted 71. Suggestion from a stylist 76. Like a mattress that needs upgrading 77. Boozy brunch portman teau (in warmer weather) 79. Parts of some menorah 81.sweatersLettuce heads? 82. Budget line that really is too damn high 84. Number that might include an ext. 85. Welcome precipitation in a 1982 hit SAY WHAT I SAY by Matthew Gritzmacher & Brooke Husic, edited by Francis Heaney LittleVillageMag.com ACROSS 1. Main offices, briefly 4. The Dakar Rally, for 8.exampleAmerican Street author 11.ZoboiOne-time vehicle for 14.Rudolph?Relative of a yap or a 15.yelpWeird Al song that par odies “I Want It That Way” 16. Critter that might utter a 17.14-AcrossStruckwith a dessert 19. Filmdom’s Caesar, for one 123 4567 8910111213 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 AUGUST ANSWERS BAY ON ET NO MA D IS OTO PE BO DIC E NE UTR AL L AME NT S SABES EF TS EEK ERE COD EW OR DS JU TS BA RD EM UNC C ASE DA NG ST DU HTH AT SOB VI OU S OM AHA SI NC EE NO AF LG OS T SKS FA IR FI GH TH AS EDS KO TB AR TI E RO A STE D EC ST ASY MRM OO NN ATA LI E IN US ED RYN ESS
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