All Rise, a monumental work by Wynton Marsalis, is the cornerstone of Hancher’s 50th anniversary season. The architecture of the piece is progressive—it represents a series of events and blends the sounds of jazz, blues, classical, and indigenous music from around the world to represent humanity’s enduring ascendance over time. All Rise is a celebration of shared responsibility and resilience. Working together to improve our communities, we can all rise up to meet challenges as we pursue social justice, a shared sense of well-being, and a sustainable future.
Adults
$80 / $100 / $125
College Students
$64 / $80 / $100
Youth
$64 / $80 / $100
Order online hancher.uiowa.edu
Call (319) 335-1160
or 800-HANCHER
Accessibility Services (319) 335-1160
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit arts.gov.
Mark and Fran Lundy
The Chuck Swanson Executive Directorship of Hancher Auditorium Fund
Denise DeLorme in memory of Scott Hagen
John and Dyan Smith
Sara and Sherwood Wolfson Educational Fund
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.
Two of today’s most exciting musicians come together to explore the rich culture of music, both traditional and classical, by Black American composers. William Grant Still’s Three Songs for Flute and Piano features text by poets Countee Cullen and Verna Arvey. Valerie Coleman’s Wish Sonatine is inspired by poet Fred D’Aguiar’s work and depicts the brutality and tragedy of the Middle Passage. Coleman’s Fanmi Imèn is Haitian Creole for Maya Angelou’s famous work Human Family in which the poet reminds us “we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
Alan and Liz Swanson
“Dido of ancient times, whether real or fictional, had no choice,” writes librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. “Our Dido, however, has the power to determine her own fate.” Fleischmann and composer Melinda Wagner’s Dido Reimagined brings an ancient myth into contemporary reality. Soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Brentano String Quartet will share music inspired by the Dido story culminating in a stirring performance of Wagner’s and Fleischmann’s reimagining.
Douglas and Linda Behrendt
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Funding gaps and racist jabs have plagued Deidre DeJear’s allAmerican campaign for governor.
autumnal Iowa beers to enjoy with your Halloween watchlist.
Dessa has a new book and album on the horizon—and some long-awaited opportunities in Iowa.
Village (ISSN 2328-3351) is an independent, community-supported news and culture publication based in Iowa City, published monthly by Little Village, LLC, 623
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.
lv@littlevillagemag.com. The US annual subscription price is $120. All rights reserved, reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. If you would like to reprint or collaborate on new content, reach us at lv@ littlevillagemag.com. To browse back issues, visit us online at issuu.com/littlevillage.
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Adria Carpenter adria@littlevillagemag.com
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October contributors
Alyssa Leicht, Audrey Brock, Av ery Gregurich, Chad Rhym, Dana James, David Duer, Jo Allen, John Martinek, Kembrew McLeod, Lau ren Haldeman, Lev Cantoral, Rob Cline, Sam Locke Ward, Sarah Elgatian, Tom Tomorrow
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Meet this month’s contributors:
Avery Gregurich is a writer living and writing at the edge of the Iowa River in Marengo.
chad rhym is an Iowa-based photographer and Sociology Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa.
Dana James is founder of Black Iowa News. blackiowanews.bulletin. com, @blackiowanews
Born in Akron, Ohio, David Duer has lived in the Iowa City area for 47 years and, most recently, taught English at Cedar Rapids Washington High School.
Jo Allen (they/them) is an LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC-focused photographer based in Des Moines, IA. Instagram: @jovisuals
John Martinek is a visual artist, cabinetmaker and currently a parttime home-school kindergarten teacher. More art at johnmartinek. com and Instagram @jnmartinek.
You could see your bio here.
Issue 311 , Volume 32 October 2022
cover by Jo Allen
Do the Democrats stand a chance? In this pre-election issue, LV takes a look at the candidates taking on Reynolds and Grassley. Plus: How to vote, fall beer recommendations, the Black Angel, Witching Hour and a candidate quiz!
Kembrew McLeod is a founding Little Village columnist and the chair of Communications Studies at the University of Iowa.
Lauren Haldeman is the author of Team Photograph, Instead of Dying (winner of the 2017 Colorado Prize for Poetry), Calenday, and The Eccentricity is Zero.
rob cline is a writer and critic who would gleefully give the current state of things a negative review.
Sarah Elgatian is a writer, activist and educator living in Iowa. She likes dark coffee, bright colors and long sentences. She dislikes meanness.
Sam Locke Ward is a cartoonist and musician from Iowa City. In 2020 his “Futile Wrath” strip for Little Village won the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s award for cartoon of the year.
Culture writers, food reviewers and columnists, email: editor@littlevillagemag.com
Illustrators, photographers and comic artists, email: jordan@littlevillagemag.com
Catch up on Little Village’s most-viewed headlines from last month. Read more at LittleVillageMag.com.
Where are the best chicken wings?
Ask the Iowa city Wingmen by Jeff Mannix and brian Johannesen, Sept. 7
Since 2019, the original Iowa City Wingmen have tirelessly scoured the Iowa City chicken wing scene in search of that perfect combination of flavor and texture with the intent of crowning the ultimate, most bodacious chicken wing in Iowa City. Our rating criteria is simple: Would we eat them again? In most cases, the answer is yes.
cedar rapids Police release body-cam footage from fatal police shooting after protest by Paul brennan, Sept. 8
Shortly after noon on Thursday, the Cedar Rapids Police Department released body-camera footage of the fatal shooting of Black man William Rich by CRPD officers on Aug. 30. The release came two days after protesters marched from police headquarters to the Linn County Courthouse, demanding more information about the shooting.
tired of sports bars? the Green House owner emily Salmonson wants to offer a ‘calming’ alternative by Adria carpenter, Sept. 23
Emily Salmonson is the owner of The Green House, a botanical bar that opened earlier this month in Iowa City’s Northside neighborhood. It features five plant-themed cocktails, garden sodas with floral syrups, rhubarb bitters, kombucha and more.
our newsletter
Watch: Video & Photo Gallery: the 2022 Front Porch Music Festival by Jason Smith, Sept. 29
One of Iowa City’s tightest-knit neighborhoods came together for an afternoon of foot-tapping tunes on Sunday, Sept. 25. Performers of all abilities were invited to participate— so long as they have a connection to the Longfellow community—making residents’ front porches and yards their stages.
and LV Perks: LittleVillageMag.com/
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Hancher Auditorium (2-3) Independent Downtown Iowa City - Record Collector - Yotopia - Merge - Fix!
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Little Village magazine print readership 25,000—40,000 per issue
readership
monthly article views
unique monthly visitors
MeDIAN AGe: 37
14%
20%
21%
17%
14%
10%
AVerAGe NUMber OF cHILDreN 1.85
$50k
$40k—60k
$60k—80k
$100k+
$20k—40k
<$20k
$80k—$100k
GeNDer
69.6%
27.8%
Masters: 35.8%
38.5%
12.3%
college: 7.8%
4.5%
AVerAGe NUMber OF YeArS LIVING IN eASterN IOWA
2.5%
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On May 26, 2022, Johnson County Supervisors approved the Joint Funding Agreement for Water Resource Investigations with U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey, Agreement No. 22NEJFA 138, in the amount of $310,700. Financial discussions for inclusion continue with Linn, Cedar, and Washington Counties. The U.S. Geological Survey will look at the Silurian Aquifer to ensure there’s enough water for com munity development needs—water availability and development requirements.
The explosive development in our area, fail ures of elected officials to address water con cerns, and recognition of water pressures world wide have frustrated many people. As we learned
that obtaining potable water is now an obstacle for rural development, Solon residents were told to be “good neighbors” and “Iowa nice.” Tax dollars and Federal Clean Water Act funds were used to subsidize development. Our Supervisors issued building permits (and collected property taxes) in areas with known water problems and illegal septic system discharge into area water sheds. The DNR and EPA enabled everything. No one addressed the proposed massive devel opment projects’ impact on our water.
The Supervisors’ vote to initiate a water study is a game changer. The last water study in Johnson County was done in 2005. We move into professional analysis of our water resources and developments’ impact on them. Water concerns
are now a legitimate issue. Most importantly, newly available information will enable respon sible decision making.
This is an important step forward for water protection.
—Antonio Russo, Solon
cedar rapids schools will stop using seclusion rooms after district reached settlement with Justice Department over disciplinary practices (Sept. 13)
Good, this behavior from school districts is cruel and unusual punishment. —Ian M.
Not at all a restraint and seclusion advo cate. But the need within schools (we’re talking money, at the core) is very strong. OF COURSE FAPE [Free Appropriate Public Education] is necessary. The systems, as they currently exist, are bursting. We need funding for not only educators to support the needs of SPED [special education]/all students. We also need support in terms of basic needs
in schools: transportation, clothing, stable housing, com munity support for families. The lack of these basic needs bleed into SPED and Gen Ed education. Reform discrimi natory systems, YES! But also wrap around and support families/schools for better ment of ALL!!!! —H.S.
An historic cedar rapids the ater is becoming its coolest new saloon and music venue (Sept. 13)
[Kenyon Thorp] and her crew have done an amazing job building this out - I’m looking forward to seeing it again when everything goes live! —Chris D.
tired of sports bars? the Green House owner Emily Salmonson wants to offer a ‘calming’ alternative (Sept. 23)
This is seriously my new favor ite place!!! Thank you so much for the beauty that your es tablishment offers, and not to
mention the fancy, botanical drinks! They are outstanding! —Lauren J.
This is gonna be absolutely necessary for when my sea sonal depression kicks in. —Jess D.
PHOtO GALLErY: the riverside Skate Park was demolished this past week to make room for the city of cedar rapids’ $750m permanent flood control system. the city anticipates sending requests for bids for a new skate park this October, as well as relocating the original skate park to a new location closer to c Street SW. (Sept. 23)
Big ol pile of memories. —Chris M.
This will be the first of two skateparks we are building, expanding our long term skatepark improvement plans. Thankfully we have an amaz ing and engaged skating
“The joy of every pediatrician is just seeing the kids grow up. Some of the children that started with our clinic at the beginning are now graduating or are young adults. … We believe every person and every child deserves to have healthcare, and the current system in our country doesn’t provide for that. Whatever we can do to try and fill in the gap is really important.”
—Dr. Marguerite Oetting, co-founder of Healthy Kids School-Based Clinics, on the 15th anniversary of the Johnson County program
“Your voice is valuable. And I think a lot of times people don’t even know it. A lot of times people think, ‘I’m not seen, so I’m not worth anything, and not worth being seen.’ And it’s a lot of work to be like, ‘No, but you are.’ I see you, and it is worth being seen, and worth preserving for future generations.” —Madde Hoberg, the new interim executive director of the LGBTQ Iowa Archives and Library
“There has been a really big focus on water quality in this state, but it has never been at a transformational level that we need in order to see change at the scope and scale which is necessary to protect our waterways.” —Alicia Vasto, the Iowa Environmental Council’s new water program director
“At the time it was formed, antiimmigration feelings were very high in the nation and the state. And there were people who were trying to form organizations that could eliminate those hostile feelings towards immigrants, and hostile policies and practices. … What we’re doing and why we’re doing it has stayed very much the same since we began. That is because the people who are affected by what is wrong, and what we’re trying to correct, are and have been, and continue to be, leaders in CWJ.” —Charlie Eastham, Center for Worker Justice co-founder and treasurer, ahead of the nonprofit’s 10th anniversary
community who have provided a wealth of input for us at our last Skatepark Open House and will get incorporated into the replacement park up the hill.
—Ashley Vanorny, Cedar Rapids City CouncilmemberrESHArE: the ‘demure white supremacy of the Midwest’ (originally published Jan. 6, 2021)
Sad but true. It shows in different ways. In the mid west it feels covert and in some cases not; enter in the south it seems more entitled and in some cases covert. Sad state of affairs. Everyone wants to speak in niceties and turn an eye for the action rather than speak honestly. In my observation and opinion.
—Michelle H.
StAFF PIcKS
As the season of terror descends upon us, there is certain ly sufficient horror in the real world to want to tune out of encountering things that frighten us by choice. But Halloween isn’t about fascist leadership in Italy or transphobes issuing bomb threats to children’s hospitals. It’s about the fears that help us laugh at ourselves, that take us down a peg, that remind us we’re human. And the Little Village staff is, more than anything else (and despite all rumors to the contrary), human. So we’ve compiled for you a list of our own strangest and most humanizing fears. Have a laugh at our expense! We love it.
Jordan Sellergren, Art & Production Director: “That the espresso pod machine will blow up when I hit the button, so I always run out of the kitchen or occasionally open the fridge door and bend down and look inside till it’s done, even when it’s empty, to mask that I’m hiding from it OR that the airplane toilet will suck me in when I flush it”
Emma Mcclatchey, Managing Editor: “I saw Signs at a tender age and I still don’t like star ing at tall cornfields lest I see an alien leg.”
Malcolm MacDougall, Marketing Director: “Frosted glass. It’s more of a highly nervous reaction, but I hate the feeling of touching it so much that I physically reel away from it. also that the stuffed animals in my bedroom were sentient and they saw e v e r y t h i n g”
Genevieve trainor, Publisher: “Everyone knows mine is Jack White.”
Drew bulman, Digital Director: “When I was real little my dad or someone told me not to fiddle with the knobs under the car seat be
cause I could be ejected or something (I think to just prevent me from messing with it) and for years I thought every car seat had some kind of ejector button underneath and I was terrified of going near them. My dad also told me not to stare at people in other cars when we’re driving down the highway because they might pull out a gun and shoot me, so I was also thinking that was a thing that’d happen.”
Adria carpenter, Multimedia Journalist: “This is a hard question. I have a lot of fears, but I feel like they’re pretty rational. I have a deep dislike for snakes, but they bite! Even if they aren’t venomous, it’ll still hurt.”
Lily Detaeye, Staff Writer: “When I was a kid I was afraid I would go down the drain in the bathtub. But now I’m scared of leaning against the windows in planes or cars because I’m afraid I’ll fall out.”
Kim bates, Social Media Manager: “I’m scared every time I run over a paper bag or something in the street its actually a bomb that will blow up my car.”
I don’t talk about kids very often in this column, because I don’t have any and I don’t know anybody who has any and I have so little maternal instinct that when I was in high school and our next-door neighbors asked me to babysit for them, my dad laughed, as if they had asked me if I’d like to learn how to levitate. However, I am not totally dead inside, and there are a lot of things I really admire about kids, like their creativity, optimism and amazing skin. It says a lot that when an adult is asked to reevaluate their lives, they often wonder, what would my 12-year-old self think about me? (Answer: nothing good. Oh my God, ew, what is going on with that haircut? And why do you still have roommates? We told Mom we were going to be a lawyer.)
It is so easy to get down on yourself about not being “enough of an adult,” es pecially these days, when it feels like you’re doing everything you can just to keep it together in the hellscape that is modern life. One Google search for the word “adult ing” (gag me with a spoon) reveals a tirade of insecurities for you to take on. What’s your credit score? Do you have symptoms of insulin resistance? Is your boyfriend secretly planning on breaking up with you for someone who doesn’t cry when he forgets to text her during boys’ night? Someone I went to high school with is a staff photographer for the New Yorker, and yesterday, I put “take a shower” on my to-do list.
I say, forget about adulting and ask yourself, what would a kid do? Probably drive to Hy-Vee, buy a sheet cake, eat half of it, and then throw the other half at the principal’s car. I’m not suggesting you do that, exactly, but try to bring that kind of whimsy and energy to your daily life. Go play outside. Call your grandma more. Do something with your car keys and minuscule disposable income that would make your 12-year-old self jealous as hell. After all, her curfew is 10 p.m. Yours is at least midnight.
P.S. Look for me on Halloween. I’ll be at the Deadwood, violating the bounds of common decency all night. I’m going as a sexy bunny, and my boyfriend is going as Lenny from Of Mice and Men.
I had only just moved to the Cedar Rapids area when I was warned, repeatedly, to stay away from Wellington Heights because it was “the ghetto” because of “the black gang members from Chicago all moved there to deal drugs”. I asked a couple of the fine Iowans who gave me that advice “Well, WHY do you think drug dealers moved to Cedar Rapids?” The idea that the lucrative market for drugs in Cedar Rapids area was the 80% white populace was lost on them. Being Indigenous myself, I learned what I could of the Meskwaki people, and quickly found out that even though the economy of Tama/Toledo depended heavily on the Meskwaki casino, the Meskwaki people themselves faced derision and contempt from many in the area. I found a lot of Systemic Racism, rather than overt racism. Many white Iowans simply don’t know exactly
“Pancake” the rabbit seeks human adoption. Very sweet, enjoys all things rabbits enjoy. Beyond soft but not afraid to be sassy. Spayed, 5-year-old Rex breed available for adoption at Iowa City Animal Care and Adoption Center. Comfortable around people/other rabbits. Loves veggies/hay/all food. Big girl with voluminous dewlap/“bunny boob” and not afraid to show it off. Call 319-356-5295/visit icanimalcenter. org to arrange meeting.
how to deal with people of color (for in stance, my small town Iowa ex-wife didn’t even meet a black person until she was 8 years old). The result is they don’t recog nize their Systemically influenced behav ior as being offensive to people of color. Being a “red state” induces people to pour gasoline on the fire, at least from the perspective of minorities. —Charles R.B.
Sad but true. It shows in different ways. In the midwest it feels covert and in some cases not; enter in the south it seems more entitled and in some cases covert. Sad state of affairs. Everyone wants to speak in niceties and turn an eye for the action rather than speak honestly. In my observation and opinion. —Michelle H.
I imagine we’re still dealing with the leg acy of people of color being intentionally kept out of New Deal era-hiring and union labor gigs. —Chad S.
Researching IC history is a hoot some times! Ask me how racist Emma Harvat was! —Josh L.
Wisconsin is not a Charlie Berens sketch either. —Joel K
It’s a truism of American politics that with rare exceptions, incumbents always have a big advantage in an election. And nowhere is that truism truer than Iowa.
Chuck Grassley has been in the U.S. Senate longer than all but one of his colleagues—Democratic Patrick Leahy, who is retiring this year—and longer than most Americans have been alive. According to the Census Bureau, the median age in the United States is 38.8 years. In November, it will be 42 years since Grassley was elected to the Senate, following six years in the U.S. House and 16 years in the Iowa House. When Grassley won his first election in 1958, there were 48 states, not 50.
In terms of years in office, Gov. Kim Reynolds is a newcomer compared to Grassley. Her career began when she was elected treasurer of Clarke County in 1994, three and a half decades after Grassley’s first win. But Reynolds is, in many ways, an extension of Terry Branstad, who holds the record as the longest-serving governor in American history.
It’s impossible to imagine Reynolds being gov ernor in 2022 if Branstad hadn’t come out of retire ment in 2010, run for governor again and selected her as his running mate. At the time, Reynolds was not an obvious choice. She was in her first term in the state Senate and had no notable accomplish ments since arriving in Des Moines.
If Reynolds stood out at all, it was because she had a dynamic personality and was a loyal team-player. She was also a social conservative, and Branstad needed to reassure his party’s so cial conservatives who did not trust him.
Lieutenant governors in Iowa typically have little to do except stand near the governor at news conferences, be a smiling face at events the governor doesn’t attend and chair meetings in which they provide little input. That’s basical ly what Reynolds did until Branstad resigned in May 2017 to become President Trump’s ambas sador to China.
As governor, Reynolds has loyally served the interests of the coalition of support ers Branstad built during his decades in of fice. The advantages of incumbency and
being Branstad’s designated successor helped Reynolds in her race for governor in 2016. She defeated Democrat Fred Hubbell by less than 3 percentage points.
As governor, Reynolds has also opened her door wide to what were previously fringe ideas among conservatives in the state. Most nota bly, she’s made a voucher-style program that would channel public school funds to private schools a priority, going so far as to endorse the primary opponents of some Republican lawmakers who opposed her because they thought it would damage their already strug gling rural school districts.
Polling shows a majority of Iowans oppose the plan to divert public school funds to pri vate schools, but there’s no evidence it has hurt
Reynolds’ chances of reelection. An Iowa Poll conducted in July showed the governor with a 17 percentage point lead over her Democratic opponent Deidre DeJear.
Of course, it isn’t just Republicans who enjoy the advantages of incumbency in Iowa. Both of the state’s senior Democrats, Attorney General Tom Miller and Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, were first elected to their offices in 1978. But neither of those positions has much power to set policy. Governors and U.S. Senators do that.
As the election approaches, Iowa is facing an uncertain future. From the pro-corporate agricul tural policies, which have led to a hollowing out of rural Iowa and environmental degradation, to the prospect of the state and federal govern ments further eroding reproductive freedom, the past clearly shows what Reynolds and Grassley will do to shape the state’s future. Their oppo nents, Deidre DeJear and Mike Franken, neither of whom have held elected office before, are basing their campaigns on the belief that Iowans want to go in a different direction.
It’s a truism of American politics that the next election is always the most important election. And nowhere is that truism truer than in Iowa.
Republicans’ campaign coffers overfloweth, but Deidre DeJear hopes a “new energy” against extremism in Iowa will make the difference on Election Day.
Deidre DeJear worked on her first campaign while she was still in high school. Her grand mother, Mattie Washington, was running for a seat on the Election Commission in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and a young Deidre Howard spent the summer of her sophomore year helping with the campaign.
Washington already had a long history as a public school teacher and community organizer in that rural Mississippi county when she decid ed to run for office. She was then, and remains today, a major influence on her granddaughter.
“She really instilled in me the value of doing for others,” DeJear told Little Village. “ Her em pathy towards individuals was contagious, and it still is.”
By the time her grandmother ran for of fice, Deidre’s family had moved from Jackson, Mississippi to Tulsa, Oklahoma following the death of her mother, shortly after Deidre turned 8. Her father and his brother, who was already
living in Oklahoma, had decided to start a home healthcare business in that state.
DeJear was used to spending summers in Yazoo long before the campaign.
“I volunteered to assist my grandmother, ev ery summer she taught summer school,” she re called.
Washington’s summer sessions went beyond the classroom. DeJear said her grandmother or ganized field trips for students to such places as New York and Washington D.C., so they could see more of the world beyond the rural corner of Mississippi.
Those summers with her grandmother also opened her eyes to the challenges of life in rural area, DeJear explained.. The Howards had lived in Jackson, Mississippi’s capital and the state’s only large city. Her time in Yazoo helped ac quaint her with life in rural America, especially the challenges faced by rural families in need.
Mattie Washington spent her career making sure the basic needs of the kids she taught were met, both in and outside school.
“I came to Iowa to go to Drake, and I ended up choosing Iowa as my home. I just love the state and love what it has to offer to people.”
“She was creating safety nets for her young students,” DeJear said. It was an example she would follow after enrolling at Drake University.
As an undergraduate, DeJear co-founded the Back 2 School Bash, which collected school supplies for students at Des Moines-area schools who would otherwise have trouble affording them. The annual event evolved into the nonprof it Back 2 School Iowa.
DeJear had never spent time in Iowa prior to enrolling at Drake in 2004. She’d developed an interest in broadcast journalism in high school, and was impressed by Drake’s program. She was also interested in politics, and Iowa offered the promise of a parade of national politicians during caucus season.
“I came to Iowa to go to Drake, and I end ed up choosing Iowa as my home,” she said. “I just love the state and love what it has to offer to people.”
Although DeJear majored in broadcast jour nalism and politics, she turned to business when she graduated in 2008, setting up Caleo Enterprises. Caleo, which is Latin for “ignite,” started with a focus on providing marketing sup port for small businesses, and has expanded to offer business development support and financial coaching for entrepreneurs.
Starting her business led to an important mo ment in then-Deidre Howard’s life. It’s how she met Marvin DeJear.
“My husband was one of my first clients,” DeJear said, smiling.
Marvin, who earned an MBA and Ph.D. in Higher Education, Community College Leadership at Iowa State University, is currently senior vice president of talent development at the Greater Des Moines Partnership.
Also in 2008, DeJear began volunteering as an assistant coach for the girls’ basketball team at East High School in Des Moines. It evolved into a full-time position, and DeJear served as an as sistant coach for the Scarlets through 2014.
“That was an outlet for me,” DeJear ex plained. “I’m a creative person, and while some people may not recognize it, basketball is a very creative game.”
She’d grown up in a sports-loving family, and played basketball in high school. But it was more than love of the game that made DeJear want to volunteer at East. It was also the opportunity to work with students.
“I am inspired by our youth,” she said, regard ing her decision to take the coaching position. “I’m inspired when I know we can create oppor tunities for our young people.”
DeJear was coaching during 2011, when the girls’ team at East capped a perfect season
by winning the state championship. Shareece Burrell, now an assistant coach for the wom en’s basketball team at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, was a freshman player on the 2011 squad.
According to Burrell, “Coach Deidre” had a big impact on her and her fellow players.
“She was someone who would push us to be better each and every day,” Burrell told Little Village. “She wasn’t just coaching us, she was always encouraging us to be better individuals.”
DeJear worked with the players both on and off the court, helping them with their studies, or ganizing community volunteer opportunities for team members, assisting them with the college application process.
She also served as a role model for the young players. During Burrell’s four years on the team, DeJear was the only woman on the coaching staff.
“That representation meant so much to us,” Burrell said, “because we had a Black woman as a role model to look up to. She helped us see that we could potentially be where she’s at one day.”
After Burrell graduated from East, she played Division I basketball at Bradley University in Illinois, where she earned a degree in sports com munications. She then attended the University of Northern Iowa, completing a master’s in women and gender studies. In addition to her coaching job at Mount Mercy, she recently started a non profit in Cedar Rapids, Restore the Millenials, to provide mentoring and support to young adults
who feel disconnected from their communities.
DeJear stayed in contact with Burrell through out her college career, offering encouragement and support, and the two remain in touch today. DeJear has stayed in contact with most of her for mer players.
“All of them are productive citizens, doing amazing work,” she said proudly.
While coaching and building up Caleo, DeJear became more active in politics. She worked on Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign in Iowa. She also managed campaigns for two local school board candidates. In 2018, DeJear decid ed to run for office for the first time.
After the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, she felt a new urgency to work to protect access to the ballot box. The Secretary of State is, of course, Iowa’s chief election of ficial. But the office also provides important services for entrepreneurs starting new busi nesses. The Secretary of State’s duties combined DeJear’s interest in ensuring voting rights and fostering business development.
DeJear campaigned on expanding access to voting, and expanding outreach to potential en trepreneurs to make sure they understood how the Secretary of State’s office could assist in new business ventures.
In the primary, DeJear faced Jim Mowrer, who was the better known candidate. Mowrer had twice been the Democratic nominee chal lenging the incumbent congressman Steve King
in western Iowa. DeJear won. But in the general election, she fell to Republican incumbent Paul Pate by almost 8 percentage points.
Even though she lost, DeJear made history in 2018. She was the first Black candidate to win a major party’s nomination for a statewide office in Iowa.
Campaigning as the Democrats’ candidate for governor, DeJear is impressive. She has an en gaging personality, is an excellent speaker, has outlined policies to address many of Iowa’s most pressing problems and can draw on a compelling life story when trying to connect with voters.
“If my story is possible, then all our stories are possible,” DeJear often says at events. But most Iowans who aren’t active in Democratic Party politics have never heard her story.
DeJear’s campaign has been limited due to limited success in fundraising. As of the end of September, there had not been a single campaign commercial on TV, despite the fact she was the presumptive nominee all year long.
There was another Democrat running last year. Ras Smith, who represents Waterloo in the Iowa House, declared his candidacy in June 2019. He quit the race at the beginning of January, citing a “drastic disconnect between the current political system and the people.”
Smith explained what that meant in a post he’d published on Bleeding Heartland two weeks earlier: “I never expected to be given as equal a shot as my white counterparts,” Smith wrote. “Because that’s reality. I’ve been a Black man in Iowa my entire life. What I didn’t expect was to be treated as insignificant by the donor class of my own party.”
Smith, who received the Iowa Democratic Party’s Rising Star award earlier in 2019, won dered if donors would have been so reluctant “if the front runner for the Democratic nomination for governor of Iowa were white.”
According to DeJear, she is receiving ade quate support from the Iowa Democratic Party, although she acknowledges that her campaign is having to do more with less. Fundraising started off very slow, but has improved over the course of the campaign. In July, the DeJear campaign had $505,315 on hand. The Reynolds campaign, however, had $5.2 million in the bank at that time.
Reynolds began spending some of those mil lions on TV ads in September. Neither of the two campaign ads that debuted that month mention DeJear.
The only Democrat even mentioned in the first ad is President Biden. The second does feature a Democrat, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, although the commercial never tells viewers who she is.
“And defunding the police has to happen,” Bush says in a brief clip showing her standing in front of the Capitol steps in Washington D.C., followed by a montage of images that frighten Fox News viewers. Then Gov. Reynolds smiles reassuringly at the camera. “Aren’t you glad you live in Iowa?” she asks, implying she is all that stands between viewers and the fears she is try ing to stoke.
The only reason for Bush, whose district is nowhere near Iowa, to be featured prominent ly in the ad is because Bush is a Black woman with shoulder-length hair and Deidre DeJear is a Black woman with shoulder-length hair.
Reynolds apparently expects viewers to be so blinkered they can’t tell the difference between two Black women, or so racist they assume all Black people secretly agree with each other and can’t be trusted to protect “real” Americans, or be willing to ignore the non-subtle racist appeal.
DeJear has never supported defunding the po lice. But people who watch the ad probably don’t know that, because the Iowa Democratic Party hasn’t aired any TV commercials promoting its candidate or challenging Reynolds.
Except for Steve King, no leading Republican in Iowa has ever paid a price for pandering to racism. And it was national Republicans who re jected King, not Iowa Republicans.
After remaining silent during King’s eight terms in Congress, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) decided four years ago that King’s white nationalist language and connections were just too odious to tolerate and cut off funding for him.
“We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn [King’s] behavior,” the committee’s chair de clared on Oct. 30, 2018.
Iowa Republicans continued to support King. Three days after the NRCC condemned King, Chuck Grassley issued a new video endorsement for him. (“Iowa needs Steve King in Congress. I also need Steve King in Congress.”) Reynolds kept King as co-chair of her 2018 election cam paign, and he was on stage as a featured speaker at her final campaign rally that year.
King was reelected in 2018, but national Republicans stripped him of all committee as signments in Congress, setting the stage for Iowa Republicans to abandon him during the 2020 primary. Iowa Republican leaders never had to explain the decades of support they provided for King. There’s no reason to think any of them will criticize the governor’s “Scary Black Woman” ad.
Polls showed Reynolds with a double-dig it lead over DeJear as the campaign entered its
final stretch, but DeJear says there’s momentum the polls haven’t captured, and there’s a focus on the Reynolds administration’s failure to address Iowa’s problem that she didn’t see during her 2018 statewide campaign.
“We’re not talking about the political head lines this time. We’re talking about bread-andbutter issues that impact everybody—rural, ur ban, suburban, Black, white, LGBTQ.”
DeJear said she sees “new energy” among voters—young and old, Democrats and Republicans—who are opposed to Reynolds’ in tention to impose a six-week abortion ban and divert public school funds into a voucher-style program to pay private school tuition.
“This governor has gone too far,” DeJear said. “This type of extremism doesn’t sit well in our state.”
DeJear talks about creating a more inclusive approach to governing, in contrast to Reynolds’ focus on the coalition of corporate interests Terry Branstad created, and the social conservatives
Reynolds appeals to by banning transgender girls from school sports and supporting right wing efforts to ban library books of which they disapprove.
“If we want people to be their best, we have to set them up for success,” DeJear said. “When we talk about education, healthcare, mental healthcare access—these are basic components, fundamentals things. There should be a pathway for people to enter in order to get access to those things.”
“And that pathway is getting smaller and smaller for the vast majority of Iowans. Why? Because our current leadership is not working hard enough.”
As she enters the final month of the campaign, DeJear acknowledges there’s still much work to do to get her message out. But then she refers back to what she said at the beginning of the campaign, “Iowa is worth the work.”
Polls suggest the pro-Roe retired admiral is closer to unseating Sen. Grassley than any Democratic challenger before him.
Things were different 42 years ago. Chuck Grassley, then a three-term congressman looking to move up to the Senate, declared himself an opponent of negative political ads. Grassley devoted his open ing statement in the Iowa Public Television’s Republican primary debate in 1980 to complain ing ads targeting him.
Grassley called his primary opponent Tom Stoner a “negative candidate” who “spends his time and money attacking his opponent, distort ing his record and making innuendo about his character.” Grassley demanded Stoner “apolo gize to the voters” for his ads.
The 1980 version of Grassley could have been describing the senator’s 2022 reelection campaign. Grassley has launched a series of negative ads attacking his Democratic opponent Mike Franken. He’s even tried to make Franken’s naval career a liability. More than one ad has claimed “Mike Franken can’t represent us. He doesn’t know us,” insinuating Franken’s 39 years of service around the country and the world has erased his Iowa roots.
Franken shrugs off Grassley’s ads.
“Perhaps you’ve seen an ad done by my op ponent that hits me for saying something about aspects in rural Iowa that are not what we
wanted them to be, both economically and for the future,” he said to the crowd gathered for a campaign event on the patio of Tic Toc, a neigh borhood bar in Cedar Rapids the week the first attack ads launched. “And I’m sorry if the truth hurts so much. But we need to identify the prob lem before we proceed to a solution.”
He pointed to the decline of his own small hometown in northwest Iowa as an example of the decline of rural Iowa. When Franken was growing up near Lebanon in Sioux County, the town had a population of approximately 50.
“I think there’s 12 there now,” he said.
Mike Franken is the youngest of nine chil dren. His father, a World War II vet, ran a oneman machine shop; his mother taught at the local one-room schoolhouse. As a teenager, Franken worked construction jobs on neighbors’ farms, and later spent three years working in a Sioux City meat-packing plant to earn money to cover his tuition at Morningside College. Then he ap plied for a Navy scholarship.
That scholarship led to a career that ended when Franken retired in 2017, having reached the rank of three-star admiral. He moved back to Iowa in 2020.
Franken’s life story has been the major focus of his campaign commercials so far, and the re sults of the June primary showed the impact that
Unlike Grassley, Franken frequently speaks in detail about what he wants to accomplish in the Senate, including capitalizing on Iowa’s progress in shifting to wind energy and promoting further growth in solarpower generation to make the state a major center for clean energy.
story can make. He swept almost all the counties in the media markets where his commercial was broadcast. His main opponent, former Rep. Abby Finkenauer, won counties where Franken wasn’t on the air. He won the primary with 55 percent of the vote and carried 76 counties around the state.
Starting the general election campaign with negative ads gives Grassley a chance to try to de fine Franken for voters who may not have been paying attention during the primary. They also allow Grassley to avoid addressing the biggest unanswered question of his own campaign: Why is the 89-year-old running again?
In the video announcing his reelection run, Grassley said he had “a lot more to do for Iowa,” but didn’t explain what that meant, and has re mained vague on what he believes he can accom plish in an additional six years in the Senate that he hasn’t been able to do in the last four decades.
In his speeches, Franken notes that Grassley’s years in office have coincided with the decline of rural Iowa, as people continue to leave and small businesses struggle to survive.
“He has had the opportunity to help us, and he has not,” Franken said. He directly connects Grassley’s policies to the money the senator has collected from corporations over the years. Franken has made not accepting corporate PAC contributions a centerpiece of his campaign.
Unlike Grassley, Franken frequently speaks in detail about what he wants to accomplish in the Senate, including capitalizing on Iowa’s progress in shifting to wind energy and promoting further growth in solar-power generation to make the state a major center for clean energy.
“We have a great opportunity to have the cheapest electrical power in the nation,” he said.
Franken sees the potential for Iowa to become the center of a low-carbon regional energy grid that would help address climate change and pro vide the infrastructure for new economic growth in rural parts of the state.
Franken also favors working towards a sin gle-payer healthcare system by gradually ex panding Medicare, in order to remove the profit motive for essential care. He wants to ensure the solvency of Social Security by eliminating the income cap. Currently, only income below $147,000 is subject to Social Security taxes. Franken, along with many groups who work on senior issues, wants personal income above the current cut-off to be taxed at the same 6.2 percent rate income below it is. He also has proposals regarding criminal justice reform, including the legalization of marijuana.
In addition to commanding a ship, the de stroyer USS Winston Churchill, and Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa, serving as flag
officer in U.S. Central Command’s Planning and Strategy Office, and as the first director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Franken had years of directly dealing with Congress as chief of legislative affairs for the Navy under President Obama. He’s well aware of the Senate’s reputation as the place where legis lation goes to die, he says, and would come to the job with experience of how the chamber works and how it fails to work.
This isn’t Franken’s first run for the Senate. He entered the Democratic primary in 2020, but that year’s primary was largely decided in ad vance. Before any candidates publicly declared their intentions, national Democrats were lining up behind Theresa Greenfield and trying to dis courage others from entering the race.
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) issued its endorsement of Greenfield three days after she declared, even though there were already two other Democrats in the race. Franken, who entered the race later, finished a distant second to Greenfield. Sen. Joni Ernst eas ily beat Greenfield in the general election.
This year, the big national Democratic groups have largely ignored Iowa. “The DSCC is not involved in this race,” a committee spokesper son told Politico in response to a question about Iowa.
That’s understandable. Grassley has compiled an impressive record in his six previous runs for reelection. He’s never won less than 60 percent of the vote. In three races, he won all 99 counties, and in the other three he won 98. But this year may be different.
In 2021, before Grassley announced he was running again, the Iowa Poll found that only 27 percent of Iowans thought he should seek anoth er term. Three months ago, an Iowa Poll found Grassley leading Franken by only 8 percentage points. That’s closer than any opponent has been to Grassley in 42 years.
The conventional wisdom at the beginning of this year’s Democratic Senate primary was that Finkenauer, because she was a former member of Congress and had greater name recognition, would win.
“We’re cresting at the right time,” Franken told audiences of enthusiastic Democrats during his final cross-state campaign swing before the primary. His strategy was to create an expecta tion—“I believe Mike Franken will defeat Chuck Grassley” was his first campaign slogan—use his biographical ad to introduce himself to voters, and then build momentum through in-person events. But in September, something happened that might interfere with the campaign’s momentum.
On Sept. 19, Iowa Field Report, an online news site associated with the state’s Republican Party, broke a story about a former campaign worker accusing Franken of committing assault by grabbing the collar of her vest and kissing her.
The alleged incident happened in March, but Kimberly Strope-Boggus didn’t file a report with the Des Moines Police Department until the following month. According to the report, Strope-Boggus didn’t allege Franken acted in an aggressive or sexual manner, but instead attribut ed his actions to what she claims are his “1950s interactions with women.” After reviewing the
police report, the Polk County Attorney’s Office determined the case was “unfounded” and closed it without further investigation or contacting Franken.
Strope-Boggus, who was fired by the Franken campaign in the month before the alleged inci dent, told the DMPD she met with Franken at the Dam Pub on March 18 at his request to discuss her possibly returning to the campaign. It was af ter leaving the pub Strope-Boggus said the kiss happened. According to the police statement, af ter she pulled away they went their separate ways without speaking. Strope-Boggus said she had had subsequent text interactions with Franken, mostly about campaign matters, but never men tioned the alleged kiss in any of them.
Strope-Boggus did not resume working for the Franken campaign. In April, after receiving a complaint from a Franken staffer about some thing she tweeted, Strope-Boggus told her wife about the alleged kissing incident, and her wife encouraged her to file a police report.
After Iowa Field Report published its story, Franken told reporters he had met with StropeBoggus in March, but flatly denied grabbing her collar or kissing her.
“It never happened,” he said.
The Grassley campaign immediately called on Franken to release Strope-Boggus from the non-disclosure agreement she signed when she left the campaign in February. (NDAs are com mon in political campaigns to protect confiden tial information.) Franken agreed to do so and said Strope-Boggus is free to discuss her allega tions. Strope-Boggus has declined to make any further statements.
It’s possible the allegation could discourage some people from voting for Franken, but it’s unlikely that anyone concerned with women’s rights would be moved to vote for Grassley in stead, given his voting record. Franken describes himself as pro-Roe, and says that decisions made between a pregnant Iowan and their doctor are “none of [his] business.” Grassley was the right wing Republican candidate in 1980, a bad year for moderates, and Grassley’s fiercely anti-abo tion stance helped him first win the primary against Stoner, and then the general election against first-term Democrat Sen. John Culver. But in 2022, the electoral energy on the issue of abortion appears to be going the other way, It would be ironic if the issue that helped Grassley get to the Senate defeated him this year.
After 42 years, things are different in Iowa. How different won’t be clear until after Election Day.
Paul Brennan is Little Village’s news director.
bY PAUL brENNAN, ILLUStrAtIONS bY EMMA MccLAtcHEY
tom Miller, (D-incumbent) agreed in 2019 not to pursue any legal actions outside of Iowa without first getting Gov. Reynolds’ permission, but in Iowa, he’s still free to do the things he’s been doing during his last 40 years in office.
rob Sand (D-incumbent) has infuriated Iowa Republican politicians by publishing a report on Gov. Reynolds misusing federal funds, and another one when she did it again, and promises to keep doing it as long as she keeps doing it.
Joel Miller (D) says Secretary of State Pate has introduced and backed unnecessary restrictions on voting.
brenna bird (R)’s main campaign promise is that she will be ready as AG to sue the Biden administration at any time for any reason, especially for reasons that might get her name mentioned on Fox News.
todd Halbur (R) plans to bring “common sense” to the auditor’s office, and according to Gov. Reynolds, that apparently means not publishing reports about her misusing federal funds.
John Norwood (D) wants to encourage farmers and corporations posing as farmers to voluntarily engage in better and environmentally sound farming practices, while protecting the flow of state and federal tax dollars that support the status quo.
Paul Pate (R-incumbent) says he’s introduced and backed necessary restrictions on voting.
treasurer
Mike Fitzgerald (D-incumbent) has been in office for 43 years and 10 months, but the average Iowan could not tell you the name of the state’s treasurer, and it’s not clear if that says more about Fitzgerald or the average Iowan.
Mike Naig (R-incumbent) wants to encourage farmers and corporations posing as farmers to voluntarily engage in better and environmentally sound farming practices, while protecting the flow of state and federal tax dollars that support the status quo.
roby Smith (R) made headlines last year by reportedly pressuring state regulators to allow a dogbreeder accused of animal welfare violations to stay in business, and telling a reporter who asked about it, “I don’t work for you.”
Black leaders encourage Iowans of color to “seize their power” at the polls.
bY DANA JAMeSThe Iowa Legislative Black Caucus hosted the fundraiser
Stepping up to Justice on Sept. 22 at Noce in Des Moines. I attend ed to hear what candidates think voters need to know heading into the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The event supported Black Democratic caucus members who are up for reelection.
The state legislators serving on the Black cau cus are Reps. Ruth Ann Gaines, chair; Phyllis Thede, vice chair; Ako Abdul-Samad, outreach; and Ross Wilburn, Iowa Democratic Party Chair. Gaines and Wilburn are running unopposed. Abdul-Samad is running against RJ Miller, an independent. Thede is running against Mike Vondran, a Republican.
Several caucus members said their constituents have expressed optimism about the midterm elec tions, but candidates said voters need more infor mation about election-related deadlines.
Thede, who has served seven terms in the Iowa House, said it’s also important to remind people about the power of voting.
“If we don’t vote,” she said, “we give up that power.”
But what about people who don’t feel powerful, or who feel detached from politics?
Thede said people need to be reminded, amid national efforts to weaken voting access, that vot ing is simple and it’s a right.
“This is your power. You own that power,” she said. “There’s nobody else who can advocate for them, like themselves.”
During her tenure, it has become more import ant to visibly advocate for people of color, she said, about her work on the Black caucus, which formed in 2018.
“I needed to understand the process in order to represent people of color,” she said.
Thede said she’s excited about possibly in creasing the number of Black legislators elected this year. Iowa has only had one Black senator, Thomas Mann Jr., elected in 1982. Izaah Knox is running for Iowa Senate District 17 (Des Moines/ Polk County), and Dr. Mary Kathleen Figaro is running for Iowa Senate District 47 (Quad Cities); both are Black. More voices will equal more work on the disparities affecting Black Iowans and peo ple of color, Thede said.
Jerome Amos Jr., from Waterloo, who is run ning unopposed, with his wife, tina Harmon-Amos, at Noce. Dana James
“We need to continue to do it because nobody else is going to do it,” she said, of the Black cau cus. “With a majority of Republicans, how are we going to get it done? We just keep pushing, and keep pushing, and we keep pushing.”
The Black caucus plans to push to get minority impact statements attached to all budget bills so all legislators will know more about how people of color are affected in the bills they draft, she said.
Black people fought, marched and died to vote, and voter suppression efforts today have the same goal as those they fought against: keeping voters away from the polls, she said.
“I want all people to vote, don’t get me wrong, but I think especially for Democrats they need to get out and vote, and if they don’t do that, we’re going to see more restrictive voting, more restric tive rights,” she said.
With the election looming, low voter turnout is a concern. Thede wants voters to consider the whys of voting. She said people are dismayed, upset and angry about what is happening in their com munities, and they don’t know who to blame or what to do about it.
“Well my answer is this,” she said, “I’m going to re peat it over and over again: You get out and vote. That’s the only way change is going to happen.”
—Dana JamesPhyllis thede, vice-chair of the Iowa black caucus Courtesy of Phyllis Thede
Here are the deadlines from the Iowa Secretary of State:
Oct. 19 Early in-person voting begins at your county auditor’s office. Auditors will also begin mailing out absentee ballots to voters who requested them, using the printed form available on the auditor’s website.
Oct. 24 Deadline or mail-in absentee ballot requests to be received in your auditor’s office.
Nov. 7 Final day for in-person absentee voting.
Nov. 8 Election Day. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Absentee ballots must be received in your county auditor’s office before 8 p.m. on Election Day.
registering: Iowans can register online, by mail or at the auditor’s office through Oct. 24. Same-day registration will be available at your polling place on Election Day.
Polling place: Find your polling place. Your polling place may have changed due to redistricting, so double check.
Voting: Vote in person at your polling place on Nov. 8, absentee by mail or by returning the absentee ballot to your auditor’s office or its designated ballot box. All absentee ballots must be received in the auditor’s office by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Identification: Bring one (valid and unexpired) form of identification from the following list:
• Iowa driver’s license
• Non-operator state ID
• U.S. Passport
• U.S. Military ID or Veteran ID
• Iowa Voter Identification Card (signed)
• Tribal ID (signed and with photo) Don’t have one of these forms of ID? Check the Iowa Secretary of State’s Voter Ready website for alternative methods.
Marking your ballot: Fill in the oval next to your selection. Vote in each race, or you may vote only for a particular race.
turn it over: Public Measure #1 will be the back of this year’s ballot. If approved, it would amend the state constitution to make it almost impossible to regulate firearms in Iowa.
Whatever movies you watch this October, don’t just sit there with glazed eyes dipping your hand into the Halloween candy bowl over and over again until you realize the trick-or-treaters are knocking and all that’s left for them are a few Tootsie Rolls and orange Starburst. Drink some local beer as well! The concepts are creative, the style choices bold, and the contents not suit able for children: It’s time for creepy films and craft beer!
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Wade Wisely, big Grove brewery (Solon, Iowa city, Des Moines)
Don’t you hate it when you’re tubing on the river sippin’ a cold
one and suddenly a webbed hand wraps around your ankle and pulls you down into some devo nian fish-incel’s watery lair? Skip the hassle and flop on the couch with a pack of Wade Wisely, a seasonal favorite in a fishy can from Big Grove. This malty cof fee oatmeal stout was developed in 2019 in collaboration with Driftless Flyathon, and proceeds from its sale benefit organizations leading efforts to clean up Iowa’s trout streams. A dark, complex beer pairs well with one of the best creature features of the 20th century—or so Guillermo Del Toro told me on our first date. Candy recommendation: Salt water taffy
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
bubba, backpocket brewing (coralville, Davenport)
We find out in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 that Leatherface’s real name is Bubba Sawyer. He’s a salt-of-the-earth Texan who works a blue-collar job at the slaughterhouse, hunts and butchers game to feed his family, and totally OWNED a van of college-age libs that trespassed on his property. Ol’ Bubba’s the kind of guy Greg Abbott would have a beer with. Perhaps that beer would be Backpocket’s Bubba—opaque as a hazy IPA comes, citrus-y and yellow as Southern sunshine, but hefty, like
the weight of a chainsaw in your hands.Candy pairing: Whoppers
Eraserhead (1977)
black Lager, clock House brewing (cedar rapids)
This cult classic depicting the surreal, horny, oozing adventures of one Kramer-haired guy caring for his deformed offspring is David Lynch’s first feature film, and as horrifying as it is absurd. Though you’d need something stronger than beer to get on Eraserhead’s wavelength, the Black Lager from Clock House Brewing—which celebrated its fifth anniversary on Sept. 24— combines dark and bright flavors (dark-roasted malt, bitter hops,
floral and coffee notes) in the same clever way Lynch utilizes black and white film. And black and white viscous fluid. Candy pairing: Gushers
Jurassic Park (1993) Extinction Event, confluence brewing co. (Des Moines)
The goofiness of the Jurassic World trilogy (and that talking raptor in JP III) may have ob scured how terrifyingly clever (wink) Spielberg’s original was, blending cutting-edge effects with a brilliant sci-fi story to petrify audiences. A rainy night and that booming John Williams score would go nicely with Confluence’s Extinction Event, their ever-evolving hazy IPA. Each batch has a slightly differ ent dino-covered can illustration, and slightly different DNA—al lowing the Des Moines brewers to experiment with different combinations of malt and hops. Ian Malcolm might not approve, but how can we stand in the light of discovery and not act? Candy pairing: Butterfingers
Floral Pilsner, reUnion brewery (coralville)
Auteur-horror is divisive, but I think most Midsommar viewers can agree director Ari Aster succeeds at capturing the sundrenched, flower-strewn atmo sphere of a secluded Swedish
commune during a summer solstice ritual massacre, er, cele bration. Reunion’s Floral Pilsner is not quite as hypnotic as the spiked tea served by the Hårga to sad tourist Florence Pugh, but it’s light enough to sip on all day (i.e. the length of the Midsommar director’s cut) and may soothe your nerves when the bodies hit the floor, so to speak. The pilsner is made with Iowa-grown Floral Saaz hops and is definitely not formulated to bring about your eventual doom. Candy pairing: Swedish Fish
Honey Gold, Lion bridge brewing co. (cedar rapids) This reboot returns to Chicago’s
real-life, now-gentrified CabriniGreen neighborhood to explore the violent (and thankfully fic tional) urban legend that inspired a horror franchise. This install ment fails to tell as compelling a story as the 1992 original, but Nia DaCosta—the first Black woman director to have a num ber-one box-office debut—sets a high visual standard for this new decade of horror. Candyman’s hook is dripping in blood and honey, but Lion Bridge Brewery only dripped Iowa honey into their Honey Gold ale; specifical ly, honey farmed by the apiarists at Indian Creek Nature Center. So refreshing, you’ll want to drink it five times in a row. Candy pairing: Candy corn
The Babadook (2014) + Kid Gloves, Belgian-style white ale, Quarter Barrel Arcade and Brewery (Cedar Rapids)
Prey (2022) + Soul Hunter, double IPA, Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. (Decorah)
Last Night in Soho (2021) + Raspberry Beret Sour, fruited sour, House Divided Brewery (Ely)
Titane (2021) + Blonde Fatale, Belgian-style blonde ale, Peace Tree Brewing Co. (Knoxville, Des Moines)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) — Devil’s Advocate, IPA, Millstream Brewing Co. (Amana)
Children of the Corn (1984) + Only in Iowa, imperial/double IPA, Iowa Brewing Company (Cedar Rapids)
Friday the 13th (1980) + Camp Shadyshore, lemon shandy, Toppling Goliath
An American Werewolf in London (1981) + Wolfdog, Czechstyle dark lager, Third Base Brewery (Cedar Rapids)
have been carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is … a return to the maternal source. Through my earth/body sculptures I become one with the earth ... I become an extension of nature and na ture becomes an extension of my body.”
In 1961, as part of a covert U.S. government action called Operation Peter Pan, 12-year-old Ana Mendieta and her older sister were flown from Havana to Dubuque. In all, 14,000 Cuban children were evacuated in response to their par ents’ fears of Fidel Castro’s Communist regime. The sisters were lodged at St. Mary’s Orphan Home in Dubuque and then, for the next four years, were shuttled between foster homes in Cedar Rapids until Ana graduated from Regis High School. She studied at the University of Iowa from 1969 to 1977, earning two master’s degrees and jump-starting her career as a ground breaking multimedia performance artist. One of her performances would happen at a notably con spicuous site on Iowa City’s north side.
This year, on the last night of August, as a crescent moon was rising on the eastern hori zon, my friend and I walked one block from her house on Brown Street into Oakland Cemetery. We commented on how dark it had suddenly become—no streetlights, no house lights, no headlights and large trees blocking out the city around us. We were soon engulfed by the sono rous call-and-response of a choir of tree frogs. Walking deeper into the cemetery, we could see a glimmer in the distance. As we approached the light, we realized it was a street lamp illu minating the Black Angel, likely placed there by cemetery staff to discourage acts of vandalism or bacchanalian gatherings.
The Black Angel is a popular local attraction, a statue commissioned by a mother to look down on the grave of her son, who died at the age of 18. To the left of the angel stands his headstone, a sculpture of a ragged tree stump with an ax head buried in it to symbolize a life cut short.
The unusual color of the angel, combined with the overactive imaginations and superstitious tendencies of college students, has led to a pleth ora of urban legends about curses of all types, which enwrap the statue in a patina of mystery and might explain the offerings left at its feet.
I’ve walked and biked past the Black Angel many times. When I arrived in Iowa City in 1975, my first apartment was two blocks away on Reno Street; then in the 1990s, I would bike by it on a shortcut from my home on the east side of town to my job on the north side. I’ve admired it, stud ied it, but always respectfully kept my distance. It is rather foreboding—the angel, her enormous wings raised, towers 13 feet above ground level and has been blackened by the natural oxidation process of the bronze.
But that night I felt emboldened, perhaps be cause my friend was with me, perhaps because no one else was in the cemetery. I climbed atop the four-foot-tall pedestal, using the tree stump gravestone to give me a boost. I sidestepped the day’s offerings and, with little room to do anything else, looked up at the Black Angel and hugged her around the waist. I never real ized how attractive she is. Her long sheer gown clings, revealing the figure of a young woman. When viewed at ground level, her facial features are enshrouded by hair that hangs down around her face. But from my vantage point, I could, for the first time, see her face clearly. Although her eyes were closed, I felt her looking down at me. Some artistic vandal had smeared her lips with red lipstick, which somehow made her look more beautiful. Graffiti had been scratched into
the bronze of her upper torso, but the accretion of patina was slowly obscuring those marks. A swarm of paper wasps had built a nest in her left armpit. I was smitten. I hugged her longer than seemed proper, and then carefully climbed down.
The Czech Bohemian woman who commis sioned this statue, Teresa Doležal Feldevert, im migrated with her son to the nearby Goosetown neighborhood in 1878 and found work as a mid wife. After her son’s death in 1891, she moved from city to city, eventually settling in Eugene, Oregon, and remarrying. When this husband died, Teresa inherited his cattle ranch and used some of her wealth to build this monument. On the base of the statue, beneath the raised letters “Rodina Feldevertova,” are engraved “Nicholas Feldevert 1825–1911” and “Teresa Feldevert 1836–”. They are buried beneath the large stone slab that extends in front of the sculpture. She died in 1924, but no one was left to add her end date.
In 1975, Ana Mendieta, as part of one of the early iterations of her earth/body sculpture se ries Siluetas, filmed herself lying face down on this slab, arms outstretched, dressed in black, then rising to sprinkle handfuls of black pigment powder to form a body outline, adding a pile of red pigment powder in the area of her heart and a large black X over the entire silhouette and final ly looking directly at the Black Angel and swing ing her leg in a wide arc to sweep away the sil houette. We can offer many interpretations of this performance: an act of commemoration, an iden tification with maternal grief and the immigrant’s pain of displacement, a ritualistic enactment of
death and rebirth, a healing ceremony. Perhaps it was all of these and more.
My friend and I continued our walk. We headed back toward her house, taking a differ ent route, picking our way through an unfamil iar corner of the cemetery that borders Church Street. The large oaks, hickories and pines inten sified the darkness. The 19th century gravestones leaned off-kilter, rimed with lichen. At one point, I came to a stone border that demarcated a nar row paved lane no longer in use as a cemetery entrance. Ten feet to our left stood a locked gate. I looked down in the dark and estimated that the lane was at most a foot below where I stood. As I stepped down, I realized I had gravely misjudged the distance and was stepping into air, unsure when I would land. It felt like slow motion, like an unseen hand had reached out to help me down.
When I was a child, one of the few framed art works in our house was a small reproduction that depicted a guardian angel hovering over a boy and girl at play unaware of their proximity to a precipice. The scene gave my mother some reas surance as she sent the 10 of us out to play be yond her reach and sight. The actual distance of that step down was three feet. I tipped forward, breaking my landing with my hands and right knee, while my left ankle scraped against that stone border. My friend said I just disappeared from sight in front of her. That misstep earned me a few scrapes, but no blood, no broken bones, not even a bruise. Some might say my fall was the Black Angel avenging the liberties I had taken with her. I prefer to think she was protecting me.
On September 8, 1985, the Cuban-American feminist artist Ana Mendieta fell to her death from her 34th-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Many believed she was pushed, wheth er intentionally or accidentally, by her husband, the artist Carl Andre, in the midst of a heated argument. I want to believe an angel was with her, perhaps not to save her but at least to hold her hand as she flew to the earth, filling her with peace in that last moment of her life.
1 Run by Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, the facility shifted its mission in the 1960s to serving “hard to care for children.”
2 The last three lines of the headstone’s inscrip tion: “I was not granted time to bid adieu / Do not weep for me dear mother / I am at peace in my cool grave.”
3 Norway spruce cones, a pair of tea roses, small piles of quarters and pennies and two seemingly active credit cards!
Culture
Pop
fter like two years of re jections,” Dessa wrote on Twitter in early 2021, “my short story just got accepted into a literary magazine, and I am about to order the fuck out of some takeout.”
The acclaimed rapper, singer and writer was riding high after learning that The Iowa Review planned to publish “As Close as You Get,” which recently appeared in the Spring 2022 issue. It was a level-unlocked moment for Dessa, who started out with dreams of pursuing a literary ca reer before taking a roundabout route through the indie hip-hop world.
“For me, a lot of what I do exists under the larger umbrella of the language arts,” she told me. “I fell in love with language when I was a really little kid, and I would say that my love of words and language predated any vocational am bition.”
Dessa vividly recalls the moment when her mother was reading aloud from Peter Rabbit and she learned the meaning of the word “fortnight,” which struck her as an exotic name for a twoweek span of time.
“My mom often encouraged me to sing along with songs that we both liked on the radio,” she said, “especially a harmony line or an ad lib— which got extra attention for mom—so we’d make up vocal lines to pass our time. As for po etry, I remember doing rhyming couplets as part of an assignment in fourth grade, and by the time I was in junior high, I was pretty excited about writing.”
College opened new doors for Dessa, especial ly when she discovered other literary forms like creative nonfiction essays, and the wide-eyed young writer was inspired to share her work with the world. Not fully aware of how connections grease the gears of the literary publishing ma chine, she sent her manuscripts in self-addressed stamped envelopes to magazines like The New Yorker, hoping to catch a big break, only to be
Tits on the Moon, Dessa: Deluxe pre order, available from store.doomtree.net, in cludes a limited edition flexi-vinyl with a live reading of two of the poems.
In 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda tapped Dessa to contribute to The Hamilton Mixtape, where she appeared alongside the Roots, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Queen Latifah, Chance the Rapper, Kelly Clarkson, Nas, Busta Rhymes and other music luminaries.
Writing led Dessa to hip hop, and her music career brought her back around again. bY KEMbrEW McLEOD via the artist via the artist
Music University conference, Drake Uni versity, Des Moines, Sunday, Oct. 23 at 10:30 a.m., Free (registration required)
Music University Showcase ft. Dessa, Open Mike Eagle, xbk, Des Moines, Sunday, Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m., $20
the Iowa review reading ft. tracie Morris, Dessa and others, Prairie Lights Virtual, Monday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m., Free (registration required)
greeted with radio silence.
“I was getting zero traction,” Dessa said, “so my friend suggested that I try performing in a poetry slam, and that was the way that I first en tered the world of performance. I had a couple of half-written songs with a friend of mine in college who played acoustic guitar, but we never really performed them in public. My initial for ay into music happened when a member of the Minnesota hip-hop community saw one of my slam performances and asked if I might be inter ested in working with a beat.”
Dessa hadn’t made rap music on her own be fore this moment, but soon she became a found ing member of the Minneapolis-based hip-hop crew and record label Doomtree—which re leased her debut EP, False Hopes, in 2005. It set her on a new creative path that has yielded sev eral singles, albums and collaborations that blur the lines between hip hop and pop, underground and mainstream.
“I can put music into the world myself and get traction, but I need someone else to say ‘yes’ if I want to have my writing distributed in a significant way. It was essentially through being rejected by literary publications that I wound up being invited to become part of the hiphop world, and then 17 years later, I was able to sell my fairst book, so it’s kind of been a full-circle experience.”
In 2016, Lin-Manuel Miranda tapped Dessa to contribute to The Hamilton Mixtape, where she appeared alongside the Roots, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Queen Latifah, Chance the Rapper, Kelly Clarkson, Nas, Busta Rhymes and oth er music luminaries. The Hamilton connection had a deeper resonance given that Lin-Manuel and Dessa are both of Puerto Rican descent (her mother is a Bronx-born Nuyorican who relocat ed as an adult to Minneapolis, where Dessa was born).
“I somehow appeared on the periphery of LinManuel’s radar before Hamilton had made the transition to Broadway,” Dessa recalled, “and he and I had penned a few casual messages. Then we ended up meeting, and later on he called me
and asked if I’d be able to contribute to The Hamilton Mixtape, which was like the easiest ‘yes’ ever.”
Two years later, the venerable trade press E.P. Dutton published Dessa’s My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love, after years of largely being ignored by the literary estab lishment.
“Part of the reason why I ended up in music,” Dessa said, “was because I wasn’t sure exactly which doors to knock on, whereas in the performance world, it’s less gate-kept. I can put music into the world myself and get traction, but I need someone else to say ‘yes’ if I want to have my writing distributed in a significant way. It was essentially through being rejected by literary publications that I wound up being invited to become part of the hip-hop world, and then 17 years later, I was able to sell my first book, so it’s kind of been a full-circle experience.”
Even after publishing My Own Devices—along with several poetry col lections and chapbooks—Dessa still finds it hard to crack the lit world’s code, which is why it felt so gratifying to have her short story accepted by The Iowa Review. Over the course of the magazine’s painstakingly slow and deliberate blind review process, a volunteer fiction reader and the fiction editor each recommended the piece for publication. When it landed on the desk of TIR Editor Lynne Nugent, her decision was a no-brainer.
“I read the first sentence, ‘Your teeth sometimes fall out of your head,’ and was pulled into the energy of the language and the way time gets turned inside-out in the story,” Nugent said. “It was a slam-dunk to accept. I was the first person with the access level to see the author’s name. Hmm ... Dessa? About a week before, I had seen and reshared on Facebook a very goofy and NPR-nerdy but also catchy, feminist and inspiring music video celebrating Janet Yellen becoming Secretary of the Treasury.”
While Nugent and thousands of others were enjoying that video, the au thor had been patiently awaiting TIR’s final decision for five months—a humility that struck Nugent as very Midwestern. It’s not uncommon for someone with Dessa’s profile to try to work the system to avoid the pro verbial slush-pile, especially because success in many parts of the literary world still has much to do with who you know.
“Yeah, I grew up in the Midwest,” Dessa said, “and that workmanlike sensibility is definitely something that we celebrate, for better and for worse. It’s funny, as much as I do revel in messing with genre and trying to turn an audience’s expectations inside-out, in other ways, I’m also kind of a rule-follower. It didn’t even occur to me to jump the queue. I just thought, ‘They’ve got a process.’ So, I just submitted and that was that.”
Lately, Dessa has been working on a new album with a tentative ear ly-2023 release date and she recently finished Tits on the Moon, a chapbook collection of 12 performance poems published by the Minneapolis-based literary organization Rain Taxi, in collaboration with Doomtree. As an in dependent artist who is deeply invested in the DIY ethos, she admits that it still feels good to have an established literary institution value her writing.
“The process of submitting writing can be more than a little demoraliz ing,” Dessa said. “It’s slow. It is solitary and there’s a lot of uncertainty—so yeah, when you ask them to dance and they accept, that just feels really good.”
Full disclosure: Kembrew McLeod and Iowa Review editor Lynne Nugent have been married since 2005, when they were wedded by an Elvis imper sonator at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas (her idea, and he happily agreed).
The power of artistic collaboration roots a series and a festival this fall.
bY GENEVIEVE trAINOrWhen Lucy Yao and Dorothy Chan began collaborating with each other and creating as Chromic Duo, both were already experienced educa tors and performers, looking for a way to foster community and lift up the Asian-American dias pora in New York, which at the time was increas ingly the target of racist violence.
“I think eventually, when Lucy and I started working together more, we found that … the core of what makes us want to create and connect to the people and community is to look further inside. To find the little moments, the joys, the reckonings of those little thoughts in your head and really capture and remember the importance of them,” Chan said in a recent chat with Little Village
She was speaking of a phrase that stands out in Chromic Duo’s bio: “the small wonders of the everyday.” It’s an apt starting place for any dis cussion of Witching Hour, the festival-cum-se ries that Yao and Chan will be part of this fall. For eight years now, Witching Hour has helped
resilient, finding ways to foster community even when physical connection was restricted. It’s a testament to the deep thread of curiosity that runs through audiences in the area.
Collaboration and community are at the core of all of this fall’s Witching Hour events, both in terms of content (see sidebar) and presentation. As a collaborative enterprise itself, Witching Hour certainly has skin in the game when it comes to working together. This year, the series format of fers even more opportunities to reach out and in corporate others into its own creative process.
chromic Duo, James theater, Friday, Oct. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Hrishikesh Hirway + Jenny Owen Young, Englert theatre, thursday, Oct. 27, 7:30 p.m.
Another Stage of Staging Ourselves, Englert theatre, Saturday, Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m.
Iowa City gain insight into the creative process, into the reckonings and connections that spark vision. And it’s often the smallest wonders that blossom into the grandest and wildest concoc tions.
Chromic Duo is the third offering in Witching Hour’s new reimagining as a series, rath er than a self-contained festival, preceded by Debit in September and the locally sourced Nakatani Gong Orchestra at the start of October. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Witching Hour, a co-presentation of Englert Theatre and Little Village, has remained dynamic and
Take, for example, Feed Me Weird Things, a lis tening series following the opposite trajectory of Witching Hour by launching its first self-contained festi val, FEaST, at the beginning of November (see sidebar). FMWT was a co-presenter (along with Public Space One) on the Nakatani Gong Orchestra event, and Witching Hour in turn is co-presenting the centerpiece of FEaST, Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
FMWT is the brainchild of programmer extraordinaire Chris Wiersma, and the series launched a few years after Witching Hour hit the ground. FEaST is a celebration of five years of esoteric acts with undeniably broad appeal. Wiersma was also, for a long time, on the pro gramming committees for both Witching Hour (nb. So is this author) and of the Mission Creek Festival, which he lent the same idiosyncratic
Olivia block, Patrick Shiroishi, trumpet blossom cafe, thursday Nov. 3, 9 p.m.
rachika Nayar, Englert theatre, Friday Nov. 4, 6 p.m.
Lubomyr Melnyk, Englert theatre, Friday, Nov. 4, 7:30 p.m.
Duma, Joe rainey, Masma Dream World, Gabe’s, Friday, Nov. 4, 9 p.m.
Godspeed You! black Emperor, Marisa Anderson, Englert theatre Saturday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.
“the core of what makes us want to create and connect to the people and community is to look further inside. to find the little moments, the joys, the reckonings of those little thoughts in your head and really capture and remember the importance of them.” —Dorothy Chan
via the artistsWilliam Lacalmontie, via Feed Me Weird Things
flavor with his skill in, essentially, teaching au diences what their next favorite band should be.
The twin spirits of community and collabo ration animate the search for the unknown ele ments of the creative process that Witching Hour has centered its philosophy and meaning on. And they influence the performers it attracts.
Chromic Duo, in their installations, perfor mances and virtual/augmented reality work, cen ter their explorations on toy pianos, welcoming audiences into a space that encourages the open ness and self-acceptance that precedes creativity.
“That’s what I think the toy piano represents, for us. It’s funny that it’s become like a symbol of being able to give yourself the permission to play, and to be able to give yourself permission to not judge yourself, and to show a little bit more empathy for yourself and for the people around you,” Yao said. “A toy piano … might be some thing that you think is just for a kid to learn. But then when you start to look a little bit deeper, you notice that the toy piano actually has this beauti ful character and all these different toy pianos are characters in themselves.”
At its heart, all collaboration is play. It often feels instinctive when we are children, but the skill is seldom encouraged and atrophies easi ly. Fostering community allows us to surround ourselves with other seekers. And the more we practice, the better we all get. Yao approaches community-building in the Asian diaspora and beyond from a UX design perspective.
“How can I meet my students or my audience where they’re at?” she asks. “And how can I create something that feels inclusive and compassionate in the programming, whether that’s like, including a piece of work that they’re familiar with—that’s very close to us, we very much love classical music, grew up with that, playing that. And then from there, it’s like, ‘Well, if you love this piece of music, then what else can we show you? We can love the same things, and maybe we can show you something else. Go a little step further.’”
The steps can seem small, but, Chan says, you just need to trust the process.
“There’s so many things, so many people that we want to reach, and it just feels insurmount able,” she said. “I need to remind myself that the more conversations we have, the more of these experiences that we share, … progress is made, little by little.”
In Iowa City, even just attending a Witching Hour or FEaST performance allows you to be come part of that progress. Especially if you come prepared to let go and play.
Genevieve Trainor is publisher of Little Village Magazine and a sucker for a valuable collab.
Lawn at Brucemore Saturday, September 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 more information.
ASL services with designated seating available on request.
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.
via Iowa City Poetry
Iowa City Poetry is celebrating the official grand opening of their poetry lending library at the Close House by co-hosting, with Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, the Iowa City Slam-O-Vision competition. Poets from all across Iowa are invited to test their mettle, with the winner advancing (via video) to the international competition. The slam begins at 7 p.m.; each poet has three-and-a-half minutes to perform. On Nov. 12, as part of the Mic Check Poetry Festival, local poetry lovers will convene to judge the video entries from other participating UNESCO Cities of Literature. The winner will be announced in December.
IcbF: thursday, Oct. 6 at 5:30 p.m. Angie Cruz, Prairie Lights, Iowa City, Free
IcbF: Friday, Oct. 7 at 6:30 p.m. Curtis Bauer and María Sánchez, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Friday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. Alex Kotlowitz, Pappajohn Business Building, Iowa City, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 10 a.m Book Fair, Merge, Iowa City, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 10 a.m Victor Ray, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 11:30 a.m. John Koethe, Prairie Lights, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 11:30 a.m. Sarah Kendzior, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 1 p.m. Jennifer L. Knox, Prairie Lights, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 1 p.m.
Elizabeth Crane, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Saturay, Oct. 8 at 2:30 p.m.
Don McLeese and Kyle Munson, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 2:30 p.m. Elizabeth McCracken, Prairie Lights, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 4 p.m
Elizabeth Weiss, Prairie Lights, Free
IcbF: Saturday, Oct. 8 at 4 p.m.
Cristalle “Psalm One” Bowen, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Sunday, Oct. 9 at 12 p.m
Poetry in Public Reading, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Sunday, Oct. 9 at 1 p.m.
Johnnie Each and Debra Marquart, ICPL, Free
Sunday, Oct. 9 at 1 p.m
Costume Party and Reading w/ Jennifer Black Reinhardt, Sidekick Coffee & Books, Iowa City, $9-18
IcbF: Sunday, Oct. 9 at 2:30 p.m. Iowa Intersections Interview Screening, ICPL, Free
IcbF: Monday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. Morbid Curiosities and Mabbott Poe, University of Iowa Main Library, Iowa City, Free
IcbF: Monday, Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m. Lori Erickson and Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez, Coralville Pub lic Library, Free
IcbF: tuesday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. Jerald Walker, University of Iowa Main Library, Free
Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. An Evening with Dr. Victor Ray, CSPS, Cedar Rapids, Free
Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 7:30 p.m. Iowa Literary Legends: Lan Samantha Chang, Englert Theatre, Iowa City, Free
thursday, Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m. Literary Pub Crawl, Downtown Iowa City, $40
thursday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Kim berly Johnson, Prairie Lights, Free
IcbF: thursday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Simon & Schuster Author Fest w/ John Irving and Jason Reynolds, Online, Free
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 10 a.m. Reading and Signing w/Michelle Edwards, Sidekick Coffee & Books, Free
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 10:30 a.m. Drag Storytime & Costume Ball, ICPL, Free
Monday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. Rebecca Rukeyser w/Rachel Yoder, Prairie Lights, Free
tuesday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. Tom Philpott w/Silvia Secchi and Chris Jones, Prairie Lights, Free
Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m Heather Altfeld and Troy Jollimore, Prairie Lights, Free
Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m. Margo Price, Prairie Lights, Free
Monday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. Amber Tamblyn, Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, $18
thursday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. Adam Soto w/Nickolas Butler, Prairie Lights, Free
Monday, Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. Jamil Jan Kochai, Prairie Lights, Free
7 p.m., Free Say what you will about the recent reboot(s)/sequel(s), the original 1984 Ghostbusters is a pinnacle of horror-comedy cinema. Just classic. It’s eminently quotable and filled with more top-tier performances than you can shake a particle thrower at. Gather with your friends, neighbors and whatever ectoplasmic remnants follow you into the park, and get ready to shout at the top of your lungs: “Yes sir, it’s true. This man has no dick.”
thursday-Sunday, Oct. 6-9 Refocus Film Festival, Various Venues, Iowa City, $12-230
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 7 p.m Hotel Transylvania 2, Iowa City Free
Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 10 p.m. Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Hor ror, FilmScene—Chauncey, Iowa City, $7
Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 15 and 16. Coco, FilmScene—Chauncey, Free-$5
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. 2001: A Space Odyssey, FilmScene in the Park, Free
Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 10 p.m. Ragmork, FilmScene— Chauncey, Iowa City, $7
thursday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m.
Pride at FilmScene: Rebecca, FilmScene—Chauncey, Iowa City, $9.50-12
Friday, Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. FilmScream 2022, FilmScene— Chauncey, $20-35
Saturday, Oct. 22 at 10 p.m Evil Dead II, FilmScene— Chauncey, Free-$7
Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. Thief, FilmScene—The Ped Mall Rooftop, Iowa City, $15
Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 10 p.m Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, FilmScene—Chauncey, $7
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m Rocky Horror Picture Show, NewBo City Market, $20-120
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 10 p.m. Multiple Maniacs , FilmScene—Chauncey, Free-$7
This new oneday music festival is taking over Gabe’s! The Warlock Hour Festival features 20 (mostly) local acts, who’ll be performing on the stages throughout the ven ue. Warlock Hour’s headliner, Collidescope, will be making their way back to Iowa City from Kansas City to perform. All proceeds from the festival will go to the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition.
thursday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. William Basinski, Old Capitol Senate Chambers, Iowa City, $10-20
thursday, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. Susto w/Subatlantic, Codfish Hollow Barnstormers, Maquoketa, $30-35
thursday, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. Ward Davis w/Josh Meloy, Wildwood, Iowa City, $15
Friday, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. Broken Social Scene, Englert Theatre, Iowa City, $20-35
Friday, Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. Good Morning Midnight, Mountain Swal lower, Pollinators, Ahzia, Gabe’s, Iowa City, $10
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m. Da vid Huckfelt & Pieta Brown w/Bo Ramsey, Englert Theatre, $10-27
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. Green Buddha, Wildwood, $10
Sunday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m. Dryad, Vide, Saidan, Sinner Frenz, Trum pet Blossom Cafe, Iowa City, $14
tuesday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. Norcos Y Horchata and Dolliver, Gabe’s, $10
thursday, Oct. 13 at 9 p.m. Bitchin Bajas w/Jon Mueller, Trumpet Blos som Cafe, $10-15
Friday, Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. Songs of Black America: Aaron Diehl and Brandon Patrick George, Hancher, Iowa City, $10-28
Friday, Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. An Evening with Dan Knight, Englert Theatre, $10-30
Friday, Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. The Clau dettes, CSPS, Cedar Rapids, $20-25
WH: Friday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m Chromic Duo, The James Theater, Iowa City, $10-20
Friday, Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. Slim Chance & The Can’t Hardly Playboys with Katie & The Honky-Tonks, Gabe’s, $10
Saturday, Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. A Punk Show In Support of DVIP, The James Theater, $22
Saturday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m. Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra w/Wyn ton Marsalis, Hancher, $64-125
Oct. 1, 6 to 9 p.m.
A night of star viewing, raptors, s’mores and storytelling with TAKO.
Halloween Moonlight Walk
Oct 14, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
The trail lit by friendly ghosts and Halloween decorations, with a scavenger hunt for a chance to win prizes.
Floating Pumpkin Patch
Oct 23, 9:45 a.m. to 12 p.m.
The pool will be full of pumpkins for participants to grab and decorate for this seasonal swim event. Free registration opens on Oct 16. Haunted Happenings
Oct. 27 & 28, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Oct. 28, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
A fun night with a trick-ortreat trail and a spooky maze. Costumes encouraged.
More events and details at northlibertyiowa.org/cityslate
Every City Slate event is free to attend thanks to our sponsors:
MidWestOne Bank | Veridian Credit Union Hills Bank | Adam Schechinger State Farm
| Eastern Iowa Airport – CID
GEICO Philanthropic Foundation
South Slope Cooperative Communications
Inc. | University of Iowa Health Care
Saturday, Oct. 22 at 8 p.m. Iowa Roots Round, CSPS, $15-18
Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. MINKA, Part Time Vegan, Sophie Mitchell, Gabe’s, $10
Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. Wave Cage and Caleb Rainey, The James Theater, $20-50
tuesday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. Brenta no String Quartet and Dawn Upshaw, Hancher, $10-40
WH: thursday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m. Hri shikesh Hirway and Jenny Owen Youngs, Englert Theatre, $10-20
thursday, Oct. 27 at 8 p.m Halloween Costumed Cover Show, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, Free
thursday, Oct. 27 at 9 p.m. Night Moves, Gabe’s, $10-17
thursday, Oct. 27 at 9 p.m. Hal loween Metal Night, Elray’s Live & Dive, Iowa City, Free-$10
The Beggar’s Musical, Iowa City Community Theatre, Opening Friday Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m., $14-22 Iowa City Community Theatre presents its latest partnership with Combined Efforts Theatre: The Beggar’s Musical, an adaptation of John Gay’s 1728 satiric classic The Beggar’s Opera (which was also the inspiration for Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera). This new iteration was written by Combined Efforts founder Janet Schlapkohl, with music by Michael Penick. Combined Efforts, founded in 2002, is dedicated to fostering collab oration between artists with and without disabili ties. In addition to the theater program, they also have a dance company, a men’s choir, a writer’s group and more. The Beggar’s Musical runs two weekends, Oct. 21-30, with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. Iowa Dance Festival Cx3, PS1 Close House, Iowa City, $10
Opening Friday, Oct. 7. Monstersongs, The Artifactory, Iowa City, $16
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. Iowa Dance Festival Concert, The James Theater, Iowa City, Free-$15
Friday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. The Beaker Brothers, Englert Theatre, $10-20
Friday, Oct. 28 at 9 p.m. Martin Sexton, The James Theater, $35-45
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. Winterland + Spaceship Driver, Wildwood, $15
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 8 p.m. The Milk Carton Kids and Katie Pruitt, Codfish Hollow Barn stormers, $30-35
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 8:30 p.m. Hal loween Cover Show, Trumpet Blossom Cafe, $10 donation to RVAP
Sunday, Oct. 30 at 5 p.m. Iowa Music Awards, The Olympic Theater, Cedar Rapids, $50-500
tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. Venom, Inc. w/ EYEHATEGOD, Ring worm, Cult of Lilith, Wildwood, $27.50
IcbF: Sunday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m. Les Mis In Concert, Riverside Theatre, Iowa City, Free
Opening Friday, Oct. 14 Misery, Theatre Cedar Rapids, $15-27
Opening Friday, Oct. 14. The Weir, River side Theatre, Iowa City, $15-35
Opening Friday, Oct. 14. Sorry, Wrong Number and The Hitch-Hiker, Giving Tree Theater, Marion, $23
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m Junie B.’s Essential Survival Guide to School, Theatre Cedar Rapids, $3-15
circle of Ash, Central City, Friday, Sept. 30–Saturday, Oct. 29, $25-60
Marengo Haunted barn - Ladora, Friday, Sept. 30–Saturday, Oct. 29, $12.
Scare Haunted House, Des Moines, Friday, Sept. 30–Sunday, Oct. 30, $25-45
the Slaughterhouse, Des Moines, Friday, Sept. 30–Monday, Oct. 31, $25-30
Linn’s Haunted House, Des Moines, Friday, Sept. 30–Monday, Oct. 31, $20
the Sleepy Hollow Haunted Scream Park, Des Moines, Friday, Sept. 30–Sunday, Oct. 30, $28-48
Phantom Fall Fest, Altoona, Friday, Sept. 30–Sunday, Oct. 30, $34.99-49.99
the Heart of Darkness, Waterloo, Friday, Sept. 30–Monday, Oct. 31, $20-50
eclypse Haunt, Iowa City, Friday, Sept. 30–Monday, Oct. 31, $25-40
Harris Haven Funeral Home, Evansdale, Friday, Sept. 30–Monday, Oct. 31, $5
tormented Souls Haunt and Scream Park, Madrid, Saturday, Oct. 1–Saturday, Oct. 29, $22-46
Scream Acres Park, Atkins, Saturday, Oct. 1–Saturday, Oct. 29, $36.95-43.95
thrashers House of terror, Mt. Pleasant, Thursday, Oct. 6–Saturday, Oct. 29, $10-20
Haunted Forest, Ames, Friday, Oct. 7–Saturday, Oct. 29, $25
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m
Knights of the Round Pasties: Knight of 1000 Papercuts, CSPS, Cedar Rapids, $15-20
Sunday, Oct. 16 at 1 p.m. National Theatre Live: Straight Line Crazy, FilmScene—Chauncey, $9.50-10.50
thursday, Oct. 20 at 7:30 p.m. Mark Normand, Englert Theatre, $39.50-49.50
Friday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. Comedy Roulette, The Lucky Cat Comedy & Events, Cedar Rapids, $5
Friday, Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. The Boys Are Back In Town, Willow Creek Theatre Company, $11
Friday, Oct. 28 at 8 p.m.
Bawdy Bawdy Ha Ha: Trick or Tease Halloween Burlesque, The Olympic Theater, $25-40
Friday and Saturday, Oct. 2829. Hocus Pocus 2, Studio 13, Iowa City, 8 p.m.
WH: Saturday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Another Stage of Staging Ourselves, Englert Theatre, $10-20
15 at 5 p.m., $7 After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, the Old Capitol City Roller Derby is back! They’re kicking off a season at their new home at the Mercer Park rec center with the Monster’s Brawl: Punks v. Preps. The bout is against the Quad City Rollers. Tickets are $7 at the door; children 10 and under are free. Join the team later for an after-party at Tailgators in Coralville.
Friday, Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. Fall Gallery Walk, Downtown Iowa City, Free
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 11 a.m. Northside Oktoberfest, Northside Iowa City, $94
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 2 p.m. Cel ebrate Your Inner Authority: An InterPlay Playshop, Public Space One, $10-20 donation
Sundays, Oct. 9 and 16 at 10 a.m. Don’t Replace Your Windows Workshop, Public Space One, Free
Sundays, Oct. 9, 16, 23 at 11 a.m. Iowa City Flea Market, Public Space One Close House, Free
Sunday, Oct. 9 at 4 p.m. Repro duction Rights Rally: National Day of Action, Pentacrest, Iowa City, Free
Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. Magic Yoga, The Lucky Cat Come dy & Events, Cedar Rapids, $25
Friday, Oct. 14 at 5 p.m Dog-O-Ween, NewBo City Market, Cedar Rapids, Free
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 9:30 a.m. Shop for Shelter, Various Loca tions, Iowa City
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 8 p.m.
Bawdy Bawdy Ha Ha: Trick or Tease, The James Theater, $25-40
Bawdy Bawdy Ha Ha: Trick or Tease, The James Theater, $25-40
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 9:30 p.m.
Halloweekend Comedy with Ken Flores, Joystick Comedy & Arcade, $5
Halloweekend Comedy with Ken Flores, Joystick Comedy & Arcade, $5
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 11:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 11:30 p.m.
Rocky Horror Picture Show, Englert Theatre, $22
Rocky Horror Picture Show, Englert Theatre, $22
Sunday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. John Waters, Englert Theatre, $20-49.50
Sunday, Oct. 30 at 7:30 p.m. John Waters, Englert Theatre, $20-49.50
tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m.
tuesday, Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m.
The Second City’s She The People, Englert Theatre, $20-55
The Second City’s She The People, Englert Theatre, $20-55
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 10 a.m. ADA Celebration, Ped Mall, Iowa City, Free
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 2 p.m. Vote Truth to Power, The Purpose Place, Iowa City, Free
Sunday, Oct. 16 at 12 p.m. Wag-O-Ween, Big Grove Brewery, Iowa City, $5-10
thursday, Oct. 20 at 5:30 p.m. The Golden Hour: Art For Conserva tion Photo Fest, Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, Iowa City, $50
Saturday, Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. Recycle Gala, The Olympic The ater, Cedar Rapids, $40-225
Friday, Oct. 21 at 5:30 p.m. Halloween Carnival, Robert A. Lee Recreation Center, Iowa City, Free
Sunday, Oct. 23 at 8:30 a.m. Cedar Rapids Hot Cider Hustle, NewBo City Market, $40-90
The Des Moines Music Coalition is bringing back Music University, an annual conference and showcase for musicians and music industry workers in Iowa. All ages and experience levels are welcome to attend the workshops and panels throughout the day. Minneapolis-based musician, Dessa, Open Mike Eagle and Colo Chanel will cap off the day with a performance at xBk. Music Univeristy is free with RSVP and showcase tickets are $20.
Friday, Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. First Friday: Momentum Annual Ex hibition, Mainframe Studios, Des Moines, Free
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 10 a.m. Com munity Table: Local Storytelling and Food Festival, Franklin Ave nue Library, Des Moines, Free
tuesday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. Liz Cooper, xBk Live, Des Moines, $15
thursday, Oct. 20 at 6:15 p.m. LUNAFEST, Willow on Grand, Des Moines, $15-50
Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. The Author Afterparty: Adam Soto, Raygun, Des Moines, Free
Friday, Oct. 28 at 9 p.m. Rex Manning Day Halloween Party, Gas Lamp, Des Moines, $10-15
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. The Queers 40th Anniversary Tour, Left’s Live Music, Des Moines, $20
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 10 p.m. The Time Warp + Iowa Safe Schools Fundraiser, Black Sheep, Des Moines, Free
Monday, Oct. 31 at 6:30 p.m. Halloween on the Hill, Sherman Hill, Free
Anthony’s Church, Davenport, Thursday, Oct. 6, 3 p.m., Free (registration required, donations welcome, food provided) Dr. Nancy Stone, Reverend Rudolph Juárez, Mayra Hernandez, Ryan Saddler and Thomas Mason IV will discuss an action plan to end racism, starting with a history of racism in the U.S. and including a Q&A with the panel of speakers. Attendees are encouraged to participate in a discussion afterward on ways to share the information provided with their communities. Presented by Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat Center.
Monday, Oct. 10 at 6 p.m. Book Discussion: MAUS, Rock Island Public Library, Rock Island, Free tuesday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. Coming Out Day, Clock Inc Community Center, Rock Island, Free
thursday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. SPEC TRA Reading Series with Interna tional Writing Program, Rozz-Tox, Rock Island, Free
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 9 a.m. Native Mushroom ID & Cultivation, Wapsi River Environmental Education Center, Dixon, IA, Free
Sunday, Oct. 16 at 12 p.m. Family Day at the Figge: Dia de los Muer tos, Davenport, Free
Friday, Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. The Rocky Horror Show, The Speak easy, Rock Island, $25-30
Friday, Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. Hal loween Open Skate Party, Eldridge Community Center and Skatepark, Eldridge, $6
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. Dark Side of Davenport Walking Tour Extended Cut German Amer ican Heritage Center, Davenport, $40
Sarah ElgatianCollege Hill, Saturday, Oct. 22 at 9 p.m., $10 Catch these three local acts hitting the Octopus stage at the end of the month. Mr. Softheart (formerly Hex Girls) is a three-piece group self-described as minimalist post punk. Their debut project, Caravaggio/ Flower of Tomorrow, was released in June, and their latest single is available at littlevillagemag.com. Art Monk, a Des Moines garage rock and dance punk group, plus DIE MAD, an Iowa City-based improvised rhythmic/electronic noise duo, will also be performing.
Wildest W’loo + more!
Saturday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. Illegal Smile, Soultru, Dead Silent, Black Light Animals, Cheesus, Octopus College Hill, Cedar Falls, $10
closing Oct. 9 at 2 p.m. Dracula, Cedar Falls Community Theatre, $10-25
Monday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. Or chestrating Change, Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, Cedar Falls, Free
Saturday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m.
Halloween Music Massacre, The Loft, Waterloo, $5-10
tuesday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. Dis ney’s Winnie the Pooh, Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, $15-50
Saturday, Oct. 22 at 10 a.m. Halloween ComicFest, The Core, Cedar Falls, Free
Saturday, Oct. 29 at 5 p.m.
Halloween Bash, National Cattle Congress, Waterloo, $15
Monday, Oct. 31 at 3:30 p.m. Trick or Treat in the District, Cedar Falls Downtown District, Free
As a pre-election special, Kiki guessed these Iowa statewide office candidates’ kinks based on their campaign platforms. Can you guess whose is (allegedly) whose? Find clues on page 29 and on the candidates’ websites! Have fun, and don’t forget to vote! —xoxo, Kiki
1. this former police officer and Army Sergeant needs everything to be kept in order. A sub if Kiki ever saw one!
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!
Magic the Gathering. Video Games. Warhammer. Warmachine. RPGs. Board X-Wing. Dice. LotR. HeroClix. Miniatures. GoT. Blood Bowl. L5R. Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh. Kidrobot Vinyl. Retro toys. vinyl plushies. Gaming collectible supplies. Huge inventory plus MtG FNM, league play, and frequent tourneys. Now buying/selling/trading games & toys! in your Gameboy, NES, N64, Gamecube, WiiU, Xbox 360, & other used consoles, action figures, for or trade credit!
2. Will ALWAYS show up. Is ALWAYS there. Maybe this one just wants to be held back—with rope. Shibari, most likely.
3. this homeschooled honey lives that farm life. Kiki sees rolls in the hay and plenty of barn splinters in creative places.
4. When you’ve been at the work as long as this one has been, there might be some interest in tantric exploration!
Fun atmosphere and great customer service!
Fun and great customer service!
5. this long-serving soul is all about accountability, and the campaign site serves serious dom energy. Possibly a whip-cracker!
115 S. Linn Street (by the Public Library), Iowa City
Tel: 319-333-1260; Email: chg@criticalhitgames.net www.criticalhitgames.net @criticalhitgamesiowacity
115 S. Linn Street Public Library), Iowa City Tel: 319-333-1260; Email: chg@criticalhitgames.net www.criticalhitgames.net
6. this one’s emphasis on safety and education might come from lots of experience as a careful and dedicated top.
7. this candidate’s concern with water quality might come from a desire to romp in our public lakes and waterways. Exhibitionist? Kiki thinks so.
8. “the watchdog” might engage in some role-playing fun—collar and leash included!
9. Every face of every Iowan on display. Kiki says: voyeur!
10. Expanding trade is important for this one: A possible sign of spouse-swapping.
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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):The Libran approach to fighting for what’s right shouldn’t involve getting into loud arguments or trying to manipulate people into seeing things your way. If you’re doing what you were born to do, you rely on gentler styles of persuasion. Are you doing what you were born to do? Have you become skilled at using clear, elegant language to say what you mean? Do you work on behalf of the best outcome rather than merely serving your ego? Do you try to understand why others feel the way they do, even if you disagree with their conclusions? I hope you call on these superpowers in the coming weeks. We all need you to be at the height of your potency.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “One bad apple spoils the bunch” is an idiom in the English language. It refers to the idea that if one apple rots as it rests in a pile of apples, the rest will quickly rot, too. It’s based on a scientific fact. As an apple de cays, it emanates the gas ethylene, which speeds up decay in nearby apples. A variant of this idiom has recently evolved in relation to police misconduct, however. When law enforcement officials respond to such allegations, they say that a few “bad apples” in the police force aren’t representative of all the other cops. So I’m wondering which side of the metaphor is at work for you right now, Scorpio. Should you immediately expunge the bad apple in your life? Or should you critique and tolerate it? Should you worry about the possibility of contamination, or can you successfully enforce damage control? Only you know the correct answer.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Of all the signs in the zodi ac, you Sagittarians know best how to have fun even when life sucks. Your daily rhythm may temporarily become a tangle of boring or annoying tasks, yet you can still summon a knack for enjoying yourself. But let me ask you this: How are your instincts for drumming up amusement when life doesn’t suck? Are you as talented at whipping up glee and inspiration when the daily rhythm is smooth and groovy? I suspect we will gather evidence to answer those questions in the coming weeks. Here’s my pre diction: The good times will spur you to new heights of creating even more good times.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): More than you might realize, people look to you for leadership and regard you as a role model. This will be extra true in the coming weeks. Your statements and actions will have an even bigger impact than usual. Your influence will ripple out far beyond your sphere. In light of these developments, which may sometimes be subtle, I encourage you to upgrade your sense of responsibility. Make sure your integri ty is impeccable. Another piece of advice, too: Be an inspiring example to people without making them feel like they owe you anything.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Rapper-songwriter Nicki Minaj says, “You should never feel afraid to become a piece of art. It’s exhilarating.” I will go further, Aquarius. I invite you to summon ingenuity and joy in your efforts to be a work of art. The coming weeks will be an ideal time for you to tease out more of your inner beauty so that more people can benefit from it. I hope you will be dramatic and expressive about showing the world the full array of your interesting qualities. P.S.: Please call on the entertainment value of surprise and unpredictability.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Author Robertson Davies declared, “One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.” It sounds poetic, but it doesn’t apply to most of you Pisceans— especially now. Here’s what I’ve concluded: The more you learn your mystery, the more innocent you become. Please note I’m using the word “innocence” in the sense defined by author Clarissa Pinkola Estés. She wrote: “Ignorance is not knowing anything and being attracted to the good. Innocence is knowing everything and still being attracted to the good.”
By Rob Brezsny
ARIES (March 21-April 19): When you Aries folks are at your best, you are drawn to people who tell you exactly what they think, who aren’t intimidated by your high energy, and who dare to be as vigorous as you. I hope you have an array of allies like that in your sphere right now. In my astrological opinion, you especially need their kind of stimulation. It’s an excellent time to invite influences that will nudge you out of your status quo and help you glide into a new groove. Are you willing to be chal lenged and changed?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Author Toni Morrison thought that beauty was “an absolute necessity” and not “a privilege or an indulgence.” She said that “finding, incorporating, and then representing beauty is what humans do.” In her view, we can’t live without beauty “any more than we can do without dreams or oxygen.” All she said is even truer for Tauruses and Libras than the other signs. And you Bulls have an extra wrinkle: It’s optimal if at least some of the beauty in your life is useful. Your mandate is summed up well by author Anne Michaels: “Find a way to make beauty necessary; find a way to make necessity beautiful.” I hope you’ll do a lot of that in the coming weeks.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “It requires a very unusual mind to make an analysis of the obvious.” I nominate you to perform that service in the com ing days, both for yourself and your allies. No one will be better able than you to discern the complexities of seemingly simple situations. You will also have extraordinary power to help people appreciate and even embrace paradox. So be a crafty master of candor and transparency, Gemini. Demonstrate the benefits of being loyal to the objective evidence rather than to the easy and popular delusions. Tell the interesting truths.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian poet Lucille Clifton sent us all an invitation: “Won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand hold ing tight my other hand.” During October, fellow Cancerian, I propose you draw inspiration from her heroic efforts to create herself. The coming weeks will be a time when you can achieve small miracles as you bolster your roots, nourish your soulful confidence, and ripen your uniqueness.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Dear Rob the Astrologer: This morning I put extra mousse on my hair and blow-dried the hell out of it, so now it is huge and curly and impossibly irresistible. I’m wearing bright orange shoes so everyone will stare at my feet, and a blue silk blouse that is much too high-fashion to wear to work. It has princess seams and matches my eyes. I look fantastic. How could anyone of any gender resist drinking in my magnifi cence? I realize you’re a spiritual type and may not approve of my showmanship, but I wanted you to know that what I’m doing is a totally valid way to be a Leo. —Your Leo teacher Brooke.” Dear Brooke: Thank you for your helpful instruction! It’s true that I periodically need to loosen my tight grip on my high principles. I must be more open to appreciating life’s raw feed. I hope you will perform a similar service for everyone you encounter in the coming weeks.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): How to be the best Virgo you can be during the coming weeks: 1. You must relish, not apologize for, your precise obsessions. 2. Be as nosy as you need to be to discover the core truths hidden beneath the surface. Risk asking almost too many questions in your subtle drive to know everything. 3. Help loved ones and allies shrink and heal their insecurities. 4. Generate beauty and truth through your skill at knowing what needs to be purged and shed. 5. Always have your Bullshit Detector with you. Use it liberally. 6. Keep in close touch with the conversations between your mind and body.
Have you ever been invited to an Ego Party? Me neither, but I bet they get real loud and standoff ish and are filled with folks who are never unsure behind the wheel even when given the murkiest of driv ing directions. On Penny Peach’s new album, her first full-length and the follow-up to her standout 2021 EP, brain gamez, she presents the soundtrack to her own EGO PARTY Album opener “CATACOMBS” is a prog-rocker with a folk song question: “When I go will you rest my bones in the catacombs?” Why? “Because I can’t afford a mausoleum/No, I may not even swing a grave,” Penny Peach (Elly Hofmaier) admits. But she’s quick to add directions: “Save the flow ers for your apartment/Just bring a friend and come sing in my cave.” The tune finally transforms into a doom-pop breakdown, featuring a brooding duet of guitar and ethereal flute supplied by Lex Leto. Throughout the album, Penny Peach performs several call-and-re sponse pairings with different itera tions of her own voice, embodying the true spirit of an EGO PARTY None is more effective than on “WINNER,” a power pop, set-steal ing stomper that sways hard and knows it. She follows it with “BLACK ICE,” an ekphrastic blues piece that reminds us that the cool kids always did and still do have black ice air freshener trees hanging from their rear views. It’s certainly hyperbole to say that Penny Peach’s voice sounds like what those lit tle trees smell like, but there it is.
(Blake Shaw’s bass solo plays the part of rearview mirror.)
The next two tracks reveal her real vocal range, with the acous tic guitar-and organ-anthem of “AGENCY” and the swinging thrash punk of “NICO.” The lat ter is all BPM and barre chords.
Simply put, it has a lot of strut and, again, it knows it. Which brings us finally to “JESUS PIECE,” an unmatched musical takedown of each and every guitar bro who has tried to mansplain a pedal board to Penny Peach. Here she is in full ga rage rock vengeance mode, leaning in hard. The second chorus:
I got a Jesus piece on my daisy chain
I got a room full of people choking on my name
I got a fire in me that you could never touch
Oh I swear I’ve already got too much
By the time “EFFORTLESS” ar rives, the pitch is at a full fever. It takes a brass and woodwind send off to usher the last lin gering guests away from the party and out into the dark. EGO PARTY is a sonic salute to an unapologetic swagger, to self-confidence in the pursuit of an iden tity, performance or otherwise, and more likely both at once.
EGO PARTY stands in opposition to hesitancy, absent politeness and self-inflicted joy repression. And somehow, it never once stops being genuinely fun; not once.
At her EGO PARTY, Penny Peach recklessly explores the many varied capabilities of her voice, highlighting its uniquely deft and deeply powerful delivery through this valise of songs. But it’s obvious that throughout the search, she’s al ways sure of what exactly it is she wants to say.
—Avery Gregurich
Fans of James Tutson’s love
ly voice, guitar stylings and well-crafted songs will be more than happy with his new release, a six-track recording called Happy
The album, which features Tutson’s longtime collaborator Tyler Carrington on keys and drums and Blake Shaw on bass, is of a piece with his previous work. The songs are R&B and gospel-in flected, with Shaw’s basslines both grounding and propelling each number. The lyrics are consistently thoughtful, and Tutson’s vocals are
The intentionality of the allit eration in the opening two lines is balanced by the plainspokenness of the final line of the chorus (and the song): “And take it from there.” One could read the first two lines as the song’s narrator trying just a bit too hard but quickly realizing that if he would “just let” himself accept the simple foundations of a relationship, all could turn out well.
In “I’m Not On My Own,” Tutson successfully adopts the trap ping of a slow doo-wop number, injects then with elevated lyrics and then simply sings the hell out of the song—including this verse that seems too thorny to work, but is instead buttery smooth in Tutson’s mouth:
I heard the news sung my lamen tations
You heard the news and gave your elegy
Well I called a dirge for your woeful poem
I’m so glad that I’m not on my own
The title track is a slow jam variation on the twist served up by a song like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone.” Suffice it to say, the singer is not the person feeling the titular emotion. “By and By,” which may be my favor ite of the tracks, reminds listeners of Tutson’s ability to co-opt and reshape religious imagery and ideas in engaging ways. “I Need You Here” is an upbeat follow-up to “Let You Love Me.”
The record closes with
warm and filled with longing.
All of that comes together, for example, on the song “Let You Love Me.”
I need to fetter my fear now
I need to shackle my shame
I need to trust you’re sincere now You need to know I’m the same I need to just let you love me
I need to just let you care
I need to stop being lonely
And just let you know me
And take it from there
“Tomorrow Comes Again,” a song in the style of a singalong worship or campfire song—three verses, each built around a single line. The order of those lines/verses gives the song more power than it might have if the final line were not, “I believe that sorrow has its time.”
That may be true, but even as we acknowledge the inevitability of hard times, we should all be happy that Tutson shares his gift for ex ploring the intersection of joy and sorrow.
ClineEGO PARTY IS A SONIc SALUtE tO AN UNAPOLOGEtIc SWAGGEr, tO SELF-cONFIDENcE IN tHE PUrSUIt OF AN IDENtItY, PErFOrMANcE Or OtHErWISE.
Little Village comic contribu tor Lauren Haldeman’s fourth book, Team Photograph (out Nov. 8 from Sarabande Books) is a poi gnant exploration of how we’re shaped by the places where we grow up. This graphic novel combines Haldeman’s iconic wolf-headed style with erasure poetry to rehash her youth on soccer fields 800 feet away from the battlefields of Bull Run in Virginia.
Throughout her childhood, Haldeman saw ghosts of Civil War soldiers in her house and on the soccer fields. As she got old er, she began questioning why she saw the specters. Is it because they wanted to be seen? Why is she the only one who saw them? In Team Photograph, she dives into those memories alongside the American history that accompanies them to ultimately confront the death of her brother.
On first glance, Haldeman’s wolf figures are cute and disarming. Flipping through the book casu ally, one might assume that Team Photograph is about a fuzzy soccer team on their way to win a cham pionship. It’s only when you start reading that the darker themes of the book—racial inequities, trau ma hallucinations, the loss of loved ones—come through.
And while some say graphic nov els soften the blow of heavy topics by translating them out of real life, I’d argue that Team Photograph packs an even heavier punch be cause Haldeman’s illustration style entices you to look longer.
In the faces of her wolves, we see Haldeman, historical charac ters and possibly ourselves, as we grapple with the weighty contents of the book.
This is especially evident when Haldeman discusses the Robinson House, which was home to an of ten forgotten Civil War-era Black family. The house remarkably sur vived the war relatively unscathed. Over a century later, despite the house’s status as a historical sym bol, it was burned down by arson ists, who some speculate may have been motivated by racist hatred.
Despite living near the Robinson House her entire life, Haldeman only learns about it when visiting Virginia after her brother’s death. She further meditates on the era sure of the Robinson family’s history by bringing them to life in their own family photographs, complete with wolf faces.
It’s here, and at several other moments throughout the book, that we are hit with the horror in our history and our natural instinct to turn away from gruesome things.
But, as Haldeman discovers, ig noring our history only keeps its ghosts around longer. Sometimes
SKYLAr ALeXANDer Searching for Petco FORKLIFT BOOKSSearching for Petco (Forklift Books, 2022) opens like some one suddenly turned on a speaker. I felt accosted by author Skylar Alexander’s opening poems: clearly meant to be spoken, clearly friends with slam poetry. Extra-sensory and openly branded “millennial.”
Alexander brazenly powers into an image, hands her reader an archetype and disarms them on entry. “Oh,” you think, “I am read ing millennial pop-culture poetry.” Pop culture is the first language or second nature of this collection of poems, and it’s also a misdirection. The reader will understand the ref erences that freckle every poem (such as po ems titled “Mick Foley Death Wish,” “Bayonetta,”
“Rozengurtle
/ to act as the foundation / of my withheld convictions” and then “& suddenly it’s Easter dinner– /same spiral ham, same corn casserole, but / everybody’s got a Keystone and / something nice to say, & even / tee totaler grandma will put down / the Bible for a minute, unclip / her clipon earrings, unclutch / her pearls & breathe.”
It is not easy to be caught off guard by a poet whose work I am already familiar with. These poems touch on moments from my own childhood and adolescence that I’d forgotten. They left me feeling both lonely and understood. In “Making Chloramine Gas in Grandma’s
Basement,” Alexander’s narra tor fades out with, “Watch: I will evaporate; / become toilet bowl / bleached clean / / Watch: I will va porize; / become ammonia / lighter than air.”
This collection deals with sexu al assault, coming of age, Neopets and Tamagotchis, beauty standards, skate parties, chloramine gas, fall ing in love and WWE. There is barely a moment from the last 30 years missing from this text and, in case we get lost along the way, Alexander included “Liner Notes,” for her pop culture references.
we must confront the uncomfort able in order to move forward.
Melancholy yet powerful, Team Photograph is an intertwining of histories that ebbs and flows with ease. Combining graphic novel el ements with poetry brings a cohe sion that nods to the complexities of history without getting too mud dy. It’s a quick read that you can pick up again and again, each time catching something new.
Baumgartner, Untouched by Man”), but someone expecting more traditional poems might be put off. This is no matter: Alexander is telling her reader she knows what they expect and she’ll wear her generation proudly—but don’t you dare underestimate her.
Bitterly feminist and bitingly universal, Alexander has permis sion to speak for our generation. In “Confession,” the first poem that caught me off guard and really slowed down my reading, she says, “I want to unhinge / the cellar door / of my ribcage & reveal / my cob webbed truths, / strategically buried
Repeatedly, Alexander’s work changes tone, reminding the read er this is a collection of search ing. This is a collection built for searching. For readers in Eastern Iowa, Alexander leaves traces of her time here, such as in the poem “Driving River Drive Every Night for the Rest of My Life” and “Searching for Petco,” which take place in Davenport, or in the poem “From The Solar Plexus,” in which she says, “fine and intri cate / like the boy who sells beer at John’s Grocery / who teaches me to pretend / Schlitz is champagne / Skyrim is caviar / that I wanted this.”
Alexander’s first book is some where between a warning shot and flare depending on the reader. Do you need a partner to get you through the dark or do you need to back down?
—Sarah ElgatianIt IS NOt EASY tO bE cAUGHt OFF GUArD bY A POEt WHOSE WOrK I AM ALrEADY FAMILIAr WItH. tHESE POEMS tOUcH ON MOMENtS FrOM MY OWN cHILDHOOD AND ADOLEScENcE tHAt I’D FOrGOttEN.
Amateur hour?
“I should’ve brought a jacket”
Farm-to-stable fare
Act with the 1994 hit “Closer”
Make generally less healthy but more delicious, in a way
City where the WNBA’s Fever play, familiarly
Contraction that drops a “v”
Its national dish is larb
Some TD scorers
Ascend
Drummer who said “we
go on forever as four clean little mop-tops ...”
Group with the 1967 hit “Bernadette”
Trichotomous treats
Enumerates
COVID vaccine molecule
Pizzas, to New Yorkers, perhaps a bit controver sially
Lowered expense for a hybrid driver
Mid-2010s dance craze that started on Vine
Blueberries for ___ (classic children’s book)
Group with the 1971 hit
to the World”
___ Major
Span that can’t be measured
Really goes for it
Group with the 2004 hit “Unwell”
Ménage à quatre
Paltry
Spice blend used in Palestinian cuisine
Barely above par
Raised
Meteorological nick name for soccer star
Torres
Minus
Seeks consent
Genre derived from mento, calypso and ska
DOWN
Pos. for basketball’s Lisa Leslie
King, in Portuguese
OutKast’s hometown: Abbr.
#Free___
Sandwich that often includes pickled daikon
Enter hesitantly
Certain meat sauce
Site seer?
Notoriously overpriced hotel amenity
Zen enlightenment
Egyptian serpents
Part that’s separated from the wheat
Absolutely sublime
Cloud storage devices
Like dive bars
Agcy. that was originally divided into Broadcasting, Telegraph and Telephone divisions
Orleans: Abbr.
Young’un
Amount past due to the Italian mafia?
Providence art inst. where the core of Talking Heads met
Old-timey cooking ap pliance
Mediocre-to-average weed, in slang
Soda that sounds like a type of sock
“This is for,” on a memo
Shade thrower?
Cohort just older than millennials
Symbol on the flag of South Korea
Group with the 2001 hit “Fat Lip” ... and the solution to this puzzle’s thematic equation
Official lang. of Israel
Robot that sucks at its job
___ Coltrane (jazz album with Spanish influences)
One in the cohort just younger than millennials
Spanish : Navidad :: Italian : ___
Pinnacles
Gendered pronoun
Journey
for one
“Will do!”
Common conifer
Reaches a denouement
Genus for humans
Clouds that become visible at night
Is a great song, in Bay Area parlance
North London Premier League club, on scoreboards
Elden Ring loot location
Sign that’s said to love the spotlight (you’re welcome)
Hypotheticals
Desire and Bourbon in New
Unites with, in a way
Comedian Notaro
Palindromic Overwatch character
Mullet-to-be, perhaps
