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November 2011
PARKIN’ IT INSIDE
OCCUPY IOWA CITY PAGE 10
APATHY in the Midwest PAGE 6
Landlords Beware PAGE 12
A day of Magical Thinking PAGE 22 Photo by Adrianne Behning
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November 2011 | Little Village
CONTENTS | ISSUE 108
Volume 11 | Issue 108 November 2011 PUBLISHER & MANAGING EDITOR Matt Steele Publisher@LittleVillageMag.com ARTS EDITOR | Kent Williams Arts@LittleVillageMag.com features Editor | Heather McKeag Heather@LittleVillageMag.com Copy Editor | Stephanie Catlett Steph@LittleVillageMag.com DESIGNERS | Becky Nasadowski and Matt Steele Design@LittleVillageMag.com WEB EDITOR | Drew Bulman DrewB@LittleVillageMag.com Little Village Live | Adrianne Behning Live@LittleVillageMag.com distribution manager | Austin Morford Distro@LittleVillageMag.com
Read It
4 UR Here Sharing is caring.
24 The Stage Spotlight on Vets
6 Your Town Now To the Polls!
26 Talking Movies Netflix takes it back.
8 Townie Hawk Press Box Blues
30 The Haps A Cornucopia of Shows
9 12oz Curls Two Beers To Be Thankful For
32 Local Albums All That Jazz
10 Community IC’s 99%
34 The Straight Dope Lumberjack’s Dream
12 Opinion Advantage: Tenants
35 News Quirks Hot Dog Etiquette
15 Hot Tin Roof This month’s $100 winner
36 Calendar Get Your Iowa City On
16 Prairie Pop A Critic’s Critic
37 A-List Loving Local
18 Books Fertile Soil
39 Astrology Rapid Reinvention
22 Events IC’s First TEDx
CONTRIBUTORS | Cecil Adams, Drew Bulman, Nickolas Butler, Stephanie Catlett, Yale Cohn, Laura Crossett, Thomas Dean, Craig Eley, Kembrew McLeod, Kori O’Brien, Andre Perry, Scott Samuelson, Warren Sprouse, Dr. Star, Roland Sweet, Casey Wagner, Kent Williams PHOTOS | Adrianne Behning, Mara Cole, Bob Goodfellow, Nick Gordon, Mauro Heck, Chris Mortenson, Becky Nasadowski, Zak Neumann, Working Group Theatre Illustrations | Becky Nasadowski, Matt Steele CONTACT | P.O. Box 736, Iowa City, IA 52244 • 319-855-1474 Advertise Ads@LittleVillageMag.com Submit Writing Editor@LittleVillageMag.com Internships Editor@LittleVillageMag.com Connect |Online at: LittleVillageMag.com/podcast Twitter.com/LittleVillage Facebook.com/LittleVillageMag YouTube.com/user/LittleVillageMag subscribe LittleVillageMag.com/subscribe Advertising and Calendar deadline is the 19th of every month. For a list of ad rates, email Ads@LittleVillageMag.com or call 319- 855-1474. All Content © Little Village LLC - October 2011
November 2011 | Little Village
3
UR Here
thomas dean
A
lot of people think something is really wrong with our country— indeed our whole world. Last winter and spring, mass protests throughout the Middle East swept long-standing regimes out of power. This past summer, European cities experienced mass protests about the state of economies and jobs. This fall, the Occupy movement has swept from Wall Street to Washington Street here in Iowa City and beyond. The goal of the occupiers has sometimes been criticized for its vagueness, but the main targets of the anger are elite, powerful institutions that are perceived to take too much and not give enough back, predominantly large
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Public Spaces. His latest book The commons is a new way to express a very old is All That We Share: A Field idea—that some forms of wealth belong to all of Guide to the Commons (New Press, 2010). Jay is coming to us, and that these community resources must be town to talk with us about the actively protected and managed for the good of all. commons on Nov. 8 and 9. The phrase “the commons” may evoke commons are the things that we inherit and vague images of fences and pastures in create jointly and that will (hopefully) last for England dredged up from your high school generations to come. The commons consists world history class. And that’s partially cor- of gifts of nature such as air, oceans and wildrect. But Jay’s idea about the commons is life as well as shared social creations such as much more wide-ranging than that. “The libraries, public spaces, scientific research commons” isn’t an idea that’s necessarily and creative works.” As you explore the On the Commons webconducive to an elevator pitch, but Jay sums it up nicely in the title of his book. Ultimately, site and Jay Walljasper’s book, however, you see that the commons involves much more the commons is all that we share. Many of the crises of than the natural world, public institutions and our times seem focused intellectual property. We share not only the on problems of private air around us and the public library and the pedestrian mall, but also dances, holidays, jokes, fairy tales, customs and traditions, manners, recipes, community connections ownership. The big powers own too much and mutual support, democratic freedoms, private wealth (which is also acquired and social responsibilities, values, social capital kept through dishonest or unfair means) and and so on. While American culture valorizes the little people (the 99%, as the occupiers rugged individualism and private property, would claim) own too little. That’s admittedly the real 99% of our lives is the commons. In a recent article entitled “The Struggle an oversimplification, but I think it captures a good chunk of the issue. Certainly private for the Commons,” which appeared in the Oct. wealth—what, frankly, we don’t share with 27 issue of The Nation, Jay Walljasper wrote, others—is an important part of life. But if you “The commons is an old value that’s resurfacthink about it, most of our days—and, indeed, ing as a fresh approach to twenty-first-century the most important things in life—are really crises such as escalating economic inequality, spent with, among and about the things that looming ecological disruption and worsening social alienation. In essence, the commons we share. The OnTheCommons.org website gives us means everything that belongs to all of us, a good starting point for a fuller definition of and the many ways we work together to use the commons: “The commons is a new way these assets to build a better society. … Taken to express a very old idea—that some forms together, it represents a vast inheritance of wealth belong to all of us, and that these bequeathed equally to every human—and one community resources must be actively pro- that, if used wisely, will provide for future tected and managed for the good of all. The generations. Tragically, this wealth is being
The Community, the Crises & the Commons corporations and banks. The Occupy and Tea Party movements seem to share some common ground, though the Tea Partiers’ object of rage is the government; the sentiment is similar, though, as they think government takes too much and does not return enough back to the people. Jay Walljasper thinks a lot of the unrest we’re seeing in the world today may be a crisis of the commons and I think he may be right. Jay is a University of Iowa alumnus and former writer and editor of our own Daily Iowan. He has gone on to success as editorial director and editor of Utne Reader, editor at large with Ode magazine, freelance writer, book author and speaker. Currently, Jay is focusing his work on the idea of “the commons,” which can be seen, in part, in his work as editor of the website OnTheCommons. org and as a senior fellow with Project for
4 November 2011 | Little Village
the commons stolen in the name of economic efficiency and global competitiveness.” And here, I think, is where the Tea Partiers, and maybe even some of the Occupiers, go wrong. The problems of our day are not just the disparities in personal wealth, whether you believe the villain is the banks, the corporations, or the government (though those issues are important). The primary problem is that these entities (including governmental entities) are more and more privatizing—and thus limiting—so much of what has traditionally been part of the commons. In many ways, I think the commons is a state of mind as much as a type of ownership. The idea reorients our attention to what we share and what unites us rather than what we keep from each other and what divides us. It refocuses our sense of value toward what belongs to all of us rather than what belongs to each of us. What would our community, our nation, even our entire world look like if the commons truly became our touchstone? When Jay comes to town this month, he’ll help us sort through these issues on international, national and local scales. The public events that Jay Walljasper is holding in Iowa City are free and open to the public—this is, indeed, a program of the commons. Updated information can be viewed on our “The Commons—Iowa City” Facebook page and, if you want to join in the conversation about the commons in our community and are a Facebook user, on our “The Commons—Iowa City” group. Please come share some time and ideas with Jay Walljasper and join the commons conversation! Thomas Dean thanks Little Village for their sponsorship of Jay Walljasper’s visit to Iowa City.
Join us on November 8-9, 2011, as Jay Walljasper visits the University of Iowa and the Iowa City community to share ideas with us about the commons. PUBLIC EVENTS • Free, no registration required For questions or more information, email thomas-k-dean@uiowa.edu TUESDAY, NOV. 8, 12 P.M • A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE COMMONS WITH JAY WALLJASPER 1505 Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences, The University of Iowa Tuesday, Nov. 8, 3:30-4:30 p.m. • Public Reception for Jay Walljasper M. C. Ginsberg: Objects of Art, 110 E. Washington St. TUESDAY, NOV. 8, 7 P.M. • THE COMMONS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN IOWA CITY • Panel Discussion Robert A. Lee Community Recreation Center Social Hall, 220 S. Gilbert St. In addition to Jay Walljasper, panelists will include Jeff Davidson (City of Iowa City, Planning and Community Development), Kurt Friese (Devotay Restaurant, Slow Food Iowa), Mark Ginsberg (M. C. Ginsberg: Objects of Art), Fred Meyer (Backyard Abundance, Environmental Advocates), Katie Roche (Englert Theatre), and Christine Scheetz (United Way of Johnson County). WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9, 7 P.M. • ALL THAT WE SHARE: A FIELD GUIDE TO THE COMMONS • Reading, Jay Walljasper Prairie Lights Bookstore, 15 S. Dubuque St. With great thanks and appreciation to our sponsors who have made this visit by Jay Walljasper possible: UI Leisure Studies Program (Department of Health and Human Physiology), UI Office of the President, UI Public Policy Center, UI Iowa Project on Place Studies, UI Center for Teaching, UI Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, UI School of Urban and Regional Planning, UI Office of Sustainability, Robert A. Lee Community Recreation Center (City of Iowa City), City Channel 4, Prairie Lights Bookstore, Brown Street Inn, M. C. Ginsberg: Objects of Art, Little Village (Iowa City's news and culture magazine), Devotay Restaurant, Red Avocado Restaurant.
November 2011 | Little Village
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Townie Hawk
stephanie catlett
www.LittleVillageMag.com
what’s in
a view? S
aturday, Sept. 24 marked my first foray into an echelon of sportsreporting I’d previously only dreamed of: a seat in the Paul W. Brechler Press Box. (Did you know it was named for Paul Brechler, who at the ripe young age of 36 became the youngest director of athletics in Hawkeye history? True fact!) I was given the privilege of witnessing the Hawks trounce Lousiana-Monroe on our home turf, far above the madding crowds of Kinnick. I arrived in style, on the free shuttle to Kinnick. It was a raucous ride, as it should be. Our driver psyched us up and we paid him in rousing renditions of “In Heaven There is No Beer” and the Iowa Fight Song. Once my chariot arrived, I veered toward the entrance marked “Press” and squeezed into elevator F for the fourth floor. The doors slid open and there stood a man whose sole job appeared to be to encourage all who entered to “Enjoy the food!” Food? Sweet! Cautiously, I peeked in. Rows of seats descended into a wall of glass overlooking the field. A muted, reverential hush prevailed. Groups of silver-haired men bent their heads together; flushed food-service workers sat out ketchups and mustards; reporters buzzed in their hives. The view was glorious, encompassing all of creation, from endzone to endzone. It was like I was in the blimp. Most of the seats lining the
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November 2011 | Little Village
Photo by Chris Mortenson
windows were filled with reporters clicking hometown, heck, I dunno, favorite breakfast, I away on their laptops. All I’d brought was a was an amateur who obviously didn’t deserve her seat. At one point, he asked apologetically notepad, a pen and a smile. With a little help, I located my spot beside if I’d ever been to a game before. Eventually, I decided not to let him or a journalist from Hawkeye Insider, decked out anyone else bother me. Hells bells, I had the in red and white West Branch gear. best seat in the house! I could actually see the “Why is it so quiet in here?” I whispered. “Is this your first time in?” he answered, shapes the band was forming on the field (a peering at my media pass. “Just so you know fedora! A tiger hawk!) I learned to mimic the … there’s no cheering. I’m serious. They’ll hushed “oohs” and “aahs” that a standout play elicited from the press. I asked my questions, warn you once, then they’ll kick you out.” Crap. No cheering? What in the hay? What gathered my impressions and I didn’t give a was I supposed to be doing up here? (I know, hoot how uninformed I looked scribbling into my notepad. I know …) “ Yo u d o n ’ t The field erupted The view was glorious, encompassing have to write with color and motion all of creation, from endzone to endzone. stuff down, you as our boys rushed out know” Hawkeye of the southwest corner of the end zone, flying their flags, stampeding Insider confided. I nodded in agreement and the turf. I sucked in my breath at the sight of row made a quick note about his windsuit. In the press box, there are free hot dogs after row of black and gold and green (a touching and chicken sandwiches and brownies. There tribute to former Safety Brett Greenwood). I’m used to watching the Hawks with my is iced tea and pop and coffee. But in the friends, saying whatever silly thing pops stands there are happy, cheering, squishedinto my head and enjoying an easygoing at- up fans … a frenzy of painted stomachs, tiny mosphere of chili and beer. Not so in these human replica cheerleaders, old guys with fancy new digs. My neighbor to the left felt palm-sized TVs listening to the game in their the need to predict nearly every play before it earbuds. Given the choice, it was becoming happened, punctuating each correct prediction more apparent where this Townie would with a “Did I call it?” He also seemed to be on rather be. The game progressed swimmingly. After a mission to prove that I didn’t know a thing about football—throwing out facts and stats each play, a gentle, airline pilot voice came over the loudspeaker announcing who was like a regular Gary Dolphin. He was right. Compared to his encyclopedic involved and what had occurred. After each knowledge of each and every player’s history, quarter, ladies came around with stat sheets.
FOOTBALL It was one smooth, impressive operation— Hawkeye Insider was right! I really didn’t have to write this stuff down. Toward the end of the fourth quarter an announcement was made; those of us who wanted to head down to the locker room should meet at the elevator in ten minutes. “Oooh, the locker room!” I thought. I turned to my neighbor, “Are you going down there?” “No, I’ll head to the sideline early.” My eyes lit up. The sideline! “Uh … they’re pretty strict about who they let down there,” he said, giving me a look that meant “and I kinda doubt that’s you.” I looked down at the media pass dangling from my neck. “Access to sideline” it read. Huh. Whatever. I let him leave, then followed another crowd of reporters down to the field.
I prefer to keep my feet on the ground, reporting my impressions of the season from a bar’s eye view, rather than a hawk’s. I was on the sideline! Huzzah! I turned and looked up at the crowd above me, the children hoisted on their fathers’ backs, the full-volume hoots and hurrahs, a wall of waving arms and fists, of celebratory smiles—it was breathtaking. I locked eyes with the Hawkeye Insider a few feet down the sideline and gave him a happy little wave. In the end, the day’s experience offered a peek into the lives of the real, working press. Catered food. Non-stop Twittering. Hanging out on the sideline. Just a day in the life, folks … move along. But as for this Townie, I prefer to keep my feet on the ground, reporting my impressions of the season from a bar’s eye view, rather than a hawk’s. I’m grateful for the opportunity, but felt about as out of place as a lineman roaming the field in a ball gown. The press box is no place for giggling, and that happens to be one of the things I do best. For now, I’m prepared to meet the coming months secure in my seat at the Deadwood, the game analysis of friends ringing in my ears, a satisfying victory yodel rising uninhibited to the dusty rafters, up through the wilting Halloween decorations, out the squeaky door and into the streets. A cheer that doesn’t stop until it collides with a thunk into the gilded, glassed-in confines of the Paul W. Brechler Press Box.
Casey Wagner
The Hops
Unibroue – Chambly, Quebec
La Fin du Monde & Trois Pistoles BREWS OF THE MONTH: November
T
hough Canada’s Thanksgiving tradition may be a little different, our hockey-loving neighbors to the north brew the ideal beer pairings for a US-style Turkey Day. Tripel is excellent with turkey and La Fin du Monde, brewed by Unibroue in Chambly, Quebec, is a perfect choice for Thanksgiving dinner. Ideally poured into a snifter or a tulip, La Fin du Monde is a cloudy gold color. Its aroma tingles the nostrils with a massive dose of banana, apple, bready yeast and clove and coriander spice. The first sip is a mélange of vodka-like booze and spice and fruit sweetness from the smell. As it warms, the booze fades and the fruit and spice take over. Though a good match for the Thanksgiving meal, La Fin du Monde lacks the darker malts we crave when the weather turns cold. Thankfully, there is Trois Pistoles, also brewed by Unibroue. Served in a tulip, Trois Pistoles is a sexy, dark caramel brown with ruby tones. As a strong dark ale, it still has a fair amount of sweet apple and banana in the smell and taste, but also features cherry, plum, fig, chocolate and caramel. It is port-like and warming, perfect for sipping during the post-nap period. Both beers pay tribute to French-Canadian folklore and I highly recommend checking out Unibroue’s website (www.unibroue.com) for the details. Unibroue has by far the best brewery website I have visited, with legend stories narrated by a Quebecois with a thick accent and the francophone aversion to pronouncing h’s. Casey Wagner Alcohol content: Both beers are 9 percent ABV. SERVING TEMPERATURE: 53-57º F. Food pairings: La Fin du Monde pairs well with turkey, salty blue cheese,
mussels, salmon, scallops, wild game meat and sausage. Trois Pistoles is perfect for chocolate desserts. Where to buy: John’s Grocery, New Pioneer Food Co-op, Bread Garden Market,
Hartig Drug, The Liquor House and most area Hy-Vee stores. PRICE: $7-8 for 750 ml bottles, $4 for 12 ounce bottles and $10-11 for four-packs.
Stephanie Catlett will catch the ball if you throw it to her. November 2011 | Little Village
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Your Town Now
yale cohn
www.LittleVillageMag.com
LICENSE TO COMPLAIN I owa City, often called the Athens of the school system bothered to vote in the school Midwest, is, like its more famous cousin, board election. “Parents who use drugs have children who a hotbed of learning, activism and civic use drugs,” intones the narrator in a famous engagement. Nonetheless, only an abysmally low 5.11% of registered voters (2,598 people) voted in our recent City Council primary election, while the other 48,222 registered voters living in Iowa City couldn’t be bothered to, apparently. In Chicago, the bar I hung out at offered a free beer to anyone who brought in a ballot receipt on Election Day as a reward to ONCE A LONGSHOT people who took the Jarrett Mitchell is moving time to do their civic on to the general election. duty by voting. I’d take it a step further, more stick and less carrot, and mandate that people provide anti-drug PSA from the 1980s. Can the same proof they voted before they were permitted be said about voter apathy? “Parents who to complain about what the council does, but don’t vote have children who don’t vote?” I hope not. Otherwise, in a generation or two, that’s just me. “But this was only a primary election, didn’t we just turn out in record numbers for the Iowa City Community School District school board elections?” It did have the second highest vote total in 32 years—a whopping 89% increase in votes from the 2009 school board election— but of the 75,337 registered voters eligible to vote, only 4,492 people went to the polls, a 5.96% turnout. Let’s assume, hypothetically, that all of the 12,000 students in schools served by the Iowa elections will be decided by fewer people City Community School District came from than could cram themselves into a phone single-parent homes. This still means that less booth, a popular fad—like voting was—back than half of the parents of the children in our in the 1950s. Two elections, hotly contested, arguably mandates on important local issues, and neither one merited even a 6% voter turnout?
8 November 2011 | Little Village
Iowa City, you’re better than that. Election season isn’t over yet. There’s still a chance to prove you care enough about the future of your town to spend less time than it takes to read this article to go and cast your vote. If you only have time to do one or the other, please, put down this magazine right now and go vote. I’m okay with that. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 8. At stake are four seats on the Iowa City City Council. For the 94.89% of you who spent October under a rock, here's how they break down: AT LARGE: TWO SEATS
Matt Hayek (Attorney, incumbent) The current mayor, Matt Hayek is running on his record, his experience and his efforts to strengthen the relationship between the city and The University of Iowa. Photo by Bill Adams
Jarrett Mitchell (Owner, Wake Up Iowa City) Urban-chicken advocate Mitchell emphasizes economic and environmental sustainability as being critical to Iowa City’s future. Michelle Payne (Supervisor with MidAmerican Energy, member of the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission and former member of the city’s Board of Adjustment) Despite being something of a stealth candidate—she filed her nomination papers on the last possible day candidates were allowed to do so—Payne picked up the Press Citizen’s endorsement for the primary election.
iowa city
FOUR OUT OF SEVEN
seats on the city council are up for grabs. At Large: Two Seats Matt Hayek, Jarrett Mitchell, Raj Patel, Michelle Payne District A: One Seat Rick Dobyns, Steve Soboroff District C: One Seat Jim Throgmorton
Tues., Nov. 8 Voter information including registration and polling locations available online at
www.johnson-county.com
as “UI junior, Raj Patel,” even after he had withdrawn. What this might or might not say about his overall honesty or how he’d handle “pressure” if elected to council I leave it to you to decide. District A: One seat
Steve Soboroff (Radio host and owner of KCJJ, 1630 AM) Rick Dobyns (Clinical professor of family medicine at The University of Iowa) Rarely have any two people more different from one another run for the same seat. Dobyns a leading figure in past efforts to crack down on Iowa City’s drinking culture, Soboroff believing that this crackdown has been both heavy-handed and ineffective, and that there are many far more important crime-related issues the police should be focusing on, particularly in the Southeast Side neighborhoods that are part of this district. In campaign materials, Dobyns acknowledges that the over-concentration of low-income housing has created some problems for those
DISTRICT C: ONE SEAT
Running unopposed in District C is former City Councilor Jim Throgmorton. The recently retired professor of urban planning at The University of Iowa sees his primary campaign issues as ensuring good jobs and a strong tax base, sustaining Iowa City as a safe and welcoming place for all, taking actions that will promote long-term sustainability and resolving conflicts skillfully. He also supports cracking down on what he believes are inadequately maintained rental properties throughout the city which diminish the overall quality of life in the neighborhoods they’re in. THIS IS YOUR TOWN, IOWA CITY
Do you want it to continue on its current path, or do you want it to head in some other direction entirely? Where it goes is up to you. Look at it this way: Voting, ultimately, is its own reward. If you participate in the process you’ve at least earned your license to complain when the council (as they always will) does something you don’t agree with. Voter apathy? Just Say No. Occupy the polls. Yale Cohn votes early and often. His show, “Talking With . . .” airs Wednesday evenings at 8:30 and Sunday mornings at 10:30 on PATV Channel 18 in Iowa City and is available online at www.talkingwithyale.com
old capitol mall
Raj Patel (Kirkwood College student and former University of Iowa Student Government liaison to the council) Patel advanced to the general election, but currently finds himself in some controversy. On Sept. 12, he claimed he was forced to resign from his post with the UISG, citing pressure from students and administrative officials, which those parties vehemently deny. Then, on Oct. 17, Patel issued a press release announcing he had withdrawn from classes at The University of Iowa, due to “over a month of building pressure from members within the University of Iowa community.” That’s twice this fall that when making decisions related to his campaign for elected office, Patel has claimed certain forces “pressured” him into making his move, yet he’s provided no evidence of such in either instance. Also, depending on when he actually withdrew from classes (when asked, his campaign manager Michael Charles said he was not told the exact date), he may have been disingenuously allowing himself to be presented
GENERAL ELECTION
neighborhoods and the schools which serve them. He says this is due to an unrealized “heterogeneity of housing options within all of Iowa City's neighborhoods.” I won’t go so far as to say that the winner of this contest would serve as a bellwether for how this council will vote on things—it’s only one of seven seats—but it might well serve as a bellwether for the kinds of candidates we’re likely to see in future elections.
November 2011 | Little Village
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Community
Clarence Johnson
Photo by Mauro Heck
Tea Party’s visibility and activity waned sharply, their purpose having been served. If the Occupy movement is to stay vital, it must resist an attempt to be coerced or forced into the oppositional, false dilemma that is American politics today. Instead of embracing America’s two-party hegemony, the movement needs to remain visible and outside of the party structure. This will make it possible for Americans of all political leanings to find something they support in the Occupy movement. It won’t be pigeon-holed into a reliable voting bloc—one that is pandered to, then ignored.
3
. STORIES WORK BETTER THAN SLOGANS Individual stories make for the best explanations of why people are occupying. When I interviewed Eva (a “born and raised” Iowa Citian) at College Green Park, I asked a lot of questions about the movement, but not very many about her. I was looking at it like a wonky political observer, which is my tendency. She was articulate and gave answers about the movement (“I don’t think that this is an actual protest, I think left, to undercut or co-opt the Occupy movement. that this is more of a mass awakening.”) and the Perennial Republican striver Mitt Romney called government’s viability as a solution to the probit “class warfare.” Democratic establishment lems facing the nation (she supports working to voices have hemmed and hawed, at first silent, fix what we’ve got, not replacing it.) But, in the then trying to talk their way into the good graces end, I wasn’t asking the right questions. Luckily, of occupiers with milquetoast statements of how this didn’t matter because when I went to the Occupy rally in the Pedestrian Mall on Oct. 15, they “understand” and “sympathize.” A horizontal, leaderless movement, without a Eva spoke about why she became an occupier. structure of “People In Charge” means that con- She gave a moving talk about being eighteen and servatives can’t find one person to demonize, believing what she’d been told her whole life: that college was single out and muckrake. the gateway to A leaderless movement Eva drew a sharp distinction between the also means there aren’t America we’ve been told to believe in and the success, as she key figures for the lib- America we actually experience for ourselves. signed her student loan papers. eral establishment to buy out and co-opt. It prevents the movement from She talked about the mountain of debt that she becoming marginalized and personified in the worked sixty hours a week to pay off, debt that demonized leader figure, or from being neutered the private lenders won’t let her consolidate, debt that she cannot get out from under via bankinto a voting bloc for the Democratic party. The Occupy movement should take a lesson ruptcy or even (not kidding here) death. Her voice from the history of the Tea Party. The Tea Party cracked with emotion, but she finished strong. It was quickly co-opted, even as it entered the was as good a testimonial as any YouTube video public conscience, into a fundraising and vote- I’ve seen passed around on Facebook. She drew getting mechanism for the Republican National a sharp distinction between the America we’ve Committee. According to the New York Times, been told to believe in and the America we actuastroturfing groups were funded by traditional ally experience for ourselves: an America where conservative cash sources, including the Koch you can and will escape heartache, toil, pain and brothers, who gave $12 million over twenty years loneliness when you die, but not Wells Fargo. An to the conservative front group that would even- America where they get the deed on your soul, it tually become FreedomWorks, a major source seems, not just your earnings. of Tea Party funding and organizing. The mainstream conservative leadership embraced the . POLITICS AND PROCESS WILL Tea Party and Michelle Bachmann even spear- ALWAYS BE SLOW headed the creation of the Tea Party Caucus. Steven, one of the occupiers, admits that if you These organizational efforts were turned towards come to one meeting you won’t get anything out electoral strategies, including the disastrous of it, at least not the kind of experience people Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle cam- expect from a “protest” or “movement.” He says paigns. Once the election was over, though, the it’s not designed like a typical protest, where you
NOTES ON AN OCCUPATION
A
s I write this, the Occupy movement is still young. It isn’t even a month old in Iowa City and the national narrative about what it is and what it means isn’t settled. The occupiers set up camp in College Green Park on Friday, Oct. 7 and remain there still at the time of this writing. After visiting Occupy Iowa City as well as interviewing occupiers and supporters, these are my observations.
1
. YOU HAVE TO SEE IT FOR YOURSELF This is happening among us. There’s no excuse not to go, see for yourself, and make up your own mind. There is no ideological purity test, no dress code and no party affiliation necessary, all of which is more than you can say for most political events. Billy, who I talked to on Friday, Oct. 7, the night that Occupy Iowa City began, was cynical about the processes and structure (see point 2). He had those misgivings still when I saw him a week later, on Oct. 13. He said he didn’t see it as a path to achieving a goal, but he added that he felt much less cynical about the people participating themselves. He’d spent time with them, “I am talking to people more. This is an opportunity to talk to people about stuff that I don’t get to talk about.”
2. THE STRUCTURE IS PART OF
THE MESSAGE It is horizontal and chaotic, not vertical and hierarchically-organized. It is leaderless. If the movement wishes to remain relevant, as movements are wont to wish, this is a distinct advantage, for a few reasons. There is pressure from the two poles of American ideology, right and
10 November 2011 | Little Village
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occupy iowa city
www.LittleVillageMag.com
show up, chant, it’s exciting for an hour and you go home. He is really, really right about that. The General Assemblies—where consensus methods are used to make decisions about each local occupation by the people on the ground—are not exciting. Even after you have gotten over the initial weirdness of the “people’s mic”—in which the speaker says half a sentence and people repeat it so that everyone can hear, then the next half of a sentence is spoken and repeated, on and on—it is slow-going. It grinds away at one’s patience and it requires involvement, much like any successful democratic process. That’s what gives me hope for the movement. It requires dedication, but also rewards it. That’s also why trolls, despite the fact that they could show up and start voting against what they dislike about the movement, will never actively make a concerted effort to poison the proceedings. It’d be the most boring trolling mission ever, like tuning in hoping for All The President’s Men and getting four hours of C-Span. The future of the Occupy movement is uncertain. Weather, pressure from both sides of the ideological spectrum, social momentum and the patience of the powers that be can all change the direction and capabilities of the movement. But the occupiers have provided a blueprint of how to use social media and alternative organizational structures to circumvent many of the traditional weaknesses of political movements. No matter the outcome of this movement, their methods and desires will be echoed in the future by anyone seeking a solution outside of the structures that got us into this mess in the first place.
input please! Open communication encourages broad participation: add to the General Assembly's agenda, propose teach-in topics, share committee updates and daily calendars, etc.
Clarence Johnson is a writer and producer in Iowa City. Follow him @cjohnson319 on Twitter or clarencejohnson.tumblr.com
Photo by Zak Neumann
thirteen days in Overnighters still have a strong presence despite the colder weather setting in
solar power Generator on loan from I-Renew to help power up the occupiers Photo by Zak Neumann
Photo by Becky Nasadowski
November 2011 | Little Village
11
Opinion
rockne cole
C
hris Warnock and I are two unconventional lawyers looking to address a conventional problem: the power imbalance between landlords and tenants in Iowa City. Along with Christine Boyer, we have founded the Tenants Project, an organization dedicated to ensuring fair play between landlords and tenants. We seek to change the landlord-tenant dynamic from one of antagonism to cooperation and we intend to accomplish that through self-help litigation assistance, continuing legal education and, if necessary, class-action litigation.
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Balancing
the
Scales
Tenants, especially students, do not take their landlords to court because it is either too expensive or they do not know that their rights have been violated. How are landlords exploiting tenants? In return for stratospheric rents, students often get rundown and dilapidated apartments. Yet, local landlords often charge outrageous amounts for cleaning apartments. The difference between these billings and the actual cost of repairs and cleaning has become a significant profit center for local landlords and one that is illegal under Iowa law. Overcharging for cleaning is just the beginning. One of the most outrageous landlord tactics is charging innocent tenants for vandalism. There is no doubt that some students are responsible for vandalism, or that students can attract vandals, but to charge damage to all the tenants when the landlord has no evidence of their involvement is incredibly unfair. “I don’t have [a] problem with a reasonable profit for landlords, but [I] do not believe that this goal conflicts with fair play for tenants,” said Warnock. “It is simple. Landlords provide housing and tenants pay. Unjustly taking students’ hard earned money through retention of rental deposits should never be part of that equation, but that has apparently been the
Chris Warnock (L) and Rockne Cole | Photo by Mara Cole
standard operating procedure for a large number of landlords in Iowa City.” The Tenants Project seeks to balance the scales of justice by providing free educational seminars and assisting students in litigating their own cases. The Tenants Project will utilize Mr. Warnock's latest pilot suit, De Stefano v. Apts Downtown Property Management, as a pilot project to develop standardized forms, pleadings and instructions for easy self-representation. In the De Stefano suit, the Plaintiff alleges a fairly common scenario in the Iowa City area: She claims that her landlord charged her $40 per hour for cleaning and $70 per hour for weeding, without demonstrating that the landlord actually incurred those costs. She also states that her landlord wrongfully charged her automatic cleaning fees. Worse yet, she received a bill for damage to an entry door caused by a burglar. This is exactly the type of fact pattern that the Tenants Project intends to stop through litigation and education. As practicing attorneys, Mr. Warnock and I see that tenants often have a case against their landlords—that's the easy part, and the De Stefano case should make it even easier—but tenants, especially students, do not take their landlords to court because it is either too expensive or they do not know that their rights have been violated. Also, the law is sometimes unclear. For example, tenants do not have to pay for ordinary wear and tear, but what is ordinary wear and tear? By litigating these cases, the Tenants Project seeks to develop a body of case law to further define what kind of damage counts. Each success will further encourage
tenants to litigate. Each defeat will discourage wrongful retention of rental deposits. We’re not saying all tenants are perfect, or that landlords don’t very often have a right to reimbursement for damages. But there are many landlords in the area getting away with almost any fees or charges they want because they know that students are unaware of their legal rights and are reluctant to enforce them. Landlords are in a more privileged position in this relationship for a few reasons: They have the tenants’ security deposits in their hands; they can report the tenants to credit agencies or send
Chris Warnock and Rockne Cole on American Reason: Sunday, Nov. 13, 4-5 pm
at Public Space One • Live on KRUI, 89.7 fm
Join the conversation by attending a special, live edition of American Reason with Vikram Patel and Matt Sowada. Patel and Sowada will moderate a panel on landlord/tenant relations, fielding your questions and working to elucidate all sides of this issue.
accounts to collection; and they retain lawyers that are not at all hesitant to enforce their rights by suing tenants. With tenants and landlords on such unequal footing, we view this as an unfair struggle and we seek to fix that through the Tenants Project.
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FAULCONER GALLERY
But why start the Tenants Project when The University of Iowa’s Student Legal Services is already providing services to students? “Student Legal Services serves an important role in addressing this issue; however, there is only one licensed attorney and he can only file so many cases.” says Warnock. “The problem is larger than one lawyer. To use the retailing
For complete information on the organization, plus information on current class actions including pleadings court orders and news stories, visit ictenantsclassaction.com analogy, they are doing law retail one case at a time. We seek to litigate ‘wholesale’ by filing class actions when necessary, and educating as many students as possible to litigate their own cases. That is the only way this landlordtenant culture will truly begin to change in a positive direction.” Additionally, Warnock observed that amongst the private bar in Iowa City, there simply was not much interest in litigating these cases. That is no accident. Too many law schools, including the UI College of Law, design their curriculum to cater to the hiring processes of large law firms, which, aside from the occasional feel-good pro bono, mostly represent the “elite.” It is a system of the elite, by the elite and for the elite. The landlords’ power and wealth allows them to hire the best firms and this gives them confidence, in our view, to aggressively retain rental deposits. Saddled by crushing law school debt, law students seek the highest paying jobs. That rarely involves representing students against their landlords. Even if they do obtain a job at legal aid, onerous regulations restrict what kind of cases they can take. All of these problems lead to a dysfunctional system that Mr. Warnock, Christine Boyer and I hope to change through the Tenants Project. In addition to helping students litigate their own cases, the Tenants Project is developing a series of seminars to educate students about their rights and how to enforce their rights in court. Ultimately, the Tenants Project seeks to make itself unnecessary by convincing landlords and tenants of their shared goal: a fair rent in exchange for a clean and safe place to live. But until that day comes, the Tenants Project stands ready to ensure a fair deal for landlords and tenants. Rockne Cole has a civil rights and criminal justice practice in Iowa City. He practices with immigration attorney, Dan Vondra in the Cole & Vondra, LLP. He lives in Iowa City with his beautiful wife, Mara Cole, his daughter, Nora, two hounddogs and three cats.
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Ricker House. Living room fireplace. Photograph by Daniel Strong.
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14 November 2011 | Little Village
nickolas butler
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Hot Tin Roof
AGATES T
he land beneath the trap had been in our family since before the time of steel and always without poachers. We had taken it from the Indians who had in antiquity taken it from their own or those like them. That history we owned and we were unabashed. We did not think of them as savages because our fathers had taught us to think of ourselves as savages. We thought of them as obsolete. We were the inheritors of their earth. We are not apologizers. Her boot had hovered over the trap and I could not claim credit for having seen it there, hungry for her little foot, its teeth jagged and painted in rust. I had been walking behind her, in a path wellgrooved by the deer that move through our land as if it were their own. I might have bumped into her, pushed her into the trap but at the last moment she fell away from it and called my name. We rarely spoke once we were inside the forest—it was poor practice. What is it, I whispered. There, she pointed. Staked into the breast of the earth and held there by a chain, the steel jaws gaped open, undisturbed. A lace from her boots draped over one set of teeth like a strand of spaghetti. She drew her leg further away from the trap and we both watched the lace follow her leg. The mouth there did not bite. On hands and knees we peered at the maw. How, she asked. How could it never have been tripped? I shook my head; it was incomprehensible. All the things falling all the time from the heavens and the canopy above: leaves, limbs, snow, rain, hail, meteorites, satellites, running hooves, landing birds, stray bullets. A hundred years undisturbed. This patch of earth a vacuum of movement until us, then. Out gathering fiddleheads and morels. Out scouting, out
collecting tinder and kindling. What if we had not wandered by? How much longer would it have remained, forgotten? And how much longer could it be, could it persist as metal forged by man before returning its molecules to the loam below? Touch it, I said. I dare you. No, she said. Touch it, I said, and I’ll braid your hair forever. She hesitated. Give me your agate collection, she said. I sucked the still air, then nodded. She reached for a stick and was about to depress the trap’s spring when I said, No, that ain’t the deal. I could have done it with a stick. You have to do it with your hand. Fear went over her face replacing the color in her cheeks and the light in her eyes. You would make your sister do that, wouldn’t you, she asked. Or don’t, I said. But we had a deal. You can welch out if that’s what you want to do. No, she said, I’m going to have your agates. This trap is broke anyhow. Alright then, I said, go on. Her fingers shot out quickly, quicker than I would have guessed. But she arrested their reach. Her hand was over the teeth now and our faces were close to it. You need to press hard, I said. You need to press down hard enough to imitate a she-bear. She looked at me, then closed her eyes. She made a fist of her little hand and punched the spring.
each time they burst into the near air it is enough to quiet your heart forever. That was how grandfather died. He was out, hunting with our father. They had taken no more than ten steps into the forest when a grouse erupted out of the bush and grandfather keeled. He was ninety-one years old. We kill bears. Their meat makes good stew, good chuck. They trouble our dogs and given a bad spring or summer they come for what little garbage we make. Once, they topped the outhouse for our shit. Everything in our world is food or fuel. What cannot go into our hungry mouths goes into our stoves to beat back the winters. We are unapologetic. Winter is a cold war for calories. The bears wait out their winters in sleep. We find their dens sometimes, the holes where their breaths have melted away the ice and snow. We leave them be. A winter bear is too skinny to eat. At night, I hear her with my agates. Our room so dark the notion of shutting our eyes seems redundant. I hear the polished stones, the stones I polished with boot oil and my underwear, those stones in her hand like the prayer beads the nuns in town dangle between their wrinkled hands when they see our approach. I pray these nights, these days. Pray that something long hid comes to get me one day. Some bullet fired decades ago in some anonymous war. A star broke lose from heaven, careening down through epochs of time to snuff me out. I walk beneath the widowmakers of the forest, the big maples hung up on their brethren and uprooted from the earth. I want them to crush me. To come down and pound me into my grave unboxed and without a stone. I am sorry, sister. Please now, put them agates into their velvet pouch and let me be.
Nickolas Butler will graduate from the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 2012. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in: Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review Online, and Narrative.
Her fingers shot out quickly, quicker than I would have guessed. But she arrested their reach. Her hand was over the teeth now and our faces were close to it.
Louder than a shotgun, louder than thunderclap, louder than a chainsaw, is the sound of grouse frightened from its nest. They explode from the forest floor, their wings and feathers like a bass drum and what’s more, no matter how many times you have spooked a grouse,
November 2011 | Little Village
15
Prairie Pop
kembrew mcleod
R
arely has a lowly rock critic altered the course of popular music history, but Chuck Eddy did. Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but bear with me. Back in the mid-1980s he reviewed Aerosmith’s Done With Mirrors, which captured the band at the lowest point in their career. When that album was released, they were basically washed up has-beens whose coke-fueled rocket had fallen from the stars.
Eddy recounts that his Village Voice review mentioned that Aerosmith songs like “Walk This Way” were “sort of rap music before rap existed, and maybe an enterprising DJ should segue one of them into the (not yet famous) Beastie Boys’ ‘She’s On It’ single sometime.” His editor, Doug Simmons, thought that he was simply messing with readers’ minds and being contrarian—a charge that has often been leveled at Eddy, much to his chagrin. At that exact moment, Run-DMC was recording Raising Hell, which was produced by Rick Rubin (who went on to make records with everyone from the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Johnny Cash and Slayer.) Rubin read Chuck Eddy’s review, and a couple weeks later a press release went out stating that Run-DMC would be covering “Walk This Way.” The rest is history. After
16 November 2011 | Little Village
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their collaboration, Run-DMC blew open the commercial doors for hip hop and Aerosmith became bigger (and lamer) than they ever were in the 1970s. Speaking of the latter group, Eddy quips, “They still owe me, and so do Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone.” As Chuck Eddy is careful to point out, the only reason why his aside about Aerosmith’s proto-rap vocals resonated with Rubin was because the producer was already a big fan of the group. But what if Eddy’s editor had taken out that line, or Rubin skipped reading the Voice that week? Because Run-DMC was finishing
up Raising Hell, “Walk This Way” probably would have never made it on the record. It’s no wonder that Eddy named his second book The Accidental Evolution of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Rock and Roll Always Forgets: A Quarter Century of Music Criticism is Chuck Eddy’s latest book. It anthologizes selections of his massive output over the years, though I should note that the subtitle is a little misleading. The earliest piece is from 1981, which makes it a full three decades of music criticism. When I point this out, Chuck just laughs and tells me, “A quarter century sounds weightier.” That first article was published in the University of Missouri’s college paper, The Missourian, and it could possibly be the first article about a regional rap musician published in the Midwest. (The main reason Eddy included it is because he says its headline— “Rhymed Funk Hits Area”—sounds like it was ripped from the pages of The Onion.)
Even though I had been reading music criticism since the mid-1980s, I never read bylines, so it wasn’t until The Accidental Evolution of Rock ‘n’ Roll came out in 1997 that I became
There’s nothing more important than making people unable to stop reading your sentences, and I can’t think of any other rock critic who comes remotely close to Chuck Eddy. - Chuck Klosterman a fan. (Full disclosure: Chuck encouraged me when I first started writing professionally about music in the second half of the 1990s and when the Village Voice hired Eddy as an editor he added me to the rotation of record reviewers.)
chuck eddy His Mexican-jumping-bean prose style and rock-crit-conventional-wisdom-smashing argumentation leapt from the pages and sounded like music to me (unlike 99.9% of other critics out there.) Take Eddy’s Village Voice review of Debbie Gibson’s 1987 megahit “Shake Your Love,” which is included in the new anthology. In it, he spoke of the song’s “prefornicating id-level triple-entendre title,” and its “exuberant domino-effect rhythm.” His review of a 12-inch single by mid1980s Chicago house-music legend Phuture is bursting with even more dizzying Eddyisms: “arrogant laser-zooms thickening into a dark, vicious gel as skeletal kickdrums push through wormholes,” and so on. “The reason Chuck Eddy’s writing is so engaging ultimately comes down to the one quality that cannot be taught or manufactured— voice,” Chuck Klosterman tells me. “His writing just has a natural, distinctive, propulsive voice. And sometimes that voice bulldozes everything, and sometimes it actually distracts from what he’s trying to argue. But there’s nothing more important than making people unable to stop reading your sentences, and I can’t think of any other rock critic who comes remotely close to Eddy in this specific regard.” Eddy’s writing helped rewire my brain, though in retrospect I was already primed for the eclectic aesthetic he championed. I was a 1980s kid whose listening time was equally divided between Top-40 radio, hip hop and punk—as is evidenced by the fact that the first two cassettes I bought with my own money were Madonna’s Like a Virgin and the Butthole Surfers’ Rembrandt Pussyhorse. I didn’t see any contradiction in liking Ms. Ciccone’s pop gloss and the psychedelic vomit-punk produced by the latter group. In fact, I wasn’t capable of understanding there even could be a contradiction. Chuck is a decade older than me, so he followed a different path to pop. “By the late ’80s, as I was burning myself out on the angry and abrasive indie rock that had become my bread and butter, I somehow brainstormed that there was shameless stuff all over the radio that might be more fun to write about,” he writes in Rock and Roll Always Forgets. “In retrospect, reviewing teen princess Debbie Gibson’s 1987 debut album in the Village Voice doesn’t seem strange at all; in fact, given that it stayed on the charts for 89 weeks and sold three million copies in the United States alone, it would almost seem neglectful not to pay attention to it.”
PRAIRIE POP continued on page 20 >> November 2011 | Little Village
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Books
drew bulman
www.LittleVillageMag.com
seeds of change I
The poet avoided becoming outwardly raqi poet Naseer Flaiih Hassan arrived in Iowa City in mid-September as part of political, but he did resist the dictatorship’s The University of Iowa’s International influence. He refused, for example, to join Writing Program. Although he worked Saddam’s brutal and ubiquitous Ba’ath Party, in architecture for nearly 20 years in Iraq, he the dominating political force in Iraq from describes his truest identity as being that of a 1968 to 2003. These traumatic experiences have played “I had to pay a lot for that,” Hassan said. an instrumental role in shaping Hassan’s poet. It was only after the fall of the Ba’athist Regime in 2003 that Hassan has been able to “But, I think now I am proud of it.” poetry. His five line poem titled “Theft” Mentioning his family’s history of opposing involves a man who, upon looking out a pursue this passion, but the roots of his poetic works—which tie deeply to the pain and suf- the Hussein regime, Hassan continued with a window, finds war gazing back at him. “When fering he endured under Saddam’s dictator- smile, “I cannot be the black sheep in the herd, he returned from his sadness,” the poem reads, you know?” ship—date back decades. “he was forty.” In fact, Hassan lost several relatives under Hassan spent two weeks in an Iraqi prison Hassan’s work often examines the percepwhen he was 17 years old. His uncle was an Hussein’s regime. In 1980, an uncle was given tion of time under an authoritarian regime, anti-Saddam politician and, although Hassan milk laced with poison, slowly inducing noting how that perception becomes skewed organ failure over when an individual is exposed to traumatic himself had not comthe following two events on a daily basis. He notes how, in mitted any crimes, having politically divisive relatives was reason enough for a Hassan’s work often examines the perception brief detainment. of time under an authoritarian regime, noting “This short experience had a very bad how that perception becomes skewed when effect on my soul,” an individual is exposed to traumatic events he said. “I couldn’t sleep because of the on a daily basis. voices of screaming women who were days. Another uncle the United States, it is common to break up tortured and raped, was executed for time based on landmark events. The Second begging the expoking fun at some World War, The Vietnam War and the Sept. 11 ecutors not to harm Iraqi propaganda terrorist attacks, to name a few examples, all them. Of course, this during the Iran-Iraq play a large role in how we view and compartis simple compared hassan’s reading Wa r , p r o m p t i n g mentalize contemporary history. When one is to what happened to Nov. 4 | Shambaugh House | 5 p.m. Ba’athist officials living under an oppressive regime, where the the others who sufto confiscate the losses are constant and unending, however, fered real torture. relative’s home. There are very brutal this subconscious method of segmenting time “They told his begins to erode, according to Hassan. ways of …” Hassan began to trail off, collecting his family that if they want their house, they “You wake up when you are forty and thoughts for a few moments amidst the quiet should buy it again,” Hassan said, lamenting wonder, ‘What happened?’” hum of nearby college students. His tone was the lengths Hussein’s dictatorship went in This realization was part of the spark order to humiliate its dissidents. reflective. that prompted Hassan to pursue poetry on a “When Saddam’s regime executed someone professional level nearly two decades ago. “I think when I got out of this experience,” he continued, “I became much more aware of they sometimes gave the corpse to the family Having to stay in bed, unmoving, for months and asked the family to pay the price of bullets,” after suffering a slipped disk in 1996, his what a knock on the door might mean." Hassan said. “Just like, ‘Your son is not a human thoughts turned inward. Hassan describes this being even, and doesn’t deserve to be executed year as being “the most important year in [his] even for one penny. You should pay for that.’” poetic experience.” November 2011 | Little Village
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poetry “When we were very young we had much hope, and then I began to [realize] that okay, this is the cruel reality of life that you might live and grow up and get old and die under the same dictatorship and the same regime,” Hassan said. “It seemed our twenties finished and we started our thirties, you know, and nothing happened.” Hassan dedicated his free time to poetry after having his existential epiphany, but chose to publish only a few select poems to avoid unwanted attention. When “Theft” was published, to Hassan’s chagrin, the word “war” was replaced with the word “clouds.” “If you were a well-known person or writer under Saddam, you could not be left alone,” he said. “They will reach you and knock on your door and ask you to write, for example, for the dictatorship.” While Hassan did not seek to publish his work during this time, he wrote privately and held readings among a small group of friends. With the fall of the Ba’athist Regime in 2003, however, he was finally free to publish his accumulated works. Over the last five years, Hassan has published several books of poetry, as well as translating a number of Western poets into Arabic. His efforts are an attempt to reintroduce to Iraq something that was lost during the Ba’athist Regime. “The dictatorship of Saddam tried every possible way to make the new generation shallow and to cut its roots to the past,” he said. “All the poetry and all the cultural activities were in one direction, which should be complimentary of the dictatorship and Saddam. In this kind of atmosphere, everything deteriorated.” Hassan noted that the culture of Iraq is now fragmented. Over the course of several decades, as Iraqi artists emigrated from Iraq to escape Ba’athist persecution, Iraqi culture has separated into two spheres, with one existing inside Iraq and the other existing outside. Hassan says he simply wants to fill that gap. “I think we are in a cultural desert and I’m trying to just put some trees here or there,” he said, smiling. “I’m not going to make it green, but I can make a few trees.” As our interview began to wrap up, Hassan paused and said with some excitement, “You know what was the most intimate feeling after Saddam’s fall? That this earth and these trees and these streets and this air and this sky started to belong to me, and I belonged to it.” Hassan looked up and smiled. “Can you imagine?”
r o f u o y k n a h T years! 70
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PRAIRIE POP >> PRAIRIE POP continued from 17 During the 1980s he also carved out a niche writing about metal—back when rock critics tended to shun this music. That led him to pen his first book, the 1991 genre-busting classic, Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums In the Universe. It by no means is your typical hack-job music encyclopedia. “To this day, I’ve never found a nonfiction book with more voice-per-square-inch than Stairway to Hell,” writes Chuck Klosterman in the Foreword to Rock and Roll Always Forgets. “It was so funny. It was so maddening. It made no sense. Jimi Hendrix was boring? White Lion was a blues band? Black Sabbath was a jazz band?” “Crown came to me wanting to do a heavy metal encyclopedia,” Eddy says, telling me about the book’s genesis. “I didn’t even have a single Judas Priest or Iron Maiden album at the time, and I wasn’t about to go out and buy them, so I proposed that I pick 500 classic heavy metal albums.” He simply went to his record collection and chose albums he believed could be considered metal. “It wasn’t a contrarian thing,” he says. “Sure, I had fun with it and I did have a wide definition of ‘heavy metal’ in my head—which I might have stretched a little bit.” He sure did, but that made Stairway to Hell a much more interesting read. Although it begins with two standardbearers of heaviness—Led Zeppelin IV at number one and Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction in second place—it quickly descends into dumbfounding territory for your average metalhead. Among other things, Teena Marie’s Emerald City comes in at number nine, squeezed between Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s Rust Never Sleeps and the Jimmy Castor Bunch’s Phase Two. What makes the book so fun and thought provoking is watching him try to convince you why certain albums are heavy and/or metal. The same can be said of Chuck Eddy’s writing, more generally, and this iconoclastic impulse is clearly on display in Rock and Roll Always Forgets. Its 350 pages contain some of the best, most infuriating, provocative, silly, subversive and hilarious bits of music criticism published over the past quarter century (er, make that 30 years). Kembrew McLeod celebrated his Oct. 31 birthday by listening to all twelve discs of the As-Seen-On-TV collections Easy Rock and Monster Ballads.
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Events
kent williams
www.LittleVillageMag.com
MEETING MINDS OF THE
I
t is difficult to come up with a straightforward, concise definition of a TED event. It was started in 1984 as a conference to bring together people from the worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design. It has since grown into a set of annual conferences that take place in Long Beach in the spring and Edinburgh in the summer. As TED has become an institution, its goals have become more open-ended and harder to pin down. The mantra on the TED website is “Ideas Worth Spreading.” TED conferences have an influence beyond the attendees through their online archive of talks on topics as diverse as the social impact of the internet, the thought processes of babies and how to be buried in a green way by wearing a mushroom suit. So the agenda seems to be to to have no agenda in the conventional sense. There’s no discernible political alignment and, in fact, the archive of past speakers contains very few, if any, politicians. A look at the speakers at past TED conferences reveals that their ability to surprise and delight the participants is as important as formal credentials. Independently organized TED conferences, or TEDx, are recent additions to the TED conference umbrella. They have spread like
wildfire—in October, more than 175 of them took place, all over the world. Hotel Vetro, here in Iowa City, will play host to one on Friday, Nov. 11. The theme of the event is “Redefining Expectations,” though it’s hard to say what that means in the context of the diverse array
of speakers that will be presenting. The event was organized by Cliff Missen (director of The University of Iowa’s WiderNet Project) and Mark Nolte (business development director at Iowa City Area Development Group). I spoke with Missen on the phone to find out what’s going to happen. LV: What prompted you guys to get this started? CM: Well, I was a TED fellow back in 2007. The ICAD Group wanted to put on an event and it’s easier to get a license if you have someone on board who has been to a TED conference. So we teamed up to host the event.
LV: What does the TED Conference mean to you and what about TEDx is going to be specific to Iowa City? CM: A TED event is like a mental massage. It’s all about celebrating ideas. What we’re wanting to do with a local event is to get those people who like ideas, who are tickled by new things and bring them together in a single place to listen to some outside ideas and also share some ideas of their own. The nice thing about a TED is that it gives us a chance to find those ideas that have been around but haven’t really been paid attention to. So we get to put new ideas under a spotlight in a way that people really enjoy hearing them. LV: How interactive are the presentations? From what I’ve seen, people get a short period to speak. Then do questions or a discussion ensue? CM: Typically what happens is: no lectures. Everything is short and to the point. We don’t want people rambling on about all kinds of different ideas. They’re bringing an idea and sharing it. We have lots of breaks, so the speakers get up out of the audience, they make their presentation, they return to the audience, and then they’re there for the rest of the day so that people can continue the conversation around the ideas.
offer expires 11/30/2011
$4 95
offer expires 11/30/2011
22 November 2011 | Little Village
$5 95
offer expires 11/30/2011
offer expires 11/30/2011
Works-in-Progress It’s a mixture of people coming out who will be speaking in a more traditional form, people who will be performing and people who will be doing a mixture of both. LV: What are you looking forward to most about this conference? What kind of ideas have you the most excited? CM: It’s my job to be excited about everything because I’m the curator. I’m identifying and pulling these sort of ideas together. What I’m most excited about, and what I think is the best part of any TED event, is just that it’s a day where we cocoon, we get together, doers and thinkers. People are talking; people are sharing ideas. There will be a few surprises during the day. It’s a great event just to be there, to meet the speakers and to meet the kind of people that would come to an event like this. And there’s good food!
LV: Is there going to be a set schedule? Will the people who sign up just be there for the duration and experience as much of it as possible? CM: That’s the expectation. We don’t like people just dropping in and dropping out and coming to see one talk. It’s the event. It’s about being together and it’s about sharing these ideas and being partners in it together. The schedule will change up until the moment we start the show. We’ll go from nine to five. It’s a dynamic, fast-paced day. We have 14 speakers and five performers. LV: So there are people being added that aren’t on the website? CM: Yeah, up until the last minute. You never know. Kent Williams says this is not a test.
TEDX IOWA CITY 11.11.11 HOTEL VETRO | 9am-5pm $100 (includes lunch) | Max. 250 tickets
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PAUL GILDING Advocate on Climate Change & Stability The Great Disruption
PETER KAGEYAMA
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Community and Develoment Consultant - For The Love Of Cities » » NATE STANIFORTH Magician - Creating Astonishment
KEMBREW MCLEOD Journalist, Artist, Activist Sharing Can Be Fun
STEPHEN CARR Terra Manus Technologies - Soil Topography and Sustainability JENNIFER TREVILLIAN Clubfoot Advocate - Easy Feet: Reshaping Lives WORKING GROUP THEATRE The Telling Project DR. TERRY WAHLS Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine, Univ. of Iowa HANNAH DROLLINGER Improvisational Fiddler CHASE GARRETT Blues & Boogie Woogie Pianist IOWA YOUTH WRITING PROJECT
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23
The Stage
Laura crossett
Photos by Working Group Thea
G N I L L E T
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y father never made it to the war. Like many in his genera- flag, a headstone and a hundred dollars. He tion—he was born in 1923—he was even offered burial in a national cemetery wanted badly to fight in World and the American Legion in Enosburg Falls, War II. Having learned there were only two Vermont, where he is buried, still keeps a fresh standard eye charts used in induction exams, flag at his grave, along with those of all the he memorized both, figuring he could read other veterans buried in that tiny town. The military does a much better job than enough of the first row to figure out which one it was. The ruse worked. He joined the army, most of us at remembering and honoring the but he was honorably discharged partway people who served, even those, like my father, who gave nothing more through basic training and than a few weeks of their told “not to come back Nine actors, all of lives. As a society, we do even if we are invaded.” them veterans, will put not do so well. This month The exact events lead- on a performance based we have Veterans Day. ing up to his discharge are on the stories of many Some of us will get the lost to his memory and more Iowa veterans from day off work. Most of us to a fire that destroyed World War II through will notice that no mail a great many military the current wars in Iraq is delivered that day. My records in Kansas in the and Afghanistan. grandmother will tell me 1970s. But he was not forgotten: at his funeral in 1981, some forty about observing a minute of silence in her years after his short tenure in the Army, two grade school classroom at 11:11 on November military officials showed up with an American 11 for Armistice Day, as it was originally
24 November 2011 | Little Village
Telling: Iowa City | Nov. 8-10 (free) & Dec. 2-4 ($12-15) | Wor king Group Theatre | 7:30 p.m .
called. But even though we are fighting two wars, Americans won’t take more than that moment or two to remember, perhaps only noticing when they go to the bank or the post office or the library and find it closed. This year, however, Iowa City area residents have a chance to do much more: They have a chance to hear from veterans themselves at Working Group Theatre’s latest production, called Telling: Iowa City. Nine actors, all of them veterans, will put on a performance based on the stories of many more Iowa veterans from World War II through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This past August, Working Group Theatre and the UI Veterans Association interviewed dozens of veterans from Iowa. Working from those stories, playwrights Jennifer Fawcett and Jonathan Wei crafted the script of this production. Wei is a founder of The Telling Project, which has produced shows in Eugene and Portland, OR, Sacramento, CA, Starkville,
November Theatre Find theatre reviews/previews throughout the month online: www.LittleVillageMag.com/theatre
MS, Washington, D.C., Seattle, WA and Baltimore, MD. Whether or not you know someone in the service personally, you owe it to yourself to go and hear some of these stories. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 8-10 in Theatre B at The University of Iowa's Theatre Building and Dec. 2-4 at Riverside Theatre. Working Group Theatre is also soliciting more stories from veterans. To submit yours, or to read more, visit workinggrouptheatre.org and look for the links for Telling: Iowa City. — ave you missed the past two months of Was The Word, Working Group Theatre’s snazzy spoken word and music project? Fear not, there’s another chance to go this month on Nov. 20 at 7:00 p.m. The show will be in the Englert once again. You can watch excerpts and hear pieces from previous month’s shows at Working Group Theatre’s website.
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have meant to the townspeople, especially to one who has particular dreams of a larger world. Funny and bitter. Check it out. — tick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond also takes place on an island, but in this case the setting is the present day, the characters are AfricanAmerican and rich and the island is Martha’s Vineyard. the cripple of inishmaan It’s a family drama, wherein (L-R) Tim Budd, Kristy Hartsgrove and Osean Perez everyone expects a peaceful Oct. 28 – Nov. 13 | Riverside Theatre | $15-28 weekend of sons introducing their girlfriends and everyone having a jolly time, but, instead, he Cripple of Inishmaan continues everyone ends up torn asunder by politics, through Nov. 13 at Riverside Theatre. sex and family secrets. To find out how they Playwright Martin McDonagh’s tale is of a make it through, see Stick Fly at the EC Mabie young man with a physical disability—or a Theatre at The University of Iowa Theatre cripple, as people were once more succinctly Building Nov. 10-12 and 17-19 at 8:00 p.m. but cruelly called—who longs to escape his and Nov. 13 at 2:00 p.m. small town in Ireland and become a star. The play was inspired by the actual visit of a film- Laura Crossett is a writer, a librarian and an maker to the island of Inishmaan in the 1930s. Iowa City native. She has been a theatre-goer McDonagh imagines what such an event must since she was tall enough to climb on a seat. Photo by Bob Goodfellow
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November 2011 | Little Village
25
Talking Movies
Scott Samuelson
Now Showing
reed hastings Screenshot from Netflix's "An explanation and some reflections" apology video from Netflix on September 18th
Add these Bijou selections to your November to-do list.
Global Lens 2011
Oops,
netflix did
it again As a Netflix member I received on July 12 an email that began:
Dear Scott,
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. The message went on to say that my Netflix service of $9.99 a month, which allowed unlimited streaming and a constant queue of DVDs, was now going to be split into two services, one for the streaming and one for the DVDs. For exactly what I was getting before it was now going to cost $15.98, a 60% cost increase. On Sept. 19 my inbox contained an email that began:
26 November 2011 | Little Village
Dear Scott,
I messed up. I owe you an explanation. Respectfully mine, Reed Hastings himself—a co-founder of Netflix—went on to observe that many customers were strangely upset that they’d been blatantly taken advantage of. To allay all concerns, he explained that Netflix had “realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses”: Netflix, which would stick to streaming movies, and a new mailing business by the name of Qwikster (which to me suggests movies with a more specialty purpose). Now it all made sense why I was paying 60% more for the same service! Thank you, Reed Hastings. Then, on Oct. 10, I received another email, this time from the whole “Netflix Team.”
Since 2003 the Global Lens film series has been providing a platform for interesting movies from around the world. Their board, including such modern masters as Lars von Trier, Pedro Almodóvar and Béla Tarr, has chosen nine fascinating films which premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, then travel around to twenty-five cities across the U.S. They will be showing at the Bijou from Oct. 29 through Nov. 10. Here are a few pearls:
The Light Thief - Aktan Arym Kubat (Kyrgyzstan) Nov. 1, 7 p.m. & Nov. 2, 9 p.m. A wry fable of a good-hearted village electrician who attempts to supply wind-generated electricity to his whole valley and ends up having to fight vast forces of injustice.
Soul of Sand - Sidharth Srinivasan (India)
Nov. 1, 9 p.m. & Nov. 2, 6:45 p.m. A strange, intelligent thriller about a landlord’s daughter who runs away with her lower-caste lover and is pursued by a masked killer.
The Tenants - Sérgio Bianchi (Brazil)
Nov. 3, 9 p.m. & Nov. 4, 9:15 p.m. & Nov. 5, 4:30 p.m. & 9 p.m. A portrait of urban violence, family and community in São Paulo, with sequences that fascinatingly blend imagination and realism.
A Useful Life - Federico
Veiroj (Uruguay)
Nov. 6, 7:15 p.m. & Nov. 9, 7 p.m. A stylish, charming black-and-white movie about the caretaker of an art-house cinema who has to close down and make a life—horror of all horrors—beyond the movies.
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Dear Scott,
It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password … in other words, no Qwikster. While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes. In other words, “All the things that don’t affect you have been shuffled and reshuffled, but don’t worry, the price goes way up just like it always did.” I’ve gone ahead and written their next email for them.
Dear Scott,
It is now even clearer that we actually do need to split into two, as we were going to do before we decided not to, before we decided we need to. We’ve given this a lot of thought. And it turns out the paperwork already went through. So, technically we’re already paying taxes on Qwikster, which it’s now clear that we need to rename Kwixtar for tax purposes. In short, two websites, one account, with two passwords depending on which version of the account you want to access, unless you triple what you were paying and get the one-account-one-password option, otherwise double the money we originally asked for and it seems we’ve lost our deal with Universal. And Lionsgate. Otherwise, everything
filmscene is just like it used to be, unless our deal with the major networks also changes, which is another reason we need to change the name to Kwixtar—but that’s another story. Once these changes have gone through, and we’ve adjusted to any other bumps down the road, we’re absolutely done with changes. Same old Netflix-Qwikster/Kwixtar you once almost knew.* If you do regrettably choose to discontinue service, you must take the simple step of accessing your old account and deactivating it with the original password plus the one we assigned the original “Qwikster” account, which we’ve since deactivated and changed, and then after returning all outstanding DVDs, once more deregistering all accounts with the above simple step. Unconditionally yours,** Co-Vice-President Otto B. Trustworthy * Subject to reversal. ** Except for the conditions on pages 12-39 of our membership terms. And for some reason I’m still shelling out the $15.99 a month.* Scott Samuelson teaches philosophy at Kirkwood Community College and blogs about music with his eight year-old son at billyanddad.wordpress.com.
A non-profit, student—run cinema screening independent, art house, foreign and classic films since 1972.
Global Lens 2011 Film Series sponsored by The Global Film Initiative
OCT 29-30: BELVEDERE
Directed by Ahmed Imamović | Bosnia-Herzegovina
OCT 29-30: OPERA JAWA
Directed by Garin Nugroho | Indonesia
NOV 1-2: THE LIGHT THIEF (SVET-AKE) Directed by Aktan Arym Kubat | Kyrgyzstan
NOV 1-2: SOUL OF SAND (PAIRON TALLE) Directed by Sidharth Srinivasan | India
NOV 3 & 5: THE TENANTS (OS INQUILINOS) Directed by Sérgio Bianchi | Brazil
NOV 3-5: THE WHITE MEADOWS (KESHTZAR HAYE SEPID) Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof | Iran
NOV 6 & 8: STREET DAYS (QUCHIS DJEEBI) Directed by Levan Koguashvili | Georgia
NOV 6 & 8: THE INVISIBLE EYE (LA MIRADA INVISIBLE) Directed by Diego Lerman | Argentina
NOV 6 & 9: A USEFUL LIFE (LA VIDA ÚTIL) Directed by Federico Veiroj | Uruguay
NOV 9–10: DOOMAN RIVER Directed by Zhang Lu | China
NOV 11–17: THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE, 1967-1975 A film by Göran Hugo Olsson | Sweden 7th Annual Japan Foundation Film Series: Young Starlets of Japanese Cinemas FREE for everyone • 7pm
NOV 4: KAMIKAZE GIRLS Directed by Nakashima Tetsuya | Japan CAB & Bijou Cinema present
Midnight Movie Series at the Englert FREE for students • $3 for community
NOV 5: DONNIE DARKO Directed by Richard Kelly | USA NOV 19: THE BIG LEBOWSKI Directed by Joel Coen | USA NOV 10, 10pm: Student Showcase A FREE film showcase for undergraduate UI students to present their work. (Top 3 films win prizes!) Late Night Movies at Bijou Cinema FREE for students • $7 for community
NOV 11 & 12, 11pm: TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL Directed by Eli Craig | USA PUBLIC ADMISSION ONLY
7
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UI STUDENT ADMISSION
POPCORN, CANDY AND SODA ONLY
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BIJOU CINEMA | 319-335-3041
netflix headquarters Where all the genius happens
IOWA MEMORIAL UNION, IC
SHOW TIMES & TRAILERS AT
bijou.uiowa.edu November 2011 | Little Village
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November 2011 | Little Village
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Article The Haps Title
CraiG AUTHOR ELEY
Photo by Nick Gordon
thank a band
Quick Hits
Put these shows on your calendar for the month of November.
supersonic piss w/ The Liz, Divine Names, Buoyant Sea | Nov. 3 | Gabe's | $5 | 9 p.m.
(see a show) mates of state w/ ra ra riot Nov. 17 | Blue Moose $15/$17 | 8 p.m.
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any of my friends who regularly Thanksgiving and jellied cranberry sauces as read this column (though really, metaphor: the thing that takes the shape of its we’re all friends, dear readers) container, etc. This November, two of the many notehave said to me recently, “Dude, just start with the second paragraph,” as if worthy musical events are what the art world the first paragraph was negligible, as if I might describe as “mixed media” projects. didn’t spend countless hours searching for The first is the concert film Inni, which capsomething interesting to say that could still tures international post-rock superstars Sigur connect, however tenuously, to some other Ros during a two-night concert run in London. observation or trend in the current month’s A preview of this film, available online, features beautifully and upcoming shows. “The first paragraph Mates of State's new album, Mountaintops aggressively stylized black-and-white is the hardest part is a return to form in every way and footage and appears, of this job,” I might say, “and also my this show is certainly my most anticipated at least superficially, as a radical deparfavorite part.” But of the month, if not the entire fall. ture from their prethis is the month we vious film project, give thanks, and to the straightforward thank all of you who slog through this tiresome opening paragraph and surprisingly touching tour documentary just to find out what’s coming next, I will Heima (2007). Musically, Sigur Ros increascondense the key ideas that I would have ingly rivals the world’s best in terms of written about this month, if not for your valu- bombast and I expect this format to only able feedback, into list form: the symbolism heighten that. The film shows at the Englert of the cornucopia, edible and decorative on Nov. 9. The second project is a local affair called gourds, Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” (and Cassandra Wilson’s breathtaking cover of it), The Fourteenth Colony, a novel and album DM Stith’s “Thanksgiving Moon,” the band created by Iowa City’s own Jason T. Lewis. A workshop alum, songwriter for the band Sad Iron Music and recording engineer, Lewis
It’s a can’t miss.
30 November 2011 | Little Village
designer drugs w/ Black Matter, PLS DNT STP | Nov. 7 Blue Moose | $12/14 | 8 p.m.
david bazan Nov. 7 | Blue Moose | $12 | 8 p.m.
inni (sigur ros film) Nov. 9 | Englert | $8 general/ $5 students | 8 p.m.
fourteenth colony release w/ Sad Iron Music | Nov. 11 The Mill | $6 | 8:30 p.m.
live music That period was defined by a relatively stripped-down organ and guitar sound and, since then, the sound has gotten “bigger,” but the raw energy has remained constant (except on the slight misstep Bring it Back [2005], though some people love that record.) Either way, their new album, Mountaintops (2011) is a return to form in every way and this show is certainly my most anticipated of the month, if not the entire fall. It’s a can’t miss. They’re at the Blue Moose on Nov. 17 with Ra Ra Riot. The Blue Moose has an interesting twoshow night on Nov. 7 and the shows probably couldn’t be more different, which means I hope that several people walk into the wrong one. The upstairs show features David Bazan and I’m guessing he’s happy to not be Too Dramatic EP playing Gabe’s/Picador/Gabe’s, which New release from he once described on his blog as “the Syracuse, NY’s Ra Ra Riot worst rock club in America to touring bands.” Zing! So, if you want to mope developed the novel around the character of around with some judgmental songwriter a down-on-his-luck musician named John dude, then here’s your chance. I’m kidding! Martin. But soon Lewis found himself writing Bazan is rightfully a legend in the hearts of some “John Martin” songs and the idea for an many for his work in Pedro The Lion and just accompanying CD was born. The release of this year he released a new album, Strange this project will happen at the Mill on Nov. Negotiations. Meanwhile, downstairs in the 11, with Lewis reading and Sad Iron Music frat garden will be DJ duo Designer Drugs, spinning their brand of club hits and remixes playing the tunes that accompany the words. Also categorized under “local flavor” (my in support of their album Hardcore/Softcore Thanksgiving metaphors would have really which came out back in February. I’m not paid off right there) is the tour kick-offshow for punk rockers Supersonic Piss. There’s nothing inherently contradictory light show with about not giving a fuck a heavy sound (in general) while also Sigur Ros on the big screen working hard on your music (more specifically) and this band does both for real, as you can hear on their 2011 self-titled album. This tour has them heading to distant points east such as Burlington, VT, and Allentown, PA. Send them off by appropriately thrashing around at Gabe’s on Nov. 3. The opening act entirely positive, but I think this duo made and tour partner will be Minneapolis noise- their Iowa City debut at the Yacht Club’s Tuesday night Flight School DJ night when it punk band The Liz. If you prefer less sludge and more pop, was run by Mikko Wolf and have now graduthen I can’t recommend husband and wife ated to a bigger club. It’s a reminder, if you duo Mates of State highly enough. Kori needed one, that those Tuesday nights really Gardner and Jason Hammel have been do bring in top talent and if you haven’t been making sing-along pop gems since their in a while, it’s probably time you revisit. deceptively titled album My Solo Project (2000). In terms of their discography, I think Craig Eley is a music writer, promoter and their subsequent two albums were really American studies grad student, usually in that standouts: Our Constant Concern (2002) and order. Got news on the music scene? Write to Team Boo (2003). These albums trafficked in him at craig@missionfreak.com. complex interplays between the two members, in both vocal melodies and instrumentation. Weekly entertainment updates, in your inbox. Sign up for The Weekender today: www.LittleVillageMag.com/weekender
November 2011 | Little Village
31
Local Albums
John Rapson
Mystery and Manners
cdbaby.com/cd/johnrapson Questions of authenticity and the creative process have long been pressed on fans of modern music, especially electronic music. File sharing and digital manipulation change the collaborative process and force listeners to ask how important human playing, human
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UI Jazz Professor and composer John Rapson has been suggesting these sorts of questions over much of his career. On Mystery and Manners, Brazilian musicians Vinicius Dorin and Realcino Lima (or Nene) compose—sometimes independently and sometimes as a trio with drummer Rafael dos Santos—free improvisations, which are then sent to Rapson to be transcribed, augmented by Rapson’s own playing, and re-arranged into the final compositions found on the release. The process is time consuming, perhaps infinite, as it retains a quality of being perpetually unfinished. Rapson has worked this way in the past with such luminaries as Anthony Braxton and Billy Higgins and is sometimes associated with Ornette Coleman. But the music on Mystery and Manners is in many ways far more traditional than Coleman’s and experimenters of his ilk. The melodic structures are easy to grasp and the arrangements seem much more like songs than disaggregated tones or disembodied solos. Much of this is accomplished through the focus on detailed percussion, which his collaborative
Is collaboration collaborative when it is written and performed without the musicians ever being together in the same space, or even the same country? authorship and human interaction are to creating what we call music. Is collaboration collaborative when it is written and performed without the musicians ever being together in the same space, or even the same country? Is a composition a composition if the composer does not actually write any of the music, but simply organizes it and fills in the gaps?
32 November 2011 | Little Village
lineup emphasizes, and through a density and internal structure which would likely impress Hank Schoklee. The sounds and improvisations are intricately layered and densely textured, flowing together seamlessly. This aspect of Mystery and Manners might remind us of Eric Dolphy in his best improvisational work and in fact
many passages from Rapson’s album seem as though they could fit comfortably on Out to Lunch. But his technique is more rigorous. While Dolphy always seemed to catch himself at the outer limits of improvisation and return the song inwards, Rapson builds from the inside out, offering an internal structure that much of improvisational jazz lacks. The results for the listener are rewarding and, while the process may be contemporary, the sound will be somehow familiar. Warren Sprouse teaches high school in Cedar Rapids. He feels that Winter is no match for a good record collection.
Cop Bar
copbar.bandcamp.com Brando Gassman and Andy Sinclair’s hard-hitting musical skills and unironic love of metal. Sam Locke Warde’s bloodyminded humor and migraine-inducing shrieks. Twenty songs averaging a minute in length. Result? Police Brutality.
send cds for review to: little village, po box 736, iowa city, ia 52244 the spirited way they attack the song’s riffs is at odds with the gloomy message. It’s as though they bash out these songs and rip up their vocal chords in order to free themselves from the societal horrors they take as their subject. The keywords they use to describe themselves on their Bandcamp page—conspiracy dissonance dystopian monsters paranoia prog-punksarcasm Des Moines—leave out one thing: fun. With a name like Fetal Pig it has to be fun, and it is.
Fetal Pig Autopia
fetalpig.bandcamp.com Jesus said “Behold the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin.” For some reason Fetal Pig reminds me of Jesus’ lilies. With a band history going back nearly 20 years, these guys do what they do not because it makes them rich and famous— because it hasn’t—but because their music is what makes their day jobs and responsibilities worthwhile. Musically they’re in the no man’s land between prog-metal and punk, with a nod to odd influences like Devo and the Dead Kennedies. The songs are angular, stabbing and sometimes atonal, with vocals shouted and declaimed rather than sung. The lyrics (and the pyramid of the cover art) hint at more than a passing familiarity with Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminati books. They also have an operatic bleakness “Leave me alone I’m screaming/Can’t you see I’m dreaming?/ Living a lie, the truth is dying/Peace and love, there’s no use trying.” Stuff like “Forget your name, learn your number” doesn’t sound like much fun, but
T'Bone
Mount Trashmore
clownethics.bandcamp.com T’Bone is based in Chicago, but is made up of Iowa natives Leland Meiners (bass), Ed Bornstein (drums) and Pat McPartland (guitar), and their album Mount Trashmore was recorded in Iowa City at Luke Tweedy’s Flat Black Studio. Chicago, birthplace of seminal post rock bands like Tortoise and Gastr Del Sol, is an apt home for these guys, whose songs follow their own crooked paths, leaving pop song conventions far behind.
They follow their own crooked path, leaving pop song conventions far behind. Instead of verse/chorus/verse, T’Bone re-imagines arena rock’s bombastic riffing. While the title track evokes pure pop memories of Thin Lizzy and Big Star, it’s followed by “Kirby Krumbles,” an instrumental piece that brings to mind some of Frank Zappa’s more thoughtful pieces, like “Peaches In Regalia.” There isn’t a second of guitar heroics that isn’t directly in service of forward compositional momentum. While I don’t know anything about their songwriting process, what really makes these songs compelling is the way all three musicians work together. Bornstein’s drumming echoes and embellishes the harmonic progressions outlined by the bass and guitar, going far beyond the role of timekeeper or groove-maker. Meiner’s bass and McPartland’s guitar sometimes invert their usual roles, with the bass taking the melody and the guitar anchoring the rhythm. Despite the ambition and sophistication T’Bone bring to their work, there’s a lot of pure, noisy rocking going on. Bornstein seems to have an extra set of arms dedicated to bashing the crash cymbals. It could just be a mess, and sometimes things do get messy, but there’s always a destination to their music, no matter how many twists and turns it takes them to arrive. Kent Williams is rocking to the beat.
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3:41 PM November 2011 | Little10/19/11 Village
The Straight Dope
Cecil Adams
Whatever happened to that plan to grow square trees? About 20 years ago when I lived in Vancouver, I watched a TV local news segment about how the University of British Columbia’s forestry department had created a system for injecting hormones into growing trees to produce a “square tree.” Much was made of the advantages for the lumber industry: reduction of waste and so on. It seemed promising at the time, but I’ve never heard any more about it. So I’ve decided to ask the wise owl of the woods—Cecil. —Greg Kerr I love this concept. Square trees! Another shining example of organizing the chaos of nature along more efficient industrial lines. (And no, I’m not talking about that public radio April Fool’s piece you can find with a little Googling. This was 100 percent legit.) As so often happens, inertia and distractions delayed implementation, and the fellow who came up with the original concept has moved on to other things. So it’s time for the Teeming Millions to pick up the … eh, “torch” may not be the best metaphor when you're talking about forests. Let's just say there's challenging work to be done. The genius behind the square tree was Robert Falls, who in the late 1980s was a PhD candidate in the U. of B.C. botany department. Falls noticed that some tree trunks exposed to high winds had become less round in cross section—they’d grown thicker on their leeward and windward sides to buttress themselves. Falls theorized that flexing of the bark by the wind encouraged the cambium—the layer of growth cells just beneath the bark—to produce extra wood. To test his theory, Falls subjected trees to what he thought might be comparable stress by scarring them with surgical tools. Sure enough, more wood grew at the site of the scars. Hearing the news, a professor in the university’s wood science department suggested
34 November 2011 | Little Village
Falls try using this discovery to grow trees with a square cross section. Square trees would be a boon to the lumber industry. Since boards are flat and trees are round, only 55 to 60 percent of the average log can be sawed into lumber—the rest winds up getting turned into paper pulp and the like, or just gets thrown away. So Falls obligingly scarred seedlings of several species (western redcedar, black cottonwood, and redwood) at 90-degree intervals around their trunks. The trees responded as hoped, becoming “unmistakably squarish,” he tells me. The beauty of the Falls system was its simplicity—despite what you remember hearing, no hormones were needed. Early attempts
to produce square trees required growing them in square molds. Today the Japanese can make a square cedar log out of a round one using a steam press. But these methods are resourceintensive. The Falls method merely required a little precision ripping and tearing. Square trees were just the start. In 1989 Falls was awarded a Canadian patent for an “Expanded Wood Growing Process,” a bland title that fails to capture the revolutionary nature of the concept. Square trees by comparison are a mere novelty. The young scientist had come up with a way to grow boards.
The logic was this: Conventional logging is wasteful and strips the land bare. It also destroys what’s arguably the most valuable part of the tree, namely the thin layer of cambium, which is what grows more wood. Falls solved all these problems. His approach to lumbering preserved the cambium, in simplest form by slicing open the tree, harvesting the mature wood in the center, and unrolling what was left—the cambium plus bark—into a more or less flat sheet. The roots would remain attached at the bottom, and the branches and leaves at the top, so the tree would continue to grow and the cambium would produce more wood, only in flat form. When the flat piece of wood got thick enough, you’d slice it off, like cutting a slice of bread from a loaf, and leave the tree to grow the next one. I grant you a forest of flat trees might look a little funky, but if you grew the trees hydroponically, you could leave the natural forests alone. Alas, Falls’s schemes for growing square trees and boards were ahead of their time. He had a doctoral thesis on another subject to finish, and the lumber industry showed little interest, so square trees didn’t get past the intriguingidea stage. (The biggest was less than a centimeter across.) Likewise, the most he managed to do with his board-growing technique was a bench-scale redwood. He says the process is best suited to making high-quality veneers. Board, veneers … let’s not quibble about semantics. The point is you can grow flat pieces of wood in the lab. Whether you can do so in the field, so to speak, remains to be demonstrated. That’s the challenge for some ambitious Straight Dope reader. I don’t care if the process is too complicated for mass production. I just want to live in a world where it’s been done. —CECIL ADAMS Send questions to Cecil via straightdope. com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Subscribe to the Straight Dope podcast at the iTunes Store.
Roland Sweet
www.LittleVillageMag.com
Curses, Foiled Again
• Stephen Frankie Daniel, 21, was caught robbing a gas station convenience store in Snellville, Ga., by police Lt. B.W. Brown, who happened to be waiting in line behind him. “The manager was laughing at the time he was putting the money in the bag because he was looking at me over the guy who was robbing him,” Brown said, noting that Daniel apparently didn’t notice Brown’s uniform or the plainly marked Snellville Police Department pick-up truck parked outside the store. (Atlanta Journal Constitution) • Michael Wayne Aurillo, 27, stole a charity collection jar containing $35.78 from the counter of a convenience store in Williston, Fla., only to be arrested before he could make off with the loot because off-duty Marion County sheriff’s Sgt. William Dietrich was standing behind him. (The Gainesville Sun)
Where Doo-Wop Lives Forever
Pittsburgh public television station WQED announced it’s devoting a new channel to airing pledge drives from its archives of “several hundred hours,” dating back to 1993. Besides its own pledge shows, WQED Showcase intends broadcasting ones from other public stations. “A lot of people really like pledge programming,” station president Deborah Acklin insisted. (Current)
Second-Amendment Follies
Chaz Ursomanno, 22, was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after he accidentally shot himself in the head while showing his girlfriend a handgun. Naomi Ensell, 24, told Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies she asked Ursomanno to put the gun away, but he insisted the weapon was safe. To prove it, he held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. He then pointed the gun at his head a second time and fired. This time, it went off. (Associated Press)
Do Bears Drive in the Woods?
Authorities said a bear broke into a 2002 Toyota Prius parked at a cabin in Lake Tahoe, Calif., then went on a rampage when it couldn’t figure out how to exit the vehicle. “You could look down and see the bear in the car, and its arms were just flailing all over the place, through the windows and everything,” said Brian McCarthy, 61, who watched with his family as the bear kicked, scratched, bit and tore at the car’s interior, ripped open the seats and bit a chunk out of the steering wheel. Then the bear shifted the Prius into neutral. It rolled backward out of the driveway, picked up speed, hopped a small rock wall and stopped on a neighbor’s porch steps. After the bear finally escaped,
McCarthy reported the incident. “It’s definitely not a normal thing to hear about,” South Lake Tahoe police Lt. David Stevenson said. (Contra Costa Times)
Storm Clouds
• Brett Cummins, 33, a TV weatherman in Little Rock, Ark., was found in an unfilled hot tub with a naked dead man. The victim, Dexter Paul Williams, 24, was wearing a chain around his neck that Maumelle police Officer Gregory Roussie described as “silver in color and consistent with what I believed to be a dog collar.” Although a witness said the two had been drinking and snorting drugs when
Epic Wiener Brandon Kelly, 31, admitted throwing a hot dog at golfer Tiger Woods during a tournament in Santa Clara County, Calif., and explained he was inspired by the movie Drive, about a stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. “As soon as the movie ended, I thought to myself, ‘I have to do something courageous and epic. I have to throw a hot dog on the green in front of Tiger,’” Kelly said. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council promptly condemned Kelly for “a violation of hot dog etiquette.” “Hot dogs are meant to be enjoyed,” council President Janet Riley pointed out, “not weaponized.” (Santa Rosa Press Democrat, National Hot Dog and Sausage Council)
they climbed into the hot tub, police filed no charges, saying foul play isn’t suspected. Cummins resigned his job with KARK-TV anyway. (New York’s Daily News) • Italian authorities charged seven scientists with manslaughter for failing to warn residents of a 6.3-magnitude earthquake that killed 308 people in and around L’Aquila in 2009. The seven defendants are accused of giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” after smaller tremors occurred in the six months leading up to the quake. (Associated Press)
Almost As Annoying As Robo-Calls
Authorities trying to collect delinquent property taxes in the Indiana city of Bangalore dispatched workers to beat drums outside the homes and offices of people who owe money. “The more the noise, the more the embarrassment,” city corporation Commissioner Siddaiah said, explaining the city is owed nearly $40
News Quirks
million in unpaid taxes. “In a way, this is shock treatment.” (BBC News)
Depressing News
Although antidepressants are the second-mostprescribed drug in the United States, nearly half the people who responded to a California survey said they wouldn’t tell their doctor about symptoms of depression. Twenty-three percent said they feared that if they did, they would be prescribed antidepressants, which they avoid, according to University of California-Davis professor Robert Bell, the study’s lead author, because they worry about the drugs’ side effects. (National Public Radio)
Too Tempting to Ignore
While Arizona state prison inmate Dyan Castorena, 40 was assigned to an off-site job detailing cars at an auto auction in Tolleson, she stole a Toyota Camry from the auction and drove away. Authorities searched for six days before Salt River Pima Tribal Police nabbed her at a Scottsdale casino. (Phoenix’s KTVK-TV)
Stalker of the Year
Dutch authorities arrested a 42-year-old Rotterdam woman for calling a 62-year-old man 65,000 times in the past year. The man complained he’d been bombarded with calls, texts and emails from the woman, who claimed to be in a relationship with him and denied that her 178 calls a day were excessive. At a preliminary hearing in The Hague, a judge granted the woman bail on condition that she leave the man alone. Within hours of her release, however, she began calling him again and was taken into custody until her trial. (BBC News)
Drinking-Class Hero
A 21-year-old man walked into what he believed to be a casino and asked for some blackjack chips. It was actually The University of Nebraska-Lincoln police station. Sgt. John Backer said the desk clerk turned the man away, but he returned a few minutes later. This time, officers administered a Breathalyzer test. The unidentified man blew .273—more than four times the legal limit—and was placed in protective custody. (Hasting’s KHAS-TV)
Compiled from mainstream media sources by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.
November 2011 | Little Village
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Calendar listings are free, on a space-available basis. For inclusion, please email Calendar@LittleVillageMag.com
Calendar ART/EXHIBITIONS Akar
257 East Iowa Ave., Iowa City www.akardesign.com 30x5: 30 Artists, five pots each, Nov. 11–Dec. 2
Amana Heritage Museum
705 44th Ave, Village of Amana www.amanaheritage.org Events resume Dec. 2 See website for times and locations.
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
410 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids www.crma.org Art Bites “Portraits of Celebrity” with CRMA Executive Director, Terry Pitts, Nov. 2, 12:15pm • Art Labs at the CRMA—Adults' Beginning Painting (Acrylics), Nov. 5, 1pm • @ The Studio “Portraits of Patriotism: African American Experiences during the American Revolution,” Nov. 10, 7pm • Collectors' Circle Purchase Meeting, Nov. 15, 7pm • Lecture by Phil Lasansky, Nov. 17, 7pm
Figge Art Museum
225 West Second St., Davenport www.figgeart.org “Thursdays at the Figge,” Thursdays at 5pm • College Night at the Figge, Nov. 17, 7pm
Legion Arts/CSPS
1103 3rd Street SE, Cedar Rapids www.legionarts.org See website for more information TBA. Peter Thompson Paintings, through Nov. • Sculpture by Sun Hee Cho Oberfoell, through Nov. • Sculpture by John Schwartzkopf, through Nov.
Public Space One
129 E. Washington St., Iowa City www.publicspaceone.com See website for events TBA . Nov. Art Exhibition: Andrew Kaufman, Breach
36 November 2011 | Little Village
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History
10 Macbride Hall, Iowa City www.uiowa.edu/~nathist UI Explorers Seminar Series: Margaret Beck, Dept. of Anthropology, Nov. 17, 7pm
University of Iowa Studio Arts
1375 Hwy 1 West, Iowa City Fool's Gold: A Painting Installation by Lisa Rowley (location: Porch Gallery), Nov. 4-11 • Fool's Gold Closing Reception, Nov. 11, 5pm
MUSIC Blue Moose Tap House
211 Iowa Ave, Iowa City www.bluemooseic.com Manhorse 3, The Meatbag, Edward Gray & Company, Lipstick Homicide, Teenage Moods, Nov. 3, 9pm • Coolzey, The Whether Report, Grism, Muscle, Nov. 4, 9pm • New Found Glory, Nov. 6, 6pm • Designer Drugs, Black Matter, PLS DNT STP, Nov. 7, 8pm • David Bazan, Nov. 7, 8pm • Big Sean, Cyhi The Prynce, Shawn Chrystopher, Nov. 9, 8pm • Shwayze and Cisco Adler, Mod Sun, G Eazy, Nov. 10, 9pm • North Mississippi Allstars, Buffalo Killers, Nov. 16, 9pm • Mates of State, Ra Ra Riot, The Generationals, Nov. 17, 8pm • Protest the Hero, Scale the Summit, Last Chance to Reason, Nov. 29, 6pm
Coralville Center for the Performing Arts 1301 5th St., Coralville, Iowa The March Winds, Nov. 3
Englert
221 E. Washington St., Iowa City www.englert.org 2nd Annual Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Stomp, Nov. 4, 8pm • Arthur Lee Land, Nov. 13, 4pm • Greg Brown, Nov. 18, 8pm • Intimate at the Englert: Kelly Pardekooper, Nov. 26, 8pm
Gabe’s
330 E. Washington St., Iowa City www.iowacitygabes.com Mixology every Thursday Super Sonic Piss, The Liz, Names Devine, Bouyant Sea, Nov. 3, 9pm • Kung Fu, Nov. 5, 9pm • Full Kit Party (downstairs), Nov. 5, 9pm • Skoal Kodiak, J. Pavilion, Cuticle, Nov. 6, 9pm • Warner Drive, Acidic, Nov. 8, 9pm • Blu, JNaturaL, Open Mike Eagle, MC Colorless, Nov. 9, 9pm • Family Groove Company, The Burrows Four, Nov. 11, 9pm • Bad Fathers, Black Market Maven, Porch Builder, Nov. 12, 9pm • Renaissance Center Party for a Purpose Fundraiser, Nov. 19, 7pm • Uniphonics, Funk Trek, Twin Cats, More than Lights, Nov. 19, 8pm • Black Friday Rainbow Hip Hop Bash, Nov. 25, 9pm • Dream Thieves Tour Kickoff, Nov. 30, 9pm
Hancher Auditorium
www.hancher.uiowa.edu See website for event locations. Paul Taylor Dance Company, Nov. 1, 6:30pm • American String Quartet with Maia String Quartet, Nov. 18, 7:30pm • 2011 Holiday Pops Tour, Nov. 27, 7pm
Legion Arts/CSPS
1103 3rd Street SE, Cedar Rapids, IA www.legionarts.org See website for more information TBA. Catie Curtis, Nov. 5, 8pm • Tom Freund, Jess Klein, Nov. 6, 7pm • Dobet Gnahore, Nov. 9, 7pm • Kiran Ahluwalia, Nov. 13, 7pm • ICCA Celebration of the Arts, Nov. 15, 5pm • Ruth Moody Band, Nov. 16, 7pm • The Nields, Nov. 18, 8pm
The Mill
120 E. Burlington St., Iowa City www.icmill.com Study Hall, the game, Sundays, 9pm-Midnight Open Mic with J. Knight, Mondays, 8pm, call 338-6713 to sign up Tuesday Night Social Club, Tuesdays, 9pm Sebadoh, Mazes, Nov. 1, 9pm • Neil Hamburger, Nov. 2, 8pm • Daniel and the Lion, Stinky Jones, Nov. 3, 9pm • Kevin Gordon, Nov. 4, 8pm • Grand Tetons, Emperors Club, Derek Lambert and the Prairie Fires, Nov. 5, 9pm •
Calendar
A-List
The Holidays Saying Yes to flavor November marks the official beginning of the holiday season, a time that our culture and others the world over have set aside for appreciating all that we have and seeking opportunities to give a little bit back. At Little Village, one of the things keeping us in this (sometimes tainted) love affair with Iowa City is that it is a place with a flavor all its own. We are a diverse population full of transplants and people who are only here temporarily, so we aren’t trying to say how a local looks, acts or quacks, but just that we see an Iowa City that has many shops, galleries, restaurants and neighborhoods that scream “Hey, look at me! I’m real! Somebody made me!” Isn’t that terrific? We think so. The unique thumbprints of real people are visible all over Iowa City, and all over this publication. We give thanks to the advertisers, writers, editors, photographers, designers and other contributors that have helped us grow. To give back, let us be the first to encourage you to help keep the flavor alive (and stick it to the 1% along the way) by choosing to do your holiday shopping at one of Iowa City’s many unique, locally-grown shops. When you give a gift that is real, nobody will be disappointed. So, if you enjoy being a part of this place as much as we do, share the love.
Brooks Strause and the Gory Details, Small Houses, more TBA, Nov. 6, 8pm • Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, Nov. 9, 7pm • University of Iowa Jazz Performances, Nov. 10, 7pm • Wham City Comedy Tour featuring Dan Deacon, Nov. 10, 10pm • Jazz After Five, Groove Theory, Nov. 11, 5pm • Fourteenth Colony Novel, Jason T. Lewis, Sad Iron Music, Nov. 11, 8:30pm • University of Iowa Jazz Performances with Jazz Rep Ensemble, Nov. 17, 7pm • Jeremy Messersmith, Lucy Michelle, The Velvet Lapelles, Joe fassier, Nov. 18, 9pm • Bitch, more TBA, Nov. 20, 8pm • Burlington Street Bluegrass Band, Nov. 23, 7pm • Jazz After Five, Nov. 25, 5pm
People Brothers Band, Nov. 3, 9pm • Roster McCabe, Bad Intentions, Nov. 4, 8:30pm • Dennis McMurrin and the Demolition Band, Nov. 5, 10pm • Funktion, Jam Session, Nov. 9, 9pm • Cake Tribute with Nugget, Chili Peppers, First Born Unicorn, Nov. 12, 9pm • Aaron Kamm and the One Drops, Jam Session, Nov. 16, 9pm • Pert Near Sandstone, Pre-Apocolyptic Junkyard Orchestra, Nov. 18, 9pm • Whiskey of the Damned, Phantom Vibrations, Nov. 19, 9pm
Old Capitol Museum
www.citycircle.org See website for times and locations. Events resume Dec. 9
Pentacrest, Iowa City www.uiowa.edu/~oldcap See website for locations. Piano Sundays, Nov. 6, 1:30pm
Performing Arts at Iowa
performingarts.uiowa.edu See website for times and locations. Uwe Kleindiesnt Lecture, Nov. 1 • Brass Chamber Ensembles, Nov. 1 • Uwe Kleindienst, trumpet; Gregory Hand, harpsichord; David Hempel, oboe and Todd Schendel, sackbut, Nov. 2 • Johnson County Landmark, Nov. 3 • Eric Kutz, cello and Miko Kominami, piano, Nov. 4 • Composers Workshop, Nov. 6 • Percussion Ensemble, Nov. 6 • Iowa Brass Quintet, Nov. 9 • Oasis Saxophone Quartet, Nov. 10 • Latin Jazz Ensemble, Nov. 10 • Maia Quartet with Assaff Weisman, Nov. 10 • Sarah Plum, violin, Nov. 11, 7:30pm • UI School of Music Voice, Organ and Harpsichord Chamber Music Collaborative Event, Nov. 13, 4pm • Bassoon Studio Recital, Nov. 14 • John Aley, trumpet and Martha Fischer, piano, Nov. 15 • Band Extravaganza, Nov. 15 • Symphony Band, Nov. 16 • CD Release Recital: “Dreaming in Colors,” Nov. 17 • Jazz Repertory Ensemble, Nov. 17 • Oni Buchanan, piano, Nov. 17 • Bertrand Cuiller, harpsichord, Nov. 20 • University Symphony and University Choir, Timothy Stalter conducting, Nov. 30
THEATER/DANCE/ PERFORMANCE City Circle Acting Company
Coralville Center for the Performing Arts
1301 5th St., Coralville, Iowa Pinocchio, presented by the Old Creamery Theatre Company, Nov. 5, 10am • Poetic Rebound Performance Company: In the Axis, Nov. 5, 7pm • Flavors: A Feast of Dance and Music from India, Nov. 12, 5pm • Love, Loss, and Hope, presented by Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, Nov. 13, 2pm
Englert
221 E. Washington St., Iowa City www.englert.org National Theatre Live: The Kitchen, Nov. 19, 7pm
Penguin’s Comedy Club
Clarion Hotel, 525 33rd Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids www.penguinscomedyclub.com Check website for showtimes. Kris Shaw and Tim Sullivan, Nov. 4-5 • Costaki Economopolos, Nov. 10 • Scott Long, Nov. 11-12 • Kevin “Dotcom” Brown, Nov. 18-19 • Jack Wilhite, Nov. 25-26
Performing Arts at Iowa
3184 Highway 22, Riverside www.riversidecasinoandresort.com Clint Black, Nov. 18, 8pm • Men of Playgirl, Nov. 4, 8pm
performingarts.uiowa.edu See website for times and locations. Dance Gala 2011, Nov. 3-5, Nov. 6 • Lady from the Sea, Nov. 3-6 • Stick Fly, Nov. 10-12, 17-19 • Dance Alumni Event, Nov. 11-12 • Afro-Cuban Drum and Dance Ensemble, Nov. 13
Uptown Bill’s
Poetic Rebound Performance Company
Riverside Casino
730 S. Dubuque St. www.uptownbills.org Art and Music Night, Thursdays at 6pm Open Mic, Thursdays at 7pm Readers and Writers Group, Wednesdays at 6pm Spoken Word Open Mic, Wednesdays at 7pm
Yacht Club
13 S. Linn St., Iowa City www.iowacityyachtclub.org Open Mic every Monday, Dance Party every Tuesday Jam Session every Wednesday
www.facebook.com/poeticrebound In the Axis, Nov. 5
Public Space One
129 E. Washington St., Iowa City www.publicspaceone.com See website for event details The 500 Fin: PS1 benefit show performers TBA, Nov. 1
November 2011 | Little Village
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Calendar
For inclusion, please email Calendar@LittleVillageMag.com
Riverside Theater
www.riversidetheatre.org See website for showtimes. The Cripple of Inishmaan, Nov. 3-6, 10-13 • Small Miracles, Nov. 25-27
Theatre Cedar Rapids
4444 1st Ave NE, Cedar Rapids www.theatrecr.org See website for showtimes. Underground Theatre Festival, Nov. 4-13 • A Christmas Carol, Nov. 25 through Dec. 17
Working Group Theatre
www.workinggrouptheatre.org See website for times and locations. Telling: Iowa City, Nov. 8-10
CINEMA Bijou Theatre
IMU, UI Campus, Iowa City bijou.uiowa.edu See ad on page 27 for November listings.
Englert
221 E. Washington St., Iowa City www.englert.org Midnight Movie Series: Donnie Darko, Nov. 5, 12am • Sigur Ros - Inni Screening, Nov. 9, 8pm
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site
110 Parkside Drive, West Branch www.nps.gov/heho See website for volunteer details. Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern, Nov. 5-6, 12-13, 19-20, 26-27 1pm
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History
10 Macbride Hall, Iowa City, IA www.uiowa.edu/~nathist Movies@MNH: “Green Fire,” Nov. 6, 2pm
LITERATURE Live from Prairie Lights
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
410 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids www.crma.org Preschool Story, Nov. 1, 11am • Doodlebugs Preschool Program at the Cedar Rapids Public Library: Chic Like Chanel, Nov. 4, 10:30am • Preschool Story Time, Nov. 8, 11am • Preschool Story Time, Nov. 15, 11am • Doodlebugs Preschool Program at the Hiawatha Public Library: Art: It's What's for Dinner, Nov. 18, 10:30am • Art Labs at the CRMA – Teens' Portrait Party, Nov. 19, 1pm • Preschool Story Time, Nov. 22, 11am • Preschool Story, Nov. 29, 11am
Iowa City Public Library
123 South Linn St. Iowa City www.icpl.org Storytime at 10:30am Mon.-Sat., 2pm Sun.
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History
10 Macbride Hall, Iowa City www.uiowa.edu/~nathist The Fossil Guy: “Bringing ‘Laura the Kid Dinosaur’ Back to Life!,” Nov. 5, 2pm • The Fossil Guy: “Feathered Dinosaurs Yesterday & Today,” Nov. 12, 2pm • Night at the Museum: “Dinosaurs,” Nov. 18, 6pm • The Fossil Guy: “Chewing Up the Ice Age,” Nov. 19, 2pm • Storytime Explorers: Snakes & Reptiles, Nov. 20, 3pm
MISC Johnson County Local Food Alliance
www.jclfa.org See website for more information Frances Moore Lappe presents “Sustainable Foods and Climate Change: Fixing a Broken System,” Nov. 1, 7pm
Red Cedar Chamber Music
www.redcedar.org See website for event times and locations. Marion Leadership in Action, Nov. 17
TransWeek
Nov. 9, 10pm
www.imu.uiowa.edu/lgbt-events See website for event times and locations. Candlelight Vigil & Coffeehouse style Open Mic, Nov. 6 • Collaborative Art Project & Dance Party, Nov. 7 • Connections’ Transgender Panel/Q&A Session, Nov. 8 • Transcending the Wall 2: An Exhibition of Art Exploring Gender Identities, Nov. 11 • Intersections of Boxes & Bodies: A Dialogue Between Health Care Providers & Trans-Identified Individuals, Nov. 12 • Film Screening & Discussion: She’s a Boy I Knew, Nov. 13
Sanctuary Pub
Veterans for Peace
15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City www.prairielights.com/live See website for readings TBA
The Mill
120 E. Burlington St., Iowa City www.icmill.com blue//green Reading Series, Nov. 16, 8pm • Talk Art,
38 November 2011 | Little Village
KIDS
405 S. Gilbert St., Iowa City www.sanctuarypub.com Speakeasy: UI Graduate Nonfiction Reading Series, Nov. 8 and Nov. 29, 9pm
www.veteransforpeace.org Event located at the UI Pentacrest–Public observance of Veterans Day and Commemmoration of Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 10:30am
Contact Dr. Star at Dr.Star@LittleVillageMag.com
Dr. Star
Stars Over Iowa City
ASTROLOGY FORECAST FOR November 2011
FOR EVERYONE—At long last. The world will shake off its stifling inertia in November. Finally. There will be an immediate surge of progress in vitally important areas, areas blighted by delay for too long. There will be a sense that more important progress will follow in the months just ahead. But battle lines will also be drawn. There will be conflict over the direction of change. Those who want to block progress will confront those who embrace it. People with irrational or hysterical views will cloud debate. It could be some time before things settle into a stable pattern again. We’ll all need to reinvent ourselves on a continuing basis to keep up in a world that is rapidly reinventing itself. SCORPIO—Renewal. Others might be concerning themselves with difficult and complex choices this month and how to take advantage of emerging financial opportunities. There will be some of that for Scorpio. But Scorpios could find themselves more preoccupied with issues related to a lifelong partner. You could be especially concerned with the darker, secret side of such a relationship and how it has burdened you in some especially difficult way. What will make November important and memorable for you will be a deep healing and quiet reconciliation in this life partnership. SAGITTARIUS—Good luck and introspection. The planets line up well for Sagittarius in November. Personal charisma peaks. Luck blesses you financially and in relationship areas. Travel and/or educational matters prosper. November marks a fine prelude to the lengthy, challenging phase of your life that is now approaching. Ties to family, friends and familiar beliefs will weaken as a journey of selfquestioning and self-discovery begins. New horizons will appear in the realms of spirituality, art, music and literature. Be careful to do right by existing commitments. Avoid unhealthy forms of escapism. CAPRICORN—Progress plus confusion. Capricorn should make progress on priority issues in November with the promise of more progress to come. But you could be shocked as well as frustrated by the outlandish objections some will have to your plans. Others could come to you with wildly unrealistic expectations. People could get very emotional, even troublesome. The best way to allay fears, manage expectations and minimize resistance is with patience and reason. Sound reasoning might look like a tough sell in this highly charged environment, but it remains your best bet. AQUARIUS—Give it a while. A kind of mist has clouded the Aquarian lens for many years. It softened events and created emotional distance. It also deepened your understanding. This mist is now dissipating. You will be more directly involved in everything. You will also feel stronger. Stimulating new possibilities will present themselves. You are a more complex person, now, and the world is more complex and fast moving than you remember it being. It will take some time and effort to integrate the new, better you into this fast-moving, intense world.
PISCES—Into deeper waters. An enchanted mist will soon settle over Piscean minds. It will get denser and remain so for many years. It will create emotional distance. It will make you even more intuitive and absorb you more completely into your own thoughts and feelings. You'll be even less willing to settle for a standard version of reality. You won't feel as robust as you might like, sometimes. But it will make you more powerfully Piscean than you already are. But stay in touch with the rest of us. We'll really need your Super-Piscean insights. ARIES—Tread softly. The abundance you receive this month will be of several kinds, all of which you've been hoping for. Health, finances and personal ambitions will all get a boost. However, the process of change could be nervousmaking. Shaping opportunities to suit your specific needs and preferences could be tricky, especially with all the unfamiliar details. You'll also be dealing with stressed people, all working hard amidst uncertainty and doubt. Anxiety, misinformation and plain old wrongheadedness could derail progress, at least temporarily. Urge others to remain calm, focused and civil. TAURUS—Some assembly required. A vision of the future will finally begin to emerge. A vision of how to realize that vision will also begin to dawn. The operative word here is “begin.” The stars are well-aligned for Taurus. Things do look ready to fall into place—just maybe not all at once. It could take months to figure out specifically what you need as well as what you want. You must also position yourself to seize the opportunities as they move past you. Impatience or irritability will make things harder. GEMINI—Positivity vs. hyperactive negativity. Gemini is in tune with the opportunities now opening up, probably better than most of the people around you. There is more at stake now than many realize and you need to make that understood. However, the air is full of misinformation, doubt, conspiracy theories and plain old hysteria. You, too, are prone to overexcitement. Your special contribution will be to help generate the clarity, confidence and harmony needed. Don't underestimate the resistance to be overcome or the importance of your role in overcoming it.
END OF SUMMER
SHOE
SALE
CANCER—The “eye” in team work. You may have sought partnerships and invested in projects that you had to put on a back burner for lack of progress. But things are now gaining traction. Many ideals in which you invested emotionally are also starting to bear fruit. There are many who would intentionally or unintentionally derail your efforts. Your famous intuition is in especially good working order. Share your insights willingly. You and key partners will need those insights to see through the confusion and misinformation and to steer around stubborn obstacles. LEO—Healer in chief. Some are talking about opportunities. Some are broadcasting their own worst fears. Some are going to ridiculous extremes. Some are spewing crazy talk. But what Leo hears most clearly are demands for healing. Everyone must be heard. Fears must be calmed. People need to be talked back from extremes. Hysteria must be dampened. Obstructions must be politely but firmly overcome. This isn't just the usual drama, either. Your intervention is vital. Each of your healing achievements will yield substantial benefits, now and for many years to come. VIRGO—Small victories. Virgos might feel like they woke up in the middle of a riot for all the furor surrounding them. There are many big problems out there and some are approaching crisis levels. Unfortunately, absolutely nothing is going to get fixed fast or easily. New solutions certainly won't come online soon enough to restore needed calm. Things really could get out of control. As so often in recent times, you have a special feel for the situation. Your input could help avert harm and produce greater benefit than anyone realizes. LIBRA—Place your bet carefully. Unusually delicate financial decisions await. The outcome depends on the decisions of many others who have their own priorities and who aren't necessarily thinking very clearly. It also depends on events you simply cannot foresee. Some heavy-hitters are involved, too. Rather than the careful reasoning you prefer, you'll need to go with intuition, educated guesswork and improvisation. And then live for awhile with the consequences. The planets suggest an emphasis on fairness. It would be the right thing, even if the good guys didn't have an edge.
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next to GABES November 2011 | Little Village
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Iowa City • Coralville www.newpi.coop
Andy from Grinnell Heritage Farm