Let’s be honest. There is a lot of bad public art, like the terrifyingly large Marilyn Monroe statue or the rictus death smile Henry Winkler one, but sometimes…
April 2014
Posted inCommunity/News
Savage Love: Thrills and spills
I’m an old guy, fast approaching geezerdom. After 45 years of marriage to the same woman, the sex has fallen off to zero. We otherwise have a great and comfortable relationship. If I want any at all these days, the only options are masturbation or professional service providers. I was very nervous the first time […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Community organizations working to change the way we talk about sexual assault in Iowa City
Members of the Iowa United Nations Association (UNA), and Monsoon United Asian Women of Iowa (MUAWI) teamed up to host the “Your Voice. Our Future.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Plug: Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
Boy, Snow, Bird By Helen Oyeyemi Helen Oyeyemi wins this month’s award for “book I’m most curious about.” Her newest novel, Boy, Snow, Bird takes inspiration from Snow White and wicked stepmothers in order to launch a complex discussion about race, identity, beauty and suffering. The setting is 1950s New England. The title comes from […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Sky Ferreira takes a break from tour with Miley Cyrus, plays the IMU
Synth-pop artist and singer Sky Ferreira will be performing in the IMU Ballroom this Sunday, April 13, for a show co-presented by SCOPE Productions and the 10,000…
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Hip-hop heads get ready: Yelawolf returns to Blue Moose
Alabama rapper Yelawolf will be returning to the Blue Moose this Friday, April 11, with Chicago’s Tone Da Boss. After a killer show two years ago, also at Blue Moose, this is a show that should not be missed. Yelawolf has made a name for himself for his explicitly Southern style of hip-hop. Whether he’s using samples from classic rock or collaborating with Kid Rock, Yelawolf sticks to and celebrates his back-country upbringing. However, his tracks are most compelling when he, David Lynch-like, takes a peek at the darker underbelly of small-town life and shows us a gritty world of violence and methamphetamine addicts. Sure, he’s got songs with titles like “Let’s Roll” and “I Like to Party,” but he also delivers the equivalent of a 21st century murder ballad on a track like “Pop the Trunk.”
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa City schoolteacher launches door-side glass recycling service
Those little blue recycling bins that dot the curbs of Iowa City’s residential neighborhoods are convenient, freely provided (to single-family homes) and…
Posted inCommunity/News
The Northside’s New Do: HABA Salon Opens
Not everyone has a penchant for style. Specifically, I address those college students whose need for comfort is so great that they graze through the day in sweatpants, hair in a bun or tucked under a frayed cap and wearing old boots caked in a winter’s worth of salt and mud.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Comics: In Sex Criminals, when the main characters orgasm, time stops and the adventure begins
Reading Sex Criminals — a creator-owned comic published by Image and written by Matt Fraction with art by Chip Zdarsky — feels both illicit and mainstream.
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Reviews: Dan Bobek – Vibrating On Hi
On Facebook, Dan Bobek has been posting a sort of slow motion performance art piece: Awkward personal observations, videos of himself playing the song he wrote an hour ago and dispatches from the trenches of the life of an Iowa City musician. Vibrating On Hi is a side effect of Bobek’s relentless self-exposure, except that it’s put together more carefully than what bubbles up on Facebook.
Posted inFood & Drink, Print Edition
Crafty: Eins, zwei, drei, apfelwein time!
On a trip to Germany a few springs ago, I fell in love with apfelwein—a traditional German apple cider. My travelling companions and I spent two weeks drinking delicious bottles of super dry apfelwein that the mother of our host made by hand. She had spent the previous fall pressing apples harvested from her family orchard and making apfelwein that fermented in her cellar over the winter. By the time the weather was warm, the apfelwein was ready to enjoy.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Slaughter City opens Thursday at the UI Theatre Building
The theatre has provided a forum for exploring labor issues ever since the heyday of the “workers’ theatre” movement in the 1920s and ’30s. Many plays during this period were influenced by the theories of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who believed that theatre should engage audiences intellectually in order to inspire them to act after the curtain falls. In 1935, Clifford Odets ended his play Waiting for Lefty by having the actors urge the audience to leave the theatre shouting, “Strike! Strike!”
