Siriaco Garcia (who goes by the artist moniker Siricasso) is a muralist, painter and event planner currently living in Huxley, a town in the Ames metro area. The Texas native was named a “Rural Regenerator Fellow” this year by Springboard For The Arts and will receive $10,000 to continue his work in Central Iowa. Little […]
Lily DeTaeye
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Andrea Brook “turns the Civic Center into an instrument” this weekend
Installation artist and musician Andrea Brook has never been to Iowa before. But as she stands on top of the Civic Center with a 360-view of night-time Des Moines to install her traveling show, Sonic Butterfly, she says that she likes it a lot. Sonic Butterfly is a 200-foot long harp made up of brass […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Central Iowa libraries partner with DART to bring back free bus rides for cardholders
If you don’t already have a library card, Central Iowa library locations are partnering up with DART to give you another reason to get one. The Read and Ride program returns this week, offering free DART services to people who show their library cards while boarding a DART bus. The free rides are available for […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
California’s Wild and Scenic Film Festival comes to Waukee Sunday
This weekend, the Iowa Environmental Council will bring the 20th Wild and Scenic Film Festival — “where activism gets inspired,” according to organizers — to Waukee. The festival was started by the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL, pronounced “circle”), a California activist group focused on protecting the Yuba River Watershed. In addition to the […]
Posted inBook Reviews
Book Review and Q&A: Tom Montgomery Fate — ‘The Long Way Home’
To be born in the Midwest is to become acutely aware of the term “flyover country.” And once you are aware of it, you must decide whether or not you’ll embrace your life here regardless or denounce it and move somewhere else, somewhere more conventionally beautiful and wild. Maybe, if you’ve chosen the former, you […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Get your Iowa lit fix at Beaverdale Books this fall
Nestled in a cozy town square off of Beaver Avenue, Beaverdale Books has been a space for Des Moines book-lovers since 2006. They offer a wide array of books from both local and farther flung authors, and the bookstore also boasts an impressive events calendar featuring author meet and greets, readings and book fairs throughout […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
‘It’s just the most Iowan thing’: A day at the Iowa State Fair with fair mega-fans, the Stumps
Since his freshman year of high school in 1969, Gary Stump has not missed an Iowa State Fair. “I had a girlfriend whose father worked at the fair and he got free tickets for everything,” Stump recalls. “And then when I was in college, a friend of mine worked there and he was able to […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Five questions with: Bestselling crime author Karin Slaughter
To promote her new book, Girl, Forgotten, the aptly named Karin Slaughter will be visiting Des Moines on Wednesday, Aug. 24 as a part of the Des Moines Public Library’s Authors Visiting in Des Moines series (AViD). The Georgia native and Save the Libraries founder’s newest novel is the sequel to Pieces of Her, a […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘A Map for the Missing’ by Belinda Huijuan Tang
After the dedications page of her debut novel, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Belinda Huijuan Tang quotes Homer’s The Odyssey, a fitting harbinger for the journey she will take us on. Although A Map for the Missing (Penguin Press) is not the lighthearted summer read you might be looking for right now, it’s one […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘My Fair Lady,’ a problematic classic with amazing production, comes to Des Moines
My Fair Lady, presented by Lincoln Center Theater, opened at the Civic Center in Des Moines Tuesday night and almost every row was filled. The musical is an adaptation on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, involving a professor of phonetics training a poor woman with a thick working class accent to pass as a […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Indianola, the hot air balloon heart of the U.S., hosts the nine-day National Balloon Classic
In 1970, after seven years of moving from state to state, the U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championship was held in Indianola, Iowa for the first time. Indianola’s wide open spaces made it desirable for ballooning, and the championship would return to town every year for the next 18 years. In 1989, the tournament went […]
Posted inCentral Iowa
Photo Gallery: Iowans rally for fair contract from Bridgestone-Firestone
On Thursday, approximately 250 people, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 310 and their supporters, marched over NW 2nd Street in a show of solidarity as the union engaged in contract negotiations with Bridgestone-Firestone. Local 310 represents almost 900 workers at the Des Moines Bridgestone-Firestone plant, which manufactures tires for agricultural equipment. The union’s existing […]
