I imagine most people who got their Mission Creek on last night are moving pretty slowly this morning. I know my brain seems to be on a dysfunctional autopilot after a late night of two great shows at Gabe’s and The Yacht Club, but I’ll happily forge ahead with Day three!
Melissa Zimdars
Melissa Zimdars is a doctoral student in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, specializing in all things television.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Your guide to Mission Creek: Wednesday
Starting today (day two!), the number of cool things happening at any given moment in Iowa City doubles, and this pace continues through the weekend.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Your guide to Mission Creek: Tuesday
Each day of Mission Creek I’ll be sharing my itinerary, carefully curated to maximize fun with you all. Tonight starts with a pork dinner at Motley Cow (6:00 p.m.) and a reading at Prairie Lights (7:00 p.m.), featuring Roxane Gay, who is the genre-mixing, Haitian-diaspora-discussing author of Ayiti (2011), and Iowa City’s John D’Agata. I’ll still be in class at this point, but you should go and make me jealous!
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Interview with White Lung’s Mish Way
“I was in some really bad bands … not serious bands, one with my ex-boyfriend. So, I was playing guitar and kept thinking, ‘I really want to start my own band.’”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Tube: Social television connects us to content, but not each other
A couple weeks ago, a professor said to me, “Since you’re a TV person, you are used to watching stuff alone.” For a few minutes I freaked out about potentially being this sad loner screening television shows on Saturday nights without anyone to talk to. But more important than this statement inspiring ridiculous neurosis, I began to wonder whether this was actually the case about television watching.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Tube: Free yourself from traditional cable packages
In the second installment of a two-part series on a la carte television, Melissa Zimdars asks whether viewers can already unbundle themselves by moving away from traditional cable packages and toward streaming television online. Rumors of cable or satellite television becoming unbundled, which refers to the ability to purchase a particular channel’s content or a […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Music: King Pop – An Interview with Paul Collins
“One of the things I enjoy most about touring now is playing with up-and-coming bands.” This was one of the first things Paul Collins said to me when we recently chatted about his 2013 Midwest tour. It makes sense because thirty years ago, Paul Collins was in two up-and-coming power pop bands, The Nerves and […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Tube: America’s Favorite Scapegoat
I was recently in Austin, Texas, for a television studies conference. Yes, people actually study TV. While I was there, I picked up a copy of the publication Infowars, which is either a collection of conspiracy theories or a collection of truths, depending on your point of view. The cover illustration for this issue depicts a […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Tube: Parenthood and Friendship
After seven years of watching “Gilmore Girls,” the series finale was bittersweet. I went through high school and college during the same time as the main character, Rory. I identified with her nerdy awkwardness and feel- ing like she didn’t quite fit in. It was like not seeing those characters anymore was akin to losing […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Tube: Fall TV Preview
We’re upon one of my favorite times of year: the fall TV season! Increasingly, program releases are staggered throughout the year, with some of my favorites airing in the traditionally rerun-dominated summer (“Breaking Bad,” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” being two). Yet despite these chaotic programming practices, there is still a huge influx […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Your Town Now: Red Light Caution
Many of us subject ourselves to forms of surveillance on a daily basis. Every time we post a picture on Facebook or send out a tweet, we are contributing to vast digital archives of data about ourselves, observable to those both within and beyond our social circles. While we do this voluntarily, what a lot […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Preview: Firecracker 500 Festival 2012 – June 28-30 at Gabe’s
This weekend at Gabe’s, the Firecracker 500 Festival is back! Twenty-five bands from Iowa City, Chicago, Tennessee, Alabama and other primarily midwestern spots will be creating enough noise to make your ears bleed for weeks. Beginning in 1997, the original Firecracker 500 featured The Exotics, The Delstars and Iowa City’s own The Bent Scepters (who […]
