Features
Posted inArts & Entertainment

Becoming Roxie: For Iowa City’s Jason Seaba drag was a way to replace self-doubt with self-expression

by Julia Davis

It may be 2017, but tonight drag queen Roxie Mess is channeling her inner ’80s superstar. From the moment she takes the stage, she controls the crowd at Studio 13, the only gay bar in Iowa City. Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It To My Heart” blasts through the speakers. Roxie struts on stage in a skin-tight, neon orange dress with pink frills and huge blonde hair that seems to take up more space than her actual head. Her 4-inch heels make her tower above the crowd at 6-foot-9. Her makeup is just as bright and jarring as the neon dress and makes it impossible for anyone to look away as she dances across the floor and against the wall.

Posted inArts & Entertainment

Photos: Local thrifters curate vintage looks

by Michael Stenerson

Last month, photographer Michael Stenerson spent an afternoon with three local vintage purveyors. While sifting through their extensive archives for this shoot, they chatted about how they fell into thrifting and the treasures they unearth while shopping. Ashley and Seth Goodman thrifted before they met, but their shopping picked up when they got together about six years ago. Demitrius Perry started thrifting for himself about seven years ago, but has only been selling his finds for a year.

Posted inArts & Entertainment

Iowa City band Aseethe is taking its minimalist metal sound back on tour

by Kent Williams

Aseethe, the Iowa City band made up of Brian Barr and Eric Dierks, has been kicking around the Midwest heavy music scene for a few years now, with an evolving sound based around Barr’s exploration of the raw sound of guitar, synth and samples. Having caught the ear of Thrill Jockey owner Bettina Richards, they went from selling her a T-shirt, to Thrill Jockey distributing their 2015 EP ‘Nothing Left Nothing Gained,’ to releasing their current record, ‘Hopes of Failure,’ on the label.

Posted inArts & Entertainment

Interview: Filmmaker David Byars discusses the Patriot movement ahead of Vino Vérité’s screening of ‘No Man’s Land’

by Jon Burke

This Sunday, July 9, documentarian David Byars is bringing his incendiary new film, No Man’s Land, to FilmScene as part of the Vino Vérité series, presented by FilmScene, ‘Little Village’ and Bread Garden Market. Tickets are $20 for FilmScene members, $25 for the general public. The film begins at 7:15 p.m., with hors d’oeuvres & wine tasting preceding at 6:30 p.m. A wine and dessert reception with the filmmaker begins at 8:45 p.m.

Posted inFeatures, Food & Drink, Opinion

Discussing food mediation through the lens of a burrito stand in Portland

by Ari Ariel

Food and identity are inextricably linked. This is both cliché and absolutely true. It is not surprising then that people get angry when others appropriate the foods that they identify with culturally. If you don’t believe me take a look at the Kitchen Sister’s wonderful series Hidden Kitchen: War & Peace & Food. But what exactly is appropriation? Is using an ingredient from outside your own culture an act of respect or aggression? Put simply, is it okay for me to use Szechuan bean paste when I make dinner? (I’m not Chinese.) What if I use it in an inauthentic way? (I’m quite fond of putting it in tomato sauce.) Would it be okay for me to open a Szechuan restaurant? Where is the line between culinary borrowing and theft?

Posted inArts & Entertainment, Features

A-List: Out Loud! Author Series welcomes the rapid-fire flow of Kwame Alexander

by Rob Cline

When he’s excited about a subject, Kwame Alexander speaks in a rapid-fire flow, an improvised musical line that takes a theme and mines it for meaning and possibility.

Take, for example, his answer to a question about cultural references — to jazz, hip-hop, books and more — in his novels-in-verse The Crossover and Booked.

“I’m a big fan of exploring what’s going on in the world and our place in it,” he says. And then he fires off a list as I scurry to keep my pen flying across the page of my notebook: books, music, police brutality (I didn’t see that one coming), first love, how to imagine a better world — probably more that I didn’t catch.

Posted inArts & Entertainment, Features

A-list: Anaïs Mitchell brings a deep history to the Iowa Arts Festival

by Genevieve Trainor

Among the exciting national acts brought in for the Iowa Arts Festival this year is Vermont-born, Brooklyn, New York-based songwriter Anaïs Mitchell. Deeply rooted in American folk traditions, Mitchell manages a sound that is contemporary without being retro or revival — an extension of the sound, rather than a tribute to it. She is tomorrow’s folk singer.

Mitchell’s 2010 recording of her folk opera Hadestown featured an array of key voices in the genre, from Ani DiFranco to Iowa’s own Greg Brown. Mitchell continues to work on its transformation into a full stage musical; the 2016 off-Broadway production has been nominated for several awards, including the April Drama Desk Awards announcement of its nomination in the Outstanding Musical category. Her most recent record, 2014’s xoa, was the third released on her own label, Wilderland Records. Mitchell took some time just before hitting the road to answer some questions over email for Little Village.

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