By Paul Deaton, Solon I’ve been with retired Admiral Michael Franken enough to know he would make an excellent U.S. Senator. My comparison is with Tom Harkin, with whom I also spent time. Harkin is arguably Iowa’s best senator to date. If elected, Franken could also be one of the great U.S. Senators from Iowa. […]
Statewide
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Book Review: ‘The Length of a Clenched Fist’ by L.A. Felleman
Written as a calendar documenting March through October, a single narrator moves through life in lockdown in L.A. Felleman’s The Length of a Clenched Fist (Finishing Line Press). If I hadn’t lived through 2020 I might not understand references like “While Italians Sing Arias From Balconies” (the first poem’s title) or “the square / Marked […]
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 inLetters, Opinion, Statewide
Letter to the editor: Attorney General Miller is a longstanding force in Iowa politics
By Natalie Sherman, Des Moines One decade in politics can seem like a lifetime, so several decades and ten terms in office is certainly a momentous feat. While some might be ready to back down after so many years in the political arena, Attorney General Tom Miller seems to have no interest in slowing his […]
Posted inDear Kiki
Dear Kiki: My friend is having fertility issues. How do I tell her I’m pregnant?
Questions about love, sex or relationship can be submitted to dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or anonymously using this form. Questions may be edited for clarity and length, and may appear either in print or online. Dear Kiki, I have a really good friend who has been trying for over a year to get pregnant and is really frustrated […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Tama metal band Rehtek is back with a growling, howling new sound
Abomination, the new album from Iowa metal outfit Rehtek, contains all the ingredients for a pummeling musical feast. Chunky guitar riffage — check. Gut-rumbling bass — check. Double-time kick drums at speed-metal velocities — check. Growling, howling vocals — double-check. “Our influences are vast,” frontman Colton Davenport said. “We listened to everything from thrash, death […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Chaircrusher — ‘Distelfink’
Distelfink by Chaircrusher Iowa City’s very own Chaircrusher (a.k.a. Kent Williams, a regular LV contributor) is back. By Chaircrusher’s frantic standards — four albums in 2021, three each in 2020 and 2019 — 2022 has constituted a hibernation of sorts; an Eastern Gray Squirrel tucked away inside a tree hollow with nothing but an analog […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Jarret Purdy & Dan Padley — ‘Ecotones’
Ecotones by Jarrett Purdy & Dan Padley When Dan Padley played at the Iowa City Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago, I was impressed (as always) by the liquid elegance of his playing on the jazz standard “All the things you are.” I’m sure there was effort expended, but he played effortlessly, pulling different sounds […]
Posted inCommunity/News
A legal guide to self-managed abortion in Iowa, even if a six-week ban is passed
Note: The term “woman” and she/her pronouns are occasionally used in this article to refer to a hypothetical pregnant person seeking abortion. In reality, this person could be a woman, child, nonbinary person or transgender man. The recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overturning Roe v. Wade left the right to […]
Posted inCommunity/News
En Español: The anguish of language for heritage speakers
Hace unos años entrevisté a una estudiante mexicoamericana de la Universidad de Iowa sobre su lengua materna. Yo estaba realizando la investigación para mi tesis doctoral sobre hablantes de herencia del español, y algo que Celeste dijo me sorprendió mucho: que la lengua que hablan en su casa era “Tex-Mex.” a la que describió como […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Republican leaders line up behind Trump after FBI raid: ‘We’ve got a right 2b skeptical’
Iowa’s leading Republicans once again followed Donald Trump’s lead and used social media on Tuesday to suggest corruption led to FBI agents executing a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Monday. Not corruption on Trump’s part, of course. Iowa GOP leaders have consistently ignored or avoided acting on evidence of Trump’s corruption, whether personal, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
UI astronomers studying a ‘super-weird’ nebula want 30 minutes with the Webb Space Telescope
Twenty-six years ago, NASA announced a project to launch a space telescope into orbit a million miles from Earth in order to study deep space and light from the early universe. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) transmitted its first images last month, providing a view of the cosmos never seen before. The images were […]
