Brock About Town

It’s that time of the year again. The city pools are closing, students are coming back, the average temperature has dropped exactly one degree and the sun’s setting sooner, causing the summer people in your life to lose their minds. (You know Dave at work, who has a SAD lamp on his desk and observes “Margarita Monday”? Dave’s having a bad

Right now, across America, idyllic small towns just like ours are also experiencing a heat wave of epic proportions. They’re probably cowering inside, worrying about pedestrian things like heatstroke and sunburn. Here in Iowa City, we’re a little hardier. We attend outdoor blues concerts when the heat index is 105 and let our children

Remember your summer project? You know, from the summer fun column last month? We said we were all going to do a project together. Am I the only one who followed through on this? You guys are so lame. Anyway, back to me. Like all clinically depressed job-seekers who recently earned liberal arts degrees, I’m desperate to feel like I’m in control of my life, which is really what a summer project is all about.

Is it me, or are tensions running especially high in Iowa City right now? No, it’s definitely not me — there is a decidedly gloomy air among the populace. I think it’s the weather. Every other day, there’s a torrential downpour, but it still never gets any cooler. (Take that, climate change deniers!) There are 237 Democratic presidential

Iowa City Pride Week has come and gone, and it is with great sorrow that I put my rainbow leotard back in the closet for another year. In IC, Pride Week is an opportunity for the LGBTQ community to come together and celebrate their achievements and culture, as well as reunite with the 12 other people on the queer side of Tinder

There’s nothing quite like Iowa City in the summer. The peace and quiet are unparalleled—the other day, I made it all the way to my office without actually seeing another person, which is my personal definition of bliss. Festival season has begun, making it physically impossible to drive your car downtown for the foreseeable future, but on the other hand, funnel cakes are being sold on the streets most weekends.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve noticed that spring semester at the University of Iowa has finished, and yet another batch of liberal arts dilettantes have been unleashed upon the job market. It is with no small amount of relief that I announce that I am one of them. Yes, yes, it’s all […]

Hello, Iowa City, and welcome to the first rally of my campaign to become your next mayor. I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here today. Well, unfortunately, it’s not just for light conversation and fantastic snickerdoodles. Thank you, Celeste, for those. No, I’ve corralled you into this slightly damp church basement

This past week, the University of Iowa observed that time-honored tradition known as “spring break.” You know this already, of course, either because you sort of vaguely noticed that the bars weren’t quite as hoppin’ on Friday night, or because you went splitsies with six other people on a room at the South Padre Island Motel 6.