Content warning: Suicide The poet John Berryman’s chance to have a quiet, uneventful life ended early one morning in 1926 when he was 11. It ended when his father walked into the backyard with a gun and committed suicide. John was in his bedroom when it happened. The bedroom’s windows faced the backyard. It wasn’t […]
Peak Iowa
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Peak Iowa: A far-out suburban mansion
Sucker for a spiral staircase? Look no further than Des Moines suburb Urbandale and LeMar Koethe’s Spaceship House! A gorgeous one curves around a central pillar rising 35 feet—from the ground-floor garages to the main living area, with an elevator as well—in this stunner of a mansion. Koethke had the home built in 1993, far […]
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Peak Iowa: Caitlyn Jenner’s alma mater in Lamoni
What do Mormon pioneers and Caitlyn Jenner have in common? Besides a tendency towards backwards beliefs and manslaughter, they share a deep connection to the southwestern Iowa city of Lamoni (pop. 1,974). Though she grew up in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, Jenner was recruited to Lamoni’s Graceland University, a small, private religious school, in 1969 — […]
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Peak Iowa: A Hollywood legend lost in Davenport
On Nov. 29, 1986, Cary Grant died in the city of Davenport at the age of 82. Grant was a star of stage, screen and that one image of him running away from a crop duster that shows up in every #menswear blog at one point or another. He was preparing a one-man show at […]
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Peak Iowa: How two UI scientists bred the first sperm bank
In the mid-1970s, as his retirement from the University of Iowa College of Medicine approached, Dr. Raymond Bunge recalled how some people reacted to the biggest scientific breakthrough of his career. “I received many letters, some of them signed, asserting that I was a scientific monster, un-Christian, and a disgrace to medicine,” Bunge, a physician […]
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Peak Iowa: Ana Mendieta’s aching, unsettling absence
In Árbol de la Vida (1976) Ana Mendieta covered herself in mud and foliage and pressed her body against a tree, blending into it as if becoming part of it. It is simultaneously body art, sculpture and performance. I am stunned by the absolute physicality of her work, the bodily engagement with the land itself: […]
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Peak Iowa: Earth’s first apex predator — and a beloved UI museum exhibit — was much chonkier than we thought
For the homecoming parade in October, the student advisory board for the University of Iowa’s 160-year-old Museum of Natural History (UIMNH) made a paper mache model of a nearly 400-million-year-old fish species. Held above the heads of two people by three wooden poles, the prop was about six feet long with a flat head and […]
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Peak Iowa: ‘The knot that launched an industry’ was tied in Clinton a century ago
Often maligned by fashionheads but never completely exorcized from the wardrobe of surly young boys forced to attend weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals, the clip-on tie was created in Clinton, Iowa amid the rip-roaring excess of 1928. Presumably, chaps were so busy attending various Gatsby-adjacent parties that it became necessary to save tie-tying time — […]
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Peak Iowa: Easy kum, easy go
“Do you really have gas stations called Kum & Go?!” –A half-whispered quote from multiple out-of-state visitors of mine Sadly, the window of opportunity to scandalize the uninitiated is quickly closing. In April 2023, Kyle Krause, the Des Moines-based owner of Jizz & Jet, announced that he would be selling the company to Utah-based Maverik, […]
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Peak Iowa: The LDS Church is not happy about ‘Heretic,’ the latest film from Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been on damage control recently. A Nov. 4 news release on the Church’s site, posted just days before the opening of A24 film Heretic, doesn’t mention the psychological thriller by name, but aims to “assist journalists and the public with questions and concerns regarding the safety […]
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Peak Iowa: The birth of the Black Triangle and the fight for Waterloo’s soul
Responding to the prospect of decent jobs in the booming railroad, manufacturing and meatpacking industries, many Black Southerners migrated north at the start of the 20th century, hoping to escape Jim Crow — only to see a Midwestern mutation of that racist system take hold. Between 1910 to 1950, Black Hawk County’s Black population grew […]
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Peak Iowa: When a poll was right about a woman winning in Iowa
If you’re feeling burnt by the previously reliable Iowa Poll showing Harris winning Iowa by 3 points just days before Trump carried the state by the biggest margin since Nixon in 1972, you probably don’t want to talk about polls. But it’s still an election year, and worth acknowledging that modern election polling was born […]
