The Hinterland Music Festival has announced the dates for 2016. Circle Aug. 5 and 6 on your calendars, and stay tuned to www.hinterlandiowa.com for more show announcements. Congratulations are in order for pianist/vocalist Janey Hooper, who was the 2015 inductee to the Community Jazz Center’s Jazz Hall of Fame. Hooper
Read More →“Welcome to Night Vale”
“A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.” For those who are already fans of the wildly popular podcast, there’s not much I need to say other than be careful
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Posted October 28, 2015in Film Review
May not compute
“Steve Jobs” is, by most measures, not doing well at the box office. The decision to give the film a limited initial release seems to have backfired, and it would appear that “Steve Jobs” will face the very real danger of underperforming the almost universally dismal, Ashton Kutcher-fronted “Jobs.” This
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Posted October 28, 2015in Center Stage
Newlywed pratfalls
The other night, I heard a jazz singer cover an old chestnut about how “wives should always be lovers, too.” An earworm from the “Mad Men” era, the song urges housebound spouses to stay foxy, “ready for love.” In 2015, the singer brought it off as a gag and tweaked
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Posted October 28, 2015in On The Tube
Bloodbath and Beyond
“Ash vs. Evil Dead” Saturday, Oct. 31 (Starz) Series Debut: Attention S-Mart shoppers: Ash (Bruce Campbell), and his Boomstick and chainsaw, are back! After three decades of doing little besides lying low, growing a beer belly and pretending the dead never rose — even though re-killing said dead and saving
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Posted October 28, 2015in Duffy
Paid for by taxpayers in…
Paid on Oct. 15 Amount: $45.22 To: G&K Services For: Various products Amount: $202.50 To: Perk’s Auto Spa LLC For: Full detail interior and exterior and additional pet hair removal Amount: $21.15 To: American Marking For: Max light notary stamp Amount: $600 To: Iowa Chapter of ASLA For: Two training
Read More →I think April Fools’ Day came a little late for Mr. Douglas Burns this year. All right, I get that the point of his article is that people get more upset with animal mistreatment than people mistreatment. To be fair, it is easier to act on what you can change
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Posted October 28, 2015in Political Mercury
Senate hopeful Hogg looks to challenge man he calls ‘living legend’
One of Rob Hogg’s campaign pitches could be called a reverse Bruce Braley. Hogg, a veteran Iowa legislator seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, speaks of his would-be general-election opponent, Republican Charles Grassley, in the way a grade-schooler might talk of the Washington Monument itself on a field trip.
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Posted October 28, 2015in Tech Talk
Nintendo makes it to middle age
Why is it that almost anything deemed “classic” is an original? Remakes, spinoffs, “new and improved” — none of these iterations seem to grab the culture like the original. The original muscle cars of the ’60s and ’70s have basically been deified, while many of their updated, late model redesigns
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