Iowa City Keeps on Winning

In case you missed it, UNESCO just designated Iowa City as an official "City of Literature." Here's the U of I press release. As of now, there are only two other cities in the world that have received a similar designation: Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia.

And if that doesn't impress or inspire you, check this out:





Go Hawks.

A Magical Paradise Awaits You!

In about 20 minutes I’m going to participate in a “present your school” event here at the Bucerius Law School in Germany. This gives the German students the opportunity to browse the different partner schools and see which one they would like to attend.

Sometimes coming to the Midwest from abroad is a tough sell, but being a big fan of Iowa City and a strong supporter of the Iowa College of Law, I can’t wait to make the case. Sure, you could go to NYC or San Francisco, I’ll say, but would that really be a “college town” experience? I don’t think so.

That’s going to be my angle. I figured I’d just bring my laptop, show everyone a few pictures of Iowa City, and open up a tab on some site like Wikipedia to give everyone the vital statistics of the city.

Which brings me to my point.

Has anyone ever looked at the Wikipedia entry for Iowa City? It’s hilarious.

Two of the first three categories are: “2006 Tornado” and “2008 Flood,” and the pictures at the top of this post are two of the first pictures that you encounter on scrolling down the page. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the entire town was composed exclusively of flotsam and refugee camps.

"Will we die in Iowa?" my classmates will ask, furrowing their brows with concern and confusion.

"Don't be silly," I'll say. "Tornado Season and Flood Season are usually broken up by Unbearable Winter Season, so you'll hardly even notice them."

I’m recruiting here. I can’t work with this kind of material. So, at least until someone edits the Wikipedia page (or Mother Nature stops picking on us), it looks like I’ll be sticking to shots of the ped mall and photos of tailgating.

Yes, rain or shine, we'll always have tailgating.

Go Hawks!

God Charged With Solicitation

Officials in Iowa City yesterday revealed that they would be seeking charges against God, the Eternal Father, for the inchoate offense of solicitation.

Though the news has been met with resistance from various theological and legal organizations, county officials insist that the crime, which they define as “any act which incites or induces another to commit a crime,” has been committed.

County Attorney Doug Schroeder claims that such solicitation is explicitly enshrined in the Bible, a book authored by God at the beginning of time and transcribed by mortals the following Tuesday. Though the original mortal conduits have long since passed away, Schroeder noted that the “existence of some troubling passages could lead to some pretty sticky legal issues for this God feller.”

Amongst other passages, Schroeder noted Deuteronomy 13:7-11, which reads “If your brother. . .or your son or daughter. . .or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ . . . you must not consent. . . you must show him no pity, you must not spare him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow in putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God. . .”

Critics are divided about how to attack Schroeder’s claim.

Some , like historian Andy Jenkins, claim that the case is simply one of misinterpretation. “What Schroeder doesn’t understand is that, through the ages, and through all the translations, the words have lost their original meaning. For example, stoning, in Biblical times, actually meant kisses. And death--this is kind of funny and counterintuitive-- actually meant ‘happy life.’ So you see, what the Bible really urged people to do was ‘kiss nonbelievers to happy life.’”

Others claim that, though the passage speaks for itself, and is indeed urging people to kill their fellow humans for their liberated, independent thoughts, they claim that Schroeder has unfairly picked passages that portray God in a singularly bad light while deliberately refraining from showing all the beautiful, heartwarming passages about not stoning the non-believers to death.

Schroeder responded, “Look, we just put a union leader in prison after a speech he made the other month. Now, he might have made all sorts of great claims about brotherhood and solidarity, but when he urged people to start bombing the factory and killing the scabs, he crossed the line and committed solicitation, plain and simple.”

When reached for comment, God scoffed at the allegations. While He has conceded that subject matter jurisdiction exists in the case, and that, being omniscient, He had received proper notice long before the complaint was filed, He contends that because his primary place of business is in Heaven, He is outside of personal jurisdiction as is outlined in the governing precedents of Interntational Shoe and its progeny.

“That’s just not true,” replied Schroeder, producing a well used Bible from beneath his desk. “It says right here in Mathew 8:20 that ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’”

“Now, because God acknowledged that those are his words, it seems to me that he is collaterally estopped from claiming otherwise. Assuming this is the case, and being well aware of the amount of churches and religious services in this state, we’re forced to conclude that these contacts are systematic and continuous enough to subject him to general jurisdiction in our courts.

In addition to his challenges personal jurisdiction of God has also offered the affirmative defense, little used in common law since Henry the VIII, of infallibility. Representatives for God said, “Though we don’t contest that the words alone might qualify as solicitation, we are arguing that in this case, God’s acts are excused by the ineffable and infallible nature of his being.”

The argument has been readily pushed in a number of Amicus Curiae submitted by such luminaries as, among others: Zeus, Loki (written in invisible ink), Ganesh, Thor, Apollo and Quetzalqoatl, the Feathered Serpent God of the Aztecs.

Again, Schroeder was incredulous. “I’ve heard that that one before,” said the seasoned County Attorney, chuckling and rubbing the stubble on his cheeks. “Good luck trying to convince the judges of that. The judges I know are pretty ineffable themselves.”

Though God is unemployed and qualifies for representation by a public defender, sources say that he will most likely represent Himself.

Why Diego Rivera is the Grant Wood of Mexico, or Vice Versa

As soon as I find someone who claims to have even passing knowledge of both Grant Wood and Diego Rivera, I’m going to make this bold statement: “You know, if you think about it, Grant Wood was really the Diego Rivera of the United States,” and see what comes out of it.

I will concede at the outset that this post will be written with the aid of hazily remembered facts and an imperfect understanding of the stylistic nuances of the visual arts (read: please don’t fact check this post). That being said, in quickly cobbling together the little that I know about the styles, eras, and politics of the two iconic painters, I think you’ll agree that the similarities are uncanny.

Where to start? Both were born in smallish, land-locked towns in the Western Hemisphere; Wood in Anamosa, IA and Rivera in Guanajuato, Guanajuato. Both began painting at a very early age and continued to study the arts through high school and college. Both went to Europe during the Impressionism craze and painted various impressionisty/cubistical looking pieces that hardly even resemble their more famous works. And for both Wood and Rivera, it was after being exposed to these colonial influences that both painters ended up finding their unique voices that, in many ways, were a reaction to and a rejection of these continental influences.

Rivera returned to Mexico and began to paint what he knew: the peasants, the indigenous peoples, farmers, laborers using bold, bright colors and simple figures. Wood returned, stepped out of his home near Iowa City, and began to paint scenes of farms and country folk performing everyday tasks using a similarly bright and bold color scheme on his canvasses, although usually with a tad more attention to detail.

And there’s more. They were also both ardent lefties. Rivera was an admirer of Emiliano Zapata, from whom the leftist Zapatista rebels (a group still active in the state of Chiapas) take their name, and a member of Mexico’s Communist party. Wood became close friend to Vice President and Iowan Henry A. Wallace, who ran unsuccessfully for President with the Progressive Party after being dropped by Roosevelt for being, get this, too liberal (and over-crazy). Wood even did Wallace’s portrait for a Time Magazine cover that appeared during his glory days. Both artists had successful academic careers teaching painting, Rivera at some University that I can’t remember, and Grant Wood at the University of Iowa.

Appropriate to their politics, both painters also played major roles in New Deal type policies. Rivera was chosen to lead various government funded mural projects when the government was looking to put people to work. Wood became the leader of several major public works art projects in the Midwest during the New Deal.

These appointments makes sense, as both men were proponents of murals as a more democratic form of art. Murals beautified cities and made art part of the landscape of one’s everyday world. They were also major projects and called for the work of many men to complete. Rivera has his murals at, among other places, the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City; Wood has his at, among other places, the Iowa State University Library.

Possibly the most striking similarities between the two mural-painting, revolutionary-loving, farmer-depicting lefties, was their philosophy about painting and art. Rivera revolted against all things colonial: customs, religion, class, cruelty, etc. Wood too revolted, but it was against a different kind of colonialism. He revolted against a blind acceptance of the artistic forms, subjects, and styles that had filtered from the cultural centers in Europe, through the East Coast of the States, eventually to be adopted by the heartland as not just fine art, but the finest art.

In his manifesto Revolution and the City, Wood called this kind of trickle down capacity for artistic creation or appreciation “Cultural Colonialism.” That’s right, the man wrote manifestos. And some critics refer to him and his work as quaint. Quaint people don’t spend sweaty nights pumping out manifestos. Wood took on the art establishment and he won. His victories might have been short lived, but they were on his terms. And at the time, this was revolutionary. To think, a painter in Iowa could step outside of his home, paint the land and his neighbors, and call it Art. The gall.

Of course, of the two, Rivera is viewed as the more revolutionary, probably because 1) he was a communist who participated in Communist revolutions; and 2) he was more overt in his critiques of religion, which always tends to get a rise out of the faithful. Case in point: one of the murals at the Palacio Nacional features a Priest with a bottle of liquor in one hand and a prostitute’s arse in the other. Then again, I still think there is a strong argument that American Gothic actually is a subtle critic on religion and conformity.

But let’s not stray to much from the thesis. When you get down to the heart of the matter, the two aren’t that different. They were both anti-colonialist skeptics who celebrated the simple beauty of the worlds that surrounded them. Revolutionaries both, through and through.

Viva Rivera! Viva Wood! Viva La Revolution!

Diego Rivera: 1886-1957
Grant Wood: 1892-1942

Tack on a Few More Pulitzers Linked to the Writer's Workshop

Seems like every year there are a few more.

Here's a link to the DI story.

The World According to John Irving

I was able to see John Irving speak in Iowa City a couple of nights ago and was pleased to learn that his next book, Last Night in Twister River, will be taking place, at least partially, in Iowa City.

Seeing as Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, and A Widow for a Year were all made into movies (A Widow for a Year was released under the title the Door in the Floor), I think it's safe for people to start practicing for their dream roles.

So judging by the reading, if you're a female bodybuilder whose not afraid to parachute naked onto a pig farm and then beat beat up a bunch of sissy artists, I think there may be a role available for you.

Other than that, I don't think there's much I can add to Iowa Independent's great roundup of the reading, which includes, among other things, Iowa Writer's Workshop director Samantha Chang's funny comment on how great it was to see 500 people walking down Dubuque Street for something other than a football game.

Thank you for the reading Mr. Irving and good luck on your book. Go Hawks.

New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Naples, and Iowa City

That's a list of the first 5 cities that get a peek at Robert Wilson's new video portrait show that's making the rounds. Apparently Robert Wilson did some work at the Univeristy a couple decades ago and he's always had a soft spot in his heart for us ever since. I went a couple days ago with my friend Jesse and we oohed and aahed and reflected and giggled the day away at the University of Iowa Art Museum. Above is the video portrait with Steve Buschemi.

The show consists of around 30 different celebrities, movie stars, dancers, animals, and non-celebrities posing for what appear to be still photos, but on closer examination are video portraits. You'll see Johnny Depp trying to keep his fingers absolutely still, and, for the most part succeeding, until a blink of the eye gives him away.

In some of the portraits, like the humorous, suspense filled take on Brad Pitt in is underwear, the movement is more prounounced. But in others, the only thing that keeps you from thinking that the shot is a still frame is the slow, shallow breathing of the subject, or a reflexive twitch of a muscle. It's almost like walking through one of those Scooby Doo castles where the eyes of the old portraits of barons begin to follow you around. In fact, the entire show, like Scooby Doo, or a haunted house, has a kind of faux-macabre feel to it. The premises are kept as dark as possible to intensify the brilliant colors of the portraits, and each time you take a blind turn you run into another creepy character (my favorite was the sad/bored talking black panther. What a beautiful, dangerous-looking animal). Of course, the cuts don't last forever, so it's always interesting to see how he's going to loop a 2 minute of 5 minute cut back onto itself.

The show is called the Voom series because all of the portraits are on crystal clear HD "Voom" television sets. Extremely impressive. My friend must have noted 3 times that it felt like you could reach in and touch the subjects. That's technology for you. What CAN'T it do.

So, if you're in the area I highly recommend checking out the show. In fact, give me a call and we can go together. I miss that beautiful talking black panther already.

Recap of the Week in Iowa City

Three really cool things happened this week in Iowa City:

1. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to the law school to talk about environmental issues and being stalked by a man in a ten gallon hat.

2. Madeline Albright came to speak to us about her diplomatic experiences and why she's supporting Hillary Clinton.

3. Free donuts were given out by my contracts professor at a make-up class.

I will discuss these events in reverse order. Incidentally, this also happens to be the order of importance:

1. Mmmm. Donuts

2. Robert F. Kennedy: A review in the present tense.

It is Sept. 12^th at 4:30 in the afternoon. His voice raspy, a weary RFK Jr. takes the stand and begins to speak. He is sorry, he says, that his voice is so weak, but earlier this morning he presented opening arguments for a case in West Virginia.

This morning. He says it nonchalantly, as if we, fellow members of the legal community, have commitments that are similarly taxing and thus can commiserate.

I think back to my activities of the morning: eating bran flakes, dressing myself, walking to school, realizing that I have forgotten a book, walking home, retrieving said book, writing emails, doing a crossword. I look down in shame and self loathing as I realize that my morning included exactly zero minutes of world saving litigation.

Kennedy 1, Gregory 0

After his humble apologies, he begins his spiel. Corporations are polluting, there are all sorts of great rules on the books to prevent this kind of pollution, but enforcement is lacking.

He then mentions what I consider to be the most interesting part of the discussion: the bounty provision. The provision was contained in a musty old 19^th century statute and provides private citizens the right to bring charges against polluters and reap half of the fines. In short, the bounty provision makes each and every one of us as powerful as U.S. Attorneys in enforcing these laws (even MORE powerful in some ways, considering that Alberto Gonzalez can’t whimsically dismiss us). I instantly feel empowered.

The effect of this rule has been astonishing, he says. Since Kennedy’s organization, the Hudson River keepers, began, they have brought 400 successful cases and recovered more than 4 billion dollars from polluting companies. The umbrella organization, the Water keeper Alliance, is the fastest growing environmental organization in North America.

He speaks of the corruption fueled ascendancy of the factory hog farm that took off in N.C. and how a broken media has refused to inform the world of the consequences of this high pollution industry. He issues the standard (and true) argument that TV makes no money from labor intensive news coverage and therefore has no incentive to produce it, opting instead for cheap celebrity gossip or football player trials coverage (John Deeth from Iowa City, a blogger with real coverage, covered this aspect of his 7:30 IMU speech very well). He notes to us: “we are the most entertained and least informed people on Earth.”

When I get home a news channel is dedicating its coverage for the hour to the Kathy Griffin Geebus comments.

I look down at my crossword and wonder: isn’t there some litigating I could be doing somewhere?

3. Madeleine Albright stumping for Hillary: A review in the past tense.

First things first. I read on Wikipedia before the event that Madeleine Albright can leg press 400 pounds. For reasons still unclear to me, this was not mentioned during the informal discussion.

Many other things were mentioned, however, as Dr. Albright sat and spoke with UI Law Professor Christopher Rossi for approximately 20 minutes before she took questions from the audience.

The topics covered the areas that one would generally expect: Iraq quagmire, needless squandering of international goodwill, Dubya policy slams, international cooperation and humility, etc.

At one point she read a beautiful passage from her book about the United States role internationally and drew a deservedly lengthy applause from the audience.

That America has some serious foreign policy challenges ahead of it was indisputable. The argument that these challenges would somehow be most thoroughly attended to by a Clinton presidency was not so clear. I think this was evident in the questions.

My favorite question of the evening came from a man in the back. It came almost directly after Dr. Albright had (as she has in the past) categorized Iraq as being a worse foreign policy disaster than Vietnam.

He wanted to know how Dr. Albright thought that his first two choices, Bill Richardson and Barack Obama, compare to Hillary in terms of foreign policy decision making ability and/or experience. He noted (always plug your candidates) that Richardson was her successor as Ambassador to the U.N., resisted the war from the start as governor, and ran for re-election in 2002 while maintaining this resistance. Obama, for his part, also resisted and spoke eloquently about the dangerous nature of the war, and ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, blowing everyone out of the water in 2004. (By the way, at 70%, Obama won with the highest vote for a statewide office in ILLINOIS HISTORY. He’s THAT good).

The response?

Dr. Albright said proudly that she wasn’t going to criticize any of the other candidates, which drew a large round of applause. I found this odd, because he didn’t ask her to criticize the others, he asked her to compare Hillary to them. We don’t have to operate outside the bonds of politesse in order to compare the candidates on their relative merits. How else are we expected to make a rational decision? Isn’t this what they’re asking us to do?

She mentions that the others didn’t have to register a vote on the war, and that Senate vote was actually a nice political play until Bush screwed it up. She then intimates that she knows Hillary extremely well and is sure she would do an excellent job in her capacity as the shaper of our national policy. I agree. But there is nothing that she has said that would lead me to believe that she would do a MORE excellent job than others. This is what we are here for.

As an Obama supporter, I wondered how many people around me were actual card-signing Clinton supporters and how many had just showed up to hear the thoughts of one of our most respected foreign policy experts.

The two girls next to me both admitted to being Obama supporters, and a fellow law student that I ran into was also backing “the Bomb.” So, based on my COMPLETELY SCIENTIFIC AND UTTERLY INFALLIBLE statistical analysis: 100 % OF THE PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE WERE OBAMA SUPPORTERS, while at least half of the people (1/2) on the stage were.

Other noteworthy stuff:

Funniest comment by our speaker: Dr. Albright claimed that she invented a new strategy called “conference call diplomacy.” Adding that it was probably a kind of “girl thing,” that she brought to her role. I love it.

Most tragic moment: John Deeth, Iowa City blogger and professional journalist, couldn’t access the UI wireless and thus, couldn’t live blog the event. Let it be noted that Cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty sympathizes with his cause and feels that journalists and bloggers should be allowed access to UI wireless in order to cover events sponsored by the U of I.