It all started when Deer Tick’s lead singer, John McCauley, got bit. “I somehow managed to go 19 years of my life without being bit [by a deer tick],” he said. “But one day, I was out in Bloomington,...

Spinal Tap: Back From the Dead In 1984, director Rob Reiner unleashed the film This is Spinal Tap, setting the standard for all parody films and becoming one of the most revered comedies of all time....

Memories of Sweet Tunes Incubus: Monuments and Memories It’s been three years since the alternative rockers in Incubus have released an album. OK, so the band’s latest, Monuments and Memories, is...

My first experience with Gertrude Stein was reading Three Lives for a lit class last fall. I didn’t make it very far before I wanted to hurl myself, or better yet the book, through the Cambus window....

Movie Review: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Quick! You need to construct the costume for an average-Joe movie hero. What are the essentials? Glasses? Check. Paunch? Check. Dwight Schrute-worthy mustard shirt?...

Last year, the members of Riverside Theatre were forced, as many in Iowa City, to adjust their lives around water. The company members performed their Shakespeare Festival at City High, quite a different...

Her text traces a set of statues from ancient Greece to early 19th-century Britain, and Karen Essex’s fourth novel, Stealing Athena, will bring the centuries-old controversy to Iowa City. Essex will...

A place to get nostalgic and reminisce about the popular culture that shaped us into the snarky Arts reporters we are today. If you give something 20 years, it’s bound to make a comeback. Hopefully,...

Last weekend, the Iowa Arts Festival filled the streets of downtown with dancing, people walking on stilts, and colorful paintings. Tonight, the Iowa City Summer of the Arts continues with a musical presence...

In many ways, Mahbod Seraji has crossed boundaries. From Iran to the United States, from engineering to writing, and from childhood to adulthood, he carries a wealth of stories. But although his career...

It’s been a rough week for Hollywood-folk. Not only has the press gone wild over actor David Carradine’s shocking death, but Poison front man Bret Michaels face-planted hard on his Tony Award début,...

With the U.S. release of the new iPhone 3GS on June 19 (and the general, overwhelming ubiquity of Apple products), it’s time to give Microsoft some props. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, kicked...