“Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and been given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals.”

Wow! That is definitely something I could not do and I would envy anyone who is able to achieve the same!

The reading started promptly, at 6pm. Saeed Jones, a very friendly, poetry enthusiast opened the show. He is one of those people, whose face shows their passion, in his case, poetry. He introduced Isaac Fitzgerald, whom he credited for changing his life, and being there when he most needed a friend. He also introduced Alice Sola Kim, who is Fitzgerald’s fiancé. After introductions, he handed over the stage to Fitzgerald.

Isaac Fitzgerald is a very talented guy. He brought us an essay he had written which was pretty interesting. The essay started off by talking about a little boy who is fat, and the world telling him that he is fat. Soon, we get to know that it is no one else’s story but his. He talked about how fat he was in his childhood, and how everyone’s comments engraved this message on his young, benign mind. He talked about an incident where his mom pulled up his t-shirt and slapped the layer of flab, which actually touched the listeners’ hearts.

The underlying message of his reading was that some events in our lives take place in a way that they leave a very deep mark on our minds, a mark that’s inerasable no matter what. In his story, he continued working on his weight loss, and eventually even became thin, but not to where he could call himself thing. Thirty years later, when he saw a picture of himself, he could tell how skinny he actually was at that time. But still, when he looked at the mirror, he could see his mother slapping the flab on his belly.

Alice Sola Kim graciously shared the beginning of her upcoming novel. Her novel begins by talking about a teenage girl, who does not get accepted into a college, but goes anyway! This really grabbed everyone’s attention in the room and she received a huge cheer. In the story, this girl is helped by an Asian family. Though the story started off well, somewhere in the middle, the track of the girl’s story is lost and many other characters are introduced. She was able to keep the audience’s attention consistently throughout the start, but could not do so towards the end.

Saeed Jones was the last one to read an expert that inspired one of his favorite poems. The excerpt talks about a sexual encounter he had when he was young. He was in Chicago as a friend of his had called him to help them be the judge at a high-school speech competition. After the competition he would engage with other men to have sexual relations and write about it. The rest of the story described his experience with a white man, who always liked to be the dominant one.

This makes him recall and recollect on various experiences from his past, where he was dominated upon by other people. At first, he was enjoying it and the writer in him kept reminding him to stay put. However, later he realized that he was just being used and being dominated upon, as his hands and feet were tied. This is when he resisted and said ‘no’.

Jones has a very unique and interesting way of narrating his story. He actually gets the audience to feel what he felt which is something only a handful of people are able to do! However, I would question if this style actually made the story interesting. The sexual encounters he describes are far too intense and his oratory skills get the audience to relate to his experience and actually “be there”, which could be too strong for some people.

However, Saeed’s way of writing does intrigue me and definitely makes me feel like reading a few of his other works.Saeed pointed out a very interesting pattern in the series of narrations—Fitzgerald told the story of a high-school boy, Kim about a college going girl, and Saeed about a young man.

The Mill happened to be a great place where these readings happened. The entire audience had a place to sit and the stage was located right in the middle, so everything was clearly visible.

The post Mission Creek: Isaac Fitzgerald, Saeed Jones and Alice Sola Kim @ The Mill 4/8/2017 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Independent book publishers and independent magazines from across the country took to The Mill, on April 8, 2017, as a part of the Mission Creek Festival. What better place could there be for book publishers and literary magazine writers to hangout, other than the only UNESCO City of Literature on the Western Hemisphere, Iowa City? This was the 8^th year in a row, when Iowa City had the honor of hosting the most exciting works of the most creative writers across the US.

The fair began at around 11 in the morning and was supposed to go till 6 in the evening. I showed up at The Mill at around 11:30, and I did not realize how fast time flew by. I spoke to various book publishers, who themselves were as interesting as their works were!

There were some brilliant poetry publishers, and independent poetry writers, whose works I enjoyed going through the most. One of these was the POETRY Magazine which I came across. I had some previous knowledge about the POETRY Magazine and was hoping to know more about it and after going through their poems and publications, I am totally driven to subscribe to the 100+ year old Chicago based organization.

Another very interesting publication I came across at the fair was the Black Ocean. Originally based out of Boston, Chicago and Detroit, they bring together a spectrum of influences from fields of music, poetry and silent film to produce books. The most interesting book I came across at their book sale, was a book called ‘With Deer’, which is written by Swedish poet, Aase Berg and translated to English by Johannes Göransson. I don’t think I understood her poems at my first shot, but they did make me deeply interested.

Apart from the poetry publications there was the Two Dollar Radio and UNESCO City of Literature. The Iowa Review was one of the biggest crowd pullers at the fair! The University of Iowa’s very own Ink Lit Mag was also at the fair.

I stuck around at the Lit Mag and Small Book Fair till about 1:30 pm. The Mill was an ideal location to host the event. Its size, and layout was ideal for the fair. Yes, there were times when it was feeling too small and too cramped up, however, that gave the entire event a cozy and homely feeling. It was a wonderful event and it brought a lot of creative and talented individuals to Iowa City! The event made me feel privileged to be associated to the Iowa City community and it was great to see budding publishers and authors being given a chance to showcase their talent.

The post Mission Creek: Literary Magazine and Small Press Book Fair @ The Mill 4/8/2017 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I had been to the United States a couple of times before, so the six lane roads, disciplined traffic, kind and gentle people was not a novelty to me. However, what was new to me was exploring all these nuances of American culture by myself. What I was most thrilled about the most, was exploring the Midwest– a region of America I had only heard good things of, but had never been to before. In fact, this was a major pull that had brought me to the University of Iowa.

My first impression of Iowa City was a small, homely, picture-perfect, artsy town, with a charm of its own. It was love-at-first-sight – I had fallen in love with the place and the people, who were absolutely outgoing, friendly, and liberal. Being assigned the dorm room that I was assigned, was perhaps the best thing that happened to me. My floor-mates are my closest friends, and meeting them just boosted my number of positives encounters at Iowa. Soon I was settled in and could not wait for classes to start. Before I could realize it I was living my dream—studying Journalism and Mass Communication, at one of the dream schools I had applied to!

Iowa City had given me a sense of independence—I learned to be responsible for myself, choose between what is good and what is bad; and most important—I learned to deal with my problems by myself. The absence of someone spoon-feeding me, had taught me to stand on my two feet.

Now when I look back, I think about how so much good happened to me. How and why did everything fall in place so well? How did I end up loving what I do so much? Was it my friends, the university, Iowa City or journalism- my field of study that had managed to charm me? The answer was always in front of me—it is the experience, that is shaped by all these factors, that has given me a chance to live my dream!

In this bi-weekly column, I will be talking about my experiences as an outsider, in Iowa City and the United States. It will include my encounters—both good and bad, with people, culture, traditions and norms, in Iowa City.

The post Putting Iowa in Perspective appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Chicago indie rock quartet Smith Westerns first fuzzily reached out for our coming-of-age hearts in 2009 with their lo-fi self-titled (recorded whilst they were still in high school). They followed with a cleaner, dreamier mix of songs for 2011’s Dye It Blonde, released via Fat Possum Records (whose other aural alumni include The Black Keys, Wavves, Chistopher Owens of Girls, and Yuck).

With a third album due out June 11, the Windy City rockers give us, “Varsity,” an ethereal, synthy work that embraces a more glam, chilled-out vibe than the garage/disjointed sort of sound present in their early work. In fact, there’s enough electronic synthy goodness to almost elicit similarities to MGMT or LCD Soundsystem, but the grooving bass, surf-ish riffs, and “Earth Angel” vocals will have you remembering what this band does differently. They’re never as pretty as Bowie (of whom they claim to draw influence) or as grimy as fellow Chicago rockers, The Orwells. They levitate in limbo, genre-hopping several times within a song and doing so seamlessly.

The post Track of the Week: “Varsity” by Smith Westerns appeared first on KRUI Radio.

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KRUI’s own Ben Handler shot this amazing video of the Iowa City band No Coast after their performance during the 2013 Mission Creek Festival. Watch this group perform “Dreams of ’68” in a fluorescent-lit Iowa City alleyway!

The post KRUI After Hours Session: No Coast appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Highlights include Competitive Shows, Juror Shows, and an evening of traveling documentary work courtesy of the Flaherty Seminar. The festival culminates in award
announcements Saturday, April 13.

Cathy Lee Crane and Ernst Karel will be jurors for this year’s festival. Crane is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema, Photography and Media Arts at Ithaca College. She has been making narrative/documentary hybrid films on 16mm since 1994. She received the 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Film for her lyrical re-combinations of archival and staged material.

Ernst Karel is Lecturer on Anthropology, Assistant Director of the Film Study Center, and Lab Manager for the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University. Karel collaborates with video and filmmakers as a sound recordist, mixer, and sound designer. He also works as a mastering engineer, having prepared a wide variety of material for publication on CD. Karel worked as a sound engineer and recordist at the Chicago Cultural Center, and as engineer, recordist, and editor at Chicago Public Radio.

This event made possible by generous support from the College of Liberal Arts &
Sciences Perry A. and Helen Judy Bond Fund for Interdisciplinary Interaction, the
Bijou Cinema, the Institute for Cinema and Culture, and the Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature.

2013 Program

Thursday, April 11th

Show 1 – FLAHERTY ON THE ROAD: THE ENVIRONMENT WHICH
SURROUNDS US
Location: Public Space One
Start time: 8PM

Friday, April 12th

Show 2 – Juror Show: Cathy Lee Crane
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 5:00PM

Show 3 – Competitive #1
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 8:15PM

Show 4 – Competitive #2
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 9:45PM

Show 5 – Competitive #3 (Midnight Show)
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 11: 30 PM

Saturday, April 14th

Show 6 – Competitive #4
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 1:15PM

Show 7 – Competitive #5
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 3:00PM

Show 8 – Juror Show: Ernst Karel
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time 5:00PM

Show 9 – Competitive #6
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start time: 8:00PM

Awards Announced
Location: Bijou Cinema
Start: 11:00 PM

The post Iowa City International Documentary Film Fest appeared first on KRUI Radio.

If you are a University of Iowa student looking for an exciting new challenge, we have just the thing for you!

Student Broadcasters Incorporated is currently accepting applications for all KRUI director positions for the 2013-14 academic year.

GO HERE for position information and applications. Applicants may apply for more than one director position. The application deadline for General Manager is Tuesday, March 15th. The application deadline for all other positions is Monday, March 25th. Interested parties are encouraged to discuss these positions with current directors for further information.

Being on KRUI’s Directing Staff is a great way to get more involved with the station, and to contribute to KRUI’s impact in the local community. It is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of the greatest student organizations on campus in a large way. Many KRUI directors move on to bigger and better things when they’re done at the station — just in the last two years, graduates have gone on to work at ESPN, WGN, 93 XRT, and other great companies.

About the Interview Process

Interviews will last roughly 15 minutes, and will include SBI members and the applicant. Following the hiring procedure used in previous years, SBI as a group which decide which people will be appointed as directors. These positions will start May 1st, and will run through April of 2014.

About the Application Process

Any and all students are encouraged to apply for a director position, but in order to be considered for a position the applicant must be enrolled as full or part time student at the University of Iowa for the Fall 2014 semester. Directors are expected to commit 10 hours per week to the station, and a small monthly stipend is offered to offset the cost of spending your time working at the KRUI.

About SBI

Student Broadcasters Inc, a nonprofit group incorporated through the State of Iowa, is composed of graduate students, professors, and stake-holders from across campus and acts as an advisory board to the KRUI Board of Directors. SBI holds the station’s FCC license to broadcast, is tasked with interviewing and hiring department directors, and works to ensure long-term station continuity. For more information about KRUI’s mission and goals, visit the About page.

Questions?

Contact sbi@krui.fm.

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