One of my favorite local bands, Christopher the Conquered, opened the night and the energy from the crowd fueled the show. Chris Ford was so successful in evoking feeling from his soulful lyrics that I almost felt awkward taking pictures during his set! Colloquial conversation filled the gaps between songs such as The Truth is On It’s Way and Chris and his Black Gold Brass Band clearly won over the audience.

Building on Mission Creek’s tradition of literature, Michael Zapruder’s Pink Thunder was a unique experience combining music and poetry. Instead of a traditional singer-songwriter set, Michael used other writers’ poems in the Pink Thunder project and turned them into songs. By doing this, he bridges the gap between music and poetry.

I felt that this connection was extremely powerful and effective and definitely opened my mind to poems I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. He musically performed poems such as “Twins” and “Pennsylvania.” After one of his performances, he commented that he realized how ridiculous some of the works sounded once he read them out loud—something extremely unique to hear at a concert!

The night was a great cornerstone in the puzzle that is the Mission Creek Festival. Local Iowa music and poetry: what the festival is all about!

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The Dirty Projectors are back! Their new track, “About to Die”, combines their traditional sound with even more rhythm and vocals. The melody towards the end is perfect and SO SO CATCHY. The lyrics capture emotions of love and loss. This is a perfect song for jamming out to with friends or keeping you awake by studying. Definitely check this out!

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The event started with the anthology at PSZ on Thursday, October 18. Before the show started, various installations entertained the guests. Chelsea Cox sat behind a curtain as patrons slid a signed index card towards her. She then used an old-fashioned typewriter to return a fortune to the guest. You could hear the click-click-clack as it was happening, which I thought it was pretty cool. Although cryptic and humorous, the fortunes provided insight and a great conversation starter among people. I went by myself and talked to many strangers about my message about buttons.

The show was interesting and diverse. Poems by the University of Iowa Writer Workshop’s MFA students consisted of the first half. A performance that stuck in my mind was of a man with a typewriter. Before the show he wrote stanzas on a hundred index cards. He asked an audience member to cut the deck and he shuffled them. He read the cards in the shuffled order: that was the poem. Other acts that highlighted the progress were a music group each singing or playing to a separate metronome in their headphones and also a woman who simply ate a steak. The diversity was amazing. I was thoroughly entertained.

The festival continued over the weekend as well. The artist panel on Saturday was amazing. My favorite art program was Planned Obsolescence. Tibi Chichela talked about how computers and other technologies are meant to be replaced soon and took apart his own used electronics to make a wall of prints. He then encouraged the audience to take one of the prints home: whatever was left was the artwork.

Over the weekend I was exposed to so many different mediums and ideas. I never gave much thought to the process of art as I view and enjoy work.  The weekend brought together local and international artists to showcase the process of what they love. Many products were not finished yet—such as a woman’s weekly tracing of a plant from the fall to winter solstice.  I loved the insight to different works. This show was definitely refreshing.

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