iowa
Happy Birthday, Stella!
My first niece was born today! Stella Calease Bakken was born in Ames, Iowa around 8am CST: 7 pounds 7.5 ounces, measuring in at 20.5 inches. Mama and baby are doing well. We’re in love!
Sycamore Review: Zach Falcon
Sycamore Review: Winter 2010 featuring Zach Falcon
ZACH FALCON was born and raised in Alaska. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, his stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Quiddity, the 2009 Bridport Prize Anthology, and the Bear Deluxe Magazine. He lives in Iowa City where he is working on a novel.
Remember your first job?
My father, who will be 71 this year, wrote the following memories down the other day about his time as a paper boy in rural Iowa:
It’s 1950, I am 11 years old and my first chosen occupation was to have a paper route with the Waterloo Daily Courier. When the paper boy who delivered our family newspaper left, I told him I was very interested in having his route. He introduced me to his supervisor, and I was hired to deliver in North Cedar and Cottage Row. I had approximately 30 customers to start. Two years later, the route had grown to 45. I had lots of fun, as my dog Velvet was at my side, and we managed to discourage other dogs from interfering with the delivery process. The streets were very sandy with some gravel. On wet days it was difficult biking with a load of papers hanging from the rear fender rack of my bike. The bike that I bought on layaway from the Coast to Coast store in Cedar Falls was bought with my earnings from my paper route. Collection was the most difficult part of my job. With my long, leather, ringed collection book in my hand, I would go from door to door, collecting each week, always on Friday. Too many times I was told to “come back next week.†I always went back with my chrome changer attached to my belt to collect, many times as much as five weeks. I would tear off the stubs with freezing fingers and collect well after dark.
Without Gortex and synthetic wools, my front and back paper bag filled with papers gave me warmth and wind protection. I can still smell the newspapers in that white sailcloth canvas bag with the red letters Waterloo Courier. It fit me good.
Summer was another story, as I could put all my papers in a cart pulled behind my bike. It was always faster to just walk, as I could cut through yards and take shortcuts home. My dad always got his paper last!
Lyle Calease, Cedar Falls
The Pines : Tremolo
The Pines‘ latest album, Tremolo, has earned some great reviews fresh out of the chute, including
Penguin Eggs, which reviewed it in this month’s issue:
Potent, poignant, minimalist country from Iowans David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey (son of Greg Brown sideman Bo, who produced this record). The duo spin spare, haunting melodies and imagistic words over deceptively gentle intertwinings of acoustic and electric guitar, stand-up bass, keys and drums.
But song after song, with soft, wearied voices, they reveal a lyrical world view both thoughtful and tough, keenly attuned to harsh realities and the glimpses of consolation that peek through the solitude and loss inherent in life. “We surrender, just to survive/ But no matter how hard you try/ No, you can’t put the tears/ Back into your eyes,†Ramsey sings (with the help of his dad) on Shiny Shoes. What’s remarkable is how such an unsentimental outlook is married to music at once so fragile, so gravid and, ultimately, beautiful. If I were a betting man, I’d say watch for this album on a lot of critics’ top 10 lists for 2009.
