Hoopla is an online resource you can use from the comfort of your couch. To use it, simply go to the Cedar Rapids Public Library website (crlibrary.org), click on Resources and Services and select Hoopla. Once there you’ll be prompted for your library card. Log in as a Cedar Rapids or Marion resident. You’re now… View more
Summer finally arrived! I had doubts for the entirety of June when it seemed we were stuck in a November-like rain and cold schedule. Now those rains have left the ground saturated for the perpetual state of humidity/corn sweat we are now in. Recently a patron reminded me that only six months ago the temperature… View more
Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City is April 2-7th at various venues around town. The festival is mixture of literature, music and film. There will be several indie recording artists performing: Mitski – whose album ‘Be the Cowboy’ has gotten great press has sold out the Englert on Friday, April 5th, and Jenny Lewis, on… View more
Ever since its expansion from Women’s History Week in the 1980’s March is known as Women’s History Month. During this time it’s appropriate to appreciate, recognize, and salute those ground breaking females that have blazed trails in front of all of us. As former President Carter said in 1980: “From the first settlers who came… View more
How do we wake up and relate to other cultures? I was culturally slapped in the face (and literally slapped in the face) at a Pow-Wow at the Lac du Flambeau reservation in northern Wisconsin in 1991 when I was 15. I had been up there that summer to work for the Department of Natural Resources… View more
Be Here to Love Me is a new release biography DVD about the life and times of Townes Van Zandt. I’ve heard his name in passing for years: Emmy Lou Harris mentions him, Nancy Griffith wouldn’t have the song Tecumseh Valley (a personal favorite) without Van Zandt, and of course there would be no Pancho and… View more
Sometimes I feel like my life is a research project that I started in my ‘tweens. It was at that time that I remember really paying attention to what was happening around me and in the summer of my sixth grade year a boy who was interested in my oldest sister started hanging around our… View more
It’s Friday, the weather is warm, time to load the car stereo with music and open the windows so everyone going by knows you’re not afraid of the weekend funk (dancing not smelling). I’ve three new music Cd’s available at the library that can help you fulfill those needs: I’ve got a soft spot for… View more
“All these non-singing, non-dancing, wish-I-had-me-some-clothes fools who tell me my albums suck. Why should I pay any attention to them?” -Prince I opened up the internet yesterday and gasped out loud. I understand that the last few months may have made celebrity death reactions a near cynical experience, I’m there with you on that level, but… View more
On March 25th this week Third Man Records, the labeled owned by Jack White, released Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, the debut album from Margo Price. It’s getting a lot of buzz this week among critics and Nashville music hawks, and for good reason. Margo Price is originally from Aledo, Illinois; for us in Cedar Rapids that… View more
