Dusty – April 27, 2018

— Phoebe Schreckinger ’19 Film in Stock: A playlist of films for spring

There are so many summer, fall and winter-themed films out there that spring gets neglected altogether. Because the sun has once again graced Iowa with its presence, the newly- arrived season urges me to find spring’s cinematic complements, which are admittedly a bit of a stretch. But, nonetheless, these films summarize what spring represents: being in transition and living in the awkward time between winter and summer. Reflecting on this list, I strangely equate spring with animated films and coming-of-age stories. Nonetheless, below I’ve listed below some films that create a story arch for this season. The first and last films stand in for spring’s bookends, winter and summer, respectively.

“Certain Women” by Kelly Reichardt

“Certain Women,” which I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago, is based on episodic, unrelated short stories from Maile Meloy which follow four women in a small Montana town: a lawyer, a mother and wife, a teacher and a rancher. The cast complements the subtle script perfectly, including Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and (please, someone, give her more work) Lily Gladstone. Reichardt’s 2016 film is, admittedly, not really a film about spring at all. It is set in the time span when it’s technically spring, but feels very much like winter. Even further, the film is set in Montana, so a Montana spring is really just everybody else’s winter. “Certain Women” offers a good place to start this list, because by the end of the film you can feel the turn towards spring.

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” by Wes Anderson

If you’re interested in the newly- released “Isle of Dogs,” then I recommend you catch up on Anderson’s first stop-motion feature, “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” The film traces the odyssey of foxes, badgers and more as they combat farmers trying to overtake their home. Apart from the Anderson’s iconic awkward atmosphere with built-in clever dialogue, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” has the most visually stunning shots from the world of stop- motion. I justify putting “Fantastic Mr. Fox” in the category of spring films, because it watches like the animals are coming out of hibernation, marking the end of winter.

“Boyhood” by Richard Linklater

While “Boyhood” has some problems, it has a unique voice and presence in the world of cinema. In case you missed its peak popularity back in 2014, “Boyhood” is the coming-of-age story of a boy living in . While that description ultimately sounds dull, the most interesting part of the film is its production. In the first film to do so, Linklater cast the lead actor at the age of six and followed him through age 18, amounting to a three month shoot every year for 12 years. Significantly, neither the plot nor the characters carry the film, but instead the concept of time carries the viewer’s interest throughout the nearly three hour film. I think “Boyhood,” perhaps more so than any other film on this list, encapsulates the trope of spring as a time of growth and change.

“Loving Vincent” by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman “Loving Vincent” explores how Vincent van Gogh’s death impacted those around him. Like “Boyhood,” the most interesting thing about the film is the way it was produced. The 2017 film offers something visually new and stunning: all the animations for the film were made from roughly 65,000 oil paintings, reflecting the artistic medium of the film’s subject. “Loving Vincent” is on this list because of its primary concern, the creation and destruction of life and art. Looking at shots directly derived from van Gogh’s beautiful landscapes in full-bloom, the primary tenet of spring comes through.

“Do The Right Thing” by Spike Lee

My favorite of Lee’s creations, this 1989 film follows a set of Brooklyn characters on a 100-degree summer day as racial tensions reach their apex. If you’re looking for an introduction to Lee’s films, look no further. “Do the Right Thing” has it all: dead-panned monologues to the camera, tight and witty back-and-forth dialogue and photography direction that keeps your eyes on the screen. So, then the question becomes, how can I justify putting this obviously summer- themed film in a spring film list? Apart from being a masterpiece in its own right, “Do the Right Thing” offers the natural conclusion to spring: summer.

— Martha Beliveau ’21

Loudspeaker: The great unknown Geeshie Wiley Among the greatest tracks of pre-war rural , there exist few songs that are so stunning yet so vexing as Geeshie Wiley’s “Last Kind Words Blues.” It was recorded in April 1930 for ’ “race records” series, a collection of blues and jazz music by Black musicians primarily marketed to Black audiences. Much of the music recorded on these records was by so-called “country blues” musicians, entirely acoustic tracks of the genre in its rawest form. Artists like Howlin’ Wolf, Tommy Johnston and Big Bill Broonzy would achieve mainstream success from white audiences decades later, but a host of country blues performers languish in personal obscurity. Slung between folk, blues and gospel, many of these musicians burnt brightly in recorded sound while their personal histories remain dimly lit.

In spite of her startling talent, which lead blues historian Don Kent to write that “her scope and creativity dwarfs most blues artists,” very little is conclusively known about Wiley’s life. Even her birthplace is not certain, let alone where she died. No photographs of her exist. Recent research estimates that less than ten of her original recordings survive, three of which contain “Last Kind Words Blues.” A massive piece in The New York Times Magazine from 2014 catalogued efforts to discover her life, but its researchers and interviews came up with scraps of information too small to sew into a conclusive story. Even without a story to explain, Wiley’s “Last Kind Words Blues” endures as a testament to its genre’s power and beauty. It opens with its complex bluesy drone and thumps on the guitar bass string, played entirely in minor key. The dark lamentation of the song is immediately evident from its instrumentation as well as its lyrics. If there is a feeling “Last Kind Words Blues” makes its own, it is ache. Wiley sings about love and loss, about waiting for someone to return who wanted “buzzards to eat [him] whole” if he gets killed. She stands across the Mississippi River and can “see [her] babe from the other side.” She loves this person so much she is willing to give him “bolted meal,” a product left over from the sifting process in mills, even if she can’t find flour. At the same time, Wiley seems to tempt us with biographical information, singing: “My mama told me, just before she died / Lord, precious daughter, don’t you be so wild.”

Though Wiley’s lyrics are excellent, it is her voice that grants the song its resonance. Her singing is simple and uncomplicated, in direct contrast to its complex instrumentation. Wiley’s voice takes on an almost ghostly quality amid the scratchiness of surviving copies of the track, like a spirit voice at a séance. She opens the song with: “The last kind words I heared my daddy say / Lord, the last kind words I heared my daddy say / If I die, if I die in the German war / I want you to send my body, send it to my mother, lord.”

“Last Kind Words Blues” was made famous as the music to a particularly evocative montage in Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary “Crumb.” The subject of that film, underground cartoonist , is a well-known collector of country blues music, a charter member of the gangly, mostly white brotherhood of archivists that preserved this genre for posterity. Prior to the montage starting, Crumb places the record on the turntable, saying: “When I listen to old music, it’s one of the few times when I actually have a kind of a love for humanity. … It’s their way of expressing their connection to eternity of whatever you want to call it.” The raw humanity of Wiley’s song is undeniable. It evokes feeling even without a legendary backstory or vocal complexity. The song concludes as Wiley sings: “What you do to me baby it never gets outta me / I may not see you after I cross the deep blue sea…” What she does musically in “Last Kind Words Blues” never truly leaves the engaged listener, regardless of whether we see her again, or whether we cross “the deep blue sea.”

— Maxwell Fenton ’19

Letter to the editor: Cultural Night in review

Is it possible for a person to feel completely overjoyed, in awe and furious all the same time? Well, that is how I feel every time I attend the International Student Organization’s Cultural Night. This year’s event was well-organized and well- attended, with many student groups performing songs and dances from their homes. The performances aptly commenced with a Vietnamese lullaby about migratory birds and finding home in a new and strange land. I cannot think of a better way to begin the evening than with a performance that captured the intense, often painful desire of many international students to create a home in a faraway place, especially when that place is often hostile towards difference.

There was no dull moment in the night, with many breathtaking performances. The “SenBonZakura” included a live band, which reminded me of the prominent role that the saxophone plays in my childhood memories, bringing me to the brink of tears. The “Slavs Across Centuries” performance exhibited the subversive potential of the space when the student performers, not all of whom were Slavs, danced to the popular Bosnian band Dubioza Kolektiv’s song “U.S.A.,” which begins with a speaker demanding to be taken to the “Promised Land” to see the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate bridge and promising, “I will assimilate.” However, upon realizing that the American promise was a lie and that there is “no place like a motherland,” the speaker leaves the , announcing “I want to start all over, return to no man’s land / Send greetings to your leader, don’t want your green card / I want to fly back like a rocket to the Balkans.” Dancing to the catchy music of Kolektiv’s song, the student performers tore up a giant green card on stage and discarded a photo of Donald Trump. I found their performance bold and confrontational. It was a reminder of the scary moment we inhabit and a biting commentary on the narcissistic assumption that all who come here want to stay.

Nonetheless, I find the Cultural Night deeply troubling. It presents a false sense of global Grinnell, where difference is embraced and celebrated when we know it is not. International students still experience hostility and racism in the town and on campus. This year domestic students started chanting “USA” at the only Harris party that ISO organizes. Our curriculum remains mainly European- and American-centric. The College, which is currently in the process of erecting multi-million- dollar buildings, asserted that it did not have funding to fully furnish the MSA suite that was only constructed after students protested its elimination. The list goes on and the evidence is clear: Grinnell, despite its grandiose claims and flashy statistics, is far from embracing diversity. So, the problem with the Cultural Night is that it introduces a fleeting stage where, for a couple of hours, international students are compelled to bring exotic aspects of their homes for the mostly white audience to openly marvel at without actively interrogating the institutionalized ways that international students are compelled to erase and compartmentalize home on a daily basis. The fashion show portion of the Cultural Night perfectly illustrates this dynamic. In the beginning of the evening, students are invited to wear traditional dress and walk the runway. However, I wonder what happens if those same students want to wear those same attire for class or a dinner at a local restaurant? That is, for difference to be celebratory, there first must exist equality among difference. And given the reinforced hierarchies of such difference at Grinnell, its community does not deserve an evening like the Cultural Night.

I know that some would disagree with me and argue that events like the Cultural Night have the potential to combat the hostility and hatred of which I speak, and while that might be true, I wonder if we are comfortable in asking our fellow community members to use the cherished artifacts of their home as a bargaining chip for belonging.

It is hard to critique something when the intent is pure, when the performers are your friends and classmates, when the organizers are your most loyal allies, when the audience consists of your peers, neighbors and faculty members and, most importantly, when you have thoroughly enjoyed the generosity of those who offered to share a piece of their home with you. It is hard when it is home. But it is precisely because it is home that it becomes necessary.

— Farah Omer ’19 Horoscope: The Signs as Mom Rock Bands

Aries: The Police

Taurus: Heart

Gemini: Foreigner

Cancer: Tears for Fears

Leo: Def Leppard

Virgo: Fleetwood Mac

Libra: Pat Benatar

Scorpio: Mötley Crüe

Sagittarius: Bonnie Tyler

Capricorn: Tom Petty

Aquarius: Duran Duran

Pisces: Air Supply

— Sister Aurora Impulse Cribz: “From Beethoven to Buzzfeed, from Hawkeye to Holst, this is 1021”

Clockwise, from left: Katie Parrish, Austin Wadle, Emma Friedlander, and Charlie Rosenblum, all ’18, reflect on their time as residents of 1021 High Street. Photo by Mahira Faran.

By Amanda Weber [email protected]

Upon walking into 1021 High Street, one is greeted by an abundance of living space decorated with an eccentric set of décor and furniture. The space is also permeated by a sense of comfort and community, which makes a good deal more sense after having the opportunity to speak with the residents.

The unique decorations, designed almost entirely by Austin Wadle ’18 as a result of a lack of furniture and décor left behind by previous residents, reflect well the character of the house and its residents. Emma Friedlander, Katie Parrish, Charlie Rosenblum and Austin Wadle, all ’18, are 1021’s tenants. Outside of being housemates, they are all also close friends.

The four met in their first year, during which they all lived in Norris Hall.

“Through that at-times trying experience, we banded together so we’ve all been friends since then,” Friedlander said.

When they all decided last year to live off-campus, it was hardly a stretch that they make the move all together — and they definitely don’t seem to regret it. Not only do they see the situation as the opportunity to live with their best friends, but they also love the house.

“We found this perfect four-person house. It was serendipity,” Friedlander said.

“A match made in heaven,” Rosenblum agreed. “Emma actually found the house — we snapped it up a little bit late. It was like the last house on High Street to be leased by anyone,” Parrish said. “[But] we came and saw the house and we loved it.”

The house’s layout in particular is a popularly admired feature of the house.

“The layout of the house is incredible,” Wadle said.

“Primo,” Parrish agreed, with enthusiasm.

“We really like throwing parties here because, like Austin said, the layout is perfect for it. We call that front room ‘the ballroom’ because we only use it to dance,” Friedlander noted.

It works well that the house is set up perfectly for social events, because the residents of 1021 do enjoy throwing a good party. In fact, according to Friedlander, the housemates have by this point even set up a regimen for their parties.

“We have a playlist,” Friedlander explained. “To signal that [the party] is coming to a close … we’ll play ‘Green Light’ by Lorde, and then we play ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel and that’s your signal to get the fuck out.”

“The party really doesn’t end until ‘Piano Man’ ends, because people stick around and sing. We’ve had great times where people have stuck around and stood on the front ledge singing ‘Piano Man,’” Parrish added.

This sense of closeness and companionship manifests itself not only in large parties, but also amongst just the four housemates themselves. They make a point to spend time together and support one another.

“We all have very different schedules … but I think at the end of the day we all come together at night, we all try to make time for each other and hang out at least for like an hour or two,” Rosenblum said.

“Yeah, we watch stuff on the projector,” Friedlander added.

The aforementioned projector is clearly a fixture of the house. A great venue for the housemates to spend time together and watch everything from Buzzfeed videos to opera to History Channel documentaries, the projector is a source of pride and community.

“Katie and I have a bit now. [I say] in an NPR voice, ‘From Beethoven to Buzzfeed, Hawkeye to Holst, this is 1021,’” Wadle exclaimed.

As close as the housemates are, they also have the advantage of being very different people with very different interests. All four are double majors, and with so many different topics on the table, they have plenty of opportunities to learn new things and share information about subjects and activities in which they themselves are not personally involved.

Perhaps more importantly, it also gives them a space to decompress and distance from the topics to which they are constantly exposed.

“You get to do all of your classes, do your extracurriculars, do your jobs and then come back to this house and decompress and just be with your friends without having to have those things on your mind,” Friedlander said. “We also have stupid conversations.”

“It’ll go from Katie and I being really obnoxious about chemistry … [to talking] about the latest pop culture trend,” Wadle added. In particular, they cited gay pop culture icons as a popular topic of conversation and very significant influences in their lives.

“We can all say anything to each other about anything, and we all care about the things that each other care about. Then we get to go to all each other’s activities and events and performances and presentations. It’s all very exciting and fun and supportive and I can always count on them,” Parrish said.

When asked what their favorite part of living in 1021 is, the unanimous answer was put perfectly by Friedlander, and greeted by plenty of murmurs of agreement.

“Living with my best friends,” she said.

—Editor’s Note: Emma Friedlander is the Editor-in-Chief of The S&B. (Nerf) zombie apocalypse comes to Grinnell

Nerf @ Noyce will be hosting a campus- wide Humans vs. Zombies game. Photo by Sarina Lincoln.

By Lily Dawson [email protected]

Before they get their Monday morning coffee, some Grinnell College students could be mistaken for zombies. This Sunday, however, a hoard of (somewhat) real zombies will descend on campus. At that time, the student group Nerf @ Noyce will be hosting a week-long, campus-wide game of Humans vs. Zombies.

Organizer Jonathan Sadun ’20 described it as “essentially a giant game of tag where the humans go about their week trying to not be tagged by zombies.” Almost all players begin as humans, except for a randomly chosen few who are assigned as original zombies. These original zombies tag humans, who then leave the game for 30 minutes and reenter as zombies. However, the humans in the game have a way to fight back — they are equipped with Nerf blasters and sock balls, which they use to hit zombies. When hit by a Nerf dart or a sock ball, the zombies are stunned for ten minutes. Players are identified by bandanas worn on the arm for humans or on the head or neck for zombies. For the humans to win, at least one human must finish the final mission. If not, the zombies win. The event promises a week of fun and entertainment for all. And the winners’ reward?

“Nothing?” was Sadun’s answer. “Fun, you get fun.”

The game is campus-wide, but some areas are off-limits. These areas, according to Sadun, are “various locations that we’ve determined are dangerous or problematic in some way to play in,” including but not limited to, classrooms, health services and bathrooms. These are considered no-play zones, and are completely removed from the game. Similar to these areas, safe zones also exist, where players cannot be tagged nor shot, but the game is still in play.

To keep things interesting, organizers have also scheduled daily missions along with regular gameplay, which take a few hours at most. Moderators of the game will play characters, who the players in the mission must protect, escort or kill. These missions are not mandatory, but offer rewards and advantages if players complete them.

Humans vs. Zombies began at Goucher College in 2005 and is now played across the world, at “schools, camps, neighborhoods, libraries and conventions,” according to the game’s website. Organizers use the HvZ Source software to register players and track the progress of the game. Players are assigned an ID number from the website, which they print out and carry on them. If tagged, the human will hand over their ID card to the zombie who tagged them, who will then enter in the ID number into the website, which marks that person as a zombie.

The event, which will run from Sunday, April 29 to Saturday, May 5, has a six year history at Grinnell College. “The idea of doing humans vs. zombies games in Nerf style is something that happens all across the country,” Sadun said, though the organizers don’t “coordinate in particular with any other groups.”

The organizers are hoping the event runs smoothly. In particular, they hope to improve on the experience of previous years by making the process more efficient and inclusive. “Compared to previous years, we’re hoping to get things started faster, get missions more organized [so] that people can essentially get started more easily and make sure that we have better mechanisms to see who’s playing so that no one gets accidentally left out,” Sadun said.

Those interested in playing should visit http://www.hvzsource.com/grinnell/ to sign up, or email [nerf] for more information. Bucket course delves into wind tunnels and aeronautics

The Bucket Course took place at Drake Community Library. Photo by Sarina Lincoln.

By Alice Herman [email protected]

Ben Guenther, who has designed “aircraft and space models” for the NASA Langley Research Center, spoke to a full house at the Drake Community Library on Wednesday, April 25. In his talk, entitled “NACA-NASA Wind Tunnels at Langley Research Center,” Guenther explored the history of wind tunnels in flight tests since the inception of the United States’ National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1915.

Wind tunnels, cavernous concrete channels occupied by floor- to-ceiling mechanical fans, have served as the testing site for air and space machines from the Wright brothers’ earliest gliders to rockets developed for the space race of the later 20th century.

The first wind tunnel for flight testing, called a “whirling arm,” was developed in the early 18th century by Benjamin Robins, a British mathematician.

However, as Guenther wrote in an informational pamphlet distributed at the talk, “it was clear that these whirling arms devices created excessive turbulence that interfered with accurate testing. The result was the development of the wind tunnel, a device in which air could be moved past a stationary model under relatively controlled conditions.”

During the presentation, Guenther elaborated on the military and technological significance of the development of wind tunnels; the flight testing technique was critical for “aeronautical development” during World War I and was employed by “England, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia — but not in America.” In response to the United States’ relative slowness in adopting the newest technique for flight testing, and “[a]fter several years of bureaucratic in-fighting,” Congress agreed to fund NACA.

After the high demand for testing of military aircraft during WWI, NACA witnessed the expansion of its flight testing program and eventually transformed into NASA as military technological development was adapted to the Cold War period.

According to the NASA website, “Concerns over potential Soviet domination of space transformed the NACA into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: NASA. As a moon landing became America’s Space Race goal, Langley tackled the many challenges of spaceflight, train astronauts, managed Project Mercury, and assumed major roles in both the Gemini and Apollo programs.” Despite the name change, the Langley Research Center remained critical to the development of rockets and served as the training site for astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the moon.

Guenther’s lecture, part of a series of Bucket Course Talks held by Grinnell’s Community Education Council, highlighted not only the impressive launch of the U.S. space program but the career of Guenther himself. After graduating from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute with a Bachelor’s in History, Guenther dedicated himself not to the study of history, but the making of it: in addition to work on-site at wind tunnel flight tests, according to the Our Grinnell webpage, “he fabricated aircraft and space models used in several different wind tunnels, as well as models presented before Congressional Committees.”

Guenther’s love of history was apparent during the talk on Wednesday as he explained the trajectory of the Langley Research Center, drawing claps, laughs, and gasps from the audience as he detailed the drama of flight. The talk, which was free and open to the public, will be followed by a second one in which Guenther will delve deeper into the more recent use of wind tunnels for rockets intended for outer space. A video recording of his first lecture can be found online at http://www.grinnellcecbucketcourses.org/ and the next lecture will be held on Wednesday, May 2.

Day in the Life: Professor Steve Andrews

4:15 a.m.—I wake up before alarm, yet wake up with alarm. A disturbing dream. Why now? I have a nagging feeling of if, to misquote someone really important. 4:30 a.m.—First cup of coffee. Click on TV. World seems not to have budged much for all its breaking news. What do I really want the news to say? If I could get the news to say what I want it to say, wouldn’t that just be fake news? I would prefer to think of it as my lucky day. 5 a.m.—ablutions. A favorite word of a former colleague, which I now render down to hot water and soap. Ablute. 5:30 a.m.—Second cup of coffee. Check email, forget to check calendar. 6 a.m.—Sheree’s already downtown working out. Good grief! But actually I envy her. Can’t muster the willpower that early. So “workout” looms over me all day. 6:05 a.m.—…and another thing about that dream was not specific detail so much or the feeling — but a looming, too. 6:15 a.m.—I Walk to Work. 6:30 a.m.—Start grading papers. No, go make another cup of coffee. Grade papers after all. 8:30 a.m.—Beautiful spring morning. Head to Grinnell House to pick up job candidate. 8:50 a.m.—I’ve waited long enough. I’m getting antsy. We are in danger of being late for the first interview session. I ask Grinnell House attendant to notify ______that someone from the English Department is here to pick them up. After flurry of phone calls, am reminded that the candidate will be here next week. 9 a.m.—All dressed up: My Outlook, My Life. Beautiful spring morning. Head back to Mears. 10 a.m.—Meet with a committee to go over list of candidates and nominate student for fellowship. We nominate and we do some planning and we feel good about it. 11 a.m.—Back to Mears. Grade papers. 11:50 a.m.—… and just like that it hits me. Of course! 12 p.m.—Another committee meeting. I say hi to two of my fellows from the previous meeting. This meeting comes with a Jimmy John’s BLT. Forgot to order soda. Damn! We discuss survey questions, meeting space and wording of invitation to an open-session to discuss issues, concerns and suggestions. I leave a little early… 1 p.m.—… in order to represent department at department fair for prospective students and parents. Chat with several students, likely English majors, who say they are coming to Grinnell. 2 p.m.—Back to Mears to grade papers. 3:15 p.m.—Visit colleague, read about and discuss Teddy Roosevelt. In his North Dakota days, other cowboys called him “Old Four Eyes.” I learned that when I was a kid, from a performance in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Sheree and I camped there when we were just getting to know each other. That was, like, 30 years ago. 4:15 p.m.—Off to Peace Tree to visit an alum from ’00 — my first year of teaching here. When you put it that way, “of course” dissolves into a vague uneasiness, in spite of the signs posted otherwise. 4:30 p.m.—Alum reunion. Red Rambler Ale. We discuss Charles Olson, hip-hop and social justice. Alum knows his way around all three. I listen in stunned amazement. 6:25 p.m.—Say goodbye to Alum at JRC and walk back to Mears, buoyed by a gift of two vinyl albums of his most recent work. Now to find a turntable. 8:10 p.m.—Sheree’s home. There is no one else that I would rather see. 11:45 p.m.—I’m thinking of going to sleep. As you can see, I’ve skipped a couple of hours, parts of which involved popcorn, cable and cleaning up cat puke. Iowa, the cat, is old. She’s earned the right. Lights out, and I’m feeling again the bite of dimwittedness retrospectively trying to transform into wisdom. That dream again. Music in the park returns

Music in the Park will bring a variety of local and outside musical groups to Grinnell’s Central Park. Contributed photo. By Seth Taylor [email protected]

After roaming from location to location the last few years, Grinnell’s annual summer music celebration, Music in the Park, is returning to Central Park.

Music in the Park has been a Grinnell tradition since 2009, when the city started the series of events as a compliment to each Thursday’s Farmer’s Market, providing a space for local artists to perform and local audiences to listen to music in the sun.

When construction began in Central Park two years ago, the event was forced to relocate to other Grinnell landmarks, like Ahrens Park, the Grinnell College campus and the steps of the Grinnell Area Arts Council, but it never was quite the same. This year will be a homecoming of sorts, with performers and audience members able to enjoy the new and improved facilities in Central Park.

Twelve musical groups will be featured this summer, ranging from local favorites like Mojo Machine, which has been performing in and around Grinnell since the ’90s, to nationally recognized groups like Barefoot Becky and the Ivanhoe Dutchmen, a polka group led by Becky Livermore who performs, fittingly, without shoes.

Local groups The Too Many Strings Band, Calle Sur, Prairie Jewel Dixieland Band and Grinnell’s own award-winning bagpipe and drum ensemble Turlach Ur will also perform. Other outside groups include the Society of Broken Souls, The Pines, Courtney Krause, Christopher the Conquered and Grinnell alumna Jackie Myers.

The Grinnell Community Band, founded in 1856 and a staple of many celebrations in Grinnell, will again headline four of the planned performances. The Grinnell Area Arts Council organizes the series, and Erik Jarvis ’12, who organizes events and handles facilities upkeep at the Arts Council, was in charge of organizing Music in the Park again this year.

Jarvis begins planning the event in early January. He uses his experience as a musician in Iowa and as a Grinnell resident to reach out to groups who may be interested in performing, and who Grinnellians would like to hear. He also arranges funding with Music in the Park’s many sponsors, including the Hotel and Motel Tax Committee, Hotel Grinnell, Sarah Joan Baker, Grinnell College, Brent and Dawn Jaeger, Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, Ramsey Weeks, Peace Tree Brewing and Lonnski’s Pub and Deli.

According to Jarvis, losing Central Park as a performance space posed several issues. Without Central Park, there was no centralized location for performances to be held. Locations like Ahrens Park are too far removed and lack the proper facilities. In addition, Music in the Park was disassociated from the Farmer’s Market, the weekly event with which it was originally paired. Jarvis predicts that this year more people will consistently attend the performances, and that mingling between the musical crowd and the Farmer’s Market crowd will become more pronounced.

In addition to the change of venue, Music in the Park will have a shorter season this year. That made scheduling more difficult for Jarvis, but the condensed schedule may also encourage more people to come out when they have the chance.

Jarvis himself is especially excited for The Pines, a band of three being brought in by Hotel Grinnell. The Pines have played in Grinnell before, quickly selling out, and Jarvis hopes a free event like Music in the Park with all the space the outdoors can provide will give many more the chance to see this popular band. The first Music in the Park event will take place on May 31, after Grinnell classes have ended for the semester, and the last will take place in July, well before most students return for the fall semester. However, Jarvis encourages any students taking part in MAPs, or those in Grinnell for other reasons, to check it out.

In addition, Jarvis hopes he can book more student performers for Grinnell Area Arts Council events during the summer or during the school year, and he encourages any students who may be interested to reach out.

No matter who is playing, performances start at 5:30 or 7 p.m., and audience members will gather around the park, perhaps, according to Jarvis, perusing the produce available at the Farmer’s Market, and settling in for a night of music and community.

“People bring picnics and lawn chairs and blankets, and depending on the band people will dance. … There’s been food in the past. So it’s just really nice summer outdoor music,” Jarvis said.

Music in the Park kicks off with Jackie Myers on May 31, with new artists almost every Thursday until July 26, all performing in Grinnell’s Central Park. City considers changes to recycling program By Cloe Wray [email protected]

Recently, residents of Grinnell have been instructed to leave glass out of their recycling bins. According to Russ Behrens, city manager, glass has proven hard on equipment and workers and devalues single-stream, or co-mingled, recycling, in which all recyclable materials are handled together, instead of being sorted by the depositor.

This switch is just the first of what Behrens predicts will be several changes to the recycling system. In March, the City of Grinnell’s contract with Recycle Midwest, a recycling company in Oskaloosa, IA, was terminated. This prompted the City to evaluate possible alternative companies for the handling of recyclable materials.

Behrens cited Grinnell’s location as the main reason for the end of business with Recycle Midwest. Since Grinnell is located at least an hour away from most recycling companies, transporting recycling out of Grinnell is expensive.

“They’re taking less and less of our recycled materials, which lowers the value of it, which increases our cost to get rid of it,” Behrens said. Originally, the City of Grinnell was paying Recycle Midwest $15 a ton to take their recycling. Republic Services, a company with a branch in Cedar Rapids, agreed to take on Grinnell’s recycling, at the cost of $83 a ton. In comparison, it costs the City $62.50 to dispose of a ton of garbage at the landfill.

Although residents can no longer place glass in their recycling, they still have the option to bring glass to Grinnell’s Public Service building, located at 1411 1st Avenue. From there, Republic Services collects the glass for free once the city has accumulated about 26 tons. Republic Services will also pay the City $60 a ton for sorted corrugated cardboard, for which there is a market.

With regards to Grinnell College, the City was previously removing their recycling free of charge. With the end of the contract with Recycle Midwest, however, the City of Grinnell informed Grinnell College that they would be unable to take their recycling. This resulted in the College throwing away all trash and recycling for about two weeks as they sought a new company to take their recycling. This process was ended when the City signed its new contract with Republic Services, allowing the College to recycle once again, but at the higher cost of $160 a ton.

Chris Bair, environmental and safety coordinator at the College, thinks that this price is comparable to what the College would pay if they contracted with a recycling company on their own. Bair estimates that over the course of the year the College will be paying about $20,000 to the city for about two and a half tons of recycling per week.

In addition to the cost of transporting the recycling to centers where it can be processed, Bair suggested recent tariffs set by the United States and China have influenced the abilities of recycling companies to find a market for their materials. According to an April 8 report published by CNN, the United States Department of Commerce recommended and President Trump signed several tariffs which took effect March 23. Among them was a 25 percent tax on imported steel and a 10 percent tax on imported aluminum. In response, on April 1 China announced tariffs on 128 products from the United States, including a 25 percent tax on imported recycled aluminum. China has also announced an additional ban on many post-industrial recycled materials.

Despite these tariffs, Bair still sees aluminum as a candidate for sustainable recycling, as a market for it still exists. He encourages students to consider aluminum over glass when possible, especially as the College has not been sorting glass separately from its recycling, and instead asking students to throw it away. The College will be updating recycling signs this week to reflect the fact that glass can no longer be recycled.

With the cost of transport recyclables from municipalities to processing centers, and costs to ship the materials to plants that can transform them into new products, whether that be in China or within the United States, companies handling recyclables as commodities are faced with an ever-shifting market.

Based on the current solid waste environment, Behrens considers the increasing cost of removing recyclables to be unsustainable in the long run.

Currently, the City relies on a monthly fee of $12.60 from all residents of the city, in addition to $1.39 (including tax) per trash bag, while recycling is free. According to the City of Grinnell’s website, they provide each resident with a free red recycling bin, each additional bin costing $9.

Possible solutions include charging based on the size or number of recycling bins residents use, or switching to a self-sorting system wherein residents would transport their own recyclables to the Public Service building and sort them. Once sorted, the recycled materials have a higher value. Behrens speculated, however, that this solution would result in an increase in trash collected by the City.

“I think that one of the things cardboard has done, it’s kind of this panacea that people think ‘I can consume something as long as I recycle it,’” Behrens said. With about 66 tons of co-mingled recycling being produced each week in Grinnell, the cost of fuel to transport the recycling to processing plants and the energy required to transform the recycled materials into another product must be considered.

As Behrens sees it, even if Grinnell found a more cost- effective way to remove their recycling, the problem still would not be solved. “Just because you’re recycling, doesn’t mean you’re a responsible consumer,” Behrens said. “We’re really going to make a push, and we’ve started to do this already, the only real way we can fix the system is to reduce what we’re consuming.”