First Impressions of Iowa

The last seven years, whenever I have moved into a new apartment, it's been my trite custom to christen the new space by unpacking my gear to the strains of an increasingly fatigued LP of the London Philharmonic playing Dvorak's Symphony "From the New World." The appropriateness this time was more than thematic. Dvorak composed the symphony in New York City under contractual obligation, then fled the new world promptly and sought refuge in a Czech enclave in northern Iowa called Spillville. With a current population of 300 (sic), Spillville is smaller than Iowa City. But not much smaller.

My new housemate Monica, a neuroscience researcher at the University who will pay me to participate in her study if I can convince her I've taken ecstasy, welcomed me Sunday night with a dinner of barbequed chicken breast, asparagus tips and local mushrooms. Then she conducted me through a meticulous walking tour of downtown Iowa City, which took ten minutes. According to Monica, her fellow Cedar Rapids native Ashton Kutcher went unnoticed by the professional beauty scouts until relocating to Iowa City, where he was promptly spotted (hitting on a 40-year-old woman, one can only imagine) in a prepossessing local nightspot called The Airliner. The Airliner turns out to have been a pedigreed cafe during Iowa City's literary heyday some decades back, but it's kept step with the changing identity of the Iowa University student body by converting itself into a generic sports bar, with $3 pitchers of domestic swill whenever the Cubs are playing. (The same racial divide that fissures Chicago--the Southside Sox belong to minority fans, the northside Cubbies to the bourgie whites--exists here: Nobody roots for the White Sox.)

Because the university has thoroughly strangled off the town, the persecution complex borne by the rightfully insecure lifetime academics eschews town-gown resentment for a demonization known locally as "across the river." On the Iowa River's east bank lie the student union, the undergrad dorms, the bars, and the humanities departments. West of the river, the graduate and professional schools sprawl over large, unlovely tracts. They're joined there by all the athletics departments and facilities, which should come as no surprise. At the University of Iowa, the football program counts as a professional school.