Ziskey Rates The Russians! 

RIP Harold Ramis . . .

Iowa - Indiana game postponed due to Assembly Hall falling apart ... 

 Sparkles


By James Grob

She sometimes stands tall,
though she’s not at all,
and raises her chin
and her voice
as if to challenge the world to
notice her.

She sets sharp slices
of my spirit sparkling
warm in places where
I didn’t know it was cold.

My fire flickers now.
Walk through it with me?
Dance with me in my soul?

I’m stunned at times to find
her spirit also shines.
Her eyes
sparkle with excited wonder
sometimes
when they meet mine.

I know she hides a fire
when she stifles her smile
and she sometimes blushes
and she knows it.
I know her whole body glows
I see only her uncovered flesh
but I imagine the rest.

That’s when I like her most, I think.
When I know she knows
she’s blushing.

Theme: "The Phone Call," DCFAC Calls For Submissions From Iowa Writers For 2014 Summer Shorts

Iowa writers are invited to submit work for the 2014 Davis County Players’ Short Play Festival, “Summer Shorts,” presented by the Davis County Fine Arts Council. The festival of short plays will take place on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 1-2, 2014 at the Iowa Theatre in Bloomfield, Iowa.

Playwrights from anywhere in Iowa are eligible. Writers are asked to submit unpublished material by May 15, 2014. Several plays will be selected for stage production, with one “Best In Show” -- selected by the audience -- to receive the $100 grand prize. There will also be $50 prizes to the best play written by a resident of Davis County and the best play written by a Davis County student aged 18 or younger.

The theme of this year’s contest is “The Phone Call.” Plays should be in a standard play script format and be between 5-15 pages in length. They should be the author’s original material and not an adaptation. Comedy, tragedy, or somewhere in between – it doesn’t matter, but we are not looking for musicals.

The set will be minimal and the stage is small, so it is very unlikely that a play that requires an elaborate set will be selected for production. The play should have at least two but no more than five characters. And this year, the play should have something to do with “The Phone Call.”

Please be aware that plays that do not follow the guidelines will not be considered, nor will plays by authors with no direct connection to Iowa.

Please visit our Web site at http://www.daviscountyfinearts.com for more information about the Davis County Fine Arts Council.

To submit a play electronically, email to jg4horsemen@yahoo.com. Subject line: “Summer Shorts.”

The Davis County Players company is one of the most well-established community theatre companies in the Midwest and has developed a reputation for bringing high-end and cutting-edge productions to a small town audience. We have successfully produced many Broadway classics as well as new, progressive material and several world premieres. Our audience has come to expect high-quality material, and although it is very open-minded, authors should be aware that material which contains excessive profanity, sex or violence is not likely to be selected for production.

Playwrights who have material selected for production will be notified by June 1, 2014. The $100 grand prize winner will be named by Aug. 2, 2014. Please submit your play electronically, in Word or PDF format.

Please include a title page and a page that includes all of the playwright’s contact information. More than one submission is acceptable, but please put separate submissions in separate files.

$50 prizes will also be awarded to the best play written by a resident of Davis County and the best play written by a Davis County student aged 18 or younger on April 30. Current members on the Davis County Fine Arts Council are eligible to have a play considered for production but are not eligible for any cash prizes.

There is no entry fee. By submitting a play, the author is giving the Davis County Fine Arts Council permission to produce that play for the Aug. 1-2 “Summer Shorts” Festival. The author will retain all rights to his or her work.

If you have any questions or inquiries, visit our Web site at http://www.daviscountyfinearts.com and click “Contact Us” in the upper right hand corner.

Cast Named For Davis County Players' Spring Play

Auditions were held last week for the Davis County Players' Spring Play, "The Dixie Swim Club." The play calls for five adult female actors. The character and the actor chosen to play that character are as follows:

• DINAH ... Terri Williams
  
• LEXIE ... Cathy Roberts
  
• SHEREE ... Michelle Grob
  
• JERI NEAL ... Josie Drummond
  
• VERNADETTE ... Joanna McCoy
  

The play "The Dixie Swim Club," written by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, is a story about five Southern women, whose friendships began many years ago on their college swim team, set aside a long weekend every August to recharge those relationships. Free from husbands, kids and jobs, they meet at the same beach cottage on North Carolina's Outer Banks to catch up, laugh and meddle in each other's lives. The play focuses on four of those weekends and spans a period of thirty-three years.

The play will be presented with special arrangement through Dramatist Play Service, Inc. on Friday and Saturday, April 4th and 5th, at the Iowa Theatre in Bloomfield and will be directed by James Grob. Tammy Roberts will be assistant director.

An excellent actor.

Gotta Love Super Bowl Sunday

By JAMES GROB (More Columns)
Ottumwa Post

If you don't like football, try not to think of it as having to watch another Super Bowl. Instead, try to think of it as your best chance to see Bruno Mars perform live.

I mean, the guy has sold something like 150 kajillion albums, and they play him on pop radio all the time and he makes appearances at all the big awards shows and all that, but I have yet to hear him sing a song that I even like a little bit. I'm sure it's a generational thing, and also a sex thing, because all the kids love him, and a lot of middle-aged women love him.

Maybe it's the funny hat. Me? I just don't get it.

And the fact that middle-aged women love him disturbs me a little bit. It's kind of like if I was running around trying to get Taylor Swift to autograph my leg or chest or something. I would be immediately sent to creeper prison, and that's where I would belong.

Of course, Red Hot Chili Peppers are also playing at halftime of the Super Bowl, and I DO get them. Was a big fan of Flea and the boys back in the day, they rock whatever house they're in. And the best thing is, even though they're pretty much all old men now, you know at least one and probably more than one of the Peppers will perform sans shirt.

Because RHCP don't do shirts. RHCP takes their shirts off more often than Matthew McConaughey on a deserted island. And even though the Super Bowl is in New Jersey, and the temperature is going to be something like two degrees, the Peppers will remove their shirts. It's what the Peppers do -- they have an agenda.

Step one, rock this house. Step two, take off our shirts. Step three, return to step one.

Then there's the commercials -- those million dollar commercials that are supposed to impress us. I don't know how many non-football fans have told me that they're going to be watching the Super Bowl for the commercials. And there will undoubtedly be some funny ones, but I hope to high water that there aren't any of those gross and disgusting "Go Daddy" commercials this year. Last year they had some airhead supermodel tongue-kiss with some gross fat guy for what seemed like hours, and I nearly vomited into the spinach dip. I don't have a strong stomach for that kind of thing.

Oh, the National Anthem is going to be sung by an opera singer this year. Which I think is good. Not that I'm a fan of opera, but I am a fan of getting singers who actually know the words to the song, and who stick pretty close to the traditional melody of the song, without trying to hit every single note available.

Oh, Queen Latifah is singing "God Bless America." I'd like to make a snarky comment about that, but I won't because Queen Latifah just seems so nice, and I don't want to be mean.

Speaking of meanness, there's that guy -- that really scary guy who plays cornerback for the Seahawks -- Richard Sherman. I know for a fact that he's one of the best cornerbacks in the game, because he told me so. When his team won the NFC Championship game, he celebrated by yelling and screaming at the nice sideline reporter lady and scaring the hell out of her, then trying to pick a fight with just about everyone in America and its  occupied territories.

Everyone else on his team seemed real happy and jolly, but for some reason he was just really angry. So I am hoping that his team wins the Super Bowl, because I want to see what he does. I'm guessing he'll immediately run out and rob a convenience store or carjack a mini-van filled with several members of the Von Trapp Family Singers or something along those lines.

Oh, the game? I almost forgot.

I think Payton Manning will have his moments, but will struggle with the cold and the wind, and Seattle's defense will keep it just close enough for the Seahawks to have a chance to pull it out in the end.

And I think Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch will have a huge game against the Denver Bronco defense and end up earning MVP honors.

He'll be awarded a trip to Disneyland. And Bruno Mars's hat.