Important Public Service Announcement

July 5, 2014 5:20 PM

Idaho and Iowa are two different states. Here is a song to help you tell them apart.

If you're still having trouble differentiating, just remember that Iowa is the one with the corn.

posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious (76 comments total)

That was excellent. Thanks!
posted by undue influence at 5:29 PM on July 5, 2014

Wait - You mean Lutoslawski didn't move just one state over??
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:29 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Iowa = Corn, Hogs, Dutch Influence

Idaho = Potatoes, Meth, KKK
posted by The Whelk at 5:30 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Really regret not buying the t-shirt at the student union that read:

University of Iowa
Idaho City, Ohio
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 5:45 PM on July 5, 2014 [29 favorites]

Idaho = Potatoes, Meth, KKK

Iowa has the 80/35 corridor. We're pretty much the meth capital of the world. Anything going E/W or N/S comes through here.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:48 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Idaho is actually a pretty awesome state.
posted by pwally at 5:49 PM on July 5, 2014

Except for the meth and stuff.
posted by pwally at 5:50 PM on July 5, 2014

You could go with this one from Raygun, fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit.

Or, you know, a Don't Meth With Iowa one.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:52 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

i heard boise is the new capital of hip, after everyone had been priced out of portland and seattle.
posted by PinkMoose at 5:54 PM on July 5, 2014

Idaho is sweet for those with an outdoors taste. Want to camp right next to the graves of a couple prospectors who died of scurvy? No problem.
posted by mr. digits at 5:54 PM on July 5, 2014

We're pretty much the meth capital of the world

Huh I thought that was eastern Washington or am I thinking consumption, ah well.
posted by The Whelk at 5:55 PM on July 5, 2014

Iowa was the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2007.

A coworker and his partner adopted five children. They lived in the country. They had the law changed so that both would be "parents" on the birth certificate rather than "Mother" or "Father".

Midwestern myob reserve works.

Fourth.

Tell me again about the falafel.
posted by vapidave at 5:59 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's true that Iowa City has a very nice pedestrian mall. I don't know about best, but it's certainly pleasant.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 6:06 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Now do one for Minnesota and Michigan for people on the left coast!
posted by willF at 6:06 PM on July 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

It has always baffled me how ubiquitous this confusion is! I'm always like, I'm from Iowa, and people be like, oh so potatoes yeah? And I'm like OMG outside of having vaguely phonetically related names these two states are like not even close to being similar or in the same place. Nobody confuses Alaska and Alabama!
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:09 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Can you also do a song about West Virginia and Virginia being two different states?
posted by shortyJBot at 6:09 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

And here (sigh) we have Idaho.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:10 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

it's really funny to see Iowa pride flair up*



*guilty
posted by djseafood at 6:14 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Iowa = Corn, Hogs, Dutch Influence

Also the Dutch influence is really only the Western half which like should really be its own state.
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:17 PM on July 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

The beloved Napolean XIV (using his real name) recorded a song about Iowa.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:20 PM on July 5, 2014

I mean Dar Williams prolly has the best Iowa song out there.
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:23 PM on July 5, 2014 [6 favorites]

Also, like, have you guys even seen Iowa's rest stops?
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:23 PM on July 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

And I'm like OMG outside of having vaguely phonetically related names these two states are like not even close to being similar or in the same place.

Also from (and in) Iowa. When my family moved to Texas, long ago, there was a staggering amount of confusion about where exactly Iowa was and what people did there. The Texans of my acquaintance worked Ohio and Idaho in there too. At the time, it was distressing and confusing, but later experience showed that this was just the natural reluctance of Texans to spend any time thinking about things beyond the Texas border, and it wasn't meant personally.

(And yes I know #NotAllTexans.)
posted by Spathe Cadet at 6:24 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also this seems like a good place to leave this incredible gem: Hooray for Ames.
posted by Lutoslawski at 6:28 PM on July 5, 2014 [8 favorites]

Oh gosh. I actually thought about posting Hooray for Ames when I first saw it, but I am a respectful adopted Iowan, and I didn't want to humiliate our fine state. I should have included it in the post!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:29 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Iowa in late May / early June is one of the most pastorally beautiful places on earth. Also it has the Snake Alley Criterium which is one of the most excruciatingly awesome road bike races you can do.
posted by lonefrontranger at 6:33 PM on July 5, 2014

I couldn't tell if Hooray for Ames was self-parody or not. They looked just a little too sincere and made me too uncomfortable to laugh.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 6:35 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was really cute and helpful. Those potato and corn map overlays are really going to stick in my head and I doubt I'll ever confuse Idaho and the blue square corn place again.
posted by danabanana at 6:47 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't think that Hooray for Ames is intentional parody, but I think that Ames gets the last laugh, because all the people laughing at it would, in fact, probably be happier if they lived in Ames.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:48 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Hooray for Ames is great but they root for the wrong school.

On the other hand, Ames water probably does not (as the Breathed comic "Farewell to Iowa City" in Bushnell's Turtle used to say) "taste like Spic-N-Span."
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:17 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's Where the Tall Corn Grows

From this scene in A Foreign Affair.
posted by Pudhoho at 7:26 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I could go for a Bushnell's about now. And a brew up the street at Maxwell's.
posted by hal9k at 7:32 PM on July 5, 2014

Where I come from we pronounce it "Ohio".
posted by Floydd at 7:32 PM on July 5, 2014

On the other hand, Ames water probably does not (as the Breathed comic "Farewell to Iowa City" in Bushnell's Turtle used to say) "taste like Spic-N-Span."

Was that in Bushnell's? I recall it being in the public library.

Another important difference between Idaho and Iowa is that Built to Spill (of indie rock fame) comes from Idaho, and Quad City DJ's (of Space Jam fame) come from Iowa. To the best of my knowledge, the apostrophe is part of their official name.
posted by compartment at 7:38 PM on July 5, 2014

Now maybe someone can teach me how to remember which capital (Jackson/Jefferson City) goes with which state (Missouri/Mississippi).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:11 PM on July 5, 2014

Now maybe someone can teach me how to remember which capital (Jackson/Jefferson City) goes with which state (Missouri/Mississippi).

As a native Missourian, I would like to help you, but mostly I'm baffled that it's a source of confusion.
posted by dismas at 8:14 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I couldn't tell if Hooray for Ames was self-parody or not. They looked just a little too sincere and made me too uncomfortable to laugh.

Behind this statement is the secret to all MidWestern Humor.
posted by The Whelk at 8:15 PM on July 5, 2014 [8 favorites]

Idaho was the first state to have a Jewish governor and is home to the oldest living synagogue west of the Mississippi.
posted by straight at 8:21 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I studied astronomy at the University of Iowa. When I first started there, my proud grandfather went around telling people I was studying astrology at the University of Idaho.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:26 PM on July 5, 2014 [8 favorites]

I am slightly embarrassed that I know both of these things, but the first Jewish mayor of an American city was in Iowa, and Iowa is the home of the first mosque in North America that was built specifically to be a mosque.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:26 PM on July 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

Can you also do a song about West Virginia and Virginia being two different states?

That would be awesome. Maybe they'll do the the "I'm from North Carolina. And yes, there really is a difference*" song
posted by thivaia at 8:29 PM on July 5, 2014

Nobody confuses Colorado with Connecticut.
posted by kozad at 9:46 PM on July 5, 2014

Well, there's such a difference in elevation
posted by The Whelk at 9:48 PM on July 5, 2014

Area Man called it back in December.
posted by medusa at 9:52 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Quad City DJ's are from Jacksonville, Florida.
posted by troika at 9:58 PM on July 5, 2014

Nobody confuses Alaska and Alabama!

Yes they do, if they're looking at the two-latter state code "AL"!
posted by metaquarry at 10:04 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ah man, it is about pie. Delicious and delightful pies are to be had in Iowa as well as a damn fine pork sandwich. Idaho, was meh on the pie. Heck, the only reason I want to do RAGBRAI is so I can eat my way across Iowa's various offerings of pie (especially rare berry variants), breakfast burritos and fundraising food fests along the trail.
posted by jadepearl at 10:08 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Quad City DJ's are from Jacksonville, Florida.

It depends on the meaning of "from." A couple of them appear to be from Davenport, which is one of the Quad Cities. I don't know that anyone really thinks of them an Iowa act like they would Greg Brown or, eh, Slipknot.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 10:44 PM on July 5, 2014

I want to see a comparison between Nevada and New Jersey to see which state is the ugliest. I've never been to Jersey, but everyone says it's horrible. But can a place called the "Garden State" be that bad compared to Nevada, the Sagebrush State? If not for gambling and Burning Man, would anyone voluntarily spend much time there? I just want to know.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:55 PM on July 5, 2014

True story --
Friend: "I'm from Bulgaria."
Third party: "Oh cool, I know someone else from Bolivia. :) :) "
posted by slidell at 11:59 PM on July 5, 2014

the christopher hundreds: "A couple of them appear to be from Davenport..."

There are only two of them, really, and both are from Davenport, yes. By 1993, they were making big in Jacksonville, but you are correct: their name hints at their origin.
posted by koeselitz at 12:51 AM on July 6, 2014

New Jersey looks fine. It has some watery stuff, some leafy stuff, some farmy stuff, some bridgey stuff, some buildings, some monuments, several American Flags, some sandy stuff, and at least one attractive young mother who likes Coke.
posted by taz at 12:55 AM on July 6, 2014

Nevada's beautiful, too. Sagebrush is, in fact, beautiful. Objectively.
posted by koeselitz at 1:02 AM on July 6, 2014

yeah, there's some pretty OK looking parts of NV
posted by hap_hazard at 1:13 AM on July 6, 2014

Aspiring presidential candidates can certainly tell the difference, at least every four years or so.
posted by TedW at 3:45 AM on July 6, 2014

But can a place called the "Garden State" be that bad...?

Have you ever been to "Greenland?"
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:48 AM on July 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

It depends on the meaning of "from." A couple of them appear to be from Davenport, which is one of the Quad Cities. I don't know that anyone really thinks of them an Iowa act like they would Greg Brown or, eh, Slipknot.

The wikipedia page is incorrect (the Davenport, Iowa part of the article is a fairly recent, unsourced, addition. It used to read Englewood Senior HS, Jacksonville, FL). "Quad" refers not to to the Quad Cities but to a local term for bass.

This was bothering me a while ago so Iasked metafilter about it.
posted by troika at 6:05 AM on July 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

NJ is only ugly if you're one of the people who only see it from the Turnpike, going to and from New York and Newark airport ( fun fact! This is where the majority of food additives and "natural flavors" are produced! Also perfume.) The rest of the state occupies this strange luminal state of not being rural but being suburban without a city attached to it - NYC and Philadelphia are just close enough to prevent really big concentration of people, so your choices are small towns ( not full of cannibals who would suggest that), charmingly down at heel seaside communities ( who totally NOT hiding dire wraiths and haunted former pleasure palaces) and beautiful Pine forests and gentle rolling hills ( That are certainly not full of cultists just waiting for you wander off the trail into the deep, dark woods.) Come to New Jersey! Bring your flesh! I mean family!
posted by The Whelk at 6:12 AM on July 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Iowa? You owe 'er!
posted by acb at 6:28 AM on July 6, 2014

I'll take Two States I Hope To Never Be In for $200, Alex.
posted by tommasz at 7:14 AM on July 6, 2014

Wasn't Ezra Pound born in Idaho? He deserves a shout-out too, I think.
posted by crazy_yeti at 7:25 AM on July 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

(He was from Idaho before there even was an Idaho!)
posted by crazy_yeti at 7:26 AM on July 6, 2014

Also, New Jersey is full of beautiful places. People who talk trash about it just don't know!
posted by crazy_yeti at 7:31 AM on July 6, 2014

Now maybe someone can teach me how to remember which capital (Jackson/Jefferson City) goes with which state (Missouri/Mississippi).

As a native Missourian, I would like to help you, but mostly I'm baffled that it's a source of confusion.

And this is precisely why you are baffled. If I tell you that on the Atlantic coast of Canada, there is one province where the largest city is Saint John and another where the largest city is St. John's, does that help convey why foreigners might be vague on this?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:27 AM on July 6, 2014

Have you ever been to "Greenland?"

Never been, but a friend of mine was unemployed out there at one point.
posted by inigo2 at 9:15 AM on July 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Parliament-haus der Austr(al)ia

And this is precisely why you are baffled. If I tell you that on the Atlantic coast of Canada, there is one province where the largest city is Saint John and another where the largest city is St. John's, does that help convey why foreigners might be vague on this?

Remember when the CFL had two teams named the Roughriders? And there was only, like, nine teams in the whole league at the time?
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 9:18 AM on July 6, 2014

And this is precisely why you are baffled. If I tell you that on the Atlantic coast of Canada, there is one province where the largest city is Saint John and another where the largest city is St. John's, does that help convey why foreigners might be vague on this?

Oh sure! I might quibble that Jackson, Mississippi and Jeff City*, MO are nowhere near each other and the names aren't that similar but, yeah, I don't actually expect people to be familiar with the geography of my home state if they haven't been there. (Wearing that ignorance as a point of pride - which I'm not at all accusing you of! - is deeply annoying, and I encounter it a lot having relocated to the East). It's more like when someone from out of town asks you where a prominent building is (or where to catch the train) and it takes a second to process why they didn't already know that.
posted by dismas at 9:38 AM on July 6, 2014

No, we are both the same state. We are a superposition of states. We grow potatoes and corn in the same fields, in interleaving rows.

Now go away and leave us alone. It's bad enough here, you don't have to make it worse by reminding us there is civilization out there somewhere.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:22 AM on July 6, 2014

On the other hand, Ames water probably does not (as the Breathed comic "Farewell to Iowa City" in Bushnell's Turtle used to say) "taste like Spic-N-Span."

Was that in Bushnell's? I recall it being in the public library.

It was in both places.
posted by BrashTech at 11:41 AM on July 6, 2014

I have a friend from Switzerland who lived in the US for a while. She claimed the number one question was "So you speak Swedish?"

Of course, part of the problem is the difficulty in explaining what language the Swiss speak*, but still....

* especially, I gather, to people from Germsny who don't believe the answer.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:46 AM on July 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

The wikipedia page is incorrect (the Davenport, Iowa part of the article is a fairly recent, unsourced, addition. It used to read Englewood Senior HS, Jacksonville, FL). "Quad" refers not to to the Quad Cities but to a local term for bass.

That would explain why no one seemed to think of them as an Iowa act.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 12:37 PM on July 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am willing to be convinced that Idaho is wonderful, but it is going to take some convincing.

I spent a week on the lake in Coeur d'Alene last summer, and when we needed to grocery shop, we drove like 50 miles to town and went to the Coeur d'Alene Resort for lunch. I can definitively state that the Coeur d'Alene Resort is operating with a different definition of "resort" than the rest of us. The whole thing had been recently decorated in beige and pink like some kind of 1983 Florida throwback, and there were actual lazy susans on the table. When the locals at the next table started explaining to us how 9/11 was a conspiracy and the Space Needle was the real target, I was all SO SORRY GOTTA GO NOW.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:45 PM on July 6, 2014

God created lazy susans for a purpose. They're a common feature on the tables at better restaurants in Beijing. Big susans. They facilitate access to the food. Without them, you'd have to pass everything back and forth across the table, with thumbs slipping into the shredded pork, and all.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:34 PM on July 6, 2014

I mean Dar Williams prolly has the best Iowa song out there.

She knows the difference between Southern California and Western New York too.
posted by maryr at 7:41 PM on July 6, 2014

If I'm not mistaken, Sarah Palin was born in Idaho, while science fiction author Tom Disch was born in Iowa. You can compare and contrast those factoids however you wish.

Also, there is no excuse for any American with more than a 4th grade education to be confusing these two states.
posted by aught at 5:46 AM on July 7, 2014

Don't tell that to the women I went to college with, aught. During my time in Virginia, in addition to correctly remembering my home state of Iowa, people misremembered me as being from Ohio, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Utah. Took me a while to get over that last one.
posted by epj at 6:52 PM on July 7, 2014