Before the Rock Island Public Library became a literally public library, there was a subscription library that started in 1855. And on November 29 at the downtown branch, the informative and engaging program A Library Is Born: RIPL the Prequel will take participants back to the very beginning, detailing the process that led to the building's 1872 opening as Illinois' first truly public library.
In a special November 29 Bettendorf Public Library program hosted by the World Affairs Council of the Quad Cities, a professor emeritus of Augustana College will offer fascinating history and insight on largely unknown and frequently misunderstood regions overseas, with Dr. Norman Moline presenting The Southern African Mosaic: Perspectives on Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, & Zimbabwe.
In a beloved seasonal tradition, family audiences are invited to the Vibrant Arena at the MARK from December 1 through 4 to experience the wonderful world of Disney – on Ice – in the brand-new touring sensation Into the Magic, with the Moline venue transformed into an enormous skating rink and some of the studio's most beloved characters joining Mickey Mouse and friends for an unforgettable adventure.
For the first time since 2019, visitors can experience the wonders of a traditional Victorian holiday season in Moline's unique Deere-family homes through 19th Century Christmas, the Butterworth Center's and Deere-Wiman House's eagerly anticipated December 4 event boasting litany of yuletide treats including live music performances, interactive tours, make-and-take activities, refreshments, and, of course, a special visit by Santa Claus.
For those fascinated by German folklore and its connection to the holiday season, a devilish good time is sure to be had in the German American Heritage Center's December 6 presentation of Krampus: The Roots & Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil, the Davenport venue's virtual program in which historian Al Ridenour will recount the origins and resurgence of this fabled figure in Germany, Austria, and throughout the world.
Governor JB Pritzker’s administration recently used its annual Economic and Fiscal Policy Report to outline three new budget proposals. The report revised projected revenues upward by $3.69 billion for this fiscal year, but noted that most of the projected increase was from one-time sources, like an unexpected spike in the state’s Income Tax Refund Fund of $1.28 billion.
The best Western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don’t seek widespread approval. It’s worthless. Live long enough and you’ll learn that the people who’ll really hurt you and screw you over aren’t the obvious, overt monsters but the sly manipulators who smile to your face. The U.S. empire is a sly manipulator smiling and posturing as the good guy by contrasting itself with overt monsters.
The United States government censored parts of Chelsea Manning’s new book, in which she attempted to describe the information she provided to WikiLeaks in 2010. Manning says she wrote README.txt because she had not really been able to tell her story, and that the book was a “first draft of history” from her perspective. “While I did testify a little bit during the court-martial, my voice has been kind of lost during this whole process,” Manning declared on CBS Mornings. However, the U.S. government used the publication review system to block her from highlighting any of the documents from the Afghanistan War Logs, Iraq War Logs, or US Embassy cables that garnered widespread news headlines.
“Follow the science,” we are told, especially the junk science that climate alarmists invent. I recently debunked a piece of junk-climate science whose alarmism was featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, CBS, and elsewhere. The junk science was titled “Temperature and Growth: A Panel Analysis of the United States,” and was produced by the Federal Reserve. The three authors claimed that warming could cut U.S. economic growth by up to a third in the next hundred years. However, statistical analysis I published in the paper “Temperature and U.S. Economic Growth: Comment on Colacito, Hoffmann, and Phan” showed their results were within the margin of error and that minor improvements and new data flip their result.
What if both establishment Democrats and Republicans adhere to Progressivism, an ideology measures of magnitude different than liberalism or conservatism, while only fabricating a liberal or conservative identity just to win elections? It adds up. Progressivism advocates first and foremost that everything is political. All social and economic problems, no matter the size or scope, are best solved via government-driven political solutions.
Progressivism concerns itself with groups and their highest functions. Progressives consider human beings to be group components, resources for groups' highest functioning. Components of groups are tightly controlled and expendable as necessary. This is in direct opposition to the core individualism driving both classic liberalism and conservatism. Therefore, it only follows that liberal and conservative individualism is an existential threat to Progressivism and must be eradicated.
On November 27, Adler Theatre audiences are invited to spend a holiday evening with music icons Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvin Presley when the Davenport venue hosts the national tour of Million Dollar Quartet Christmas, a yuletide-themed sequel to the Tony-winning Broadway smash Million Dollar Quartet boasting seasonal perennials such as “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Run Run Rudolph” alongside classics including “Don't Be Cruel” and “Ring of Fire.”
Lauded by the Chicago Tribune as “hilarious and heartwarming” and praised for its “bright comic zest” and “swinging music” by the New York Times, the stage adaptation Elf: The Musical – based on the 2003 screen comedy starring Will Ferrell – enjoys a November 30 through December 4 run at Moline's Prospect Park Auditorium, this Quad City Music Guild season-ender treating patrons to a holiday tale that Broadway World called an “upbeat, oddball, and tuneful concoction.”
Lauded by the New York Times as a "sweetly enjoyable holiday show" and praised by Broadway World for delivering "toasty, cozy, musical holiday cheer to assist us in appreciating all the good stuff around us," the holiday-themed revue Forever Plaid: Plaid Tidings closes the 2022 season at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, the show's December 1 through 11 run reuniting audiences with the beloved doo-wop quartet who refuse to let their years-ago deaths get in the way of having a delightful musical-comedy time.
Nominated for three 2013 Tony Awards including Best Musical and described by Broadway World as “a twinkling Christmas delight,” the yuletide treat A Christmas Story: The Musical closes the 2022 season at Moline's Spotlight Theatre with its December 2 through 11 engagement, the show's score by the Oscar- and Tony-winning team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul inspiring the New York Times to rave, “You'd have to have a Grinch-sized heart not to feel a smile spreading across your face.”
Holiday-minded audiences at the University of Dubuque's Heritage Center will have no reason to cry “Bah, humbug!” on December 5, given that the university's John & Alice Butler Hall will be transformed into a magical, Dickensian wonderland for Perseverance Productions' touring musical presentation of the yuletide classic A Christmas Carol.
On November 27, the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts invites audiences to celebrate the holiday season in style by attending Christmas with Jim McDonough & His Orchestra: The 20th Anniversary Tour, a dazzling stage production featuring International Steinway Artist and Iowa native McDonough alongside his 14-piece professional orchestra, performing spectacular arrangements of favorite Christmas music and other all-time hits.
As the Quad City Symphony Orchestra reaches its halfway point in the ensemble's 2022-23 Masterworks season, the accent will be on strings in the December 3 and 4 performances of Ode to Guitar at Davenport's Adler Theatre, the repertoire boasting, among additional offerings, a beautiful Mozart piece, an exciting Michael Abels co-commission, and a special guitar solo by visiting guest artist Mak Grgić.
An eagerly awaited holiday tradition taking place in the college's spacious Centennial Hall, the December 3 and 4 presentations of the yuletide celebration Christmas at Augustana will again boast the collective talents of no fewer than six magnificent Augustana College ensembles: the Augustana Symphony Orchestra, Augustana Brass Ensemble, Ascension Ringers, Augustana Choir, Jenny Lind Vocal Ensemble, and Augustana Concert Chorale.
Currently touring in support of her latest album Carving Canyons – a recording that, according to Forbes magazine, boasts “her best as well as her most mature work yet” – lauded singer/songwriter and Rock Island native Lissie returns to the Quad Cities for a December 3 headlining concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel.
With their newest, critically acclaimed album Spark released on September 16, the rock and folk artists of Whitney headline a December 4 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their latest recording inspiring The A.V. Club to state, “If early tracks ‘Real Love,’ ‘Blue,’ and ‘Twirl,’ full of warm falsetto melodies and shimmering keyboards, offered a tantalizing taste of Whitney’s new direction, then the rest of Spark is sure to sate your appetite.”
I remember co-star Seth Roben recently saying that Spielberg was in tears for nearly the entirety of his shoot with him. I'm sure he was. That doesn't mean the rest of us were crying – except, possibly, at the sadly wasted opportunity of it all.
Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too.
Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again.
Thursday, November 17: Before the guys take a week off for Thanksgiving, discussion of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Aftersun, and The Good Nurse, plus previews of Glass Onion, The Menu, She Said, and more.
Ingenious, unsettling, and oftentimes riotously funny, director Mark Mylod's The Menu has been prepared exactly the way I most enjoy my satire: blackened to a crisp. While its thematic and presentational inspirations are unhidden and encompass everything from Hell's Kitchen to Midsommar to Fantasy Island, what this savage comedy chiefly reminded me of was Don't Look Up, last year's end-of-days spoof that ended on the bleakest of all possible notes.
A co-presentation of the Figge Art Museum, the Project of the Quad Cities, and the New York-based non-profit Visual AIDS, the Davenport venue's December 1 screening of Being & Belonging will acknowledge the 2022 Day With(out) Art in a program of seven short videos, all of them highlighting under-told or even untold stories of HIV and AIDS from the perspective of artists living with HIV across the world.
Now playing at area theaters.
Frank Warren started PostSecret in 2005 as a community art project in which he invited total strangers to anonymously mail in their secrets on homemade postcards, and some of those contributions are currently on view in the frank, fascinating, funny, and moving exhibit Post Secret, on display at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center through December 3.
A collection of 20 unique software, video, and light-technology artworks, the Figge Art Museum's latest touring exhibition Message from Our Planet: Digital Art from the Thoma Collection, on display through December 31, will treat visitors to the Davenport venue to an arresting assemblage created by a diverse group of international artists working at the forefront of digital and electronic art.
Presented by the area nonprofit Living Proof Exhibit, an organization that celebrates the creative spirit of those impacted by cancer, the eagerly awaited annual exhibition A Visualization of Hope will bring messages of strength and resilience to Davenport's Figge Art Museum through January 1, with Living Proof Exhibit's collection boasting beautiful and evocative works by cancer survivors living within a 200-mile radius of the Quad Cities.
Gloriously colorful and arresting works by a pair of Illinois-based artists are currently on display at the Quad City Arts International Airport Gallery, with the Moline airport, through January 2, hosting new ceramic works by Gary Beaumont of Champaign and recent acrylic paintings by Tony Seabolt of Rock Island.
A fascinating exploration into the roles of metal objects in sustaining and enhancing life in African communities, the Figge Art Museum's Peace, Power, & Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa, on display through January 8, will offer patrons the chance to view spectacular works in an exhibit designed to demonstrate the aesthetic, expressive, and artistic powers of metal.
You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Amy Alkon Advice Goddess, Real Astrology, Red Meat cartoon and RCR Crossword every week?)
Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!
