In the folk tale "Iron John," a mysterious being living in a lake grabs people and animals and pulls them under the water. After seeing his dog nabbed by the creature, a hunter has an ingenious idea: He gathers three men armed with buckets and empties the lake.

A critical thing to understand about the Freight House proposal that will probably go before the Davenport City Council again next month is that it's not really about that building, or the "public market" concept that's being championed by DavenportOne.

It's true that history is written by the winners. But in the case of the new documentary A Clown Short of Destiny, the losers are getting their say, too. The movie documents a Des Moines heavy-music scene on the rise in the late 1990s, with several bands grabbing the attention of music labels.

To download an edited version of the Reader interview with RME President and CEO Lon Bozarth (26 minutes, 7.7 megabytes, mp3), click here. Last week, on the day that the River Music Experience announced plans for a second-floor club that would cement its place as a venue for live music rather than a traditional museum, leaders of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society met with members of the media to discuss several new initiatives, including a planned downtown-Davenport museum dedicated to the jazz giant.