When you first walk in the doors of downtown Davenport's recently opened Hot Glass art studio, there are a few things you might notice right off the bat.
Initially, your eye is drawn to the vibrant splashes of color on the shelving units to the left: multi-hued glass bowls, vases, and paperweights, all located beneath a striking, meticulously assembled, golden glass chandelier that wouldn't look out of place in the ballroom of Beauty & the Beast.
To your right, you see much of the studio's equipment: a workbench and containers of colored glass and a pair of sizable furnaces, one of whose indicators reveals its interior temperature to be just over 2,300 degrees.
On the opposite side of the studio, through the windows facing River Drive, you're treated to a view of Modern Woodmen Park so picture-perfect that the ballpark should consider using it on souvenir postcards. (Hot Glass is located at 104 Western Avenue, in the rear of the Davenport Printing Company facility.)
But if you turn around and face the direction you came in, you'll find what is the most beautiful sight in the entire studio, at least for Hot Glass Executive Director Joel Ryser and his co-founder son Logan: a large sign on the wall listing the names of local organizations, businesses, and individuals who provided the money, equipment, and experience necessary to make their dream studio a reality.
Music
Friday, July 18, 10:30 a.m.-ish: My 3D glasses in place, I prepare to watch the animated sequel Planes: Fire & Rescue with surprisingly vivid memories of its precursor, probably because it was released a mere 11 months ago. I'm really hoping that, this time around, director Roberts Gannaway's tale of anthropomorphic vehicles with bulging eyes and recognizable celebrity voices won't remind me of Pixar's Cars every three minutes, and happily, it doesn't. Instead, I'm frequently reminded of the astronaut epic The Right Stuff, which is a much cooler movie to pilfer from.
Like a few dozen other optimistic souls, I attended Saturday's Genesius Guild production of Twelfth Night hoping that the threatened thunderstorms would bypass the Quad Cities, or at least Rock Island's Lincoln Park, for three hours or so. Alas, Shakespeare's game was called on account of rain (and some major lightning) at roughly 8:30 p.m., so those of us who were willing and able were invited to return to see the rest of the show, and its opening half-hour again, on Sunday.
Legally Blonde: The Musical is, of course, based on the 2001 hit starring Reese Witherspoon, a movie that led to a rather woebegone sequel in 2003's Legally Blonde: Red, White, & Blonde. Yet while watching the original film's stage version on Thursday, I felt that Red, White, & Blonde also would've been a fitting title for Quad City Music Guild's terrifically peppy new presentation, considering that this solo-star-driven show came off, instead, as pretty wonderfully democratic.
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Music
July 2, 10:40 a.m.-ish: My screenings begin with the demonic-possession thriller Deliver Us from Evil, and I notice, during the "found footage" prelude, that the action begins on the Fourth of July. So, clearly, the film is being released at the right time. Ninety minutes later, I notice, during the climactic exorcism, that the action ends on 4/20. So, clearly, the filmmakers were high.
As with many things in life, it can be blamed on a friendly purple dinosaur.
If you're the parent of a child who's a voracious consumer of comic books, don't make the mistake of worrying that he or she won't grow up to be anything. That child could, after all, grow up to be an artist. Or an educator. Or a detective. Or ... a superhero.
