Touring in support of her 2023 recording that inspired Americana Highways to rave that "music this impressive is a testament to the vitality of her rock 'n' roll heart," Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams headlines a special June 11 concert event at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, with both the artist and her self-titled 1988 album lauded by the Village Voice's Robert Christgau as "gorgeous, flawless, brilliant."

A Grammy-winning musician whose style, according to All About Jazz, "borrows from the fabric of reggae, blues, jazz and pop to provide a totally enjoyable experience," Terrance Simien and his musical outfit the Zydeco Experience headline a June 7 concert event at Maquoketa's Discovery Park, the bandleader performing with Danny Williams on keyboards, Stan Chambers on bass, Ian Molinaro-Thompson on drums, Michael Christie on trumpet, Revon Andrews on trombone, and 2024 recruit Noah Boshra on saxophone.

In the latest program in the German American Heritage Center's popular "Kaffee & Kuchen" series, Dr. Danuta Hutchins will refer to her book Torn Out Memories while sharing her experiences as a child living under the Nazi occupation of Poland and during the Warsaw Uprising, with June 9's The Butterfly Effect: Why Do We Feel Empathy with the Victims of War, Hunger, Terror, & Natural Disasters? finding Hutchins relating her personal trauma to the terrors suffered by the victims of 9/11 attacks.

In the latest Musser House Galleries exhibit at the Muscatine Art Center, rides, contests, animals, refreshments, delighted patrons, and more will be showcased in Iowa artist Kurt Ullrich's The Iowa State Fair, a collection of gorgeous and evocative black-and-white images, on display through September 8, that truly evince the wonder of this annually awaited outdoor tradition.

For its season-opening production at Rock Island's Lincoln Park, the Quad Cities' venerated classical-theatre organization Genesius Guild will present the return of Euripides' timeless Greek tragedy Medea from June 8 through 16, the one-act play's director Michael Callahan planning to deliver “an intense 90 minutes that you will, I promise, never forget.”

Lauded by London Theatre as "a feel-good ‘fish out of water’ musical that easily takes the audience on to a great journey of good songs, optimism, and fun," the exuberant stage version of the classic '80s movie Footloose enjoys a pre-summer engagement at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, its June 13 through 23 staging sure to demonstrate why the show received four 1999 Tony nominations and enjoyed a New York run of more than 700 performances.

The World Health Organization's (WHO's) attempted global coup is mere days away. If you ever thought of calling your legislators, now would be an ideal time to express your objection to assigning emergency management to a foreign entity. For everyone's sake, leave politics out of it.

If you see George Miller's prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and find yourself off-put by more than a few shaky visual effects (a motif that'll continue throughout the film's two-and-a-half hours), a number of colorless performances, a rather pushy degree of myth-building, and one of the most fraudulent fake noses of the past few decades, you'll likely find your early irritation largely forgotten by the finale.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a stranger roll-call than last week’s House vote on Senate Bill 2978. The data privacy bill is an initiative of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, and he was on the House floor during the debate. The far-right ginned up social-media opposition to the bill by claiming that it would allow non-citizens to vote. More than 1,400 electronic witness slips have so far been filed in opposition.