Either 2023 was a particularly outstanding year for movies or my standards are getting lower – though I suppose both could be true.

A consistently popular and lauded presence on the Midwestern touring circuit, beloved folk singer/songwriter Cody Diekhoff – better known by his recording alias Chicago Farmer – headlines a January 18 concert with his band The Field Notes at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the artist a soulful crooner and guitarist who inspired No Depression to rave, “If the Midwest is looking for a voice, the search is over.”

With their repertoire boasting such indelible rock smashes as “Dr. Feelgood,” “Without You,” “Smokin' in the Boys Room,” and “Girls, Girls, Girls,” the tribute musicians of Motley Scrüe headline a January 6 concert event at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their Motley Crüe Tribute saluting the heavy-metal artists whose discography includes nine studio albums, three live albums, three EPs, eight compilation albums, 30 singles, and 32 music videos.

Inviting and arresting works by a trio of gifted Midwestern artists – two from Wisconsin, the other from Illinois – kick-start the 2024 exhibition season at the Quad City International Airport Gallery through March 4, with the Moline airport's Burnett, Erickson, & Kuhlman exhibit showcasing paintings by Kimberly Burnett of Milwaukee, stone sculpture by Joel Erickson of Moline, and drawings by Matt Kuhlman of Milwaukee.

Court-ing fans in their eagerly anticipated return to Moline, the electrifying athletes of the Harlem Globetrotters bring their “2024 World Tour" to the Vibrant Arena at the MARK on January 8, thrilling crowds with phenomenal basketball action, comic hijinks, ankle-breaking moves, jaw-dropping swag, and rim-rattling dunks in a fully-modernized amphitheater production.

Presented as the first program in the Rock Island Arsenal's ASC series Civil War History, the January 10 presentation 160th Anniversary of the Establishment of Rock Island Prison Barracks will find a representative from the Army Sustainment Command Historian’s office detailing how December of 1863 marked the opening of the barracks on what would be known as Arsenal Island, its rocky start serving only as a prelude to its time-holding prisoners.

Three of Governor JB Pritzker’s appointees to the Illinois Commerce Commission have not yet been confirmed by the Illinois Senate, including the chair, Doug Scott. All three unconfirmed appointees have recently voted against the stated interests of trade unions. Senate President Don Harmon has assiduously courted trade-union support and has raised millions of campaign dollars from them.

I didn't “attend” the first film in my three-day sextuple feature so much as “plop my ass on the couch and watch” it. And for the first hour-or-so of director/writer/producer/star Bradley Cooper's Maestro, which started streaming on Netflix this past Wednesday, I couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

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