It's well-documented that two years before his public execution, President Kennedy exposed that secret societies influence and control news organizations in order to conceal their corrupt actions and expand their authoritarian rule. In his April 1961 speech before the American Newspaper Publisher Association's meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel John F. Kennedy stated, “Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed– and no republic can survive.”

Lauded by Rolling Stone for delivering “the kind of sun-through-clouds loveliness that's been picking up indie rockers' spirits for ages,” the alternative rockers of Nada Surf headline a November 12 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, with the band's most recent album Never Not Together described by Pop Matters as “the best record Nada Surf have made in quite a while, as it sees the indie-rock/power-pop group stress the need for more empathy in the world.”

A free, inaugural event organized by the Quad Cities' newest non-profit Truth First Film Illiance Inc., a special screening of the documentary Stout Hearted: George Stout & the Guardians of Art will be held at Davenport's Figge Art Museum on November 11, the film's titular figure an Iowa native whose heroic actions in World War II were memorialized by George Clooney in the 2014 movie The Monuments Men.

Described by the Chicago Tribune as “clever, funny, moving, lively, and geeky,” and filled with what Time Out Chicago called “deliciously dorky references to the early days of the Internet,” the Dungeons & Dragons-fueled comedy-drama-action-adventure She Kills Monsters serves as the first mainstage production in St. Ambrose University's 2021-22 season, its November 12 through 21 run guaranteed, according to the New York Times, to “slash and shapeshift its way into your heart.”

In the second of two virtual Sunday-afternoon programs hosted by Davenport's German American Heritage Center and Figge Art Museum, painting conservator and art historian Barry Bauman will lead the Zoom discussion Solving the Cranach Mystery Surrounding the Portraits of Martin Luther & Katharina von Bora, a November 14 presentation in which participants will share in the joy of Bauman's most remarkable discoveries on two 1537 portraits by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

After an appealing opening half-hour, this odd, ultimately unsatisfying blend of time-travel adventure and horror yarn grows more ludicrous and lifeless as it progresses, and by the finale, you can't even recognize it as an Edgar Wright film anymore. While there's a great beat, at least initially, I'll be damned if I could dance to it.

In celebration of the release of the first two chapbooks published through its Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series that originated last year, the Midwest Writing Center will host a November 11 SPECTRA Reading Series event at Rock Island venue Rozz-Tox, with the evening featuring readings by critically acclaimed authors Laura A. Ring and Aubrey Ryan.

Performing in support of their second album Tell Tale Heart – which recently debuted at number seven on Billboard's Blues Albums chart – the gifted Quad Cities musicians of the Avey Grouws Band headline a November 12 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room, demonstrating why Goldmine praised their new release for its “adept arrangements, clear confidence, and a decidedly agile approach as far as the shifts in style.”

One of the most beloved and enduring comedies in American-theatre history enjoys a November 18 through 21 staging when Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre presents You Can't Take It with You, the zany 1936 comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart that won the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award as recently as 2014, with its beloved film version a Jimmy Stewart favorite that received the Academy Award for Best Picture.