Human figures, evocative colors, and a new yet familiar Quad Cities landmark are among the visuals showcased in the latest exhibitions at Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center, with the venue, through August 13, highlighting new paintings by Port Byron's Laura Vincent-Arnold in Internal Landscapes and Bettendorf's John Born in Bridging the Divide.

F9: The Fast Saga opens like Days of Thunder, middles like James Bond, and closes like a Corona commercial. In between those mile markers, the movie also manages to suggest a lost Indiana Jones sequel, a live-action Road Runner cartoon, a week-ending episode of Days of Our Lives, and a biggest-bicep competition in which the only entrants are Vin Diesel and John Cena. Needless to say, I ate it all up with a spoon.

What would summer in Iowa be without fireworks? And small-town Independence Day celebrations? Ice cream? A marching band? A charming con man? Yep – for me, it's just not summer without The Music Man. This 1957 work by Iowan Meredith Willson (with Franklin Lacey's assist on the story) is my favorite musical. I've seen more productions of it than any other show, and felt lucky to review Countryside Community Theatre's opening-night performance.

Large-scale photographs from the Museum of Wisconsin Art and a beloved painting from the Figge Art Museum's collection will be among the conversation topics in the Figge's laest virtual presentation, with Wisconsin artist Tom Uttech, July 1, discussing his process and his works in the Davenport venue's current exhibition Origin.

Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry – purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure – has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government.

Promising nights of classical-theatre education blended with beautifully phrased entertainment, Genesius Guild presents its second show of the 2021 season in the July 3 through 11 run of Shakespeare's Life in His Works, a debuting exploration into the Bard's works boasting clips from classical favorites and narration written by 92-year-old Guild founder Don Wooten.

One of the most familiar voices in area-sports radio can be heard again, in a different context, when the Davenport Public Library hosts the virtual presentation Inside Iowa Sports, an online June 26 event boasting decades worth of anecdotes delivered by Gary “Dolph” Dolphin, the longtime play-by-play broadcaster for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes football and men's-basketball teams.

A Grammy-winning drummer, a trombone player for Broadway, and many other national and local artists will be celebrating Independence Day Weekend in style with the July 2 and 3 return of the Iowa City Jazz Festival, the 30th-anniversary edition of Summer of the Arts' nationally renowned fest taking place in the city's Ped Mall and on South Clinton Street.

Delivering a blend of local history, environmental issues, education, entertainment, and fresh air, Davenport's River Action continues its series of outdoor presentations in the second month of the annual Channel Cat Talks and Riverine Walks, weekly programs that, from July 6 through 31, will address such topics as planned Mississippi River improvements, modern farm operations, and the history of Sylvan Island.