Works by a celebrated Chicagoland painter and more than 100 up-and-coming area artists are set to decorate the Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy beginning May 23, with the Bettendorf venue welcoming visitors to two brand-new art exhibitions running through May 28: Nina Weiss: Prairie Visions and Back to the Future: A Student Exhibit.

It's not the anniversary of his birth, or even his death, and he didn't pass away recently. But more and more lately, I find myself missing Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Oscar-winning actor who finally lost his long battle against drug addiction on February 2, 2014. These days, of course, I miss everyone – even people, like Hoffman, who I only saw on-screen. I've been feeling his absence more acutely than usual, though, over the past several weeks, and for reasons that are only partly professional.

I guess you know you've been self-quarantining for a long time when you realize you're now writing sequels to articles you wrote when the self-quarantining began. But I also didn't come nearly close to praising all the comedies I wanted to five weeks back, so a sequel we all get! Besides, you can either spend eight hours reading about and then watching these five excellent titles from 1985 to 1994 or watch Tiger King for the seventh time, so … .

Where's everybody going … ?

Vicki Rocker, organizer for the Spring 2020 Beaux Arts Fair, discusses her organization's switch to a virtual version of the annual Mother's Day-weekend event, with this year's festival taking place online May 9 and 10. We spoke on Wednesday, April 29.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution prevents government intrusion on journalists' rights to tell their stories and your rights to read or watch or listen to them.

But that means things can get messy. Some reporters can make everyone else look bad.

Rachael Mullins, President and CEO of the Putnam Museum & Science Center in Davenport, discusses the venue's operations during this period of social distancing. We spoke on Thursday, April 23 (which happened to be her birthday).

Here are 20 excellent home-viewing options from the last two decades that are finally getting their official Reader props. I've restricted every write-up to 50 words or fewer in deference to your patience. And also to give myself an extra writing challenge. 'Cause we gotta find ways to pass the time somehow … .

To download a PDF of the puzzle, click here.

While short on details, the state and regional guidance finally issued by the White House last week gives us a set of pretty reasonable if difficult-to-achieve goals.

We all know why we need to contain and reduce our risk to the COVID-19 virus: Save lives, preserve health, and get people back to work.