Step away from the game console. Step away from the screen. Extract yourself from the Faceborg. Visit dozens of places around the world, eras, concepts, ideas, history and art – all inside the Figge Art Museum.

Over the decades, the Star Wars films have boasted so many unforgettable sounds – light sabers swooshing, R2-D2 beeping, Darth Vader breathing – that it's both unexpected and rather amazing to find the signature sound in Star Wars: The Last Jedi to be silence.

One of the highest-grossing and most Oscar-lauded film series in history will provide nearly 10 hours of fantasy-adventure excitement at the Davenport Public Library's Fairmount branch, as Peter Jackson's epic J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Tours, and The Return of the King enjoy screenings in the December 27 and 28 Lord of the Rings Movie Marathon.

Hailing from Champaign, Illinois, the ever-popular, time-traveling tribute musicians of The Brat Pack return to the Rock Island Brewing Company for a December 23 concert event that finds their “almost totally '80s music” playlist updated with a smattering of modern hits.

With the 100-year anniversary of Nat King Cole's birth less than two years away, Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Series and the Redstone Room will celebrate the legendary artist's life in a December 17 tribute featuring Tony Sconyers & the Ron Tegeler Quartet – the second in a trio of Polyrhythms performances dedicated to the jazz and swing legend.

Composer William Flynn's music and lyrics and Rachel Sheinkin's book (with additional material by Jay Reiss) are so full of wit, heart, and humor that I think even a “C”-average delivery would still please. Director Becca Johnson, however, has created a wonderfully paced and creatively performed production, featuring terrific talent that includes the five-member pit orchestra of Peter Letendre, Becky Holland, Sandra Blom, Kyle Jacklin, and music director Kyle Schneider. This show gets an A+ in my book, as there was hardly a moment in which I wasn’t under its, ahem, spell.

Durkin has brought in the highly capable Mike Zolnierowicz to handle things on his campaign. Mike Z, as he’s known in political circles, was Governor Rauner’s deputy campaign manager, then his first chief of staff, then ran Rauner’s massive campaign apparatus until this past July, when Z resigned during Rauner’s Great Summer Staff Purge (and eventual re-purge) of 2017 and joined Xpress Professional Services as its political director.

An annual holiday-music tradition returns to the area this month as the professional vocal ensemble the Nova Singers present their latest A Nova Christmas concerts, with exciting and moving arrangements of non-secular, classical, and traditional holiday favorites performed December 15 at Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church and December 16 at Galesburg's First Lutheran Church.