For the first exhibition in the college's 2018-19 academic year, the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art will showcase works by artists who honed their skills at Augustana itself, with Five Alumni: Continuing to Create, from August 24 through October 27, presenting beautiful, fascinating, and resonant works by a quintet of the school's most gifted graduates.

We all know that dying is a part of life, but most of us don’t like to think about it. Being a cancer survivor myself, I know all too well what it's like to face death, and whether you're young or old, death does not discriminate. So when I went to see Saturday night's Tuesdays with Morrie – playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of Mitch Albom's bestselling memoir – at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, I knew, based on its subject matter, that I was in for an emotional roller-coaster ride that would once again make me face the reality of my mortality.

Inspired by true events – or, as an opening title card explains, “based upon some fo' real, fo' real sh*t – BlacKkKlansman is a police procedural, a thriller, a comedy, a celebration of black identity, an indictment of white nationalism, and a rallying cry against more than a century's worth of media and public complacency, misrepresentation, and offense. Being a Spike Lee joint, the movie's stunning success on these and additional levels isn't necessary a surprise.

Two venues in downtown Rock Island will co-host one exciting literary event when the Midwest Writing Center presents readings and a release party for the annual literary magazine THE ATLAS, the latest volume of which will, on August 15, be showcased in a late-afternoon event at the Rock Island Public Library and an evening celebration at the neighboring Rozz-Tox.

An Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated comedian will make a rare area visit to the TaxSlayer Center on August 15, with the Moline venue presenting an evening with film, television, and standup star Jim Gaffigan, the bestselling author and multi-platinum-selling artist appearing in the latest stop on his acclaimed “The Fixer Upper Tour.”

A nationally renowned artist and University of Iowa professor praised by the Washington Post for her “refreshingly experimental bent,” Laurel Farrin presents an August 16 Artist Talk at the Figge Art Museum, offering insight into the collection of abstract, geometric, and frequently humorous images on display in her latest exhibition No Partiuclar Order.

Held in honor of the late Quad Cities native commonly known as “The Jazz Professor,” Polyrhythms hosts a collection of inspired jazz talents in this year's Bill Bell Jazz & Heritage Festival, an August 17 through 19 weekend celebration at Rock Island's Martin Luther King Jr. Park and Davenport's Redstone Room boasting cultural presentations, family activities, and concert sets with musical luminaries including Chicago great Frank Russell.

Performing a special August 17 concert presented by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, the Nashville-based blues-rock trio Too Slim & the Taildraggers plays Bettendorf's Harley Corin's in support of the musicians' latest album High Desert Heat, a release RockAndBluesMuse.com called “a testament to the power and gravity that only comes with time,” and Blues Blast magazine lauded with “The sound is big, the sound is rocking, and the band gives a no-holds-barred performance.”