Welcome to the inaugural Quad Cities Dining Guide, published by the River Cities' Reader. These 20 pages are meant to answer one deceptively simple question: What's for dinner? The fact is that there are many issues tied up in those three words.
To the average museum-goer, the exhibit 41˚/90˚: Contemporary Landscape at the Figge is an art show and little more. But its importance is far greater. It's a show that recognizes the Midwest as a fertile ground for artists and art, and proof that the Figge Art Museum understands that.
In The Things They Carried, the prize-winning novelist Tim O'Brien offers this nugget in a chapter titled "How to Tell a True War Story": "In many cases a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical.
In 1997, low-cost carrier AirTran Airways entered the Quad Cities market. In the years since, traffic has skyrocketed at the Quad City International Airport, while fares have dropped. Roughly 250,000 people got on planes at the airport in 1995, while 450,000 are expected to board this year.
Paul Tabor and his wife Martha officially opened Tabor Home Vineyards & Winery in 1996, but Paul, a professor of microbiology at the time, was growing and experimenting with grapes for five years before that. When he managed to get his harvest to survive the harsh Iowa winters, he knew he was ready for business and quit his day job.
They're both 58 years old, and they've both been creating artwork professionally for decades. They're linked by this weekend's Riverssance Festival of Fine Art in Lindsay Park but have very different attitudes toward the life of a professional artist.
If you go to Saturday's Brew Ha Ha event in LeClaire Park, make sure to talk to some of the people serving in the home-brewing area, booths 37 through 39. These folks could be your new best friends, and not just because they're handing you samples of their beer.
The Great American Thing is, in some ways, a victim of its own success. The exhibit, the first major show at the new Figge Art Museum, opens on September 17 and focuses on modern American art from 1915 to 1935, the "modernist" period roughly coinciding with the interval between the two world wars.
If you hear the phrase "underutilized asset," your eyes probably start to glaze over. But if that underutilized asset is the wind, and if using it more means it costs less to power your home, you might want to pay attention.
The big attraction in LeClaire this past weekend was Tug Fest, but city leaders hope visitors paid attention to 6,000 square feet on the levee. It's nothing special - it looks like paving stones embedded in gravel - but it's a symbol of what's happening in this small town situated on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River.

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