Web page from the Butterworth Center Web siteThe slogan for Butterworth Center & Deere-Wiman House, "Where history lives in real time," can be taken literally when it comes to their new Web-site features. The Web site at (http://www.butterworthcenter.com) will now include free, downloadable audio features and mini-video recaps. Angela Hunt, who directs the public-relations program, decided to add the audio features after attending a local workshop about podcasting. The debut audio feature, "Makeover for the Birds," is a 20-minute interview with Program Director Gretchen Small. In the interview, listeners will learn about the historic homes' collection of Audubon's Birds of America prints from the 1860s. Of the 106 prints, the historic sites have 98. Small talks about how the Charles Deere family may have acquired the prints, and the sensitive restoration process that the prints are undergoing. Video recaps are also a high-tech addition to the 1800s-flavored website. The video recaps are two-minute segments and show highlights of past events or programs to background music. The Web site will post different audio topics on a regular basis, from snippets of tours, interviews, or programs.

 

 

Kathleen Van Hyfte's "Interference" When Joe Kelley was organizing the current Church | State exhibit for the Bucktown Center for the Arts, artist Les Bell asked him: "Is this going to be a blue show or a red show?" Kelley recalled.

In an interview this week, Kelley said he was hoping to find something in between: "I was hoping it would be a purple show."

It's curious that two arenas that are often best kept separated - art and politics - share the language of color. Blue signifies the Democrats on the electoral map, and red the Republicans. And red used to represent the threat of communism, whose adherents were of course called pinkos.

Yet those color labels reduce complex subjects and issues - even the populations of entire regions - and rob them of nuance.

Reader issue #600 When Sue Gabel's mother got sick two years ago and had a stroke, the doctor told the family that she would need to move from independent living to assisted living. Gabel and other family members scouted various facilities in the Quad Cities and selected one that told her they had a room for their mother.

When she arrived, though, the situation was different. "They put her in an empty room that had absolutely nothing in it but a bed and a table," Gabel said. They further told her that they still needed to evaluate her mother before placing her, and that they had a room in an Alzheimer unit that would cost an additional $1,000 to $1,200 a month.

"I didn't know what to do," Gabel said. "She is going to go absolutely nuts if she's in that [bare] room any longer."

This 600th issue marks the Reader's 14th year in publication. My husband, Todd McGreevy, and I founded this paper for several important reasons: to stimulate alternative viewpoints from those in the mainstream media; to disseminate relevant, truthful, well-researched information conveyed through intelligent writing; to expose Quad Citians to the community's vibrant arts culture populated by individuals and groups with plenty of energy and talent; to provide the area's most comprehensive calendar of events as a resource for both patrons and venues to inspire connectivity; to offer advertisers the opportunity to reach a loyal, educated, and economically active consumer group that defines our exceptional readership; and finally to provide meaningful, productive, and lucrative employment opportunities that creatively engage individuals in the vital mission of conveying need-to-know information in a collaborative environment.

Mike Schulz should take his own advice. For someone who rags on authors so much, he sure missed the point of his article "The Playwright Did It." (See River Cities' Reader Issue 599, September 20-26, 2006.) It's a play review, not a playwright review. While he spent seven-eighths of his time harping on the writing, he spent little time critiquing the production itself, save for a few passing lines. Of course, I'm glad no one in the cast got raked across the coals as much as the author was. Hopefully he keeps his eye on the ball next time.

 

Megan Ridl

Davenport

 

 

BeckIn a world where the size of album cover art continues to slide smaller with each new format, I salute Beck in his efforts to have a little fun with what visual space is left. Next week's release of his new Interscope CD, The Information, comes as a do-it-yourself project with a set of stickers and a blank cover as your workspace. Four different artists designed unique sticker sets, making each self-personalized cover a special little snowflake of love. Other goodies include homemade videos for every song, and the video for the first single, "Cell Phone's Dead," directed in black and white by the amazing Michel Gondry.

Twenty-three area museums and historical sites have announced the establishment of Quad City Museum Week to be held the last week of September. The event is meant to coincide with the 2006 Association of Midwest Museums conference being held in the Quad Cities September 26 through 29. The Quad Cities Museum Coalition, working together to encourage visitation at the partner venues located throughout the greater Quad Cities region, chose the last week in September to celebrate the hosting of this major conference and to highlight the wealth of educational and entertaining programs offered to the community by the coalition partners. Coalition partners have been working with elected officials to proclaim the last week of September an annual celebration of museums in the Quad Cities. Proclamations have been or will be made in Rock Island and Scott counties, and the cities of Rock Island, Moline, Bettendorf, and Davenport. Current activities of the Quad City Museum Coalition include hosting the 2006 AMM conference, Fun for Free Weekend in partnership with Modern Woodmen of America, Triple Ticket Membership, and Quad Cities Pass program in partnership with Riverboat Development Authority.

 

Alejandro Escovedo It is in times of crisis that a person learns who his or her true friends are. Alejandro Escovedo discovered he has a lot of friends.

Even if you haven't heard of Escovedo, you've likely heard of them: John Cale of the Velvet Underground, Los Lonely Boys, the Cowboy Junkies, Son Volt, Charlie Musselwhite, Lucinda Williams, Calexico, Steve Earle. Those people and more than two dozen others cut tracks for Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo. The goal wasn't merely to honor the man, or just offset some of his medical bills, but perhaps to save his life.

Singer/songwriter Escovedo is widely and deeply respected in the alt-country community, and he has the meager bank account to prove it. He even called his live disc More Miles Than Money. The alternative-country magazine No Depression called him its artist of the decade for the 1990s.

Susan Tedeschi The covers album is time-honored stopgap, and Susan Tedeschi's Hope & Desire CD from last year fits the mold perfectly. The blues belter/guitarist signed with the Verve Forecast label in 2004 when she was pregnant with her second child, Sophia, and her own material wasn't yet ready to record. It had been several years since she'd put out new songs - Wait for Me came out in 2002 - and the label wanted some product.

"They were sort of in a hurry to get one together," Tedeschi said in an interview last week with the River Cities' Reader. So the label gathered Tedeschi and producer Joe Henry to pick some songs.

The Black CrowesNow in its second year, the River Roots Live lineup has grown by half - from 12 bands in 2005 to 18 this year. And it's also a stronger group of artists.

The inaugural festival seemed geared to Boomers, with its biggest names - Edgar Winter, Rick Derringer, and Little Feat - planted firmly in the 1970s. This year's version boasts one bona fide commercial giant (The Black Crowes) and one artistic triumph (Alejandro Escovedo, named by Paste magazine as one of the 100 greatest living songwriters).

This week's River Cities' Reader features interviews with four festival performers: Bo Ramsey, Susan Tedeschi, Umphrey's McGee, and Alejandro Escovedo. Past interviews with Junior Brown and Martin Sexton can be found below. 

Pages