When
Bill Hannan first met Jeanne Tamisiea in the 1980s, she was one of
three finalists for a teaching position on the fine-arts faculty at
Black Hawk College. "You could tell right off the bat that she was
a teacher," Hannan said. "If you are a teacher, you can spot
one."
Tamisiea "tried to connect immediately," Hannan explained. She made eye contact and asked questions, and the vibe was less of a job interview than a classroom in which Tamisiea was the teacher and her interrogators were her students. "Jeanne sat down to talk to us," Hannan said. "The other two [candidates] sat down to be interviewed."
After the interviews, Hannan said, the decision to hire Tamisiea was a foregone conclusion. "We only talked about her," he said. "We didn't talk about the other two guys."
DeVilbiss
has run the festival for the vast majority of its 19 years - he
returned three years ago when MidCoast Fine Arts took over the event
- but he'll be leaving after this weekend's edition, being held
Saturday and Sunday in the Village of East Davenport's Lindsay
Park. (The River Cities' Reader
is a sponsor of the event. A Riverssance map is located on the back
cover of this week's issue.)
Even
now - when the Republican and Democratic parties are virtually
indistinguishable, when the executive branch of the federal
government has curtailed civil liberties in the name of national
security with little opposition from Congress, and when popular
sentiment seems to have little power in Washington - the Texan
finds plenty of silver linings.
Viewing
the work of an artist who has been making art for decades is like
looking at an iceberg. You see the little part that is showing but
not the hidden part, which is years of study, making art, learning
about oneself, and inventing.
When
Michael Burks was 12, he wrote a letter to his idol B.B. King,
"telling him that, hopefully, one day I could meet him and show him
I could play like him," he said in a recent interview.
With the world gone crazy in the Middle East, what better to wash it all down than Devo? Next week Gerald Casale of Devo slides on the Roy Orbison shades and turban of his alter ego, Jihad Jerry, for a nutty, beat-crazy romp in Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers' Mine Is Not a Holy War on Cordless Records. Casale's wit shines in this first solo venture, as his war is a "war on stupidity" with a never-ending list of first-class offenders. Flanked by vocalists Geri Lynn and Alex Brown, and guests appearances from Devo bandmates Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh and Robert Casale, project drummer Josh Freese sums it up as the "best Devo record that never was." A real hip-shaker and house-rocker, I'm ready to sign up for active duty in "Army Girls Gone Wild," the Talking-Heads-meets-Heaven-17 funk of "What's in a Name?," and the frantic fury of "I've Been Refused."
Nearly
1,500 volunteers cleaned area streams, creeks, drainage ways, rivers,
and illegal-dump sites on Saturday, August 19, and removed more than
150,000 pounds of garbage, tires, and other illegally dumped items.
Xstream Cleanup, which took
place from 8:30 a.m. until noon, targeted 31 sites in both Scott and
Rock Island counties. Volunteers removed an estimated 5,200 tires,
2,200 bags of trash, 58 pieces of furniture, 36 appliances, 25
bicycles, and 22 pallets from area waterways. In addition, site
coordinators reported finding bags of clothing, a wine rack, shopping
carts, automotive parts, hair and beauty supplies, toilets, various
electronics, boat carpet, blankets, barge cable, safety cones,
recliners, and wire. At one site near Milan, volunteers found nearly
everything one would need to build and furnish a home including
carpet, appliances, furniture, wood, metal, drywall, siding, and
shingles. Volunteers donated more than 4,500 hours of work during the
cleanup. Organizers estimate that nearly $100,000 in staff time,
equipment, collection, and disposal costs were avoided with the help
of volunteers and in-kind donations for the event. Cleanups took
place in Bettendorf, Davenport, and LeClaire, Iowa; and East Moline,
Milan, Moline, Rock Island, and Taylor Ridge, Illinois. For more
information and to view photos from Xstream Cleanup, visit
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