River Cities' Reader - Issue 783 - July 21, 2011

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011� Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

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River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011 �Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

uniforms. A landscaping firm would have to list its checks to a liberal third-party group before applying to maintain a national park.

Clearly, such rules could foster political discrimination. Obama would enable his administration to deliver literally billions of dollars in government contracts to pro-Democrat businesses while denying billions to pro-Republican firms.

And when the GOP takes the White House again, that administration could turn around and practice the exact same kind of discrimination against Democrat-friendly contractors.

And the favoritism would not necessarily be confined to contracting work. The entire federal government would be made aware of private firms’ political affiliations. Other agencies could use that information to determine where and how to award billions of dollars.

Even the appearance of political favoritism would be a problem.

The Agriculture Department, for example, might hire a company to upgrade 30 regional offices. That firm may have backed Obama’s campaign and other Democratic causes. It also could finish its work on time, under budget, and with elegant results. Nonetheless, a losing, pro-Republican bidder might cry foul – even though it lost to a truly superior bidder, picked by honest public servants with no partisan axes to grind.

When awarding contracts, federal decision-makers should consider only one issue: the bidders’ merits. Officials should evaluate the price and quality of the products and services on offer, the supplier’s performance under previous contracts, and how closely each bid follows federal contract rules.

This proposal is generating bipartisan opposition. Connecticut independent Senator Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats, and Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who chairs the Government Contracting Subcommittee, have both publicly opposed the executive order. Twenty-seven Republicans senators signed a letter urging the president to scrap this plan.

Imposing campaign-disclosure requirements on government contractors sets the table for a feast of patronage based not on the content of each contractor’s character, but on the color of his PAC money.

Thomas A. Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

Transparency Measure Is Ripe for Abuseby Thomas A. Schatz

The lowest qualified bid by the most competent contestant traditionally wins the government contract.

Unfortunately, the “Change” gang now wants to fiddle with this decades-old, generally reliable formula.

President Obama hopes to throw another item onto the scale as bureaucrats weigh bids: political donations. A draft executive order would instruct federal officials to consider the political contributions of prospective government contractors. While this move is being portrayed as a matter of increased transparency, it will actually fuel unintended consequences and indirectly overturn an important Supreme Court decision on free speech.

Forcing companies to disclose political gifts supposedly will expose covert “pay to play” schemes and ensure that private industry does not unduly influence Washington’s decisions when awarding lucrative contracts. Rather than depoliticize procurement, this practice would empower public officials to scrutinize a particular company’s political philanthropy. The Obama administration’s supporters could score government deals while opponents leave with empty pockets and a simple message: “If you want our checks, show us yours.”

The executive order could transport such old-fashioned, Chicago-style wheeling and dealing from Lake Michigan to the Potomac.

This executive order – drafted in April – requires contractors to disclose annual donations of more than $5,000 that were made in the past two years and paid to political candidates, parties, or independent political groups. Directors, officers, and other top managers would have to declare their personal political contributions from the past two years – even if they were made without their employers’ knowledge or consent.

This order is in part designed to thwart last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which lifted certain restrictions on the donations corporations and labor unions can make to campaigns and independent organizations.

Congressional Democrats quickly tried to counteract that ruling by re-limiting the third-party donations. But a House-approved bill sputtered in the Senate.

Because the legislation will not be passed, Obama is trying to accomplish that same goal through the executive order. A clothing company would have to reveal its donations to a conservative advocacy not-for-profit before bidding to manufacture military

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ILLINOIS POLITICS

Stand for Children national director Jonah Edelman spoke a little too freely at an Aspen Institute event this month.

Edelman openly bragged about how his group had outfoxed the teacher unions and the Illinois media, and had taken advantage of an opening with House Speaker Michael Madigan to pass his sweeping education-reform proposal, which is now state law. His remarks created a huge stir, and Edelman has since apologized for his candor, but most of what he said about Illinois politics was quite fascinating and definitely worth a look.

Edelman told the Aspen Institute’s confer-ence participants that wealthy investor Bruce Rauner had approached him about expanding his group’s school-reform efforts to Illinois. Rauner has long been a major supporter of Republican candidates, and many believed early on that his involvement with Edelman meant that Stand for Chil-dren would lean heavily toward the the House Repub-licans and against Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.

But Edelman said he noticed a political opening that Rauner didn’t. The teacher unions were so upset by the passage of a pension- reform bill that they were refusing to contrib-ute to House Democrats who had voted for the reform, even though the legislators had long supported the unions.

Edelman said he then looked at the landscape and determined that no matter what happened in individual races, “Madigan would still be Speaker.” So, he said, the “raw politics” dictated that “we should tilt toward him.”

“The press never picked up on it,” Edelman said about how his group had endorsed twice as many Democratic candidates as Repub-licans. Those endorsements were a strong indication to Madigan, however, that they were clearly favoring him.

“Luckily, it never got covered that way,” Edelman explained. “That wouldn’t work well in Illinois. Madigan’s not particularly well liked.”

I extensively covered Stand for Children’s jump into Illinois politics, but few others did. The group flew almost totally under the media’s radar for months, even after it made the largest legislative campaign contribution in Illinois history by a political action com-mittee. It’s still a mystery to me why the group was able to operate so free from scrutiny.

Edelman said he met with Madigan after the election to review his group’s reform pro-posals. Madigan said he was supportive.

“The next day,” Edelman claimed, Madigan “created an education-reform committee, and his political director called to ask for our sug-gestions of who should be on it.”

Edelman also raised $3 million for his po-litical action committee between the election and the end of the year, just before campaign contributions were officially capped by a new state law. “That’s more money than any of the unions had in their political action commit-tees,” Edelman noted – a fact that was also mostly ignored by the media.

Stand’s Edelman claimed he had managed to “shift the balance of power” in a “very short amount of time,” and said there was a “palpable sense of concern if not shock”

among union leaders that with Madigan’s new alliance, he and his group now had a “clear political capa-bility to potentially jam this proposal down their throats the same way pen-sion reform was jammed down their throats six months earlier.”

Because the deck appeared so

stacked against them, Edelman claimed the unions were “thrilled to come to the table and discuss things that nine months earlier they would have not been willing to discuss,” such as making it easier to fire teachers or lengthen school days.

And because teacher-union leaders here have heaped praise on the new law, “it makes it hard for folks leading unions in other states to say that these types of reforms are terrible,” Edelman said. (He has since apologized to the teacher unions.)

“Our approach,” Edleman said, “is to build as much political clout in the most unassum-ing, diplomatic way.”

He wasn’t exactly “diplomatic” in Aspen, but Edelman most certainly provided us with some major insights into how his group won, even though some of it just wasn’t accurate.

For instance, officials at the Illinois Federa-tion of Teachers say they foresaw Madigan coming at them early last year. That’s a big reason why they didn’t contribute to his members’ campaigns, they said. To them, Ma-digan got lucky – yet again – when Edelman showed up with his big checkbook.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax (a daily political newsletter) and CapitolFax.com.

by Rich Miller

An Honest Look at Illinois Politics

Edelman bragged about how his group had outfoxed the teacher unions and the

Illinois media, and had taken advantage of an opening

with House Speaker Michael Madigan.

RiverCitiesReader.com



a sense of its origins, goals, and methods; what it is and isn’t; and its strengths and weaknesses. While it was developed by a panel of scientists without the input of the food industry and takes into account roughly 30 nutritional factors, NuVal has its quirks, it’s still being refined, and its reductive nature means that it can’t replace careful consideration of a food’s nutrition-fact panel.

So while the tool is easily grasped, its nuances are many and worth exploring. “It only takes one minute to explain NuVal to a customer who has never heard about it,” wrote Hy-Vee dietitian Chrissy Mitzel in an e-mail. “Of course, I can also spend a one-hour presentation explaining the details of NuVal to a group. It is very versatile in the amount a customer can learn about it.”

The Need for NuValThe reference manual for ONQI – the

engine that powers NuVal – sketches out the case for NuVal: “There are two ways to close the gap between how we eat at present and how we should eat for optimal health. One involves a fundamental shift in the pattern of the diet, as reflected in such advice as ‘eat more fruits and vegetables.’ Such advice is valid, and important, but subject to considerable resistance.

“There is another way to improve dietary patterns, and that is one food choice at a time. The range in nutritional quality for every food category represented on supermarket shelves – from greens to granola bars, sandwich meat to salad dressing, cookies to cooking oils, and even the proverbial soup to nuts – is vast. Choosing the most nutritious offerings in each category offers a powerful means to reduce intake of calories, sodium, added sugar, and

harmful fats, while increasing intake of fiber, beneficial nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.”

In other words, we know we need to eat more fruits and vegetables, but most of us don’t heed that advice. NuVal, Katz summarized, offers as an alternative a “simple, elegant power. Improve your diet, improve your health – one easy, well-informed choice at a time. You want bread, buy a bread; just buy a better bread.”

Or snacks. Look at the dried-fruit section of Hy-Vee, and you’ll see a massive gulf between products that score in the 90s (raisins, dried peaches, dried apricots) and those coming in below 10 (dried cranberries and blueberries) – a function of whether they have added sugar.

Comer said that she used to buy reduced-fat peanut butter. And when saw the NuVal scores – with some reduced-fat products scoring significantly lower than their full-fat equivalents – she thought: “This doesn’t make sense to me.” But after she investigated and understood the scores, she changed what she bought. “I buy the regular peanut butter again,” she said. “I’m not sacrificing nutritionally.”

In this way, NuVal helps consumers understand that certain foods aren’t by definition healthy – dried fruit, for instance – and claims by manufacturers are often not meaningful in terms of nutrition. Lower-fat foods often compensate for the lost fat with sugar, typically more than negating any nutritional gain. A vast majority of breakfast cereals are almost depressingly low-scoring, regardless of whether they’re aimed at kids (Cap’n Crunch, which scores a 10) or pitched as wholesome (Wheaties, a 28).

“It’s easy in a world where nobody knew what better nutrition actually meant for manufacturers to just make it up,” Katz said.

“With NuVal you can tell at a glance.”And NuVal helps overturn some long-held

beliefs. “I scratched my head when iceberg lettuce received a score of 82, as did some of my customers,” wrote Hy-Vee dietitian Janet Macon. “Iceberg has a reputation as a leaf with little to offer; 82 seemed like an unlikely high score. When looking into the score, I realized that the nutrients it provides, including potassium, folate, and carotenoids, come at a very low caloric cost (less than 10 calories per cup), which explains the high NuVal score.”

The scoring system offers other benefits, too, as Hy-Vee dietitian Dawn Blocklinger listed in an e-mail:

“NuVal is very helpful for those individuals with language barriers or who are illiterate.

“NuVal is definitely kid-friendly. What kid doesn’t want to score a 100?

“NuVal is available free and on most items in the store.”

And it’s even helpful to people who know their nutrition. Hy-Vee dietitian Kristen Decker wrote: “It has reinforced facts I know about nutrition but makes it easier to assess on a glance when comparing options.”

“It Needed to Be Fixed; We Fixed It”

Katz says a 2003 event represents the obvious genesis of NuVal. But “the origins in my head go back much longer than that. As a preventive-medicine specialist who focuses on lifestyle in particular – food as medicine, if you will – I’ve really been wrestling with my patients’ challenges in this area for many, many years, and recognizing that patients can get perfectly good advice about eating better and yet find it almost impossible to

Blue Bunny Vs. Blueberries: What’s the Deal?Hy-Vee’s dried blueberries score a 4, while Blue Bunny Sweet Freedom Fudge Lites get a 100 – a result that defies

common sense. But this contrast highlights how certain ingredients can dramatically affect NuVal scores. The second ingredient in the dried blueberries is sugar, which drives their score down. The first ingredient of the fudge bars is skim milk – which scores a 91 on its own – and the treat is sweetened with Splenda. Because NuVal doesn’t penalize artificially sweetened products the way it penalizes sugared products, the score is higher.

Looking Under the Hood at Hy-Vee’s NuVal SystemA GPS for Better Nutrition?

Since the NuVal food-scoring system was introduced at all Hy-Vee stores in January 2009, my family – both

consciously and subconsciously – has changed the way it buys and eats.

There are times when we’ve discussed whether to buy this yogurt or that yogurt, and the decision was based on nothing more than the higher NuVal score. (Sometimes, we look at the nutrition panel to try to figure out why a certain score was higher. Sometimes, we succeed.) And I’m certain there have been times when, without thinking about it, we’ve grabbed one food item instead of the lower-scoring version right next to it.

The funny thing is that until I began researching this article, we took it on faith that NuVal scores meaningfully and accurately reflected the nutritional content of the food we were buying.

Conceptually, the system is intuitively understood. It’s a number from 1 to 100 (on top of NuVal’s joined-hexagon logo) on the shelf tags of a vast majority of edible items in Hy-Vee. The higher the score, the better the food is nutritionally. Fresh blueberries get a 100, and nearly all fresh fruits and vegetables score in the 90s. Scores for hot dogs generally range from 6 to 16, while sugared sodas get a 1.

Of course, you already know that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for you, and hot dogs and sugared sodas aren’t. Where NuVal is most instructive – and fascinating – is within a given food group. In its simplest form, NuVal is about deciding between two or three or 10 products jostling for your attention on the same supermarket shelf. As Dr. David L. Katz – the chief architect of NuVal and director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center – said in an interview last month: “Any aisle of the supermarket where you were already going to buy something, go ahead, but try to buy the most nutritious version that satisfies your wallet and your palate.”

Hy-Vee still has work to do in terms of educating consumers about NuVal. Ruth Comer, an assistant vice president for media relations at Hy-Vee, said that in the company’s most recent customer survey, a little more than half of those questioned knew about the system. That’s a long way from universal.

And being aware that NuVal exists is different from using it, and using it is different from understanding it. Blindly trusting NuVal can be satisfying on a gut level, but the scoring system is most powerful if you take a look under the hood and get

COVER STORY

1004


by Jeff [email protected]

implement when the rubber hits the road – when they get out there and have to make food choices. ... They trip over all of the confusing marketing messages that stand between them and better health. ... The public at large – patients – needed better guidance in this area. ...

“It would be bad enough to miss out on the power of nutrition as medicine ... if it was because people didn’t care,” Katz added. “But you know what? People do care. ... They just don’t feel empowered to do anything about it. And even the people who are really trying are getting lost on the way. And that’s just wrong. It needed to be fixed; we fixed it.”

Eight years ago, Katz said, he was among 15 researchers invited to speak to the Working Group on Obesity, under the federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA). He and his fellow scientists were given three minutes apiece to offer one idea that the FDA could implement.

Katz said he told a story about bread and his wife, who has Ph.D. in neuroscience from Princeton and shops for the family. (They’ve been married more than 20 years and have five kids.) “Even my wife ... – extremely intelligent, highly educated, lives with somebody whose nutrition bona fides are good enough to get him a seat at this table, takes care of all seven of us on a daily basis – even she comes home from the supermarket with smoke coming out of her ears at times.

“She’s shopping for a loaf of bread, and one bread has the most fiber, but that’s the one with the most sodium. And one, the fiber’s good and the sodium’s better, but that’s the one with added sugar in the form

of high-fructose corn syrup. And another one, the fiber’s good, the sodium’s not bad, it doesn’t have added sugar, and it says zero grams trans fat on the front of the pack, but that’s the one with partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredient list. And another one says ‘multigrain’ and looks like it’s the most wholesome choice but actually has the least fiber of all and as far as she can tell doesn’t contain any whole grain. And so she brings home all four, looks at me, and says, ‘If you want the most nutritious one of these, you figure out which one it is.’”

He concluded his presentation by addressing Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson: “And I said, ‘Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, if a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Princeton is not good enough to pick out a loaf of bread, I think we set the bar a little high.’”

He suggested that the FDA convene a panel to create “a tool that everybody can use, so that at a glance everybody can tell what’s the most nutritious choice. ... Essentially like a GPS for the food supply: ‘You want better nutrition, turn here now.’ And let’s make it completely simple.”

Katz said the idea was dismissed. (The working group in 2004 made recommendations on changes to foods’ nutrition labels that could charitably called minor: “increasing the font size for calories, including a percent-daily-value column for total calories, and eliminating the listing for calories from fat,” and “encourag[ing]” manufacturers to stop the practice of dividing packages of food that most people consume in one sitting into unrealistically small serving sizes for nutrition-panel

purposes – 20-ounce sodas, for example, claiming 2.5 servings per bottle.)

But in late 2005, Katz said, Griffin Hospital said it would financially support the development of the system he proposed. Katz and a team of scientists crafted the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI) algorithm. Katz then took that back to the FDA, but one official there advised him to pursue the project through the private sector rather than the federal government: “If you turn it over to our bureaucracy, I’m not sure you’ll live long enough to see this in the hands of consumers ... .”

So Griffin Hospital partnered with grocery-chain co-op Topco Associates (of which Hy-Vee is a member/owner) to form the for-

profit NuVal LLC. That company licenses the NuVal system, and Griffin and Topco share in the profits. NuVal is now in more than 1,100 stores nationwide.

While NuVal LLC is a for-profit venture, Katz said there’s a clear separation between the algorithm and the marketing of its application. Griffin Hospital retains sole ownership of ONQI, “and the business side has nothing to say about it,” Katz said. “We’re at liberty to just keep this all about pure public-health science and then rely on NuVal LLC to get it out there where it can do some good.”

Hy-Vee’s Comer said NuVal was attractive to the chain for several reasons. It’s “completely independent” and developed by scientists rather than the food industry, she said. “And it’s also very simple to use and easy to understand.”

Comer said Hy-Vee explored other nutrition-rating systems – such as those that break foods down into broader groupings – but thought they were “somewhat subjective.” She gave the example of a stoplight system – with green, yellow, and red – and said there wasn’t enough nuance; one product might be a high yellow and another a low green, and there was no way for consumers to know that they were more similar than different nutritionally.

The NuVal AlgorithmWhile NuVal is a proprietary rating

system, its Web site (at NuVal.com/science) offers a basic breakdown of what’s measured and how it affects the score.

Bread, Eggs, and MilkBread. NuVal scores in the 20s are typical for bread.

Pepperidge Farm Ancient Grains gets a 47.Eggs. Eggs score a 33. Unflavored egg substitutes generally score from 53 to 59.Milk. Whole milk gets a 52, 2 percent a 55, 1 percent an 81, and skim a 91.

20s-

33

Continued On Page 20

40s 52-91



Playcrafters’ offering is sad from the very moment Desmond Grasker’s Jefferson walks onto the stage, which is several min-utes into the production. Before he even speaks a word, Grasker’s dejected, utterly defeated stance as he stands shackled is a powerful image, and both his presence and his performance grow more powerful as the play progresses. Grasker manages to mature his Jefferson, making his charac-ter’s personal growth quite clear in a way that pierces your heart. From his insolent rage when feeling contempt for the world to his calm, brave demeanor as his execu-tion day approaches, Grasker fully shapes his Jefferson from beginning to end.

Though he has impressive moments of passion, Curtis Wyatt’s efforts as Grant are much more subdued; for the most part, his portrayal is even-keeled, but without being flat. It’s obvious that his Grant, with his frequently controlled frustration, is a thinker more than a feeler, but when he does feel something, Wyatt lets lose with powerful anger. Meanwhile, Wyatt is matched by Teresa Babers as Grant’s love interest, Vivian. Also fairly low-key in her approach, Babers interjects forceful mo-

I’ve been moved by several pro-ductions this

year, but by none so deeply as the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s A Lesson Before Dying. In fact, I was in tears several times dur-ing Friday night’s performance, in-cluding throughout most of the second act.

Based on the novel by Ernest J. Gaines, playwright Romulus Linney’s script focuses on a formally educated African-American teacher, Grant Wiggins, called on to meet daily with Jefferson, a young black man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. Linney’s drama looks at African-American existence in the South prior to the Civil Rights movement, and explores how the societal structure of the period landed the inmate on death row for fear of telling the truth at his trial, as a black man accusing a white man of com-mitting murder was its own kind of crime at the time.

Director Shellie Moore Guy’s take on the material has an appropriately unhurried, Southern-feeling tempo to it, allowing the melancholy of Jefferson’s fate and the weight of the black experience to sink in effectively. And while the pacing is leisurely, it’s never boring, because Linney’s work is so engaging. Forgetting the title (which gives away the ending), I hoped for a reprieve for Jefferson throughout Act I. But when it was made apparent that the inevitable is, indeed, inevitable, I could barely choke back the tears; my throat tightened and the sobs made an effort to escape, because I was so taken with Linney’s treatment of an innocent man hopelessly condemned to die.

ments into her character-ization, holding her own in arguments with Wyatt.

As Paul Bonin, the police officer who chap-erones Grant’s meetings with Jefferson, Mike Kelly offers the most subtle take I’ve yet seen from him on a local stage. His Paul has a quiet, friendly demeanor, with an obviously amicable attitude toward the black community atypical to the time period. Joseph Obleton, fittingly, shapes a much less likable char-acter in Reverend Moses Ambrose. Vehemently insistent that Jefferson needs God, not lessons in manhood, Obleton brings angry condescen-

sion and moral superiority to his preacher.Sam Splear shows great skill at display-

ing different aspects of a character with his Sheriff Sam Guidry; first appearing as a gruff, no-nonsense man, Splear later plays him with insincere smiles and overly friendly airs, signifying the sheriff ’s shift for the sake of public appearance, being that he’s up for re-election. And more than anyone, Betty Cosey impressed me with her stage talents. Portraying Emma Glen, Jefferson’s godmother, Cosey brings an amusing moxie to the role, while also ex-pertly controlling the flow for every scene in which she appears.

Friday night’s audience was not as full as it usually is at the Barn Theatre, which is a shame. A Lesson Before Dying is the strongest, most emotional script Playcrafters has yet staged this year.

For tickets and information, call (309)762-0330 or visit Playcrafters.com.

For reviews of the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre’s The Drowsy Chaperone and the Timber Lake Playhouse’s Red Herring, visit RiverCitiesReader.com.

Trial in ErrorA Lesson Before Dying, at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre through July 24

by Thom White

Vol. 1� · No. ��July �1 - August �, �011

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Desmond Grasker, Curtis Wyatt, Joe Obleton, and Betty Cosey in A Lesson Before Dying.

THEATRE

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 201110 Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011 11Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

by Mike Schulz • [email protected] Mike Schulz • [email protected]

Daniel Radcliffe and Ralph Fiennes in Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Listen to Mike every Friday at �am on ROCK 10�-� FM with Dave & Darren

Movie Reviews by Mike Schulz • [email protected] Mike Schulz • [email protected]

HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2

As the end credits began rolling at my screening of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the (need I say it?) final installment in the film series adapted from J.K. Rowling’s beloved novels, I’ll admit that I anticipated more applause than I actually heard. Then again, it’s awfully hard to clap while simultaneously wiping tears from your cheeks.

Bigger than the surprise of the respect-ful silence, however, was the shock of my own reaction to the finale, as I was one of those viewers whose weeping at the movie’s final image left him in no state to applaud. For nearly 10 years, my interest in this cinematic universe has rarely risen above middling (2004’s Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban is the only entry of the first seven that I legitimately adored), and for all of its technical proficiency and on-screen tal-ent, I found last fall’s first half of Deathly Hallows a mostly tough sit. Yet from its first images, I was absolutely knocked out by the epic grandeur and unabashed emotionalism of director David Yates’ Harry Potter closer, a culminating adven-ture so thrillingly wrought and deeply, unexpectedly moving that it left me a little shaken. Shaken, and after roughly a half-dozen miniature crying jags, a little dehydrated.

As I’ll mention for the last time until some enterprising Hollywood hacks

(inevitably) decide to reboot the fran-chise, I’ve yet to read Rowling’s literary serial, and as the movie adaptations have always been designed specifically for the books’ devoted, there were some elements to this latest, last entry that would no doubt make more sense had I a keener knowledge of Potter lore. Why is it, for instance, that the nefarious Valdemort (Ralph Fiennes) appears psychically linked to Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and ever-cognizant of his activities, yet has no awareness of his presence when the young man is crouching outside a window 10 feet away from him? How is Valdemort – the most dreaded, most powerful of all über-villains – so easily fooled by a game of possum? (Would it have pained him to check for a pulse or hold a mirror under his victim’s mouth?) And if Hogwarts is indeed populated by students practicing the arts of wizardry and witchcraft, why, when their school is under siege, do all but a handful shriek and race about as if looking for the nearest escape hatch?

Were none of them given magic wands for their birthdays?

Still, as I’ll happily attest, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the rare on-screen Potter adventure that requires neither CliffsNotes nor an accompanying Rowling fan for you to be wholly, rapturously taken with its delicate interweav-ing of mournful sadness and unbridled exhilara-

tion. (It should go without saying that frequent sparks of wit are also on display, beginning with a honey of a funny/nervy scene in which Helena Bonham Carter acts the role of Emma Watson’s Herm-ione acting the role of Carter’s Bellatrix LeStrange.) With the visuals having steadily – and, over the last few releases, vastly – improved from movie to movie, there are breathtaking images galore, among them a vault where metallic objects multiply like shiny Tribbles when touched, and a stunning pair of dragons, one of them fire-breathing, and one literally made of fire. Yet what you might find yourself responding to most is the wrenching finality of Yates’ offering. The crumbling edifices and Dementor attacks and gargantuan tarantulas are amaz-ing, but it might not take more than a late-film reunion with Michael Gambon’s deceased Dumbledore – or a quick flashback to the cherubic faces of Harry, Hermione, and Ron (Rupert Grint) in

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone – to turn you into a blubbery wreck.

Because even if, like me, you haven’t been in thrall to the Harry Potter movies, it’s borderline-impossible not to be awed the singular achievement of this series, and Yates’ final endeavor in particu-lar. Seriously, how did filmmakers and audiences get this lucky? How is it that Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint blossomed so fully from adorable (if mannered) tykes into such committed, nuanced actors? How did so many ridiculously gifted performers not only sign up for roles, but continue, in film after film, to explore them with a depth of feeling that even Rowling couldn’t have anticipated? (Oscar nominations here for Fiennes and Alan Rickman – Severus Snape, now and forever – wouldn’t be at all unearned.) How have the human and supernatural elements been so carefully balanced that an impromptu, impassioned kiss carries as much dramatic weight as an effects-heavy battle royale? And how did it take 77 years for Maggie Smith to finally emerge as a butt-kicking action star? Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the end of a rather remarkable saga in the realm of Hollywood-blockbuster movie-making. I couldn’t be more grate-ful to David Yates and company for en-suring that it’s also a remarkable movie.

For a review of Winnie the Pooh, visit RiverCitiesReader.com.

Follow Mike on Twitter at Twitter.com/MikeSchulzNow.

Listen to Mike every Friday at �am on ROCK 10�-� FM with Dave & Darren

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THEATRE

didn’t feel like (almost) three hours. Only the first scene felt like three hours.

Actors, I’d argue, are rather like vampires: They tend to be less lively in light than in darkness. So aside from the understandably stagnant stage composition in the protracted

intro – in which Lear divvies up his estate between the two daughters who feign to love him and disinherits the daughter who does – maybe we can chalk up Saturday’s underwhelming opener to the sun (and the heat). Still, beyond Flaherty’s Lear, Schwartz’s focused and direct Kent, and Lauren VanSpeybrock’s inspiringly naturalistic Cordelia, there

was too little going on in the faces of the other dozen-plus amassed on stage. Those who spoke appeared to briefly wake up for their dialogue, but when their lines ended, they receded to a state of near-complete disengagement, making the paucity of stage movement in this lengthy passage even more apparent. Deadpan expres-sions are perfectly fitting for Lear’s first scene – we should discover the characters’ allegiances, or lack thereof, gradually – but there’s a huge difference between blank looks with obvious thought and intent behind them and looks that are just blank. (If only Shakespeare had written the king’s Fool, played here by James Alt, into the opener; cajoling, riffing, tumbling, and, at one point, mooning the audience, Alt is a magnifi-cently inventive, happy presence.)

But stick with the show, because after its prelude ends – and, coincidentally or not, the sun begins to set – you’ll realize you’re in very good hands, and not just those belonging to Flaherty and King. Both Schwartz and VanSpeybroeck are exceedingly fine throughout, and they’re eventually matched by Kitty Israel’s Goneril, with her smashingly vindictive wickedness, and Tyler Henning’s Edgar, whose nearly naked, twitchy-madman guise is a robust piece of physical acting. There are touching, gracefully elocuted portrayals by Earl Strupp and Bryan Woods, and enjoyably outsize, untrustworthy ones by David Cabassa and Alaina Pascarella, and several confi-dent turns and bits of outré business that Lincoln Park’s crowd was alive to. (Michael Callahan’s blinding of Strupp was memorably vicious, and Andy Curtiss, obviously having a blast as the steward Oswald, reaffirmed that swishy stereo-types, for better and worse, are comedic money in the bank.) Pat Flaherty makes Genesius Guild’s King Lear unmissable, but it’s still won-derful to know that whenever he’s off-stage, there are plenty of reasons not to miss him.

For information, visit Genesius.org.

There may be some of you who hear the title King Lear and, knowing only of the play’s reputation as the mack daddy of all

Shakespeare tragedies, immediately presume that any evening production of the piece will last well into the next morning. Allow me, then, to quell your fears: Saturday’s Genesius Guild staging of the Bard’s opus began promptly at eight o’clock, and after the night’s presenta-tion had concluded, I was back in my car by 10:55.

As most will admit, however, a show’s actual length doesn’t matter nearly as much as how long a show feels. Yet thanks to smart pacing and judicious script editing, director Michael King’s King Lear moves along at a terrifically agreeable clip. The stage action is impressively timed but rarely feels rushed – leap-ing on their entrance cues, actors appear for new scenes before castmates from the previous scenes have fully exited the stage – and most of the performers’ readings on Saturday were delivered speedily but without losing the meaning of Shakespeare’s words, which can’t be the easiest of tasks.

I doubt it’ll offend the other 26 members of Lear’s ensemble to say that no one proves more adept at maintaining both speed and meaning than Lear himself, as Pat Flaherty gives one of those beautifully expansive, achingly soulful performances that might be the reason God invented theatre. With Flaherty’s vocal timbre rising to higher and higher peaks of anguish, and his collapsing physicality mirroring the deterio-ration of his monarch’s mind, Lear’s emotional arc from wrathful anger to full-scale madness is harrowing in the most exciting way. Flaherty, however, is also savvy enough (and, blessedly, enough of a natural comedian) to know when a lighter touch is required.

During those occasions when he’s allowed to be funny, Flaherty earns deserved laughs with his childlike innocence – in a wonderfully quick aside, the barefooted Lear asks for assistance in removing his boots – and the actor demonstrates the proper faith in Shakespeare’s text to know that he doesn’t have to push for his effects. Even the king’s most recognizably Great of great lines (“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child,” “Never, never, never, never, never”) are delivered with masterful simplicity. In short, Flaherty is a wholly satisfying evening of entertainment unto himself. And when you throw in co-star Todd Schwartz’s topnotch sound design, Ellen Dixon’s stellar costumes, a handful of additionally excellent portrayals, a bunch of nicely committed ones, and, for an opening night, a noticeable absence of dialogue flubs, the total experience of Genesius Guild’s Lear, for me,

This Way Madness LiesKing Lear, at Lincoln Park through July 24

James Alt and Pat Flaherty

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011 1�Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

his beautiful melodies mixed with strongly sentimental and laugh-worthy lyrics.

Tapscott, meanwhile, had me holding back tears almost from the start of my personal favorite song in the musical, “The Next 10 Minutes.” Completely in tune with the deep love expressed in the piece, Tapscott’s take is subtly passionate and be-lievable – as is his performance all through-out the Hilltop’s offering. I can’t remember

when I last heard the actor in such good voice, as he delivers rich tones backed by a thoughtful connection to each lyric’s meaning.

It’s during “The Next 10 Minutes” that the actors, for the first and only time, directly interact – a moment I’m especially eager to see take place, in terms of its stage treatment, each time I see the show. And while I won’t give away exactly how Turley presents the midpoint criss-crossing of the characters’ timelines,

I will say that it’s beautifully executed in a clear, touching manner that’s kind of sur-prising and yet, in hindsight, not altogether unexpected.

This musical is a perfect fit for the Hilltop’s new District Theatre space, which, while grander than the company’s Dav-enport venue, still feels intimate from an audience’s perspective. Brown’s work begs for that intimacy, calling for a closeness to the characters as they wear their hearts on their sleeves. The piece also allows musical director Danny White to shine as he ac-companies the actors on piano. With almost nothing but solos throughout the show, White’s skills at the keyboard are clearly heard, and the musicality that pours forth from his fingers – with generous employ-ment of small glissandos – is remarkable and impassioned.

With the exception of its poor lighting (and, on Wednesday, an almost-always-late spotlight), Turley’s The Last Five Years, as a whole, is quite lovely, and marked with exceptional moments. By not over-direct-ing his actors, and seemingly allowing them to interpret each song as they see fit, both Turley’s minimalist approach and the show itself work, making Harrison Hilltop’s production a charming, beautifully sung performance.

For tickets and information, call (309)235-1654 or visit HarrisonHilltop.com.

I will admit that I had serious reser-vations prior to Wednesday night’s performance of the Harrison Hilltop

Theatre’s The Last Five Years. As much as I enjoy Cari Downing’s comedic stage work – I described how sensational she was in the Hilltop’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change earlier this year, and it’s worth repeating – I wasn’t so sure she was up to composer Jason Robert Brown’s romantic musical. And the same went for Tristan Layne Tapscott, who I think is fantastically funny in comedy roles, but hit-or-miss in his more serious efforts. Under the direction of David Turley, though, they present a unique take on this criss-crossed storyline that has its own sweetness.

The piece is loved by many a die-hard musical-theatre fan, and Brown is considered by some to be a god of a com-poser, second only to Stephen Sondheim. This work of Brown’s is particularly clever, in that its story of a man and woman meeting and falling in (and then out of) love while furthering their careers is told from each person’s perspec-tive, but in opposite directions in time. From Jamie’s standpoint, we hear their love story from beginning to end. Cathy, however, starts at the end and reverses back to the beginning, with the characters’ two timelines meeting in the middle.

As Cathy, Downing had me in tears dur-ing the first song in the show, which is no small feat; I know this musical backward and forward, so there are no surprises in the lyrics for me. Still, Downing’s connection to the feeling behind “Still Hurting” is truly moving. She starts with an almost emotion-less stance and expression, with little inflec-tion in her voice. It’s quickly clear, though, that her Cathy is numbing herself to the pain of losing Jamie. Bits of anger then start to crack their way through that numbness, as Downing runs the gamut from deep sadness to accusatory anger, and everything in between. It’s a stunning scene... and that’s just the show’s first number.

Downing continues to impress with equally effective displays of feeling through the end of the show, and thankfully also gets to showcase her skills in comedic delivery with her delightfully exaggerated facial expressions and humorous inflections. Downing’s artistry and vocal quality seem to fit hand-in-glove with Brown’s music, with

Musical Romance / ecnamoR lacisuMThe Last Five Years, at the District Theatre through July 30

By Thom WhiteTHEATRE

Tristan Layne Tapscott and Cari Downing

S p o n s o r e d b y

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 20111�

What’s Happenin’MusicBlackberry SmokeThe Redstone RoomMonday, July 25, 7:30 p.m.

The Atlanta-based musicians of Blackberry Smoke play

Davenport’s Redstone Room on July 25, and the band’s appeal is perhaps best summed up in this quote in Cincinnati’s City Beat magazine: “If you’ve been miss-ing what us old hippies remember as Southern Rock, tip a Shiner, pack a bowl, and take a good long hit of Blackberry Smoke.”

For legal rea-sons, I’m obliged to say that the Reader does not condone tipping a Shiner, packing a bowl, and taking a good long hit of Blackberry Smoke.

Since its debut in 2000, the ensemble has been composed of the same five performing friends: guitarists/vocalists Charlie Starr and Paul Jackson, bassist/vocal-ist Richard Turner, drummer Brit Turner, and keyboardist Brandon Still. And for more than a decade, Blackberry Smoke has wowed con-cert-goers with their impassioned Southern-rock stylings, heard in

such popular and energizing an-thems as “Freedom Song,” “Good One Coming on,” “Up in Smoke,” and “Yesterday’s Wine,” the latter recorded with country artists Jamey Johnson and the legendary George Jones.

Over the past few years, Black-berry Smoke has seen its exposure and popularity increase sig-nificantly, the result of the group’s successful Little Piece of Dixie CD, its national headlining tours, and

opening for such noted musical acts as ZZ Top, Lynyrd Sky-nyrd, and the Zac Brown Band. Yet it’s refreshing to know that even given all this success, the members of Black-berry Smoke remain steadfastly down-to-earth. Describing his fellow musicians in

GotCountryOnline.com, Charlie Starr revealed, “My bandmates are insane. They refer to their bunk blankets as ‘woobies’ or ‘binkies.’ Paul cries on planes.”

If these are the last What’s Hap-penin’ pages you read from me, it’s because, having finally found my soulmates, I’ve quit the paper and am now touring with the band.

Local musician Derek Frank opens for Blackberry Smoke, and for more information on the concert, call (563)326-1333 or visit RedstoneRoom.com.

EventTrain Festival 2011Schwiebert Riverfront ParkThursday, July 21, through Sunday, July 24

Looking for a

unique and playful reason to escape the house and spend a summer day outdoors with your kids? Consider taking the family to the 2011 Train Festival in Rock Island’s Schwiebert Riverfront Park. How’s that for a loco motive?

Ha ha ha ha ha! Get it?! “Loco motive?” “Loco” as in “nutty,” and “motive” as in, like ... !

Fine. No more terrible train gags for the remainder of the piece. Happy?

It’s a safe bet that, from July 21 through 24, railroad enthusiasts certainly will be. Nearly a dozen steam and diesel locomotives from around the country will be on site, and the festival will allow visitors to tour the cabs, watch demonstrations, and even take all-day or two-hour excursions behind various vintage trains.

As it also boasts numerous model-train layouts on display, a railroad-themed children’s activity and play area, twice-daily performances by recording artist James Coffey, vendors selling one-of-a-kind mementos, park rides on trains built to one-eighth scale, and more, the 2011 Train Festival is sure to tickle to train lover in everyone. And to help whet your appe-tite for this special summertime event, try your hand at this quick railway quiz, courtesy of our friends at FunTrivia.com.

MusicCorrosion of ConformityRock Island Brewing CompanyFriday, July 29, 8 p.m.

On July 29, the Rock Island Brewing Company will host a special concert with the acclaimed heavy-met-

al band Corrosion of Conformity. Which, ironically, is also our office’s name for “weekly Reader staff meeting.”

Formed in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1982, the group made its first splash on the national music scene with 1984’s Eye for an Eye, a 20-track punk-rock release featur-ing band founders Mike Dean on bass and vocals, Woody Weatherman on guitar, and Reed Mullin on drums. Nearly three decades later, all three men are still with the outfit, although Corrosion of Conformity has certainly under-gone a number of personnel changes since the early ’80s,

with no fewer than nine other musicians and vocalists, at one point or another, touring with the founding members. (Vis-it the C.O.C. Wikipedia page

for a helpful, if rather complex, timeline of just who played when.)

Yet through all its lineup changes, Corrosion of Conformity has maintained an ardent fan base, and can certainly lay claim to some impressive career highlights. C.O.C.’s Deliverance CD – which boasted the top-20 hits “Albatross” and “Clean My Wounds”– spent four months on Billboard’s Top 200 chart in 1994, the same year that the

group’s single “Big Problems” was heard on the soundtrack to Kevin Smith’s Clerks. In 1998, the band was nominated for a “Best Metal Performance” Grammy Award for the single “Drowning in a Daydream.” In 2005, Corrosion of Conformity toured alongside Motörhead and Disturbed, and earned critical and commercial success for its CD In the Arms of God.

And now, 29 years after its inception, the group is returning to its roots; after years of touring as a four-piece ensemble, the metal rockers will play RIBCO with a lineup composed solely of Dean, Weatherman, and Mullin, whose blend as a trio was last heard, in album form, on the 1985 release Animosity. Which, ironically, is also our office’s name for “weekly Reader staff meeting.” I tell you, that joke never gets old. [Publisher’s note: Oh yes it does.]

Corrosion of Conformity performs with openers The Horde and Lord Green, and more information on the night is available by calling (309)793-4060 or visiting RIBCO.com.

Answers: 1 – A, 2 – A, 3 – B, 4 – C, 5 – C. That Chinese bridge, by the way, is more than six miles long. Wow. That’s something to choo-choo on. (Oh, come on, I said no terrible train gags! That one’s just ... borderline-terrible.)

1) In what year was the first steam locomo-tive built?

A) 1804B) 1806C) 1808

2) In railway parlance, what is a round-house?

A) A building for service and repair of engines

B) A location for passengers to buy ticketsC) A place where train tracks cross

3) What type of railway car is used to trans-port liquid or gaseous cargo?

A) Box carB) Tank carC) Hopper

4) Which train’s route runs between Paris and Venice?

A) ThalysB) EurostarC) Orient Express

5) What country boasts the world’s longest railroad bridge?

A) RussiaB) BrazilC) China

For more information, event tickets, and a schedule of daily activities, visit TrainFestival2011.com.

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011 1�by Mike Schulz

[email protected]

What Else Is Happenin’MUSIC

Thursday, July 28, and Friday, July 29 – Branson on the Road. Country music and comedy with the Missouri-based touring performers. Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse (1828 Third Avenue, Rock Island). Thursday 6 p.m. dinner, 7:15 p.m. show; Friday noon plated lunch, 1 p.m. show. $41.28-47.55. For tickets and information, call (309)786-7733 extension 2 or visit Circa21.com.

Friday, July 29 – Ernie Haase & Signature Sound. Grammy Award-nominated gospel performers in their Cathedrals-Influenced tour. Adler Theatre (136 East Third Street, Daven-port). 7:30 p.m. $22-30. For tickets, call (800)745-3000 or visit AdlerTheatre.com.

Friday, July 29 – Sister Sledge featuring Kathy Sledge. 1970s music icon performs such hits as “We Are Family” and “Take Me Back to Love Again.” Quad-Cities Waterfront Convention Center (1777 Isle Parkway, Bettendorf ). 7:30 p.m. $20-40. For information, call (800)724-5825 or visit Bettendorf.IsleOfCapriCasinos.com.

Saturday, July 30 – Xtreme Muzik Tour with Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson. Country-music stars in con-cert, with opening sets by Cowboy Troy and Two Foot Fred. Riverside Casino & Golf Resort (3184 Highway


TheatreThe WaspsLincoln ParkSaturday, July 30, through Sunday, August 7

“Hey there, Jeff!”“Hi, Mi – . Oh, lord. You

really have to stop doing this.”“You like the outfit? Diggin’ the

wings?”“Let me guess. You’re

auditioning for the Genesius Guild show, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely! It’s the Aristophanes comedy The Wasps, the Guild’s annual season-end-ing farce that Don Wooten adapts from a classic work of Greek literature!”

“And you want to play a wasp.”“Well, duh! They’re only the title

characters! I mean, there are defi-nitely more prominent characters in the play, since The Wasps is actually about a father who’s obsessed with lawsuits and trials, and a son who wants to keep his crazy old man locked inside the house ... .”

“Uh huh.”“But seriously, any role in this

show would be a great one! The Wasps features all sorts of nutty com-ic scenarios, like that father trying to escape the house by pretending he’s chimney smoke, and an out-of-con-trol drunk disrupting a fancy dinner

party, and a courtroom dispute over a stolen slab of cheese ... !”

“Right.”“And you just know that Wooten’s

going to come up with situations even more outrageous than those! His updated season-enders, after all, always take a few jabs at figures of local and national interest, and he really likes going after politicians, so you can just imagine the fun that he’s going to have at the expense of

nightly-news fixtures from the past few months!”

“I’m sure.”“Plus, of course, there’ll

be satiric songs, and dances, and a wacky chase at the end, and creative and colorful costumes by Ellen Dixon ... !”

“But if the costumes are provided for you, why are you going to the audition

dressed as a wasp?”“I just want to show them how

right for the role I am!”“But you realize that Aristophanes’

wasps aren’t actual wasps, right? They’re elderly jurors who try to help the father escape from his house arrest. They’re not going to be literal wasps.”

“Oh, Jeff. You’ve never seen a Don Wooten comedy, have you?”

The Wasps will be performed on Sat-urdays and Sundays July 30 through August 7 at 8 p.m. Admission is free, donations are appreciated, and more information is available by visiting Genesius.org.

EventTrain Festival 2011Schwiebert Riverfront ParkThursday, July 21, through Sunday, July 24

Looking for a

unique and playful reason to escape the house and spend a summer day outdoors with your kids? Consider taking the family to the 2011 Train Festival in Rock Island’s Schwiebert Riverfront Park. How’s that for a loco motive?

Ha ha ha ha ha! Get it?! “Loco motive?” “Loco” as in “nutty,” and “motive” as in, like ... !

Fine. No more terrible train gags for the remainder of the piece. Happy?

It’s a safe bet that, from July 21 through 24, railroad enthusiasts certainly will be. Nearly a dozen steam and diesel locomotives from around the country will be on site, and the festival will allow visitors to tour the cabs, watch demonstrations, and even take all-day or two-hour excursions behind various vintage trains.

As it also boasts numerous model-train layouts on display, a railroad-themed children’s activity and play area, twice-daily performances by recording artist James Coffey, vendors selling one-of-a-kind mementos, park rides on trains built to one-eighth scale, and more, the 2011 Train Festival is sure to tickle to train lover in everyone. And to help whet your appe-tite for this special summertime event, try your hand at this quick railway quiz, courtesy of our friends at FunTrivia.com.

MusicCorrosion of ConformityRock Island Brewing CompanyFriday, July 29, 8 p.m.

On July 29, the Rock Island Brewing Company will host a special concert with the acclaimed heavy-met-

al band Corrosion of Conformity. Which, ironically, is also our office’s name for “weekly Reader staff meeting.”

Formed in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1982, the group made its first splash on the national music scene with 1984’s Eye for an Eye, a 20-track punk-rock release featur-ing band founders Mike Dean on bass and vocals, Woody Weatherman on guitar, and Reed Mullin on drums. Nearly three decades later, all three men are still with the outfit, although Corrosion of Conformity has certainly under-gone a number of personnel changes since the early ’80s,

with no fewer than nine other musicians and vocalists, at one point or another, touring with the founding members. (Vis-it the C.O.C. Wikipedia page

for a helpful, if rather complex, timeline of just who played when.)

Yet through all its lineup changes, Corrosion of Conformity has maintained an ardent fan base, and can certainly lay claim to some impressive career highlights. C.O.C.’s Deliverance CD – which boasted the top-20 hits “Albatross” and “Clean My Wounds”– spent four months on Billboard’s Top 200 chart in 1994, the same year that the

group’s single “Big Problems” was heard on the soundtrack to Kevin Smith’s Clerks. In 1998, the band was nominated for a “Best Metal Performance” Grammy Award for the single “Drowning in a Daydream.” In 2005, Corrosion of Conformity toured alongside Motörhead and Disturbed, and earned critical and commercial success for its CD In the Arms of God.

And now, 29 years after its inception, the group is returning to its roots; after years of touring as a four-piece ensemble, the metal rockers will play RIBCO with a lineup composed solely of Dean, Weatherman, and Mullin, whose blend as a trio was last heard, in album form, on the 1985 release Animosity. Which, ironically, is also our office’s name for “weekly Reader staff meeting.” I tell you, that joke never gets old. [Publisher’s note: Oh yes it does.]

Corrosion of Conformity performs with openers The Horde and Lord Green, and more information on the night is available by calling (309)793-4060 or visiting RIBCO.com.

Answers: 1 – A, 2 – A, 3 – B, 4 – C, 5 – C. That Chinese bridge, by the way, is more than six miles long. Wow. That’s something to choo-choo on. (Oh, come on, I said no terrible train gags! That one’s just ... borderline-terrible.)

1) In what year was the first steam locomo-tive built?

A) 1804B) 1806C) 1808

2) In railway parlance, what is a round-house?

A) A building for service and repair of engines

B) A location for passengers to buy ticketsC) A place where train tracks cross

3) What type of railway car is used to trans-port liquid or gaseous cargo?

A) Box carB) Tank carC) Hopper

4) Which train’s route runs between Paris and Venice?

A) ThalysB) EurostarC) Orient Express

5) What country boasts the world’s longest railroad bridge?

A) RussiaB) BrazilC) China

For more information, event tickets, and a schedule of daily activities, visit TrainFestival2011.com.


Steve Banks and Aaron Tinder, Through August at the Quad City International AirportModern Relics

Littering the bottoms of the display cases at the gallery inside the Quad City International Airport is a

landfill-like carpeting – a mat of appar-ent cultural detritus under Steve Banks’ sculptures. It initially appears ancient, like scattered pottery shards, but a closer inspection reveals pizza slices, pie crusts, bullets, masks, and chunks of carvings, all out of earthenware clay.

We see this fascination with objects across this exhibit, among the work of both Banks and mixed-media artist Aaron Tin-der. The Quad City Arts show – running through August – consists of three large sculptures and four mixed-media canvases by Banks, and eight mixed-media works on paper by Tinder. Their use of familiar objects makes this exhibit accessible, but their mysterious and metaphorical treat-ment provides depth.

Banks’ main sculptures are large and commanding, yet a vast amount of their content can be found in the aforemen-tioned base of “debris.” Included are various scraps of low-relief works created in the style of broken parts of Egyptian, Hindu, or pre-Columbian temples. Despite their aged style and appearance, many of these fragments depict modern imagery, such as fast-food cups or skyscrapers. This juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary “relics” seems to reflect on how, through the lens of history, societies are interpreted based on the imagery of their artifacts.

The sculptures – Hydra (Seven Headed), Trojan Horse, and Tower of Babel – share a similar form: a five- to seven-foot-tall subject centered in the display case with this base of assorted objects, appearing as a monolith emerging (or remaining) from rubble. The individual elements of the sculptures are mostly ceramics, with matte under-glazes in shades of brown. Banks also utilizes mixed-media components,

such as driftwood, blue-jean scraps, and a metallic gold material.

Trojan Horse primarily consists of hand-built ceramic. The sheer volume of this form – around seven feet tall and two and a half feet wide – is impressive, considering it was built from clay. This technical skill, and the accompanying elements of detail, make this sculpture the standout of the three.

Also impressive is the way Banks has depicted this story. The horse was left as a false gift to the besieged city of Troy, with Greek soldiers hiding inside. Banks’ horse visualizes this narrative through the human feet and hands emerging from the vessel – the schematized, flat feet support-ing the bottom of the sculpture, and the hands clawing out from the front.

Beyond that, the likeness to a wooden

horse full of soldiers ends. The sculpture balloons out in the middle, with a swoop-ing, hook-like coil rising out to form the top half of the piece. On top of this “hook” are four chunky, mask-like heads mounted on sticks. Inside the negative-space curve of the hook are latticed, hieroglyphic-like markings, formed from thin slabs of clay. These glyphs include images repeated in other Banks pieces – human figures, fast-food containers, schematized dragon heads, and abstract shapes. Emerging from the “body” of the horse are a factory whistle and a gauge.

Trojan Horse is a fascinating hybrid of cute, common, and threatening. The hands in the center look cartoonish – they have only four, sausage-like fingers – but are reaching and clawing. The whistle and gauge would look at home in a factory but

seem disturbing as part of this haphazard war engine. The bulbous “body” and swooping “neck” are rounded, pleasant shapes, but the grimacing, hollow faces mounted on top are fearful.

Hydra (Seven Headed) refers to the reptilian mon-ster with many heads, slain by Hercules in Greek my-thology. The true terror of this monster lay not in its numerous heads but in its ability to grow two heads to replace any that were cut off. This makes the hydra a metaphor for a problem that can be made worse if not handled properly.

In Banks’ sculpture, the hydra’s contour is loosely constructed from bro-ken pieces of driftwood,

tethered together with torn scraps of blue jeans. It is a loose framework, or skeleton, of the beast, rather than a solid form. This makes it seem as though the subject is not the hydra itself, but more of a fossil or effigy. The implied creature bears seven heads that, instead of appearing dragon-like, feature masks of simplified human faces sculpted from chunky, melting material. Some faces appear friendly and cartoon-like, some vacant, and others like tormented skulls. Included in the cultural wreckage at the hydra’s feet are a handful of other mask-like faces, in addition to the hydra’s seven. Are these the cut-off heads of the hydra, re-grown in duplicate, or the disembodied heads of its victims?

Like Trojan Horse, Tower of Babel is a hefty ceramic undertaking. The subject of this work is a slender, schematized house-

ART

LEFT: The carpeting of debris under a Steve Banks sculpture. ABOVE: Steve Banks - Trojan Horse.


to fill in the blanks. While the tone and implied narrative of this piece are effec-tive, the composition would have benefited from a greater variety of sizes of collaged media to help clarify focal points.

Devil Music, on the other hand, is strik-ing and complex because of its large sub-jects – taking up most of the background space – and Tinder’s use of drawn render-ing to create forms and emphasis. We look first at the biggest and most detailed object, which effectively leads the viewer through the image.

In this work, a box, covered with a draped cloth, takes up half of the com-position. We see that one side of the box is covered in what appears to by Egyp-tian hieroglyphics, and another features stripes of collaged images including a flag, birds, flames, and flowers. Another bird is seen in flight in a left-hand corner. In the foreground, on the right, is a jumble of collaged photographs of cords, over a tower of repeated photos of a car’s grill. Also resting on this collage is a large photo of an old-fashioned radio, a headlight, and a spiral-print umbrella.

In Devil Music, Tinder explores how including diverse yet visually related ob-jects can open the work conceptually while still exhibiting unity. He also employs his collaged photos as parts of other design elements – such as the tower, or stripes – rather than allowing them to float on the background, creating mysterious hybrid objects. And by controlling color through the use of drawn rendering on the draped cloth, in warm brown tones that contrast with the blue background, he guides us through his work.

Michelle Garrison is a mixed-media artist who teaches art and design at Geneseo Middle School and J.D. Darnell High School.

by Michelle [email protected]

like building, with a pitched roof. The form is divided into four different sections, with their seams left rough and obvious, giving it a fragile and unstable appearance. The surface of the building bears a haphazard overlapping of the same texture from the ceramic waffles on the ground.

Tower of Babel is based on the biblical story in which the people of Shinar teamed up to construct a tower to heaven, against God’s will, resulting in God punishing mankind by creating different languages. Banks has decontextualized this story, pre-senting just the structure itself. The tower standing alone among the debris creates a sense of isolation, and the dwelling-like ap-pearance of the building makes it seem less mythological and more personal. The pre-carious appearance of the tower makes us wonder if this represents the dilapidation of the building following the inability of its builders to communicate, or the perilous nature of the tower from its inception.

All of these sculptures work in a similar fashion. The large, central subjects contrast with the assortment of scraps covering the display cases’ bases, creating a push and pull between dominating shapes and absorbing details. Their origins in well-known ancient stories are communica-tive, giving the viewer a starting point for contemplation, but the pieces don’t merely regurgitate the tales. The modern imagery is enhanced through the aged, somewhat foreboding appearance; these are not simple reflections of pop culture.

Banks’ mixed-media canvases feature images of hot dogs, hamburgers, and fast-food drink cups. These canvases are approximately four by three and a half feet, with the composition dominated by the food-based subject. In each, the food item is rendered in a mosaic style, composed of colored tiles. The background has been

washed over with white, leaving it in grayscale. We can make out faint, cartoon-styled iconography in the background – pancakes, telephones, and classical architecture. This creates an interplay between the seemingly banal foreground food objects and the more complex but obscured background.

Aaron Tinder’s mixed-media collages share this tendency to juxtapose objects and tone. Both artists’ works heavily reference everyday items but force viewers to reconsider them by placing them in atypical contexts. Tinder’s work shows strong promise, with engaging imagery and a unified and appealing style, but it is somewhat dwarfed by the more ambitious and visually hefty work of Banks.

Tinder’s common imagery includes American flags, wires and cords, mysteri-ous boxes, and plants. Often, these images are collaged from what appear to be old newspapers and wallpaper. The worn appearance of the collage elements is con-trasted with cheerful pastel backgrounds, and the elements are often arranged to

imply a sense of space or horizon through object sizing and use of blue as sky. All of his works are on illustration board, displayed without mat or frame, roughly four by two feet in size. The overall effect is a surreal landscape.

Tinder uses this dreamlike space to create a sense of narrative in Roads & Schemes. The background consists of several thin layers of white, blue gray, and yellow paint. The largest object in the composition is a plain, white box with no lid and a photograph of the back of a train cargo car on the side. Emerging from the box are collaged wires and cords. Toward the top of the composition is a photo of an American flag, with the field of stars removed. To the right of this flag we see an apparently distant line of men, facing away from the viewer. Larger and lower, and thus appearing closer, is a photograph of a man, seemingly looking at something in his hands. The use of the word “schemes” in the title, as well as the men looking away, gives this work a quietly sinister feel, yet the lack of context allows the viewer

Aaron Tinder - Roads and Schemes



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What Else Is Happenin’22, Riverside). 8 p.m. $35-65. For tickets and information, call (877)677-3456 or visit RiversideCasinoAndResort.com.

THEATREFriday, July 22, through Sunday,

July 31 – The Wizard of Oz. Country-side Community Theatre’s musical stage version of the storybook classic. North Scott High School Fine Arts Auditorium (200 South First Street, Eldridge). Thurs-day-Saturday 7:30 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m. $11-14. For tickets and information, call (563)285-6228 or visit CCTOnStage.org.

Saturday, July 23 – Be Not Un-Equally Yoked. Stage play focusing on domestic violence and other issues, presented by True Gospel Enterprises, Inc. Nighswander Theatre (2822 Eastern Avenue, Davenport). 6 p.m. $25. For tickets and information, call (563)726-2665 or (563)468-9955.

Thursday, July 28, through Sun-day, August 7 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Davenport Junior Theatre’s “Shakespeare in the parks” touring production of the Bard’s comedy. Dav-enport’s LeClaire Park Bandshell (July 28), Davenport Public Library Eastern Avenue Branch (July 30), Bettendorf’s Veterans Memorial Park Bandshell (July 31), Rock Island’s Lincoln Park (August 4), Davenport’s Vander Veer Botanical Park (August 6), Davenport Junior Theatre (August 7). All perfor-mances 7 p.m. Free admission. For information, call (563)326-7862 or visit DavenportJuniorTheatre.com.

Thursday, July 28, through Sunday, August 7 – Annie. The Tony Award-winning musical-comedy smash. Clinton Area Showboat Theatre (311 Riverview Drive, Clinton). Thurs-day-Saturday 7:30 p.m., Sunday and Wednesday 3 p.m. $16-20. For tickets and information, call (563)242-6760 or visit ClintonShowboat.org.

Thursday, July 28, through Sun-day, August 7 – Children of Eden. Beloved Biblical musical by com-poser Stephen Schwartz. Timber Lake Playhouse (8215 Black Oak Road, Mt. Carroll). Tuesday-Saturday 7:30 p.m., Sunday and Wednesday 2 p.m., July 31 at 6:30 p.m. $15-23. For tickets and information, call (815)244-2035 or visit TimberLakePlayhouse.org.

Saturday, July 30, and Sunday, July 31 – Love, Loss, & What I Wore. A reader’s theatre performance of Nora & Delia Ephron’s comedy, in a New Ground Theatre benefit performance for Dress for Success Quad Cities. Village

Theatre (2113 East 11th Street, Village of East Davenport). Saturday 7:30 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m. $25. For information and tickets, call (563)326-7529 or visit NewGroundTheatre.org.

EVENTSFriday, July 29 – Bucktown Birth-

day Bash. Sixth-annual celebration of the arts venue, with exhibits, demon-strations, vendors, screenings of the locally produced science-fiction film Falling Up, live music by Lock & Dam, Ragaman, and Rock Island Rhythm, and more. Bucktown Center for the Arts (225 East Second Street, Dav-enport). 6 p.m. Free admission. For information, call (309)230-1594 or visit BucktownArts.com.

Friday, July 29, and Saturday, July 30 – 40th Annual Street Fest. Sum-mertime event featuring live music, arts and crafts, family activities, food and art vendors, and more. Down-town Davenport, on Second Street between Brady and Ripley Streets. Friday 10 a.m.-midnight, Saturday 9 a.m.-midnight. Free admission. For information, call (563)823-2667 or visit DowntownDavenport.com.

Friday, July 29 – Quad-City Times Junior Bix Road Race. Annual event with a seven-tenths-mile race for ages 8 to 12, a half-mile race for ages 6 and 7, and a 70-yard race for ages 5 and under. Quad-City Times building. (500 East Third Street, Davenport). 6 p.m. $12-15 registration. For information and to register, call (563)383-2489 or visit Bix7.com.

Saturday, July 30 – Quad-City Times Bix 7 Road Race & QuickBix. The 37th-annual competition featuring the seven-mile Bix race, the two-mile QuickBix, and street entertainment. Downtown Davenport, at the foot of Brady Street. 8 a.m. $32-40 registration. For information and to register, call (563)383-2489 or visit Bix7.com.

Tuesday, August 2, through Sun-day, August 7 – Great Mississippi Valley Fair. Annual festival featuring rides, activities, and food and merchan-dise vendors, with grandstand concerts by Joe Nichols, Blake Shelton, Darius Rucker, The Steve Miller Band, The Char-lie Daniels Band, and Miranda Lambert. Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds (2815 West Locust Street, Davenport). $3-10 daily admission, $40-45 six-day FunCard (needed for grandstand entry). For in-formation, tickets, and daily schedules, visit MVFair.com.

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011�0 Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

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The system includes a calculation for “numerator nutrients,” which are “considered to have generally favorable effects on health.” These include fiber, folate, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, potassium, calcium, zinc, Omega-3 fatty acids, total bioflavonoids, total carotenoids, magnesium, and iron.

That number is then divided by the calculation for “denominator nutrients,” considered to have “generally unfavorable effects on health”: saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, sugar, and cholesterol.

Other factors considered in determining the final 1-to-100 score are protein quality, fat quality, glycemic load, and energy density.

The algorithm was built on and tested against “face validity,” which Katz explained by way of a few questions: “What are the foods the most expert people think are most nutritious? What are the foods the most expert people think are less nutritious? You start there, and you build around that.”

He admitted that face validity is “not a very high standard. But frankly we don’t have a gold standard for measuring nutritional quality of an individual food. In some ways it’s perfectly obvious; everybody agrees that spinach is a really nutritious food, and everybody agrees that marshmallows are not. But based on what? ... You really have to beat up on that to get people to figure out what’s going on.”

Since the algorithm was finalized, 90,000 foods have been scored – including more than 20,000 carried by Hy-Vee. This is done through the method of “imputation” – which involves analyzing data about the food rather than the physical food itself. “If you have the ingredients, and you have nutrition facts, there’s only basically a very narrow, fixed way those ingredients can come together to produce those nutrition facts,” Katz explained. “So you can reverse-engineer the rest ... .” Through that process, he added, one could generate as many as 150 nutrient entries for a food, but NuVal uses approximately 30.

It’s also worth noting that the factors that determine a food’s NuVal score are not all available on the nutrition panel – such as the biological quality of protein.

And there are labeling practices and regulations (and loopholes) that NuVal is designed to get around. Omega-3 fatty acids – considered good for your health – are not universally declared by manufacturers, for instance, but NuVal calculates them. On the negative side, there are rounding rules through which manufacturers claim foods have no trans fat because they’ve made the serving size small enough that trans fat is less than half a gram; NuVal includes that trans

fat in its calculations.“We have to go beyond the nutrition-fact

panel ... ,” Katz said.

“We’re Not Telling You What to Eat”

NuVal isn’t the only nutrition-rating system.

The Guiding Stars system (GuidingStars.com) is more widely used – in place at more than 1,600 grocery stores – and is more reductive, giving foods zero, one, two, or three stars based on nutritional content.

Jewel (with three stores on the Illinois side of the river) uses the Nutrition iQ system (JewelOsco.com/nutritioniq), which is less reductive and uses colored labels to denote foods that have, for example, good fiber, good protein, low sodium, vitamins, minerals, or 100-percent juice.

And stores generally are focusing more on nutrition. Walmart earlier this year unveiled a new nutrition initiative – including reformulating products and “developing strong criteria for a simple front-of-package seal that will help consumers instantly identify truly healthier food options such as whole-grain cereal, whole-wheat pasta, or unsweetened canned fruit,” according to a press release.

But because Hy-Vee dominates the Quad Cities market – and because no other local grocer outside of Jewel has a nutrition-rating system – NuVal is the focus here. (I visited Aldi, Fareway, Save-a-Lot, Schnucks, Target, and Walmart.)

The nature of NuVal makes it ideal for side-to-side comparisons of similar foods. Katz said NuVal allows consumers to make informed decisions about not just nutrition but also value. While many people think “better” foods cost significantly more, that’s typically not the case. “There’s the opportunity to trade up nutritionally” without paying much (if any) more, Katz said.

A longer-term goal, he said, is to get people to compare products across categories and not just within them. “NuVal is universal,” Katz said. “It’s the same scoring system from soup to nuts. So it also is pointing out: You probably should spend a little more time in the produce aisle, and you should maybe spend a little less time in the cookie aisle. ... We do hope that it will not only empower people to make better choices within a given aisle, but over time will also nudge them to spend more time in aisles that have the most nutritious choices.”

If the gentleness of that statement isn’t clear enough, part of the marketing genius of NuVal is that it doesn’t impose itself. The

shelf tags themselves are unobtrusive and easy to ignore when you’re buying Chips Ahoy! (a 6, by the way), and Katz was careful to say that there’s no number below which one shouldn’t buy. (Anything below 10, he said, should be a “rare and occasional thing.”)

He stressed that “people who use a GPS system don’t want to be told where to go. They just want to be told how to get there. NuVal was really designed with that concept in mind. We’re not the boss of you, and we’re not telling you what to eat.”

The aim, he said, is to choose a more nutritious food whenever possible – even if you’re still buying candy and cookies: “In every category and whatever the range, you have the opportunity to trade up, even when you’re indulging yourself.”

This was echoed by Hy-Vee’s Comer, who said the store doesn’t want to prevent people from buying low-scoring foods. “We wanted to give our customers an easy way to evaluate products and make healthier choices,” she said. “We think it’s working.”

Dietitian Macon gave some examples of how she uses NuVal: “I ... create cut-off points when I am shopping with my kids. It takes the pressure off of Mom; I’m not the bad guy for saying ‘no’ to a low-scoring food. My kids know that scores below a certain number are treats in our house, not everyday foods.

“NuVal makes it easier to see the value in making healthy choices for my family, even if those choices have a higher price tag. The food we eat is probably the biggest investment we make in our health most days. I divide the price by the NuVal score as I shop and realize that even if the price is higher, often I pay less for each nutrient in that food than I would if I chose a lower-scoring, lower-priced product.”

What NuVal Can’t DoWhile NuVal is a godsend to many of us,

it’s important to understand what it can’t do. Much of this is obvious, but the intentionally simple presentation of NuVal might make us lazy – we could use it instead of common sense.

For one thing, NuVal doesn’t address portion sizes and Americans’ tendency to overeat. Macon suggested that consumers use the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Choose My Plate system (ChooseMyPlate.gov) in concert with NuVal.

And NuVal shouldn’t take the place of reading ingredient lists and nutrition panels. Comer said that consumers can (and should) consult the nutrition panel, but “NuVal’s an acknowledgment of our human foibles and human nature, in that we don’t always take the time ... to do all the research about all the

products we’re buying.”NutritionOverEasy.com found two related

problems with NuVal and other nutrition-rating systems: “First, they set the nutritional priorities, not you.” So if your sense of what you should and shouldn’t eat diverges from conventional wisdom on nutrition, NuVal won’t be of much use to you.

The Web site continued: “The other disadvantage is that crunching all the data into a single number obscures the various ‘pluses’ and ‘minuses.’ For example, a food that’s high in sodium but low in sugar could end up with the same rating as a food that’s just the opposite: low in sodium but high in sugar. But depending on whether I have diabetes or high blood pressure, the two choices are hardly comparable.”

In other words, NuVal can’t consider your particular health situation or dietary goals. As Macon wrote: “A customer concerned about heart health may consider NuVal when choosing a salad dressing, but still choose to look for saturated fat and sodium information on the nutrition-facts panel before making a decision. Similarly, NuVal may help a diabetic customer to narrow his search for a breakfast cereal; then he may make his choice based on the fiber content.”

And NuVal doesn’t address factors other than nutrition.

For instance, it gives no advantage to organic foods, even though that’s important to many people. NuVal explains this on its Web site: “As yet, there is no widely validated evidence that organic foods have a higher nutritional value or greater nutrient density than food not grown organically. Obviously, consumers who choose organic foods may be doing so for reasons other than nutrition – the fact that it is grown without using certain chemical controls, for example.”

Similarly, Hy-Vee dietitian Blocklinger noted that “foods that may be processed and then enriched may score equally to a product that has the same nutrient profile but that is in its natural/original state.”

The Wall Street Journal provided another example of how NuVal’s system doesn’t account for all the factors that go into consumer choice: “Kellogg Company’s Kashi brand in a statement said it tries to provide minimally processed, organic-certified food free of artificial flavors and other additives. ‘Many of the current nutrient-profiling systems don’t take these values into account, which results in an incomplete picture,’ it said.”

A personal example: I’m hesitant to buy products with artificial sweeteners for my three-year-old daughter. My bias against them is admittedly based in ignorance rather than research – I fear that some of them

A GPS for Better Nutrition?

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011 �1Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

might have adverse long-term health effects – but it’s there nonetheless. (For the record: The National Cancer Institute says “there is no clear evidence that the artificial sweeteners available commercially in the United States are associated with cancer risk in humans.”) The problem for me is that because of the penalty NuVal assigns to sugar, artificially sweetened products inevitably score higher than their sugared (or high-fructose-corn-syrup-ed) counterparts. (This can most easily be seen in soda: Coke gets gets a 1, and Diet Coke gets a 15. And that’s an illustration, not an admission that we buy soda for our daughter.) So when it comes to special treats, do I buy ice cream (typically scoring in the teens and 20s) or Blue Bunny’s Sweet Freedom Fudge Lites (artificially sweetened and scoring a miraculous 100)? NuVal’s values are at odds with my own.

Hy-Vee dietitian Mitzel explained the fudge-bar score this way: “It made sense when I considered the ingredients – basically skim milk (which scores a 91 alone) and fiber (which drives scores up).”

And Macon expanded in an e-mail on why products with artificial sweeteners score higher: “NuVal incorporates into its complex algorithm only those nutrients and ingredients that have clear, current, high-quality data demonstrating their relationship – positive or negative – to human health.”

She continued: “At this time, our extensive body of research on the safety of non-nutritive sweeteners demonstrates that they are safe and effective tools for weight-management. Excessive added sugar intake, on the other hand, contributes to a variety of health problems. In this example, the presence of non-nutritive sweeteners does not raise the score (non-nutritive sweeteners are neutral); the lack of added sugar prevents the score from dropping.”

Katz and I discussed artificial sweeteners, and he gave insight into some of the challenges of developing the algorithm. While he doesn’t like artificial sweeteners for taste reasons, he also said he has “a concern about them for which the science isn’t fully developed. It’s kind of an unanswered question in the world of science.” (He mentioned how artificial sweeteners increase one’s craving for sweetness.)

But, he said, ONQI and NuVal aren’t reflections of his own beliefs. “Although I’m the chief engineer and the principal inventor, this level of sophistication took ... a village of experts,” he said. “We really had to work by consensus.” Some people involved in the development of ONQI thought artificial sweeteners helped people reduce calories and sugar in their diets, while others though the downside was greater than the upside. As a

result, he said, “what we wound up doing is splitting the difference.”

Katz said an adjustment to the algorithm “puts back” the calories that would have been present with sugar – a change that reduces the product’s considered nutrient density. Products with artificial sweeteners, however, still score higher than sugared counterparts because of their energy density, and because they don’t incur a penalty for added sugar. So the difference between their scores is smaller because of the algorithm adjustment. “NuVal essentially neutralizes that advantage,” Katz said.

He added that ONQI’s handling of artificial sweeteners might be adjusted in the next incarnation of the algorithm – which is currently in development.

ONQI 2.0, Katz said, will take into consideration new food ingredients (such as the sweetener Stevia) and new federal dietary guidelines – such as an increased recommendation for Vitamin D and recognition that different types of saturated fat have different health impacts. “We don’t ever want to be at odds in any way with federal guidance,” he said. “It’s based on and perfectly consistent with dietary guidelines ... .”

But don’t expect radical scoring changes. “The original engineering was pretty damned good,” Katz said. “More will stay the same than change.”

Still, it’s worth emphasizing that NuVal isn’t the be-all and end-all; it will evolve and be refined just like nutrition science and dietary guidelines. And as Katz readily admitted about artificial sweeteners, the science isn’t always an exact science.

Does NuVal “Work”?Shoppers might use NuVal to make buying

decisions, and anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that they like it. NuVal, for me, almost makes shopping a game between my

family and the manufacturers, to see if I can outsmart their marketing; I genuinely feel empowered by it.

That’s great for shoppers’ confidence, but if NuVal truly “works,” three different but interrelated things should happen.

First, consumer buying patterns should change, and people should be buying healthier foods – both within and across categories. So customers would choose higher-scoring bread, but they’d also be buying more fresh fruit and fewer cookies.

Second, consumer health should improve. NuVal is premised on the idea that a single

score is a valid basis on which one can make healthier food choices. Ultimately, Katz said, the test of NuVal is straightforward: “Do these scores actually predict health outcomes when you study large populations?” If health doesn’t improve among people who use NuVal, then the system is built on false assumptions – or people aren’t using it correctly.

Third, manufacturers should make their foods healthier. If people buy based at least in part on NuVal scores, the food industry has an incentive to improve its products nutritionally in the interest of maintaining or increasing sales.

While it’s probably too early to say with certainty that all three of those things are happening, there’s some evidence for each.

Consumer habits. Katz said stores that use NuVal are seeing changes in buying patterns. While NuVal hasn’t published these findings yet, company spokesperson Robert Keane shared sales data from two grocery chains and three categories of food: cold cereal, fresh bread and rolls, and yogurt.

In one retailer from 2008 to 2009, “scores ranked 50 or greater outperformed products with NuVal Scores from 1 to 49. Those products with better overall nutrition grew more than lower-scoring products or all products (which includes products not yet rated). In cold cereal, products ranked 1-49

saw decreases in sales volume.”At the same retailer, “sales of cereals

scoring 50 to 100 grew 5.2 percent, [while] the ROM [rest of market] volume sales change was negative 13.0 percent. These data show that the retailer with NuVal scores published on their shelf tags had stronger growth of more nutritious products.”

Results from the second retailer – which compared pre-NuVal sales to post-NuVal sales – demonstrated a similar advantage for higher-scoring products.

“People are trading up their choices within categories,” Katz summarized, but he hasn’t yet seen data showing shifts from less-healthy categories to more-healthy ones. “That would be one of the next things we’d like to see.”

Comer said Hy-Vee hasn’t tracked sales by NuVal score to see if consumer behavior is changing. “We have not in a scientific way. [But] we have anecdotal evidence of that from dietitians ... . There’s still a lot of opportunity for us there in the future to do more statistically valid or scientifically based surveys.”

All the Hy-Vee dietitians contacted for this article said they have heard stories from customers about how they’ve changed what they buy.

Consumer health. A study in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine concluded: “Consumption of foods that lead to a higher score for the ONQI scoring system is associated with modestly lower risk of chronic disease and all-cause mortality.”

It’s only one study, but it appears to confirm the basic scientific validity of ONQI and NuVal.

Yet it doesn’t prove that NuVal shoppers are healthier. To do that, you’d need evidence that the overall diets of shoppers improve when they use NuVal, as well as evidence that they’re actually healthier.

Healthier products. This is primarily anecdotal, but Katz said he’s seeing food manufacturers change their products in response to NuVal. “It’s forcing manufacturers to compete in a fishbowl,” he said.

Citing the example of reduced-fat peanut butter, he said: “Either that product’s going to go away, or manufacturers will have to make fat-reduced [peanut] butter that doesn’t have significant additions of sugar and salt.

“And we’re starting to see innumerable examples of reformulation to improve nutrition. And that requires nothing whatsoever of the consumer; NuVal [just] needs to be there, and consumers need to be interested in nutrition ... .”

This, he said, is a triumph of nutrition over marketing.

by Jeff [email protected]

Cold CerealUnlike many food categories – where there’s a relatively narrow range

of scores – cold cereal runs the nutritional gamut from nearly worthless to the equivalent of fruits and vegetables. A small sampling:

Cap’n Crunch: 10Wheaties: 28Total: 29Cheerios: 37Post Shredded Wheat: 91

?

River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011�� Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

Got A Problem? Ask Amy Alkon.171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405

or e-mail [email protected] (AdviceGoddess.com)©2011, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved.

The Full-of-It MontyMy boyfriend of two years isn’t overtly

weird; he’s actually a really nice, normal guy, but he has this “hobby” of going for walks totally naked. We live in Vermont, where this is actually legal. I tell him that women find this upsetting, but he is really turned on by being seen naked by them and has no intention of stopping. Also, he can’t get aroused with me unless he’s been on one of his walks. He says that when he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he masturbates while walking, but because he has me, he doesn’t. Should his nudism bother me? It really doesn’t, but I wonder if it should.

– Naked Dude’s Girlfriend

I’m always kind of amazed when people write me about how their partner’s “really great” – except for this one little thing. Your boyfriend, for instance, is “a really nice, normal guy,” except for how he’s a sex offender. “Dinner’s almost ready, hon,” you call to him. “I won’t be long,” he calls back. “Just taking a quick walk around the block to go scare a few little girls with my wang.”

Sure, people should do what pleases them sexually – if they’re doing it with other consenting adults. Leaving the house without a blindfold shouldn’t be considered a form of consent. Most of Vermont is clothing-optional. (One town passed a law against it, and I’m guessing there are signs reading “no pants, no shoes, no service.”) But because it’s legal to take your meat out for a bobble in front of the ice cream store doesn’t mean it’s right to force other people to look at it. On a lesser note, the same goes for nose-picking, which is legal in Canada, the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Also, what’s legal in Vermont is nudism (going naked), not lewdism (going naked with a sexual intent), which is why the latter comes with a maximum of five fully clothed years in a Vermont prison.

A sexual oddity becomes a psychiatric disor-der called paraphilia when somebody can’t get off without it and is intensely compelled to en-gage in it ... say, to the point where he’s risking jail time. Sex researchers Masters, Johnson, and Kolodny write in Heterosexuality that though paraphilias play out sexually, the preoccupation isn’t the pursuit of pleasure but fleeing from psychic pain, as with “compulsive hand-wash-ing or the person who must constantly line up all the jars and boxes in the pantry into neat,

perfect rows.” Unfortunately, though there’s been some success in treatment with therapy and antidepressants, they find that getting somebody to give up “what he or she deems to be a source of his or her most intense pleasure is likely to be fraught with problems.”

The question isn’t should you be bothered, but why aren’t you? Your boyfriend isn’t play-ing nude volleyball on weekends. He’s playing stroke the salami while strolling the neighbor-hood. Oh, right, he doesn’t do that while in a relationship – because his compulsion is fitted with a handy on/off switch? Ask yourself what compels you to stay with a guy who commits sex crimes every time he takes a walk. How much of your life is twisted around enabling him and convincing yourself you have a great boyfriend – even as you hear the faint screams of the little old lady down the street? Every relationship has its issues, and many women complain that their man isn’t that present dur-ing sex. Then again, that’s usually because they suspect he’s fantasizing about his hot co-work-er, not because they’re waiting for him to come back from traumatizing the coffee klatsch.

Don’t Go Seiko on Her

How long should a guy wait to call a girl after the first date? One friend waits a week. A female friend said this annoys girls and a guy should call the next day. This contradicts the old “three-day rule.” What is the right timing?

– Confused

I like the 30-year rule: “Hello, Tammy, you might not remember me, but I took you out for drinks in 1981.” Nothing tells a woman you aren’t desperate for her company like taking three decades to call her. That’s the point of all of these rules – for a guy to not seem desperate. A guy who isn’t probably doesn’t call at 9:01 the next morning, but he doesn’t sit on his phone for three days like he’s waiting for it to hatch. He might text the woman the next afternoon, saying he had a great time and he’ll call soon. Curb your desperation by asking lots of women out (so you won’t fixate on one) and just hope some stick. Convey confidence by letting your interest guide when you call. Develop confi-dence and you could charm a woman by break-ing the three-second rule – calling her before she’s even had a chance to get into her car.

Askthe Advice Goddess BY AMY ALKON

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River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 18 No. 783 • July 21 - August 3, 2011 ��Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

will be to feast your eyes on vast panoramas and expansive natural scenes. Doing so will invigorate your thinking about the design and contours of your own destiny, and that would be in sweet alignment with the astrological omens. So catch regular views of the big picture, Sagittarius. Treat clouds and birds and stars as if they were restor-ative messages from the wide-open future. Gaze lovingly at the big sky.

CAPRICORN (December 22-January 19): A Facebook friend posted a quote by seminal psychoanalyst Sigmund

Freud: “Being entirely honest with oneself is a worthwhile exercise.” In response, another Face-booker named Dean Robinson disagreed: “Oh, I say let yourself have a little denial, and touch base with reality on a need-to-know basis.” Another respondent named Paulie Cerra took that senti-ment one step further: “Reality and I have an understanding. I don’t mess with it and it doesn’t mess with me.” Which of those three approaches are you inclined to pursue, Capricorn? In light of the current astrological omens, I suggest you try the first one for at least the next two weeks.

AQUARIUS (January 20-Febru-ary 18): You really need to tell your

stories. It’s not just a good idea; it’s downright urgent. There’s a backlog of unexpressed narra-tives clogging up your depths. It’s like you have become too big of a secret to the world. The unvented pressure is building up, threatening to implode. So please find a graceful way to share the narratives that are smoldering inside you – with the emphasis on the word “graceful.” I don’t want your tales to suddenly erupt like a volcano all over everything at the wrong time and place. You need a receptive audience and the proper setting.

PISCES (February 19-March 20): Piscean actor Javier Bardem said this to Parade magazine: “I don’t know if I’ll get

to heaven. I’m a bad boy. Heaven must be nice, but is it too boring? Maybe you can get an apart-ment there and then go to hell for the weekends.” I caution all you other Pisceans against pursuing this line of thought in the coming weeks. You may imagine that you can get away with sneaking away to hell for just a couple of days a week, but I don’t share that optimism. My advice is to rack your brains to drum up as much adventure as possible in safety zones and sanctuaries where you know for sure you’ll stay healthy and sane. Homework: Don’t get back to where you once belonged. Go forward to where you’ve got to belong in the future. Testify at FreeWillAstrology.com.

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY by Rob Brezsny

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny's EXPANDED WEEKLY AUDIO HOROSCOPES

& DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPESThe audio horoscopes are also available by phone at

1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700

LEO (July 23-August 22): As I ponder your immediate future, I’m reminded of a scene from the animated TV show

The Simpsons. Here’s the situation: While visiting the home of a colleague, the superintendent of schools is surprised to witness an anomalous outbreak of spectacular light. “Aurora Borealis?” he exclaims. “At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?” “Yes,” replies the colleague. I suspect that you will soon enjoy a metaphorically comparable visitation, Leo.

VIRGO (August 23-September 22): My astrological colleague Antero Alli praises the value of anxiety. He says

that when you feel that unsettling emotion, it’s because you’re experiencing more uncertainty than you like to – and that can be a good thing. It could mean you’re about to experience the fertil-ity that comes from wading into the unknown. An outbreak of novelty may be imminent, giving you the chance to welcome interesting surprises into your life. In fact, says Alli, the anxiety that comes from unpredictable mysteries may herald the arrival of an influx of creativity.

LIBRA (September 23-October 22): “The I Ching counsels that if we

are associating with others who are not our true peers,” says astrologer Caroline Casey, “our real allies cannot find us.” Please apply this test to yourself, Libra. If, after taking inventory, you find that your circle is largely composed of cohorts and comrades who match your levels of vitality and intelligence, that will be excellent news; it will signal an opportunity to begin working on an upgraded version of your social life that will increase your access to synergy and symbiosis even further. But if your survey reveals that you’re hanging out too much with people whose energy doesn’t match yours, it will be time for a metamorphosis.

SCORPIO (October 23-November 21): There’s a lot of graffiti scrawled in a variety of languages on St. Peter’s

Basilica in Vatican City. A fairly recent arrival is a plea, in English, to resuscitate a defunct American TV sitcom. “God, Bring back Arrested Development,” the guerrilla prayer reads. Ac-cording to my reading of the astrological omens, Scorpio, now would be a good time for you to be equally cheeky in promoting one of your pet causes. Consider the possibility of taking your case to a higher authority. To fight for what’s right, you may have to make your mark in a place whose sphere of influence is bigger than yours.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22-December 21): Do you stare for hours every day into little screens like

those on smart phones, computer monitors, and TVs? If so, I recommend that you tear your gaze away from them more than usual in the coming week. A change in your brain chemistry needs to happen, and one good way to accomplish it

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I dreamed you were in a cake store. Every delicious kind of cake you could imagine was there: carrot cake,

strawberry cheesecake, gooey butter cake, rich chocolate cake with four layers of cherries and whipped cream, birthday cakes that must have been baked in paradise. Sadly, there was a prob-lem: You weren’t allowed to buy anything, even though you had enough money. A big sign on the wall said, simply, “Absolutely no cakes available for Aries.” What do you think my dream means? More importantly, what are you going to do about the situation? I suggest that in my next dream, you get a friend to buy a cake for you. Either that, or go to a different cake store. One way or another, the astrological omens say it’s high time for you get the cake you want.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Fill in the blanks, Taurus. Don’t let the blanks remain vacant and barren any longer.

Don’t allow them to keep screaming at you with their accusatory silence. Just fill in the freaking blanks with whatever you’ve got to fill them with – with your best guesses, with borrowed mojo, with any miscellaneous material you have at hand. I realize you may be tempted to wait around for a supposedly more ideal moment. But I’m here to tell you that this is as ideal as it gets. So please express the hell out of yourself in the empty spaces, my dear; create yourself anew in the void – however improvisational or inexact it might feel.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Do you know how to resolve an unresolvable paradox?” asked a Facebook friend

named Pi. He answered his own question: “You figure out the ‘error’ in the initial premise or assumption.” And that’s my prescription for you this week, Gemini. Do not be tempted to bang your head against the wall so as to shake loose a non-existent answer to the wrong question. Instead, stop yourself in the middle of your angst and think: “What would be a more productive way to formulate the riddle I need to untangle?”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): An innovative job-seeker named Travis Broyles put an ad on Craigslist in At-

lanta. Among the tasks he said he would perform for money were the following: draw your face on a balloon; email you a list of 250 things he likes about you; build you a cardboard car and make vroom-vroom sounds while you drive it; change his political leanings; rename your Pokemon; or provide you with star treatment for a month, hiding in the bushes like a paparazzi and taking candid photos of you. I recommend that you come up with your own version of a list like this, Cancerian. It will help stimulate your imagina-tion about what gifts you have to offer the world, which is exactly what the astrological omens are suggesting.


July � Crossword Answers

July 7 Answers: Right

ACROSS1. Hydros5. Role for Valentino10. Gripping device15. Bursts19. Revolver name20. Workforce21. Plantain lily22. Servant23. On the fritz: 3 wds.25. Unsuitable: 3 wds.27. Possessions28. Stuffy30. Anticipated, in a way31. Occupation32. The ones there33. Earthy fuel34. Table items37. The Pine Tree State38. Glassy42. Word on a coin43. Donnybrook44. Kind of recall45. Org. for GIs46. Phooey!47. Unattainable: 3 wds.49. Getz or Laurel50. Hubbub51. Arthur _ Doyle52. Some flop, some hit54. Ceremonial garment55. A flower57. Cave dweller59. Favor61. Shed’s contents62. Sycophant63. Speak hoarsely64. Mate66. Beau _67. Danced a certain way70. Cut down71. Bumbling agent73. Most populous place74. XCV minus XXXIX75. Grammatical gaffe76. Like some books: 3 wds.79. Move80. Compass pt.81. Mrs. Grundy, e.g.

83. Checks84. Cookout fare85. “Harry Potter” girl87. Goods88. Determines89. Thanks _ _!90. Like a wallflower91. Old “disease of kings”92. Spa attractions95. City in Switzerland96. Deletions100. Unaware: 3 wds.102. Unavailable for sale: 3 wds.104. Nova105. Tennessee _ Ford106. Loosen107. Diminutive suffix108. _ and aahs109. Naps110. In good shape111. Spectacle

DOWN1. Old English poet2. Rain3. Choir member4. Kind of stock order: hyph.5. Rejects6. Francis Bret _ 7. Whirlpool8. Hibernia: abbr.9. Babushka10. Pick11. Lowdown fellow12. Punta del _13. From _ _ Z14. Lustrous fabric15. Sense of taste16. Gen. Bradley17. Walk18. Cast off24. Distracting maneuver26. Kind of onion29. Hermit32. Tonal anagram33. Concise34. Stringed instrument: abbr.35. “The Devil Wears _”36. Tourist: hyph.

37. Element type38. Outspoken39. Gone haywire: 3 wds.40. Application41. Aid to navigation43. Investment vehicles44. Count47. Tons and tons48. Lyric poem49. Vapor51. Speaks lovingly53. Fast run56. Source57. Jay Silverheels role58. Half diam.60. Italia’s capital62. Cake63. Talks idly64. Strike65. Charm-school result66. Bea Arthur television role67. Climbs68. Water brand69. Daggers72. Vernon or Vesuvius73. Exclaimed77. Supporting structure78. Unsafe79. Federal laws81. Rice dish82. Farm denizen84. Kids’-book Doctor86. Landedestates87. Genie’s offering88. Lazed90. Unspoken91. Vaulted ceiling part92. Middling: hyph.93. _ -da-fe94. Where Ogden is95. Rolls96. “_ _, Brute?”97. IRA name98. Outer: prefix99. Slanting101. Cinnabar, e.g.103. Numero _

SOMETHING’S LACKING · JULY �1, �011

Clothesthat get you......


Live Music Live Music Live Music Email all listings to [email protected] • Deadline 5 p.m. Thursday before publication

2011/07/21 (Thu)

ABC Karaoke -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA

Boothill Ridge -Rock Island County Fairgrounds, Archer Drive & Avenue of the Cities East Moline, IL

Buddy Olson -Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill - Davenport, 3005 W. Kimberly Rd. Davenport, IA

DJ Jeff & Karaoke -Greenbriar Restaurant and Lounge, 4506 27th St Moline, IL

Four Play Cabaret -The Circa ‘21 Speak-easy, 1818 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Gong Show Karaoke w/ Rock ‘N the House Karaoke -Uptown Neighbor-hood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA

Jam Sessions with John O’Meara & Friends -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bettendorf, IA

Jesse Kobra Unplugged -Studio Pub, 1465 19th St. East Moline, IL

Karaoke Night -Applebee’s Neighbor-hood Gril l - Davenport, 3005 W. Kimberly Rd. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -The Gallery Lounge, 3727 Esplanade Ave. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -The Lucky Frog Bar and Grill, 313 N Salina St McCausland, IA

Live Lunch w/ Keith Soko (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Lynne Hart Jazz Quartet -Cabana’s, 2120 4th Ave. Rock Island, IL

Open Mic Night w/ Kung Fu Tofu -Stickman’s, 1510 N. Harrison St. Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Steve McFate -Sa-lute, 1814 7th St Moline, IL

Open Mic Night w/ The Dukes of Hag-gard -Bier Stube Moline, 417 15th St Moline, IL

Speaks Like Silence -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Daven-port, IA

Toby Brown -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Tony Hamilton Orchestra -Bass Street Landing Plaza, Moline, IL

Troy Harris, Pianist (6pm) -Red Crow Grille, 2504 53rd St. Bettendorf, IA

Twin Cats - Strange Arrangement -Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA

We Funk -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Yamn - UV Hippo -Gabe’s, 330 E. Wash-ington St. Iowa City, IA

2011/07/22 (Fri)

Angela Meyer -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Armed and Hammerd -Village Pub & Grill, 426 W 1st Ave Milan, IL

Barlowe & James (6pm) -Toucan’s Cantina / Skinny Legs BBQ, 2020 1st Street Milan, IL

Bettendorf Park Band Summer Con-cert -Bill Bowe Memorial Bandshell, Middle Park Bettendorf, IA

“Blues Plate Special” Lunch with Ren Estrand (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Daven-port, IA

Buddy Olson (5pm) -Missippi Brew, River Dr Muscatine, IA

David Killinger & Friends -G’s Riverfront Cafe, 102 S Main St Port Byron, IL

Dubtonic Kru - Firesale -The Redstone Room, 129 Main St Davenport, IA

Friday Live at 5: Douglas & Tucker -RME (River Music Experience) Courtyard, Davenport, IA

Funk Syndicate -Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riv-

erside, IAGrand Larsony -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W

Locust Davenport, IAHigh Cotton Blues Band -Rhythm

City Casino, 101 W. River Dr. Dav-enport, IA

Item 9 & the Mad Hatters -Del’s in the District, 1829 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Karaoke Night (members only) -Moose Lodge - Davenport, 2333 Rockingham Rd Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -Circle Tap, 1345 Locust St. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -Creekside Bar and Grill, 3303 Brady St. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -Paddlewheel Sports Bar & Grill, 221 15th St Bettendorf, IA

Karaoke Night -Rivals Sports Bar & Grill, 1720 E. Kimberly Rd. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -Stickman’s, 1510 N. Har-rison St. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night w/ Stevie J. -Roadrun-ner’s Roadhouse, 3803 Rockingham

Rd. Davenport, IAKim & Jim Lansford -The Mill, 120 E

Burlington Iowa City, IALynn Allen -River House, 1510 River Dr.

Moline, ILMid-Life Crysys -Martini’s on the Rock,

4619 34th St Rock Island, ILNight People -Cabana’s, 2120 4th Ave.

Rock Island, ILOpen Mic Night w/ Steve McFate -Sa-

lute, 1814 7th St Moline, ILRuss Reyman Trio (5pm) -The Rusty Nail,

2606 W Locust Davenport, IASalute to Our Soldiers: Funktastic Five

(7pm) - Smooth Groove (8:30pm) -Fitness First Plus, 849 Avenue of the Cities East Moline, IL

Shame Train - Shipbuilding Co. (9:30pm)-Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA

Shame Train - Gglitch’d (6:30pm) -Weather Dance Fountain Stage, outside the Sheraton Hotel, 210 S. Dubuque St. Iowa City, IA

Southern Thunder Karaoke & DJ -Hollar’s Bar and Grill, 4050 27th St

Moline, ILTerry Quiett Band -The Muddy Waters,

1708 State St. Bettendorf, IAThe Goddamn Gallows - Viva Le Fox

-RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, ILTri-Polar XXXpress - Just Chords -Up-

town Neighborhood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA

Troy Harris, pianist (6pm) -Phoenix, 111 West 2nd St. Davenport, IA

Who Cares? -Rock Island County Fair-grounds, Archer Drive & Avenue of the Cities East Moline, IL

2011/07/23 (Sat)

Back Track Band with Hollywood Dave -Ducky’s Lagoon, 13515 78th Ave Andalusia, IL

Bacon - Tasty Trigger -The Redstone Room, 129 Main St Davenport, IA

Cody Beebe & the Crooks -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Cosmic -Mound Street Landing, 1029 Mound St. Davenport, IA


DJ Scott & Karaoke -Greenbriar Res-taurant and Lounge, 4506 27th St Moline, IL

Emily Jawoisz -Studio Pub, 1465 19th St. East Moline, IL

Funk Syndicate -Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riv-erside, IA

Gray Wolf Band -River House, 1510 River Dr. Moline, IL

High Cotton Blues Band -Rhythm City Casino, 101 W. River Dr. Dav-enport, IA

Jason Carl Band -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA


Karaoke Night -Moe’s Pizza, 1312 Ca-manche Ave Clinton, IA


Karaoke Night w/ Stevie J. -Roadrun-ner’s Roadhouse, 3803 Rockingham Rd. Davenport, IA

Kieth Heinrich & Friends -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Lynn Allen - The Hooks -Uptown Neigh-borhood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA

Night People -Martini’s on the Rock, 4619 34th St Rock Island, IL


Orion Community Band (5:30pm) - Boothill Ridge (6:45pm) - June’s Got the Ca$h (8:30pm) -Orion’s Historic Central Park Bandshell, corner of 4th St & 12th Ave Orion, IL

Sabado Caliente (6pm) -Fargo Dance & Sports, 4204 Avenue of the Cities Moline, IL

Secret Squirrel -Hawkeye Tap, 4646 Cheyenne Ave. Davenport, IA

Slip-n-Slide Music Festival: Jim the Mule - The Candymakers - Orangadang! - Milltown - Rude Punch - Ragaman - Stoneheart - Gossimer & The Hairy Pineapples - The Harris Collection (noon) -Belshause Family Farm, 3612 85th Ave W. Milan, IL

Smooth Groove -Gil’s Bar & Grille, 2750 S. 27th St. Clinton, IA

Southern Thunder Karaoke & DJ -Hollar’s Bar and Grill, 4050 27th St Moline, IL

Superfly Samurai -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bettendorf, IA

The Blow -The Mill, 120 E Burlington Iowa City, IA


22FRIDAY23SATURDAY

21THURSDAY

Grand Larsony @ The Rusty Nail – July 22



The Fry Daddies (6pm) -Toucan’s Can-tina / Skinny Legs BBQ, 2020 1st Street Milan, IL

The G’glitch’d CD Release Party - Pre-Apocalyptic Junkyard Orchestra -Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA

The Tailfins -Rock Island County Fair-grounds, Archer Drive & Avenue of the Cities East Moline, IL

uneXpected -Purgatory’s Pub, 2104 State St Bettendorf, IA

Widetrack -Generations Bar & Grill, 4100 4th Ave. Moline, IL

Zither Ensemble (10am) -German American Heritage Center, 712 W. 2nd St. Davenport, IA

2011/07/24 (Sun)


Anthony Catalfano Quartet (10:30am) -Brady Street Chop House, Radisson QC Plaza Hotel Davenport, IA

Buddy Olson (3pm) -Ducky’s Lagoon, 13515 78th Ave Andalusia, IL

Dave Ellis hosts Funday Sunday Live Music on the Patio (6pm) -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bet-tendorf, IA

Glenn Hickson (5:30pm) -O’Melia’s Supper Club, 2900 Blackhawk Rd. Rock Island, IL

Jim Ryan (2pm) -Len Brown’s North Shore Inn, 7th Street and the Rock River Moline, IL

Karaoke Night -11th Street Precinct, 2108 E 11th St Davenport, IA

Keep Off the Grass (4pm) -The Captain’s Table, 4801 River Dr. Moline, IL

Music on the Levee: River City 6 -LeClaire Park, River Dr & Ripley St

Davenport, IAOpen Mic Night w/ Steve McFate -Sa-

lute, 1814 7th St Moline, ILPolyester Blend (5pm) -Riverside Casino

and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riverside, IA

2011/07/25 (Mon)

Blackberry Smoke - Derek Frank -The Redstone Room, 129 Main St Dav-enport, IA

Glenn Hickson (5:30pm) -Phoenix, 111 West 2nd St. Davenport, IA

Karaoke with Jeff Peiler -Bier Stube Moline, 417 15th St Moline, IL

Live Lunch w/ Randy Arcenas (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

One Night Stand Open Mic -Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA


Open Mic w/ J. Knight -The Mill, 120 E Burlington Iowa City, IA

2011/07/26 (Tue)

ABC Karaoke Contest Night -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA


Karaoke Night @ Fairmount (4pm) -Fairmount Street Library, 3000 N. Fairmount St. Davenport, IA


Karaoke Night -Sharky’s Bar & Grill, 2902 E. Kimberly Rd. Davenport, IA

Live Lunch w/ Steve Couch (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Netherfriends - Pennyhawk & Safe Words -The Mill, 120 E Burlington

Iowa City, IAOpen Mic Night -Cool Beanz Coffee-

house, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, ILOpen Mic Night -The Dam View Inn, 410

2nd St Davenport, IAOpen Mic Night w/ Steve McFate -Sa-

lute, 1814 7th St Moline, ILOpen Mic w/ Jordan Danielsen -Bier

Stube Davenport, 2228 E 11th St Davenport, IA

Starlight Revue Concert: Main Ave. Jazz Band -Lincoln Park, 11th Ave & 38th St Rock Island, IL

2011/07/27 (Wed)

Armed and Hammerd -Purgatory’s Pub, 2104 State St Bettendorf, IA


Jam Session -Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA

Jeff Miller (6pm) -G’s Riverfront Cafe, 102 S Main St Port Byron, IL


Karaoke Night -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL


Open Mic Night w/ Alan Sweet and Siri Mason -Mojo’s (River Music Experi-ence), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Karl, Mike, & Doug -Boozie’s Bar & Grill, 114 1/2 W. 3rd St. Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Luis Ochoa -Uptown Neighborhood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA


Southern Thunder Karaoke -Hollar’s Bar and Grill, 4050 27th St Moline, IL

The Burlington Street Bluegrass Band -The Mill, 120 E Burlington Iowa City, IA

Yes, Inferno - Avian Swarm-Rozz-Tox, 2108 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL

2011/07/28 (Thu)


Almost Heros -Mojo’s (River Music Experi-ence), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Austin Villejo -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Branson on the Road (7:15pm) -Circa ‘21 Dinner Playhouse, 1828 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Buddy Olson -Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill - Davenport, 3005 W. Kimberly Rd. Davenport, IA

Colourmusic - Morning Teleportation -The Mill, 120 E Burlington Iowa City, IA

DJ Jonny O -Greenbriar Restaurant and Lounge, 4506 27th St Moline, IL

Gong Show Karaoke w/ Rock ‘N the House Karaoke -Uptown Neighbor-hood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA

Gray Wolf Band -Modern Woodmen Park, 209 S Gaines St Davenport, IA

Jam Sessions with John O’Meara & Friends -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bettendorf, IA

Jimmy Valentine Quintet -Bass Street Landing Plaza, Moline, IL


Karaoke Night -The Gallery Lounge, 3727 Esplanade Ave. Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -The Lucky Frog Bar and Grill, 313 N Salina St McCausland, IA

Kevin Carton -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Live Lunch w/ Dave Maxwell (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Lynne Hart Jazz Quartet -Cabana’s, 2120 4th Ave. Rock Island, IL

Monos Eimi Aneu Seu -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Kung Fu Tofu -Stickman’s, 1510 N. Harrison St. Davenport, IA


Open Mic Night w/ The Dukes of Hag-gard -Bier Stube Moline, 417 15th St Moline, IL

The Uniphonics -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Troy Harris, Pianist (6pm) -Red Crow Grille, 2504 53rd St. Bettendorf, IA

2011/07/29 (Fri)

40th Annual Street Fest: Whoozdads (11am) - Chuck Star (1:30pm) - The Candymakers (4pm) - Ellis Kell Band (6pm) - Wild Oatz (8pm) - Cal Stage Band (10pm) -Downtown Davenport, Davenport, IA

Alan Sweet and the Candymakers -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bettendorf, IA

Austin Villejo -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Back Home Boys -Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riverside, IA

Bettendorf Park Band Favorites Con-cert -Bill Bowe Memorial Bandshell, Middle Park Bettendorf, IA

“Blues Plate Special” Lunch with Tony Hoeppner (noon) -Mojo’s (R iver Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Branson on the Road (1pm) -Circa ‘21 Dinner Playhouse, 1828 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Bucktown Birthday Bash: Lock & Dam - Ragaman - Rock Island Rhythm -Bucktown Center for the Arts, 225 E. 2nd St. Davenport, IA

Corporate Rock -Uptown Neighborhood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA

Corrosion of Conformity - The Horde - Lord Green -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL


Elysion Fields - Dividing the Masses - Searching for Security - From Gar-dens to Graveyards -River Music Ex-perience, 129 Main St Davenport, IA

Ernie Haase & Signature Sound -Adler Theatre, 136 E. 3rd St. Davenport, IA

Gray Wolf Band -Martini’s on the Rock, 4619 34th St Rock Island, IL

Karaoke Night (members only) -Moose Lodge - Davenport, 2333 Rockingham Rd Davenport, IA

Karaoke Night -Circle Tap, 1345 Locust St. Davenport, IA



Karaoke Night -Stickman’s, 1510 N. Har-rison St. Davenport, IA


Kevin BF Bur t & the I nstigators (6:30pm) -Weather Dance Fountain Stage, outside the Sheraton Hotel, 210 S. Dubuque St. Iowa City, IA

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RiverCitiesReader.com



Back Home Boys -Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riverside, IA

Big & Rich - Gretchen Wilson - Cowboy Troy - Two Foot Fred -Riverside Ca-sino and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riverside, IA

Bix 7 Party: Bob Dorr & the Blue Band -Tourist Park, 400 Center St. Cedar Falls, IA

Bluegrass at Beanz (6:30pm) -Cool Beanz Coffeehouse, 1325 30th St. Rock Island, IL

Caught In The Act -Uptown Neighbor-hood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA

Cheese Pizza - Holding Mercury -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL

Community Drum Circle (10:30am) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Corporate Rock -The Torchlight Lounge, 1800 18th Ave East Moline, IL


How Far To Austin -Kilkenny’s, 300 W. 3rd St. Davenport, IA

Just Cuz -Purgatory’s Pub, 2104 State St Bettendorf, IA


Karaoke Night -Generations Bar & Grill, 4100 4th Ave. Moline, IL

Karaoke Night -Moe’s Pizza, 1312 Ca-manche Ave Clinton, IA



Meet the Press -Peterson’s Bullseye Bar, 103 W. 3rd St. Sterling, IL

Night People -Len Brown’s North Shore Inn, 7th Street and the Rock River Moline, IL

Night People -Cabana’s, 2120 4th Ave. Rock Island, IL


Patio - Ragaman -Bent River Brewing Company, 1413 5th Ave. Moline, IL

Retro Ron -Mojo’s (River Music Experi-ence), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Russ Reyman Trio (5pm) -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA

Sister Sledge featuring Kathy Sledge -Quad-Cities Waterfront Convention Center, 1777 Isle Parkway Betten-dorf, IA


Terry and the Loan Sharks -Mound Street Landing, 1029 Mound St. Davenport, IA

The Hooks -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA

The Mike Blumme Trio (6pm) -Toucan’s Cantina / Skinny Legs BBQ, 2020 1st Street Milan, IL

Tronicity -River House, 1510 River Dr. Moline, IL

Troy Harris, pianist (6pm) -Phoenix, 111 West 2nd St. Davenport, IA

Who Cares? (5pm) -The Palace, 701 15th Ave East Moline, IL

2011/07/30 (Sat)

40th Annual Street Fest: The Tailfins (10am) - Just Chords (11:45am) - The Fry Daddies (1pm) - Iden-tity Crisis (3pm) - Funktastic Five (5:30pm) - The Blue Band (7:30pm) - Lynn Allen (10pm) -Downtown Davenport, Davenport, IA

Alan Sweet and the Candymakers -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bettendorf, IA


Red Gallagher -Mojo’s (River Music Expe-rience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Red Pepper Sage (6pm) -Toucan’s Cantina / Skinny Legs BBQ, 2020 1st Street Milan, IL

Red Rocket -Martini’s on the Rock, 4619 34th St Rock Island, IL

Rock Camp USA Session #3 Concert -The Redstone Room, 129 Main St Davenport, IA

Rule #1 -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA


The Funnies -River House, 1510 River Dr. Moline, IL

The Slough Buoys (1pm) -Jim’s, 311 W. 2nd St. Rock Falls, IL

Third Rail Outdoor Party -Greenbriar Restaurant and Lounge, 4506 27th St Moline, IL

Zither Ensemble (10am) -German American Heritage Center, 712 W. 2nd St. Davenport, IA

2011/07/31 (Sun)




Karaoke Night -11th Street Precinct, 2108 E 11th St Davenport, IA


Preston Shannon (6pm) -The Muddy Waters, 1708 State St. Bettendorf, IA

River City 6 -Riverside Casino and Golf Resort, 3184 Highway 22 Riv-erside, IA

2011/08/01 (Mon)

Glenn Hickson (5:30pm) -Phoenix, 111 West 2nd St. Davenport, IA

Karaoke with Jeff Peiler -Bier Stube Moline, 417 15th St Moline, IL

Live Lunch w/ Angela Meyer (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

One Night Stand Open Mic -Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA


Open Mic w/ J. Knight -The Mill, 120 E Burlington Iowa City, IA

2011/08/02 (Tue)

ABC Karaoke Contest Night -The Rusty Nail, 2606 W Locust Davenport, IA


Joe Nichols -Mississippi Valley Fair-grounds, 2815 W. Locust St Daven-port, IA



Live Lunch w/ Mo (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Maggie Drennon (6pm) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night -The Dam View Inn, 410 2nd St Davenport, IA


Open Mic w/ Jordan Danielsen -Bier Stube Davenport, 2228 E 11th St Davenport, IA

Ruby Jane -The Mill, 120 E Burlington Iowa City, IA

2011/08/03 (Wed)

Blake Shelton -Mississippi Valley Fair-grounds, 2815 W. Locust St Daven-port, IA


Corporate Rock -Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, 2815 W. Locust St Dav-enport, IA

Jam Session -Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St Iowa City, IA

Jeff Miller (6pm) -G’s Riverfront Cafe, 102 S Main St Port Byron, IL


Karaoke Night -RIBCO, 1815 2nd Ave. Rock Island, IL


Live Lunch w/ Brent Feuerbach (noon) -Mojo’s (River Music Experience), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Alan Sweet and Siri Mason -Mojo’s (River Music Experi-ence), 130 W 2nd St Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Karl, Mike, & Doug -Boozie’s Bar & Grill, 114 1/2 W. 3rd St. Davenport, IA

Open Mic Night w/ Luis Ochoa -Uptown Neighborhood Bar and Grill, 2340 Spruce Hills Dr. Bettendorf, IA


Southern Thunder Karaoke -Hollar’s Bar and Grill, 4050 27th St Moline, IL

Cody Beebe & the Crooks @ RIBCO – July 23

3WEDNESDAY

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MITSUBISHI

Get early closeout pricing on the Quad Cities Best Selection of Fuel Effi cient Vehicles!


Documents

River Cities' Reader - Issue 783 - July 21, 2011