River Cities' Reader - Issue 891 - September 17, 2015

8/20/2019 River Cities' Reader - Issue 891 - September 17, 2015

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River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 22 No. 891 • September 17 - 30, 20152 Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

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River Cities’ Reader • Vol. 22 No. 891 • September 17 - 30, 2015 3Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com

GUEST COMMENTARY by Daniel Bier

How Dangerous Is It to Be a Cop?

I

t’s “war on cops” season again,

in which politicians and pun-dits toss around the politicalfootball of officer safety. So now isan opportune time to look at thedangers of police work.

First, the big headline numbers:fatalities and homicides.

The National Law EnforcementOfficers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF)keeps track of all the officers whohave died on the job, from any cause,going back to the 19th Century.

Looking at officer fatalities permillion residents since 1900, thebroad sweep of history shows thatpolice work has been getting a lotsafer since Prohibition ended (with atemporary reversal during the 1960sand 1970s).

But, of course, not all fatalitiesare homicides. In fact, in recentyears, only about a third of work-related police deaths have been from

murder.NLEOMF doesn’t separately track

homicides, but the FBI has its own databasefor felony killings of police in the past few

decades. The Bureau of Justice Statisticshas also conducted a national police censusevery four years since 1992, giving us some

reliable estimates for the total number ofsworn officers up through 2008.

And no matter how you slice it, police

work has been getting a lot safer. Fatalities

and murders of police have been falling for

Continued On Page 16


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Cycle of Futility Continueswith State Budget

by Rich Miller

CapitolFax.comILLINOIS POLITICS

Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger saidlast week that state government’s back-log of unpaid bills will hit $8.5 billion

by the end of December, up from about $6billion right now.

That’s a headline-grabbing number,since the end of December is notexactly the greatest time for people andcompanies that are owedmoney by the state. The

state’s bill backlog wasabout $8 billion this pastJanuary, right after mostof the 2011 state-income-tax hike expired. But thebacklog fell to $3.5 billionby the end of July, and

just $2.3 billion of thosebills were more than 30days overdue.

But let’s take a look at another estimateComptroller Munger released last week.The comptroller totaled state spendingfrom last fiscal year that isn’t currentlybeing mandated by federal and state courtdecrees (Medicaid bills, state employeeand judicial salaries, etc.), continuingappropriations (bond and pensionpayments, legislative salaries), signedappropriations bills (K-12 education),and other things, and came up with $4.3billion.

The $4.3 billion is the total amount that

was paid out last year but is not currentlybeing sent to colleges and universities,state-employee health-care providers,non-Medicaid social-service providers,MAP Grant college-student-aid recipients,and lottery winners over $25,000, plus

various “transfers out,” including to localgovernments for things such as motor-fuel-tax distributions.

Eventually, that money will have tobe paid in full or in part, or significant

portions of the state are gonna be in a bigworld of hurt.

So the Senate Democrats stepped in lastweek and passed an appropriations billthat covers most of those state paymentsthat aren’t already going out the door. Theproblem, of course, is that just becausethey passed a spending bill doesn’t meanthere is any money to pay those bills.

And there are indeed no availablestate revenues to pay for most of those

appropriations (with an exception formoney that comes out of “special funds”such as the $582 million appropriatedfrom the Motor Fuel Tax Fund).

It’s kinda like thinking you have moneyin your bank account because you still

have plenty of checks.All the Senate’s legislation would do is

hasten the point at which the state runsout of money to pay any of its obligations.There are already billions of dollars lesscoming into state coffers because of theJanuary tax-hike expiration, but the Senatebill would spend billions of dollars more.

The governor’soverall record on veto

overrides so far thisyear has been 60 winsand 1 loss, with thatone “loss” being a vetoof Medicaid fundingfor heroin treatment,which was overriddenby both chambers and istherefore now law. Butthe governor agreed to

Republican legislators’ demands to notoppose the override, and there are thosewho believe he only vetoed it so he couldlook like he was opposed to spendingmoney on heroin-addiction treatment, soit wasn’t really a “loss.”

It’s therefore more than reasonable toassume that even if the House Democratsdo manage to get all 71 of their membersto town later this month and pass theSenate’s spending legislation (probablya big “if” considering that one of thoseDemocrats has tickets to see Pope Francis

that very day), the governor will likely veto the thing, and then the HouseDemocrats will struggle in vain yet againto override. So last week’s floor actioncould very well turn out to be futile. Andeven if they do override him, the governordoesn’t have to spend the money without acourt order.

In an open letter to members last week,the governor’s chief legislative liaisonurged the Senate Democrats to “come

back to the negotiating table to pursuecompromise, reform, and a balancedbudget,” to which the Senate Demsresponded: What is this “negotiating table”that they speak of?

According to the Senate Democrats, thefour legislative leaders and the governorhave not met with each other since lateMay. And the governor refuses to evendiscuss the budget until the Democratsagree to address his “TurnaroundAgenda.”

I just don’t know what to say anymore.

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

The Senate’s spending bill

is kinda like thinking you

have money in your bank

account because you still

have plenty of checks.

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(including Provencher) whouse literature as the starting

point for writing exercises.That club, Provenchersaid, generated six of TheNeighborhood Has Changed ’s10 tracks: “The rules arepretty simple: Just read thebook and write new music. ...You can draw from anythingyou feel.”

So Cheryl Strayed’s self-discovery memoir Wild – about a 1,100-mile hikealong the Pacific Crest Trail– begat the new album’s “NoUse Waiting,” Provenchersaid: “Back in the ’90s, afterI turned 18, I went to college

for a year and wasn’t really happy. And Idecided to buy a bicycle and just head offdown the East Coast. ... So reading thismemoir, I didn’t have the same impetusshe did with grief, but I just thought a lotabout solo travel and that kind of journey.

I thought about my mother, becauseshe had driven me to my starting pointoutside of Boston. And I was just thinkingabout letting go and family.”

The record’s arrangements arethoughtfully robust, but on the roadthey’re pared back. On bicycle tours,obviously, MoZo plays as an acoustic duo.In Rock Island, though, Tubbs promisedthat MoZo will offer its plugged-in side:“When it’s just Moe on the guitar and

me on the drums, there’s somethingthat’s more raw about it anyway ... thatautomatically makes it a little bit sparserand grungier. It’s fun to play with whatwe’re going to do with the low end.The arrangements come from ideassurrounding that – how we can make oursound as full as possible with just the twoof us.”

MoZo will perform on Friday, September

18, at Rozz-Tox (2108 Third Avenue, RockIsland; RozzTox.com). Cover for the 8 p.m.all-ages show is $5 to $10.

For more information on MoZo, visitGoMoZo.com.

slows the tempo and peels away the pop,but it remains compelling – from singer/songwriter storytelling to the gentlestof blues to harmonica-fueled protest tothe subtle builds and releases of “A LittleLove.”

“These records just feel like passion

projects,” Provencher said. “We aremaking our living in music, but it’sspread out over many different bands and

vehicles.”So MoZo carves out time every few

years for a new record and a bicycle tour.(Those tours have included westernEurope and Australia/New Zealand.)

“Let’s go see some places we’ve neverseen and travel by bike,” Provencher said.“It’s such a different experience when

you’re moving slowly like that. ... It camefrom not wanting to sit in cars all day. Weboth spent many years doing band tours.In some ways it feels like a cubicle job. ...We kind of wanted to get out of that van/driving mentality and get off the mainroad. ... It really connects you more towhere you are when you’re on a bike. ...You just meet more people, and you’remore connected to your surroundings.... There’s more food for thought whenyou’re off the interstate and you’re seeing

new things.”But they mostly play with other people.

Tubbs, for instance, plays drums withseveral members of Seattle’s BushwickBook Club – a group of songwriters

T

he Seattle duoMoZo will be

releasing its newalbum at a September 18show at Rozz-Tox, and inits home base at a show in... November.

That sentence hasseveral layers of oddness,especially consideringthat guitarist/singer/songwriter MoeProvencher and drummerAimee Zoe Tubbs have noMoZo shows scheduled inbetween.

Let’s start with theband releasing its recordhere, despite never havingplayed the Quad Cities area previously.Tubbs is from Eldridge, Iowa, and this willbe her first hometown show – and herfirst show in eastern Iowa in six years. “Ihave played for family and friends beforein other bands,” Tubbs said. “I’m more

excited than anything else to share ourmaterial and have them listen to what wesound like now.” The Rozz-Tox concertwill also feature the debut of SheridanDrive – a duo that features the daughterof Tubbs’ childhood best friend.

And having two months betweenrecord-release shows – and two monthsbetween shows, period – is part ofMoZo’s unusual character. The pair beganbusking together in Seattle roughly a

decade ago, and although Tubbs andProvencher are full-time musicians,MoZo is more of an occasional outlet fortheir original music.

They spent the summer as the rhythmsection for another band, playing roughly40 shows, and MoZo itself might onlyplay a dozen gigs this year – a reflectionof the difficulty making money as a band.

But that’s no reflection of the quality ofMoZo. The new album, The Neighborhood

Has Changed , kicks off with threespectacularly catchy bits of songcraft inthe vein of Jenny Lewis, with “Making MeBeg” adding a raucous New Orleans vibecourtesy of horns and woodwinds.

The remainder of the album largely

MoZo, September 18 at Rozz-Tox

Off the Main Roadby Jeff Ignatius

[email protected]

Vol. 22 · No. 891 Sep. 17 - 30, 2015

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Nahant Marsh Marks 15 Years as a Nature Preserve

From Wasteland to Treasure

E ven a brief visit to Davenport’s NahantMarsh will show something unusual: awetland habitat nestled in an area that

includes an interstate highway, a railroad,and various agricultural and industrial uses.You’ll likely see plants and animals that youwon’t find anywhere else in the Quad Cit-ies area, just a few minutes’ drive from theRockingham Road exit of Interstate 280 inthe southwestern part of the city.

“We know it’s the largest urban wetland

between St. Paul and St. Louis” along theMississippi River, said Executive DirectorBrian Ritter. “We think it’s one of the largesturban wetlands in the United States.”

Yet getting a fuller sense of the marshrequires patience. As Nahant Marsh BoardPresident Tim Murphy noted: “The marshdoes not usually reveal itself easily but willcome to those that sit and take the time toobserve.”

In an e-mail, he said that “I really like

the beaver complex in the northern part ofNahant proper. ... I never cease to be amazedat how beavers have created a substantialpond on ground that has almost no flowof water. I am very curious to see how thispond will be colonized and used by plantsand other animals, as well. This seems tome to be an example of how nature works ...largely outside of human influence. ...

“There are also other fish-free shallow-water excavations that hopefully will

become areas that hold and nurture a variety of amphibians, including newtsand salamanders. The number of littlecritters that can be found in the marshproper is really amazing. ... There arealmost always some ducks, geese, herons,or other waterfowl using the marsh. To seea muskrat, beaver, or otter takes quite a bitmore luck ... .”

Julie Malake – a photographer, artist, andmember of the Friends of Nahant Marsh– offered several examples of repeated,leisurely visits showing different facets of thewetland: “A particularly magical change hasbeen the return of the sandhill cranes,” shewrote. “During the first years of going to themarsh [starting in 2006], I saw no cranes.In the spring of 2011, I first saw a crane atNahant Marsh, and since then, cranes havebeen regular visitors. This year, sandhillcranes have been seen frequently, and I’vebeen able to observe them often.”

She continued by calling Nahant Marsh

“a wild, ever-changing garden full ofonce-widespread native plants, and [it]is extremely popular with many kinds ofbirds. ... What they [visitors] might see will

vary widely from day to day, even moment

to moment. I would also recommend tothose who do visit to take their time andbe still a while. Chances are good that themarsh’s residents will forget your presenceand simply go about their business. There’salways much more going on there than isreadily apparent.”

The marsh will be celebrating its 15thanniversary as a nature preserve andeducation center on October 20 with a 5

to 8 p.m. family event featuring “river rat”Kenny Salwey, musicians Ellis Kell andKendra Swanson, food, and (hopefully) aclassic Nahant Sunset. The celebration willprovide a taste of what Malake called “a pieceof heaven on earth. I love to walk outdoorsbefore dawn, going down to the water’sedge to sit quietly as all the colors of sunriseslowly paint their way down the bluff andacross the water. I have been going therefor almost 10 years now, and no two days

have ever been the same. In every season, inevery weather, in all the different times, therehave been images of beauty, and sometimessurprises.”

“Nature Is Still Trying toSurvive Here”

The biggest surprise is that NahantMarsh exists at all. “In spite of all the abusethis area has had along with the proximity

of industry,” wrote Friends of NahantMarsh Secretary Lynn Abel, “there are stillBlanding’s turtles here, and you can still seea river otter sliding into the water. Nature isstill trying to survive here.”

“This place was really almost lost,” Rittersaid. “It was on the verge of extinctionseveral t imes. ... We’re beyond that. We’regrowing, and we’re growing rapidly.”

When Ritter started in 2007, the marshhosted 1,500 people for educationalprogramming, and he was the only staffmember. Last year, the marsh had 15,000

visitors, and it has a new marketing andevent coordinator, a full-time and a part-

time educator, a natural-resources manager,and 2.5 staffers from the AmeriCorpsprogram. Earlier this year it completed a$250,000 expansion of its education center.Nahant Marsh recently purchased a dronefor scientific research – and this issue’s aerialcover photo was taken from it.

Fifteen years ago, Ritter said, SouthConcord Street and Wapello Avenuewere considered the dumping grounds ofDavenport. “You would have been able to

find any piece of trash you can think of,”he said, with garbage including an ATM,couches, TVs, and a truck. “That’s the imagepeople had of southwest Davenport – it’s aplace to get rid of your trash.”

But, he added, “we’ve severely curtailedthat.” On cleanup days in 2007, “we’d have100 people out here, and we still wouldn’tbe able to get all the trash. This past year, weonly requested 50 volunteers, and we wererunning out of things to do by noon.”

The size of the City of Davenport-ownedNahant Marsh has grown since it was a115-acre Superfund site in the late 1990s,and it now encompasses 265 acres, with landacquired piece-by-piece over the past decadeand a half. “There’s actually about 550 acres

of wetlands down here,” Ritter said, “and ourlong-term vision is to maybe acquire thoseor at least get those owners to put some type

of conservation easement on them.”Nahant Marsh includes 225 acres

northeast of Interstate 280, with the

additional acreage including Carp Lake –acquired in 2005 – on the other side. Rittersaid the marsh recently secured seven smallparcels along the railroad from the county.

And within Nahant Marsh is animpressive diversity of nature. Ritter said thepreserve has 410 species of plants, although

“50 or 60 of those are invasive species.” Rarenative species include the ear-leaved falsefoxglove and the pink turtlehead.

The bird population includes 154 species,

75 of which nest at Nahant. Sandhill craneshadn’t been observed until the past decade,and a pair nests at the marsh. The northern

harrier is endangered in Iowa, as is the red-shouldered hawk – which occasionally nestsat Nahant.

There are 34 species of mammals, seven

species of frogs and toads, at least fivespecies of turtles, and five confirmed speciesof snakes. Nahant has found and marked 22

Blanding’s turtles, and last year a hatchlingwas found for the first time in at least adecade.

“We’re hoping that what we’re doing ismaking it possible for those animals toreproduce here,” Ritter said.

You can find monarch butterflies and raredragonflies at Nahant, but “we have not doneextensive insect studies,” Ritter said. “That’skind of the next area we want to tackle.”

It’s an example of how, even after 15 years,the work at Nahant is never done.

Undervalued EcosystemsThe loss of wetlands – areas where the

soil is saturated for at least some portion of

the year – has been a nationwide problem.According to the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA), “In the 1600s, over220 million acres of wetlands are thoughtto have existed in the lower 48 states. Since

then, ... over half of our original wetlandsin the lower 48 have been drained andconverted to other uses. The years from the

mid-1950s to the mid-1970s were a time ofmajor wetland loss, but since then the rate ofloss has decreased.”

Yet “between 2004 and 2009, an estimated62,300 acres of wetlands were lost in theconterminous United States.”

Loss has been particularly acute in the

Midwest. Between the 1780s and 1980s,Iowa lost 89 percent of its wetland acreage,

COVER STORY

A sunset at Nahant Marsh Photo by Julie Malake


7/24


by Jeff Ignatius

[email protected]

and Illinois lost 85 percent. The numbersare similar in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, andKentucky – and the region is only rivaled byCalifornia in terms of wetland loss.

The reason for this destruction, Rittersaid, is rooted in the fact that “wetlandshistorically were viewed as wastelands.... Wherever you had settlement near awetland, that wetland didn’t last very long. ...

“I don’t think people realized the valueof what wetlands actually do – the fact that

they filter water and they produce hundredsof different species of animals. ... Peoplehave the idea of a marsh being a swampy,mosquito-infested area that you don’t wantto go to.” (Actually, Ritter said, marshes havelots of animals that feed on mosquitoes.)

According to the WWF, “Wetlandecosystems are often undervalued. ...These complex habitats act as giantsponges, soaking up rainfall and slowlyreleasing it over time. Wetlands are like

highly efficient sewage treatment works,absorbing chemicals, filtering pollutants andsediments, breaking down suspended solids,and neutralizing harmful bacteria. They arealso the most biologically diverse ecosystemson Earth.”

“The only thing that’s more productive[than wetlands in terms of plants andwildlife] are tropical rainforests,” Ritter said.“These are the tropical rainforests of thenorth. ... Almost every animal that lives in

the Midwest spends at least part of its timein some type of wetland. ... We don’t allowhunting here, but if you’re a hunter or afisherman, you should be very appreciativethat we have places like this, because thisplace is producing all kinds of wildlife thatmigrate elsewhere eventually.”

Nahant Marsh, he said, survived largelyundisturbed late into the 1960s – most likelya result of Davenport not having grown thatfar southwest until the middle of the 20thCentury. “Nobody was doing anything downhere,” he said. “You can’t farm this; it’s toowet. You can’t build Walmart here unless youfill it in. It’s a great place for a gun club.”

Poisoning butSaving the Marsh

And so in 1969, the Scott CountySportsmen’s Association Trap & SkeetShooting Club relocated its shooting site

from Bettendorf to Nahant Marsh – andremained active there until 1995.According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife

Service’s 2001 Final Natural ResourceRestoration Plan for Nahant Marsh, “anestimated 243 tons of lead shot were

deposited in a 70-acre portionof the marsh based on gun-club shooting records.”

“By the ’90s,” Ritter said,“there are areas in here whereyou could pull up a handful ofmud and get hundreds of leadshot.”

The effects on the marsh,he said, were wide-ranging,but most obviously the lead

shot affected waterfowl. “Youcan think of Nahant Marsh aslike a rest stop on the highway;the highway is the MississippiRiver,” Ritter said. Ducks andgeese would stop there to rest,feed, and occasionally breed.“Ducks and geese don’t haveteeth, so in order to break down the foodthey eat, they eat little bits of rock or grit,” hesaid. But “instead of finding rock and grit,

they’re finding lead shot. ... It just takes onelead BB to kill a duck or a goose.”

It’s also likely that lead was leaching intothe ecosystem. Cattails readily absorb toxins,Ritter said, and some, “instead of lookinglike a hot dog on a stick, looked like somedeformed hand sticking out of the water.That lead was getting in the cattails as well. ...

“There were other animals that wouldfeed on the cattails. Muskrats – that’s oneof their favorite food sources – they were

probably getting poisoned.”And “as ducks and geese get sick and diefrom lead poisoning, lots of things like toscavenge on them” – including bald eagles,coyotes, and raccoons. “It’s very possiblethat we were getting secondary and tertiarypoisoning.”

It’s easy to fault the shooting club for thedamage it did to the Davenport wetland, buteven though its activities poisoned NahantMarsh, the organization’s presence likely alsosaved it.

“Most of the wetlands that once existed inIowa are gone,” Ritter said, “and the fact thatthis one survived – especially the fact that it’sin an urban area – is absolutely incredible. ...Had the gun club not been here, it probablywould have been filled in sometime in the’70s. ... The stars aligned.”

He added that pollution of the marshcreated an impetus for further action:“It really took this catastrophe to get thecommunity involved and get enough

pressure on the federal government to comein and actually clean it up.”

Complaints about sick and dead waterfowlled to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serviceinvestigation, which in turn led to Nahant

Marsh being declared a Superfund site. TheEPA completed a $2-million cleanup in1999.

An Ongoing ProcessThe cleanup, however, was just the

beginning of the work at Nahant Marsh,and it stemmed from the work of a varietyof organizations, including the EPA, theU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, River Action,the Quad City Audubon Society, and theIowa Department of Natural Resources. Aspart of the Superfund process, the City ofDavenport purchased Nahant Marsh fromthe shooting club.

After the cleanup, Ritter said, the Fish& Wildlife Service worked with the ScottCounty Conservation Board to plant prairiesand sedge meadows, and the PutnamMuseum ran education programs. Trailmaintenance was done by the Friends ofNahant Marsh.

It remains a partnership among manyentities. The city does basic maintenance,the site is overseen by the Nahant Marshboard, and the Friends of Nahant Marsh

organization remains active. Eastern IowaCommunity Colleges runs educationprograms.

Including in-kind contributions from various sources, Nahant Marsh has anannual budget of roughly $300,000, but itstill needs to raise about $160,000 each yearthrough memberships, grants, corporatesponsorships, donations, and fees foreducational programs.

Kent Turner, co-chair of the Friends

of Nahant Marsh, wrote that the biggestchallenge for the wetland is “the need to finda consistent and reliable funding source forthe ongoing financial commitments (salaries,maintenance, etc.) of the marsh.”

He also said that while “thelarge increase in staff seems tohave created more, and better,education opportunities forthe general public, the overallorganization seems to be a

bit ‘jumbled’ at this time. ... Iwould like to see the centerdetermine what the mainfocus should be – education[or] preservation?”

Abel, secretary of the

Friends group, said aneducational focus shouldn’tcome at the expense ofconservation: “I would liketo see us have a really high-

quality prairie restorationon both sides of the marsh,

with much research being done to improvehabitat for sensitive species such as theBlanding’s turtle. I believe we are close to

capacity for school groups, but researchshould be a focus also. The more we learn,the better able we will be to make this a safe,healthy habitat for the creatures who werehere first.”

It’s crucial to understand that preservationof Nahant Marsh is an ongoing project.

Friends of Nahant Marsh member Malakenoted that areas near the wetland are still adumping ground: “On August 8, a staggeringamount of trash was picked up from near

the intersection of Wapello and Concord,an area Nahant Marsh patrols for XstreamCleanup events. ... Yet today as I writethis, that same area is already full of moredumped tires and more trash.”

And it requires lots of human interventionto maintain Nahant Marsh in its “natural”

state – which is to say the way it was beforehuman settlement. Staff regularly conductscontrolled burns and seeds native plants, andNahant Marsh rents goats each year to clear

invasive brush. Nahant Marsh leadership,Ritter said, is mulling whether it wants to get

rid of trees in the marsh, which aren’t nativeto the wetland ecosystem.

“We have these tiny little pockets ofnature, these preserves, ... surrounded bya sea of humanity,” he explained. “The old

approach to preserves was that you just walkaway from them, and nature will take careof it. That’s not the case at all. If you neglecta small preserve, it’ll quickly get overrun by

invasive species. It’ll quickly get degradedand essentially become a monoculture.”

Two key factors contribute to thissituation.

Nahant Marsh Executive Director Brian Ritter



8/24


days meant there was no reason not to

publish the book once it was finished.

“It was virtually free,” Hentrich said.

“It’s just the best time in history to do

it. The process is so seamless and so

painless.”

He said he paid less than $100 for

artwork for the book, and there was

no cost to publish it via Amazon.com’s

CreateSpace division. Paperbacks are

published on-demand – meaning thatauthors no longer need to buy 1,000

copies of their work that will sit in a

garage. “There’s very little excuse not to

try it,” he said.

Physical books cost $13, while

the Kindle version costs $2.99 – and

the book is free to Kindle Unlimited

subscribers. “I tried to take every

opportunity I could to screw myself out

of money,” he said, laughing. “I’d much

rather have 1,000 people read it andmake no money off it than to make 100

bucks and have 10 people read it.”

But the downside to self-publishing

is the difficulty in finding and building

an audience, and Hentrich concedes he’s

nowhere near 1,000 readers four months

after the book was f irst made available.

“Hoping someone’s going to stumble

across your book and think it’s great

is really just throwing a rock in a

pond,” he said. “The flip side of thatease of publishing is that the market is

swamped. ...

“I’ve been extremely pleased with the

process of self-publishing. ... I’ve been

fairly pleased with the handful of people

who have gotten it and read it ... .”

Ultimately, he said, writing and

marketing the novel were experiments,

and he might choose a different path for

his next work – which concerns a female

protagonist participating in undergroundmagic competitions not unlike sporting

events. As with Damned City , the core

concept has fascinating facets – in

this case, the idea of crowd funding

transplanted to the magic competitions,

with the audience’s investment of energy

crucial to success.

He hopes to finish writing the book in

a year, and he’s also considering stepping

up into traditional publishing – both

for what an editor might offer and the

possibility of marketing assistance. “One

thing that Damned City lacked was an

editor – the person who knows what sells

and what sounds good,” he said.

Damned City , Quad Cities Author Matt Hentrich’s Debut Novel

Now That the Magic Has Gone

by Jeff Ignatius

[email protected]

In Matthew Hentrich’s novel DamnedCity , the magic has gone – literally.

The self-published debut novel fromthe Quad Cities author takes place in aworld in which everybody has magicalskills – but its hook is that the residentsof Spectra have been abruptly robbedof those abilities. There are additionalcomplications for the city: Its highestelected official has been found dead,and it is enveloped in a spell that makes

time pass much more slowly than in therest of the world – making daylight spandays. Spectra’s residents are certain thatan attack on the city is imminent, andthey need to figure out how to defendthemselves with their magic gone.

The premise, Hentrich said in a recentphone interview, was a reversal of thetypical fantasy what-if of charactershaving magic. “The one twist I thoughtI could put on the concept was to go the

opposite direction and say, ‘What if youhad people who had magic, and now it’sbeen removed from them?’”

That narrative starting point is plentyclever, and Hentrich is also strong inhis pacing, in his management of storyrhythm with multiple main characters,and especially in the way he meldsdisparate elements into a compellinghybrid. His world shares plenty with ours(from coffee and booze to representative

government) while still being foreign.(In one nice oddball touch, a city with noneed for mechanical transportation findsitself using bears for travel when magicdisappears.) The plot brings togetherfantasy and mystery, and Hentrich trustsreaders enough to leave out expositorybackground that would bog downhis quick-moving story; everything isfamiliar enough to grease the path.

The choice to not fill in the blanks,he said, was both an artistic choice anda way to keep the book lean: “Fromthe perspective of the characters, itdoesn’t make sense to give a lengthyexplanation of why they do the thingsthat they always do.” World-building, heacknowledged, “is useful to the reader. ...It just would have added an awful lot oflength to the book,” which still ended upat 480 pages.

So he chose to err on the side ofomission. “I struggled more with pacing

than I thought I would,” he said. “It’shard to intuitively sense whether ornot your story is moving fast enoughfor the reader ... . What was difficult... was that nagging sensation that

maybe I’m moving too fast, and I’m notpaying enough attention to the readerexperience.”

The book was written, Hentrich said,nearly entirely on his lunch hours, and ithas unsurprising shortcomings for a newnovelist working under that constraintand the self-doubt about pacing. Thethree main characters – all playing arole solving the mystery/problem – aredisappointingly stock and sketchy: analcoholic cop, a plucky female scientist,and an escaped criminal trying toreunite with his family. (That’s really allyou need to know about any of them.)Details are largely provided to propel theplot – a storytelling style that feels tooeconomical.

And close calls come down to last-gasp

efforts at survival – attempts at suspensethat rarely work. When the cop is trappedin a sinking boat and thinks a box ofmatches will save him, he inevitably fails... until he’s down to his final match.

Yet Hentrich’s book works, in large partbecause of the casual yet intricate way hecrafts the world, and also because of howhe’s thought through the implications ofhis ideas. Hentrich said he’s most proudof a section in the middle of the book

describing a particular spell – essentiallyone that makes cognitive dissonance apowerful weapon.

“I really wanted to have this ... magicspell that someone might have thatwould make you see things from anotherperson’s perspective,” he explained.“Not just mental manipulation ... [but] aspell where you actually see things fromtheir perspective. You have your ownperspective, but you also have theirs. Ifyou disagree with them, having theirperspective shoved into your brain wouldbe very difficult and might even driveyou crazy.”

The spell, he said, originated “probablyfrom daily experience,” particularly his

blog writing of political commentary;he equates persuasive writing with hisimagined magic: “That’s almost whatyou’re doing when you’re making anargument ... . You’re trying to get aperspective into their brain – not just anargument, but all the things that lead tothat argument. ... It can be very difficultor impossible, and if you do manage toforce your perspective into someone else’s

mind, it can be very hard for them.”Another inspired idea is that the

scientist is charged with investigating(and eventually building) the mechanicaltools of a long-dead race of nonmagicalpeople as a way to defend Spectra –although such inquiries are illegal. (Sheand her team are handicapped by the factthat they have no idea about the functionof anything they’re building.)

Damned City , Hentrich admits, started

with a simple goal of “seeing somethingwith my name on it in print.” He said hewas approaching his 30s, and “if I wasgoing to do anything creatively, I had todo it then, or I probably wasn’t going todo it all.”

He attended a writers’ conferenceand began working on the novel overhis lunch breaks at his job as a systemsadministrator. (He has two children and afull-time-student wife who attends classes

out-of-town, making writing at homedifficult.)And aside from the (considerable)

investment of time and energy, theprocess and costs of self-publishing these

BOOKS


9/24


I’ve not seen theJimmy Stewart takeon playwright Mary

Chase’sHarvey , so I cannotattest whether the movie’sfans will appreciate thePlaycrafters Barn Theatre’sproduction. However,in the absence of anycomparison, I can say thatI liked this presentation and now want to see

the film – though it’ll have to successfullystand up against director James Fairchild’s ver-sion, rather than the other way around.

Mike Kelly’s eternally happy-go-luckyapproach to the main character Elwood, theman who sees and interacts with a six-footwhite rabbit, is perfectly suited for an Elwoodwho’s both mad and lovable. He’s so nice thathe couldn’t possibly be sane, which gets tothe point of Chase’s play: It’s those living inthe hustle and bustle of “polite society” whoshould be rejected, not this ever-optimisticloon.

Speaking of that society, I loved Patti

Flaherty’s turn as Elwood’s sister Veta. In

her role as a woman longing to be accepted

into the best of the social circles, Flaherty

almost overplays the part, but that’s what’s

so enjoyable about her portrayal; Flaherty’s

Veta is a bit of a clown, and had me in stitches

throughout Friday’s performance. Whether

employing a high-pitched giggle or shifting

her vocal inflection mid-sentence from lilting

to aggressive, I wanted more stage time fromthe performer than the script allows. (There’s

actually a described scene in which the woman

is bathed in a sanatorium that I wished were

acted out instead, just for the sheer pleasure

of seeing Flaherty’s comedic genius in it.) The

characterization suits Chase’s theme because

while Veta is hilarious, her grand reactions are

also a bit much to stomach – this “sane one” in

the family is even crazier than Elwood.

That’s exactly why I wish the rest of

Fairchild’s cast matched Flaherty’s energy andborderline-overacting, because it would haveemphasized Elwood’s calmness in the midst ofchaos, contrasting the insane “normal” worldwith his more welcome gentility. Here, though,only those playing Harvey ’s more minorcharacters pull that off, inclduing Pat Flahertyas the elderly Judge Omar, the man in controlof Elwood’s inherited estate. His aggressivelyastonished reactions had my partner and mein stitches so often that we frequently missedseveral lines that followed.

Similarly, playing well-to-do family friendEthel Chauvenet, Susan Perrin-Sallak’s over-enunciated, hoity-toity delivery of the line “Ithought you were dead ” is one I’m now (over-)using as much as possible in conversation.

THEATRE By Thom [email protected]

Hare Today, Gone TomorrowHarvey , at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre through September 20

Aaron Lord is alsomemorable, althoughhe has only one shortscene as the impatienttaxi driver E.J. (Theeffervescent SarahAde Wallace alsoappears here, but herhousekeeper MissJohnson barely says a

word during her brief moments on stage.)

While I’ve seen all these actors in previousproductions, Pamela Briggs is new to me,and, in this show, proves a bit of an acquiredtaste. After her entrance in which Briggs’Betty Chumley first meets Elwood at herhusband’s psychiatric hospital Chumley’s Rest,I blanched at her seemingly overdone, aimlessperformance. However, it didn’t take long towarm to Briggs’ charm as a curious socialitewho takes a shine to Elwood. Like Lord’s andPerrin-Sallak’s, Briggs’ stage time is too shortgiven the delight she brings.

Chameleonic actor Brant Peitersen adds

another color to his impressively shaded

repertoire with his hysterically crass mental-

institution orderly Duane Wilson. Peitersen’s

Duane is wholly different from his boisterous,

show-stealing Herod in this summer’s JesusChrist Superstar for Countryside CommunityTheatre and his nuanced giant in the same

company’sBig Fish. Stephanie Moeller,meanwhile, returns to the comicality I

frequently adore from her after her impressive

dramatic performance as Gretchen in lastyear’s Prenzie Players production of DoctorFaustus. Here, she’s a somewhat underqualifiedChumley’s Rest nurse who’s both enamored of

and exasperated by Ethan Johnson’s handsome

young facility psychiatrist Lyman Sanderson.

But Johnson’s bland performance wouldbenefit, at the very least, by slower delivery,stronger diction, and greater (or any)projection. Mattie Gelaude is fine, though one-note, as Veta’s almost-always angrily flustered

daughter Myrtle. And while Bill Peiffer, atone point, pulls off an impressive drunkenstate for his Dr. Chumley, his impossiblyfast sobering up returns him to an unevencharacterization that waffles between acerbicand forgettable. But none of them derailsPlaycrafters’ Harvey , which also looks greatgiven Craig Cohoon’s set design, and TristanTapscott’s period costumes and lightingeffects. I think Playcrafters is at its best whenproducing a well-known classic, and this oneis no exception.

Harvey runs at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre(4950 35th Avenue, Moline) through September 20,and more information and tickets are available bycalling (309)762-0330 or visiting Playcrafters.com.

Mike Kelly


10/24



11/24


is a pro-faith drama about a minister’spainful rehabilitation following a horrificaccident, and not, sadly, a super-size

version of the best middle-school gameever. Numerous scenes are devotedto how newly impaired minister DonPiper (Christensen) and wife Eva (KateBosworth) will pay off their crushing

hospital debts, and although it’s neveracknowledged in writer/directorMichael Polish’s screenplay, the real-life Don writing a subsequent memoirthat’s sold more than 7 million copiesdoes provide a clue. Yet this adaptationdoesn’t feel at all like a cynical grab forthe faithful’s cash. It does, however, feelsimultaneously lethargic and pushy,with the dour castmates forever tradingunmotivated bromides and Christensenforced to suffer and suffer and thenexplain all that suffering in maddeninglyrepetitive, tedious voice-over. Andwhat’s with the incessant, even scriptedplugs for McDonald’s? “I’m in love withthese fries,” says one character. “I neverthought a cheeseburger could tasteso good,” says another. “Can I get youanything?” asks Fred Thompson to thebed-ridden Christensen. “A hamburger?A milkshake?” Are we sure this isn’t 90

Minutes in Happy Madison?

7:15-ish: To remind myself of betterdays for Hayden Christensen, I re-watchShattered Glass over dinner. FromMcDonald’s. Damn it.

For reviews of A Walk in the Woods, TheTransporter Refueled, and other currentreleases, visit RiverCitiesReader.com.

Follow Mike on Twitter at Twitter.com/ MikeSchulzNow.

Movie Re views by Mike Schulz • [email protected]

Friday, September 11, 10:25 a.m.-ish:

This millennium has already delivered18 screen hours of J.R.R. Tolkien, our

first female Oscar winner for Best Direc-tor, and, astoundingly, two Fantastic Fourreboots. Why, given such miracles, can’t webe treated to even one stalker thriller thatdoesn’t suck?

The late 20th Century was lousy with’em: Fatal Attraction, Single White Female,Pacific Heights, Cape Fear . Nowadays, ouroptions are just lousy, and while The PerfectGuy isn’t as wretched as January’s The BoyNext Door , it, too, elicits more derisivechuckles (roughly 20) than shivers (roughlyzero). Director David M. Rosenthal’s outingfinds Sanaa Lathan dumping commitment-phobe Morris Chestnut for the initiallysweet, secretly sociopathic Michael Ealy,whose cheekbones alone could serve asdeadly weapons. The movie would alsoseem tailor-made for a drinking gamein which you took a shot for every genrecliché – Powerless cops! Missing cat! Emptyparking garage! – if it wouldn’t lead to everyparticipant dying of alcohol poisoning.It’s all blandly composed and terminallyunsurprising, but Lathan does well withher dim role (and spits out her PG-13release’s allotted F bomb with gusto). She’salso backed by first-rate support including

Holt McCallany, L. Scott Caldwell, CharlesS. Dutton, John Getz, Tess Harper, andRutina Wesley, the latter playing Lathan’sBFF after having portrayed psycho magnetson TV’s True Blood and Hannibal . So forour heroine, from the start, the writing wasclearly on the wall.

12:15 p.m.-ish: That’s when I startedwatching writer/director M. NightShymalan’s horror comedy The Visit .1:45 p.m.-ish is when I realized I’d seen

my favoriteM. NightShymalanmovie yet.It may evenbe the onlyShymalanmovie I’ve

unreservedlyenjoyed, partlybecause itscreator soeffectively stays out of his own way. Hedoesn’t even cameo! An updated, sick-

joke “Hansel & Gretel” in which two teendocumentarians (Olivia DeJonge andEd Oxenbould, Australians navigatingimpressive American accents) spenda week at the country home of creepygrandparents they’ve never met (DeannaDunagan and Peter McRobbie), the film ispresented – surprise! – in “found footage”format. Under ordinary circumstances,this incessantly irksome narrative devicewould be a recipe for disaster, or at leastcriminal lack of invention. Yet deprived ofhis traditionally melodramatic music cuesand stagey dialogue, Shymalan delivers oneexpert, giggly visual shock after another:grandma rushing the camera during a gameof hide-and-seek; grandpa calmly insisting

he was “just cleaning” the rifle in his mouth;the barely glimpsed shot of a friendlyneighbor hanging from a tree. You feel onedge throughout The Visit , but because itskids have been designed as self-sufficientand funny, you don’t feel brutalized, evenwhen the magnificent Dunagan andMcRobbie prove as harrowing as theyare dryly hilarious. With Kathryn Hahnmagically real as the youths’ Skype-ingmom, Shymalan’s latest is a blast, and I

leave not at alldreading hisnext one. Talkabout millennialmiracles.

1:50-ish:

Time forUn Gallo

con MuchosHuevos, thefirst animatedSpanish-

language feature widely released in theU.S., and the first family film, to myknowledge, to celebrate the fine art ofMexican cockfighting. Granted, the cockshere use boxing gloves instead of peckingeach other to death. But I still spend muchof my viewing slack-jawed in amazement,be it at the ambulatory slice of bacon, orthe full-cheeked egg doing a Don Corleoneimpression, or our rooster hero mooningover a chicken with his egg pal opining, “Ithink she wants to go all the way with you!”(Like The Perfect Guy , this one’s a PG-13,although no F bomb is dropped.) Not sinceVeggieTales have I seen an animated workthis hyperactive and bat-shit insane, and asa fellow reviewer and I were the only onesthere, I can’t gauge the reactions of kids –though tykes fluent in Spanish will clearly

be better off, as the subtitles occasionally zipoff-screen faster than I can read them. Yetwriters/directors Gabriel and Rudolfo RivaPalacio Alatriste lend this lunatic endeavora fair amount of visual and (pun-heavy)

verbal wit, and I guess there’s comfort inthe knowledge that Hollywood hasn’t amonopoly on family-flick fart jokes.

4:30-ish: The answer to the unaskedquestion “So what’s Hayden Christensenbeen up to lately?”, 90 Minutes in Heaven

Stalking, Shocking, Screeching, Preaching

Peter McRobbie in The Visit

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


12/24


What’s Happenin’LiteratureBad Idea Book TourVillage Theatre

Wednesday, September 30, 8 p.m.

On September 30, Davenport’s Midwest Writing Centerand Village Theatre will team up to host a trio ofexciting, innovative prose authors reading in their Bad IdeaBook Tour. I’m sure there are perfectly legitimate reasonsfor the tour’s title. But based on the reviews amassed by

participants Colin Winnette, Aaron Burch, and Amelia Gray(pictured, in sequence), it seems, instead, like a very, very

good idea.Born in Texas and now based in San Francisco, Colin

Winnette is the associate editor of PANK magazine whosefirst novel, 2011’s Revelation, was published while the authorwas still a graduate student at the School of the Art Instituteof Chicago. His short stories, reviews, and poems haveappeared in such publications as The American Reader, GulfCoast Magazine, and The Believer. He was the winner of the2012 Sonora Review’s Short Short Fiction Award and Les

Fugues Press’ 2013 Book Contest. And for his 2015 Westernnovel Haints Stay , Winnette has earned perhaps the mostenthusiastic raves of his career to date, with the Los AngelesTimes calling the book an “astonishing portrait of American

violence.” ElectricLiterature.com, meanwhile, wrote, “It is awonder that Colin Winnette still remains relatively obscure,”adding that “indie editors would do well to get their hands ona Winnette manuscript quickly before he inevitably gains thecritical momentum to land on the desk of somebody at oneof the bigger houses.”

An Ann Arbor resident who teaches at both the Universityof Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, Aaron Burch

is the founding editor of the literary journal Hobart , andhis acclaimed prose and poems have been published inperiodicals including New York Tyrant, Barrelhouse, ... andWinnette’s PANK magazine. The winner of PANK ’s firstchapbook competition for his short-fiction collection How to

Take Yourself

Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew, Burchachieved anew level ofliterary fame

with the release of his 2014 publication Backswing . Describedby Publishers Weekly as an “accomplished collecion of 14short stories ... of young protagonists alienated, confused,and searching for their identity,”Backswing inspiredElectricLiterature.com to call it “provocative, melancholy,and meditative,” and HeavyFeatherReview.com to deem it “adamn good read, brilliant in places, the work of a writer whothrives on taking risks.”

And what of Amelia Gray, the Arizona-born, Los Angeles-based fiction author whose writing has appeared in The NewYorker, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal ?Well, she holds degrees from Arizona State Universityand Texas State University. In 2012, she was short-listedfor the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She’sthe author of a 2012 novel titled THREATS and a trio ofshort-story collections: 2009’s AM/PM , 2010’s Museum ofthe Weird , and this year’s Gutshot . And here’s a sampling of

her plaudits: The Los Angeles Times describes her style as“akin to the alternately seething and absurd moods of DavidLynch and Cronenberg.” NPR calls Gray’s writing “by turnshorrifying, funny, sexy, and grotesque.” And in praising her“brave excursions into the realms of the unreal,” the NewYork Times stated that the Gutshot experience “is a little likebeing blindfolded and pelted from all sides with fire, Jell-O,and the occasional live animal.” To be fair, the paper of recordexplains that statement with “You’ll be messy at the end andslightly beaten up, but surprised and certainly entertained,”yet that “Bad Idea” moniker is still making a bit more sense

now ... .There’s a suggested donation of $5 for the Village

Theatre event, and more information on the Bad IdeaBook Tour is available by calling (563)324-1410 or visitingMidwestWritingCenter.org.

TheatreTimon of AthensQC Theatre Workshop

Friday, September 18,

through Sunday, September 27

Timon of Athens, which the verse-theatretroupe the Prenzie Players will performSeptember 18 through 27 at Davenport’sQC Theatre Workshop, is one of the less-frequently produced works in the WilliamShakespeare canon. But its title character ishardly one that’s gone unappreciated in thepress. The New York Times, for instance, hasraved about the “bright, energetic appeal”of this “clever and colorful wisecrackingmeerkat,” while Variety lauded Timon’s“vaudeville pairing with the lumberingwarthog Pumbaa,” and ... .

Oh, wait. Wrong Timon.Shakespeare’s Timon is actually a Greek

lord in the tragicomedy bearing his name,and one of the most fascinating charactersin Elizabethan drama: a cheerful, belovedcitizen who invites his own misanthropicruin through his boundless generosity.Boasting cutting wit, supreme tension,impassioned arguments, and an eventualcorpse or a few, Timon of Athens may notbe universally familiar. But it most certainlytouches on universal themes, and some thatmay particularly resonate in this millennium.

With Richard Thomas in the lead, Timonof Athens was revived at New York’s PublicTheater in 2011, where the program notescited its theme of “money’s dark potential

company’s TimMatt Moody ingifted ensemble

and debuting PPayton Brasher,Hooker, AndyMakula, and Kano doubt know do, right?), thosdon’t. Let’s ame

Try your hanword for the folquotes:

1) “Like madness2) “Every man ha

3) “O, the fierce _

4) “Nothing emb

5) “I wonder men

A) mercy

B) glory

C) honesty

D) wretchedne

E) men

For more infor

Timon of Athens –

media preview on

PrenziePlayers.co E . R e g a r d i n g t h a t l a s t q u o t e : A p p a r e n t l y , K i m D a v i s w o n d e r s , t o o . S o r r y . T o o s o o n ?


13/24


MUSICThursday, September 17 – The

Tossers. Chicago-based Celtic-punk

rockers in concert, with an opening set

by Gallows Bound. Rock Island Brewing

Company (1815 Second Avenue, Rock

Island). 8 p.m. $12-15. For information, call

(309)793-1999 or visit RIBCO.com.

Friday, September 18 – The Giving

Tree Band. Rock and folk musicians in

concert, with an opening set by Chicago

Farmer. The Redstone Room (129 Main

Street, Davenport). 9 p.m. $13.75-17. Fortickets and information, call (563)326-

1333 or visit RiverMusicExperience.org.

Saturday, September 19 – Cash &

Cline: A Tribute to Johnny & Patsy.

Concert celebration of the country

and gospel legends featuring Terry Lee

Goffee and Josie Waverly. Quad-Cities

Waterfront Convention Center (2021 State

Street, Bettendorf). 7:30 p.m. $20. For

information, call (800)843-4753 or visit

QCWCC.com.Sunday, September 20 – Quad City

Symphony Orchestra Signature Series:

American Moderns. Aaron Copland’s

Sonata for Violin & Piano, John Adams’

Road Movies, William Bolcom’s Second

Sonata for Violin & Piano, and Maurice

Ravel’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin & Piano

performed by violinist Naha Greenholtz

and pianist Benjamin Loeb. Figge Art

Museum (225 West Second Street,

Davenport). 2 p.m. $10-25. For tickets and

information, call (563)322-7276 or visit

QCSO.org.

Wednesday, September 23 –

What ElseIs Happenin’

by Mike Schulz

[email protected]


Music Javier ColonGalvin Fine Arts Center

Friday, September 18,

8 p.m.

Back in the day –by which I meana couple decadesago – friends and I would frequent karaoke nights and

challenge one another to perform randomly pickedsongs. On one of those nights, I wound up faced withthe challenge of singing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time AfterTime,” which I (and the pour souls listening) mercifullysurvived. Consequently, I feel a true kinship withperformer Javier Colon, who, in April of 2011, croonedthe same Lauper hit on the debut episode of TV’s TheVoice.

Of course, Colon sang it better than I did ... and fora few million people as opposed to a few dozen ... andI don’t recall getting $100,000 and a recording contract

for my efforts ... .The grand-prize winner of The Voice’s inauguralseason, Javier Colon is also the inaugural entertainerin St. Ambrose University’s 2015-16 Performing ArtsSeries, as the man will share his musical artistry in aSeptember 18 concert at the Galvin Fine Arts Center.Meanwhile, those who know Colon only from televisedrenditions of pop hits including Coldplay’s “Fix You”and Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” shouldknow that his singer/songwriter is also an original,having composed numerous rock, R&B, soul, and folksingles over his 15-year professional career.

Born in Stratford, Connecticut, the 37-year-oldColon earned a music-education degree from theUniversity of Hartford’s Hartt School, and began hisyears of public performance while still a student,

serving as vocalist/percussionist for the Stevie

Wonder tribute band EmcQ. His talents then caughtthe eye of eventual Allman Brothers Band memberDerek Trucks, who recruited Colon for his Grammy-winning outfit the Derek Trucks Band, for which heperformed for nearly two years.

Following his stint with Trucks, Colon –recording merely under his Christian name Javier– embarked on a solo career with a Capitol Recordscontract, lending his clear, soulful tenor and facilityon piano and guitar to a pair of albums: 2003’s Javier ,which reached the top 20 on Billboard ’s R&B/Hip-

Hop Albums chart, and 2006’s Left of Center , whichfound SoulTracks.com calling him “an extremelytalented vocalist.” And then, after Colon left Capitoland released a six-song EP in 2010’s The Truth, cameThe Voice.

It’s impossible to say whether NBC’s flagshipcompetition series would be the ratings smash it is ifits very first episode didn’t find Colon blowing awayhome and studio audiences – to say nothing of judgesChristina Aguilera, Cee-Lo Green, Adam Levine,and Blake Shelton – with “Time After Time.” Whatcan be said is that Colon sealed his fame with that

televised debut, which led not only to his eventualchampionship, but to musical collaborations withartists as diverse as Joss Stone, Stevie Nicks, the IndigoGirls, Darius Rucker, and Anthony Hamilton.

It also led to the 2011 album Come Through forYou – described as “thoroughly catchy” by RollingStone and “uniformly enjoyable” by SoulTracks.com– and a new contract with the Concord Music Group.So plan on being wowed by Colon’s September 18concert, whether he’s singing an original number suchas the Billboard hit “Stitch by Stitch” or a classic such

as “Stand by Me” ... the latter also a mid-’90s karaokenumber of mine. I’m still waiting on that $100,000.

For more information on, and tickets to, JavierColon’s Galvin Fine Arts Center concert, call (563)333-6251 or visit SAU.edu/galvin.

to corrupt every

human interaction”making the work“Shakespeare’s playfor the post-bailoutage.”

Directed byPrenzie veteranJake Walker, the

n of Athens will showcasehe demanding title role and acomposed of both returning

enzie Players includingMichael Carron, Mischaoski, Jeremy Mahr, Jeba Widel. But while the casttheir lines by now (you guysof you reading this probably

d that! at filling in the missing

owing five Timon of Athens

s the ____ of this life.” his fault, and ____ is his.”

__ that glory brings us.”

ldens sin so much as ____.”

dare trust themselves with ____.”

s

ation on the Prenzie Players’including the show’s social-

Thursday, September 17 – visit

. A n s w e r s : 1 – B , 2 – C , 3 – D , 4 – A , 5 –


14/24


Shemekia Copeland. Grammy-nominated

blues singer in concert, with an opening set

by Miller & the Other Sinners. The Redstone

Room (129 Main Street, Davenport). 7:30

p.m. $20-24. For tickets and information, call

(563)326-1333 or visit RiverMusicExperience.

org.

Friday, September 25 – Kool Keith.

Bronx-based rapper Keith Thornton in

concert, with opening sets by Daggers &

Gadema and Skeez & T. Stubbs. Rock Island

Brewing Company (1815 Second Avenue,

Rock Island). 9 p.m. $20-25. For information,

call (309)793-1999 or visit RIBCO.com.Friday, September 25 – Communion

Daytrotter. All-ages show with the

indie musicians of Fort Frances, Falls,

and Albatross. Codfish Hollow Barn

(5013 288th Avenue, Maquoketa). 7 p.m.

$12.50-15. For tickets and information, visit

CodfishHollowBarnstormers.com.

Sunday, September 27 – Hot Buttered

Rum. Americana

musicians in concert,

with an opening setby Frank F. Sydney’s

Western Bandit

Volunteers. The

Redstone Room

(129 Main Street,

Davenport). 7:30 p.m.

$13.75-17. For tickets

and information, call

(563)326-1333 or visit

RiverMusicExperience.org.

Monday, September 28 – John Calvin

Abney. A Moeller Mondays concert with

the indie singer/songwriter, featuring an

opening set by Levi Parham. Rozz-Tox (2108

Third Avenue, Rock Island). 8 p.m. $8-10.

For information, call (309)200-0978 or visit

RozzTox.com.

Monday, September 28 – Banned Song

Fest.Local musicians perform banned

songs, musical styles, and instruments in

honor of Banned Books Week. Bettendorf

Public Library (2950 Learning Campus Drive,

Bettendorf ). 6:30 p.m. Free. For information,call (563)344-4175 or visit BettendorfLibrary.

com.

Wednesday, September 30 – Jeff Austin

Band.Concert with the mandolinist and

singer from the Yonder Mountain String

Band and his ensemble, featuring opening

sets by Fruition and Horseshoes & Hand

Grenades. The Redstone Room (129 Main

Street, Davenport). 7:30 p.m. $27.25-27.50.

For tickets and information, call (563)326-

1333 or visit RiverMusicExperience.org.

THEATREFriday, September 18 – The Ghost

of Mary Lincoln. Quad City Arts Visiting

Artist Tom Dugan delivers a presentation

on theatre and offers excerpts from his

one-man theatrical production about

Robert Lincoln. Butterworth Center (1105

Eighth Street, Moline). 7 p.m. Donations

encouraged. For information, call (309)793-

1213 or visit QuadCityArts.com.

Wednesday, September 23, through

Saturday, November 7 – Route 66.

Area premiere of a new musical-comedy

romance, directed by Dennis Hitchcock.

Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse (1828 Third

Avenue, Rock Island). Friday, Saturday, and

Wednesday: 6-7 p.m. buffet, 7:15 pre-show,7:45 p.m. show. Sunday: 4-5 p.m. buffet, 5:15

p.m. pre-show, 5:45 p.m. show. Wednesday:

11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. plated lunch, 1 p.m.

pre-show, 1:30 p.m. show. $44.41-50.16. For

tickets and information, call (309)786-7733

extension 2 or visit Circa21.com.

Thursday, September 24, through

Saturday, September 26 – Big Rock Candy

Mountain. Revival of

the comedic bluegrass

revue written by Tristan Tapscott and

Danny White. District

Theatre (1724 Fourth

Avenue, Rock Island).

8 p.m. $20. For tickets

and information, call

(309)235-1654 or visit

DistrictTheatre.com.

Saturday,

September 26, and Sunday, September

27 – Pinocchio Commedia. Johnny Simons’

commedia dell’arte production of the classic

children’s story, directed by Jacqueline

Wynes McCall. Augustana College’s Potter

Theatre (3520 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island).

1:30 p.m. $5-11. For tickets and information,

call (309)794-7306 or visit Augustana.edu.

MOVIESSaturday, September 26 – Creative

Arts Academy Film Makers Workshop.

Workshops for grades 5 through 12 on

animated, documentary, and feature-filmproduction led by Doug Miller, Kelly and

Tammy Rundle, and Steve Jennings and

Kathy Buxton, featuring public screenings of

Sugar , The Wizard of Oz , Letters Home to Hero

Street , and short animated work. Creative

Arts Academy at the Davenport Public

Library (321 North Main Street, Davenport).

9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Free. For information

and to register, call (563)328-7201 or visit

DavenportSchools.org/caa.

LITERARY ARTSFriday, September 18 – Gayle Harper.

Book signing with the author of Roadtrip

with a Raindrop: 90 Days Along the Mississippi

River . River Music

Experience (129

North Main Street,

Davenport). 6

p.m. Free. For

information, call

(563)326-1333 or visit

RiverMusicExperience.

org.

Tuesday,

September 29 –

Banned Books

Reading.Annual

readings from challenged or bannedreading material co-hosted by the Midwest

Writing Center. Rock Island Public Library

(401 19th Street, Rock Island). 6 p.m. Free.


MWCQC.org.

VISUAL ARTSSaturday, September 19, and Sunday,

September 20 – Riverssance Festival of

Fine Art. Twenty-eighth-annual outdoor

festival featuring dozens of vendors, artisans,craftspeople, a wine tasting, gourmet

food, a children’s activity tent, and more.

Lindsay Park (River Drive and Mound Street).

Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

$4, ages 12 and under free. For information,

visit Midcoast.org.

Saturday, September 26, through

Saturday, November 7 – Day of the Dead:

Art, Culture, Spirit . Exhibition celebrating

the Mexican holiday will feature handmade

folk art and interactive displays. Figge

Art Museum (225 West Second Street,

Davenport). Tuesday through Saturday

10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m.-9 p.m.,

Sunday noon-5 p.m. Free with $4-7 museum

admission. For information, call (563)326-

7804 or visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.

Tuesday, September 29 – Living

Proof Opening Reception. Event held

in conjunction with the new permanent

exhibit featuring artworks by area cancer

survivors, with new works displayed

every three months. Trinity Cancer Center(500 John Deere Road, Moline). 5 p.m.

refreshments, 6 p.m. reception with artists.


UnityPoint.org.

EVENTSFriday, September 18, and Saturday,

September 19 – Celtic Festival & Highland

Games.Annual celebration of Celtic culture

with athletic and dance competitions,

vendors, arts and crafts, workshops, displays,and concert sets by Four Shillings Short,

Wylde Nept, the Beggarmen, and others.

Centennial Park (315 South Marquette

Street, Davenport). Friday 3 p.m. gates,

Saturday 9 a.m.

gates. Free. For

information,

visit QCCeltic.

org.

Saturday,

September

19 – Brew Ha

Ha. Jaycees of

the Quad Cities

host the annual

event featuring

hundreds of

national and international beer samples plusadditional refreshments, comedy, live music

with the Stone Flowers, and more. LeClaire

Park (400 Beiderbecke Drive, Davenport). 1-5

p.m. $30-35. For tickets and information, visit

JayceesQC.org.

Saturday, September 19 – Taming of

the Slough. River Action hosts the annual

3.8-mile paddle around the island, followed

by a 4.5-mile bike trail, two-mile run, and

pizza party. Campbell’s Island Slough,

Hampton, Illinois. 8 a.m. For information,call (563)322-2969 or visit RiverAction.org/

taming.

Wednesday, September 23 – Eat What

You Love, Love What You Eat . Presentation

on the tenets of mindful eating and a book-

signing with Dr. Michelle May. Quad-Cities

Waterfront Convention Center (2021 State

Street, Bettendorf). 6 and 8 p.m. book

signings, 7 p.m. presentation. $20. For

information, e-mail [email protected] or

call (309)779-3077.

Friday, September 25, and Saturday,

September 26 – Quad Cities Fall Pride

Festival.Annual celebration of LGBT culture

featuring live music, the Mr. & Miss Quad

Cities Fall Pride Pageant, belly dancers, drag

shows, Bottoms Up Quad City Burlesque, the

Blacklist comedians, and headliners Jade,

Zander Mander, and Nic Hawk. LeClaire Park

(400 Beiderbecke Drive, Davenport). Friday 5

p.m. gates, Saturday 10 a.m. gates. $5-7 daily,

$10 weekend pass. For information, visit

QuadCitiesFallPride.com.Friday, September 25, and Saturday,

September 26 – Hot Air Balloon Festival.

Annual event featuring balloon launches,

food vendors, children’s activities, a bounce

house, balloon glows at dusk, and more.

Rock Island County Fairgrounds (4200 Archer

Drive, East Moline). 5 p.m. launches. Free. For

information, visit QuadCitiesBalloonFestival.

com.

Sunday, September 27 – Quad Cities

Marathon.Annual fundraising eventinvolving seven races, two states, and one

(Arsenal) island. i wireless Center (1201 River

Drive, Moline). 8 a.m. $40-95 registration. For

information, visit QCMarathon.org.

Continued From Page 13

What Else Is Happenin’

The Beggarmen @ Celtic Festival and

Highland Games - September 19

Kool Keith @ RIBCO - September 25


15/24


Have you ever read one of the Reader ’stheatre reviews and thought, “Icould do that job”? Well, now’s yourchance!

After nearly six years spent writing forthe paper, Thom White’s and his family’simpending move to Kentucky means he’llbe stepping down as the Reader ’s chieftheatre reviewer. Thom will continue tocontribute reviews, as much as he’s able,for the next several months, and as I’ve

been fortunate to this summer, I’ll nodoubt be writing a few myself.

But that means we’re still seeking thosewho love to write or who love theatre – or,preferably, who love to write about theatre– to take on the enjoyable challenge ofserving as a Reader theatre reviewer.

Ideally, we’d like to divvy up thereviewing duties among several writers,in the hopes of introducing readers todifferent voices – and to make sure no

one’s workload becomes overwhelming.As Thom and I can attest, those randomweekends in which you catch three (ormore!) shows in a row can be fun, butdraining fun.

THEATRE By Mike [email protected]

Call for Entry: River Cities’ Reader Theatre Reviewers

Those interested in the theatre-revieweropportunity, even on an extremely part-time basis, should send an introductorye-mail and writing sample – or severalsamples – to me at [email protected]. Any review you may have written,particularly of a theatrical production,would be preferred, but I’ll happily readwhatever you’d care to send. Interviewswill be scheduled beginning in mid-September, in the hopes of introducing

new reviewers by early November.The deadline for submission is Friday,

September 25, at 5 p.m.Although he’s not leaving the area

quite yet, we at the Reader thank Thomimmensely for his hard and dedicatedwork over the years. And on a personalnote, I thank him for loving theatre asmuch as I do, and for wanting to share thatlove, on a mostly weekly basis, with fellowfans of the art. If you’re a like-minded

writer, we’d love to hear from you.

Send writing samples or questions to MikeSchulz at [email protected], or contact

Mike at the Reader office at (563)324-0049.


16/24


GUEST COMMENTARY by Daniel Bier

How Dangerous Is It to Be a Cop?decades – per resident, per officer, and evenin absolute terms.

NLEOMF doesn’t have the only databaseof officer deaths, however, and some peopleprefer the data from the Office DownMemorial Page.

The American Enterprise Institute’s MarkPerry has crunched its numbers for firearm-related deaths (a good proxy for homicides),and his findings closely mirror my own.

Again, the data show that 2015 is one ofthe safest years for American policing inhistory , both in absolute terms and adjusted

for population.One explanation for these trends is that

fatality and homicide rates are only going

down because of technology: Bulletproof vests

and better medical care are saving officers

who would have been killed in the past.

But the FBI collects statistics on thenumber of police assaulted and injured eachyear, and they also show dramatic declines in

violence against police.In other words, cops are not just being

saved more often; they are also beingattacked and injured less frequently.Another way to measure how dangerous

it is to be a cop is to compare it to other jobs.So how does police work stack up againstother professions?

The Washington Post ’s Wonkblog tooka look at that using Bureau of LaborStatistics (BLS) data on fatal work injuries.Unfortunately, the BLS only collects dataon “patrol officers,” not all police, but evenso, policing isn’t even in the top-10 mostdangerous professions.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, policearen’t even the most likely workers to bemurdered. Taxi drivers and chauffeursare more than twice as likely as cops to bemurdered on the job.

Another way to look at it is to comparehomicide rates from around country to therate for police. Here the comparison is evenmore striking: It’s safer to be a cop than it isto simply live in many U.S. cities.

It’s hard to estimate the current murderrate for police, but in 2008 (the last timewe had good data on the total number ofofficers), there were 5.2 murders per 100,000full-time-equivalent sworn officers – belowthe national average at the time of 5.4murders per 100,000.

In 2008, you were 12 times more likely tobe killed living in New Orleans than wearinga badge. Since then, the number of policehas increased, so the rate is almost certainly

lower today.The bottom line is that cops are safer than

many workers, safer than residents of manycities, and indeed safer than they’ve been indecades.

It’s safer to be a cop than it is to live inBaltimore. It’s safer to be a cop than it is to be

a fisher, logger, pilot, roofer, miner, trucker,or taxi driver. It’s safer to be a cop today thanit’s been in years, decades, or even a centuryby some measures.

There are real liabilities to inflatingthe threats to police. If you tell cops overand over that they’re in a war, that they’reunder siege, and that citizens are the enemy– instead of the people they’re supposedto protect – you’re going to create anatmosphere of fear, tension, and hostility

that can only end badly, as it has for so manypeople.

There is no war on cops. Not now, not lastyear, not any of the times that ideologues andmedia hacks have tried to invent one.

Cops need to know this. And so do we.As I wrote last year, “Disproportionate

fears about officer safety are leadinginexorably to the disproportionate use offorce” – as well as leading many people(especially those who have never witnessed

police misconduct) to excuse obviousbrutality in the name of officer safety.

Meanwhile, those who see such behaviorevery day will have their trust in lawenforcement steadily eroded.

Almost as bad as the headline stories isthis long-run deterioration of relations withthe police. More than anything else, copsneed the cooperation and support of theircommunities to catch criminals. When copsstart to treat citizens like their enemy, it’s notsurprising when the public stops viewingpolice as their allies.

To be clear, none of this suggests that copshave an easy job. They don’t. Dealing withrowdy, drunk, and sometimes violent peopleevery day is an incredibly hard job, whetheror not it’s very likely to kill you. Nor is this todeny or downplay the tragedy of murderedpolice officers; their families surely deserveour sympathy and our support. And nor amI saying that all cops are bad.

But none of these things – and certainly

not a mythical “war on cops” – should stopus from having a hard conversation aboutlaw-enforcement and criminal-justicereform in America.

Exaggerating the dangers of beinga cop does no one any good. A clearunderstanding of the risks officers face willnot only help them make better decisions;it will help us make better ones as voters,

jurors, and taxpayers.

Daniel Bier is the editor of Anything Peaceful,a blog at the Foundation for EconomicEducation (FEE.org) and the original sourceof this article. He writes on issues relating toscience, civil liberties, and economic freedom.

Continued From Page 3 Continued From Page 7

From Wasteland to Treasure

by Jeff Ignatius

[email protected]

First, “hydrology has been altered here,”Ritter said. Farmers dug drainage ditchesin the 1930s and ’40s, for example, and thatcombined with the Interstate 280 culvertmeans Nahant Marsh is much wetter thanit once was. So the marsh has a controlstructure with which staff can adjust waterlevels. “We try to mimic what nature wouldbe doing,” Ritter said – which means dryingout the marsh in the summer and lettingwater levels rise in the fall.

Second, invasive species easily make theirway into Nahant. “It’s a constant struggle tomaintain biodiversity in a place that is sosurrounded by industrialization,” Ritter said.The highway and railroad are key sources.

“It’s because those areas are disturbed,”he said. “They’re mowed or sprayed withchemicals frequently. The things that popup if you don’t continue the mowing usuallyare the plants that are the most adaptable,which in this area happens to be a lot of th

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River Cities' Reader - Issue 891 - September 17, 2015