It’s time for our look back at the year that was in arts and entertainment, 2020. Every day between now and New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, we’ll be posting a story painting the big picture on the year. Some days will have multiple stories, some days there was so much going on in one month we just stuck to that one. We hope you enjoy the look back, and let’s all hope for a happy new year and a much, much, much, much better 2021! Here’s today’s installment, months January and February, the two most normal months of the year. During this time, coronavirus was just a news story for the... Read More

“Hey, have you ever heard the one . . .” And that’s how it would usually begin. With a mischievous grin, a conspiratorial wink, and then that little aside, voiced down as if imparting some ribald secret, which, let’s face it, he usually was. That’s how Ed “Jonesy” Jones would greet me pretty much every time I walked in to Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse in downtown Rock Island. Jonesy shuffled off to that spotlight in the sky on Tuesday, at age 92. He’d been retired from Circa for a few years, since 2014, although he was sorely missed. Jonesy was always one of my favorite elements... Read More