After 20 years at his Amoco station on State Line Road at I-435, Robert George has a lonely feeling. When he first leased the business, Kansas City had a thriving service station network and an active dealer organization. Amoco supported its dealers as well as any oil company, and the money was good. But in the mid-1980s, Amoco’s attitude toward…
Before others could reject him, Michael Chabon had convinced himself no one wanted to read an epic novel about comic-book creators, mythical Jewish monsters called golems, New York in the 1930s, daring escapes from Lithuania, Nazis, and the Empire State Building’s elevator system. He wanted to write the book—desperately, one might say, if only because such a tome would…
Space, the final frontier: Lawrence’s Teller’s (see review, page 47), isn’t the only restaurant in these parts to have set up tables and chairs in a former bank building, although it’s one of the most visually impressive. The Double Dragon Chinese Restaurant (5031 Main Street) — best known for its buffet — is located in an unassuming brick building that…
From the turn of the last century until World War II, metropolitan banks and their small-town contemporaries were built — like first-run movie theaters — as if they were palaces or temples. Patrons found it reassuring to deposit their life’s savings in buildings modeled, vaguely, after the Parthenon or the Temple of Zeus. Today, when new bank buildings are…
26 Thursday On September 17, 1964, Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City A’s baseball team, paid $150,000 for The Beatles to play at Municipal Stadium. At 7 tonight, and again at 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, The Beatles return — at least to the extent that’s possible — when the Kansas City Symphony presents Classical Mystery Tour…
In the escalating air wars, rife with rageful passengers, surly flight attendants, and innumerable delays, air travel has become a necessary evil. Flying survives as the preferred mode of transport only because of its expediency; all the glamour is gone. And that is the chief reason aha! dance theatre’s upcoming Planes at Kansas City International Airport is so intriguing. This…
Jonathan Lethem writes unusual fiction. His first book, As She Climbed Across the Table, was a love story between a woman and a hole in the universe; Girl in Curious Landscape was a girl’s coming-of-age story set on Mars. For his new book, Motherless Brooklyn, Lethem gives his detective hero the traditional girl and a cause worth fighting for:…
Last month’s lackluster Showstoppers at Quality Hill Playhouse raised questions about whether the theater’s cabaret-style revue format needed to be retooled — or whether that particular show was simply a shaky exception to a tried-and-true rule. Hits from Flops, however, lends credence to the idea that with a different cast of characters, singing different parts, the form is perfectly…
Two months after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, calling for the scooping up and hiding away of all “aliens and nonaliens perceived as a national military threat.” Though the order didn’t specify that “aliens and nonaliens” meant Japanese-Americans, General John DeWitt crassly clarified things in March 1942 when he said, “A Jap is a…
A dream I had a few hours after the grand opening of Late Night Theatre’s The Birds at The Old Chelsea surrealistically summarized the troupe’s true meaning. Having been transported to some anonymous foreign land, I spied a beautiful grotto. It beckoned me closer until I saw that it was made not of mosaic tiles but of costume jewelry….
Best known for boisterous performances with her band, Kelley Hunt possesses diverse talents that allow her to captivate an audience even when she’s alone. Hunt, accompanied by only her piano and acoustic guitar, will showcase her low-key material at Plymouth Congregational Church in Lawrence on Friday night. On “Love Never Dies,” the solo number from her live CD, Inspiration, Hunt…
Marilyn Manson makes for an appropriate Halloween headliner — his show at the Kansas City International Raceway is sure to feature spooky costumes, blood-draining makeup, and the latest in eyeball-eliminating contact lenses. Likewise, a number of new-metal bands put some effort into creating a spectacle: Korn’s candle-covered Gothic cathedral set at Kemper Arena was artfully done; Limp Bizkit’s breakdancing aliens…
Proving that it’s possible to sound both hip and organic, the duo White Hassle adds turntable scratches to straightforward folk songs without sacrificing its earthy appeal. Marcellus Hall contributes nasal, Dylan-esque vocals and a few fiery harmonica solos, while Dave Varenka turns the bluesy stomp “Futura Trance” into a stirring showcase for his percussion skills. They make appealingly rough-edged tunes,…
Whereas such Latin singing sensations as Selena and Ricky Martin built their followings singing in Spanish and then crossed over, Christina Aguilera made her mark as an all-American pop princess and is now attempting to conquer the world. She’s playing concerts in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil in support of her Spanish-language album, Mi Reflejo, and her revamped version of “Genie…
Paul Simon recently explained his 1983 misfire, Hearts and Bones, to an interviewer as an album that contained songs others talked him into releasing despite his belief that the material was weak. It’s easy to hear why that album would be on Simon’s mind as You’re the One hits stores. You’re the One is a disjointed set of love songs…
Getting into the gas business used to be a simple proposition. A prospective dealer would hook up with a brand, go to training school, buy out another dealer, or maybe even be given a vacant station by the company, and start pumping. Most were lessee dealers, who rented stations from their gas supplier but operated them independently and kept the…
It was a poetic idea at the time. In 1890, a group of aristocrats gathered in New York’s Central Park, carrying 60 delicate, small-beaked birds brought from Europe. Dubbed the American Acclimatization Society, this pedantic consortium was bound by a common goal of populating North America with every bird mentioned in Shakespearean verse. The thrushes, chaffinches, nightingales, and skylarks they’d…
There’s no diminishing the pain that goes with losing Governor Mel Carnahan. But there’s political pain also. Carnahan’s name will remain on the ballot, and it is possible he could beat incumbent Senator John Ashcroft — but it’s not likely. A sympathy vote won’t elect a U.S. Senator. As this issue of Pitch Weekly went to press, Governor Roger Wilson…
If I only had a brain: Earlier this month came the dismal but unsurprising news that the number of people visiting Science City was far below projections. Attendance at the museum over the summer — the peak time of year — was 10 percent less than it had been during March, April, and May. And while Science City anchors Union…
School Gays Gaily forward: Congratulations to the Pitch and Bruce Rodgers for the article on gay and lesbian students in our public schools (“Gay Studies,” October 12). The piece was excellent reporting, and both informative and touching. You may be interested in knowing that the Lawrence School Board is in the process of implementing a new policy manual that for…
Although it must have been a no-brainer to make a sequel to The Blair Witch Project, it was hard to imagine an intelligent follow-up to a film that culminated in the apparent death of all the principals. But given the inevitability of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, one could have expected little more than yet another faux-documentary about…
Early in Spanish director Carlos Saura’s stunning new film, the 82-year-old protagonist, the great 19th-century painter Francisco de Goya, awakens from a disturbing dream and rises to see an apparition of his lost love, the Duchess of Alba. Following her down a surrealistically white hallway, he suddenly finds himself outdoors in the snow, fending off horse-drawn carriages and irate passersby….
Everyone might be entitled to 15 minutes of fame, but most people don’t have any say about when that window opens. If, as in the case of Bratmobile, fate calls on three college students, two of whom are based on the West Coast while the other is attending classes in Maryland, it’s impossible to capitalize on this fleeting notoriety. Because…
Think about the number 150,000. When it comes to quantifying most things — frogs, bowls of Super Colon Blow cereal, Ralph Nader supporters — it’s a big number. But for label heads Clive Davis and Tommy Motola, or megabands Aerosmith and Metallica, it’s table scraps. Major-label musicians frequently lose their identities in the miasma of corporate accounting that makes sales…
