Slice of life: Okay, so there’s some debate as to whether pizza is an Italian or American invention. There’s no doubt, however, that Sunday brunch is an American innovation — and all the better when pizza gets into the act. For its Sunday buffet, served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., The Dish Famous Stuffed Pizza (846 South 291 Highway,…
Ever since America’s first pizzeria opened in New York’s Little Italy in 1905, most Italian restaurants have offered some variation of the popular dish. My father, the son of Sicilian immigrants, considered pizza to be a totally American innovation, like turkey tetrazzini and Caesar salad (the latter invented in Tijuana, Mexico, of all places). And no less a food…
30 Thursday Some artists’ lectures seem superfluous, particularly when the works of art speak for themselves. Such is not the case with guest artist Dale Malner, speaking at the Kansas City Art Institute, 4415 Warwick Boulevard, this evening at 7:30. A brief consultation of the Web site www.artindustry.org, which showcases a number of Malner’s installations, should convince prospective attendees…
Stand-up comic and actor Joe Rogan is best known for his role in the esteemed ensemble of NBC’s NewsRadio, where his buff, dim-witted electrician stood his ground against fellow players Phil Hartman, Dave Foley, and Andy Dick. But Rogan was doing stand-up before the series, never stopped during the show’s five-year run, and is back at it with a…
“I am not a travel writer,” declares Jonathan Raban, author of Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings. “Travel writers sample other people’s vacations.” The average travel reader is unlikely to try out the “vacation” Raban chronicles in his book: a solo journey from Seattle to Alaska by sailboat. In Passage to Juneau, Raban addresses readers for whom…
As a Kansas City actor, Don Richard gave stages at the Unicorn, American Heartland and Quality Hill Playhouse during the better part of his 20s and early 30s. He may have hit an artistic peak in the Unicorn’s production of Falsettoland, in which his heartbreaking portrayal of a gay man who loses his lover to AIDS brought him a…
With Christmas shopping and decorating already in full swing, it seems appropriate that the holiday concert season also should start early. Fortunately, Gerald Trimble’s performance, a personal tribute to the Virgin Mary, won’t feature a rote recital of standard seasonal songs. Instead, Trimble (pictured with his viola da Gamba) will play 13th century Hispano-Moorish songs from the Cantigas de Santa…
It was almost a far-from-happy Thanksgiving for Linda Thomas, who injured her wrist just days before a string of performance/signing dates in support of her latest CD/book An Old English Christmas. Fortunately for Thomas, and for fans of enchanting seasonal songs, this hammered dulcimer maestro was able to walk away with a temporary cast, enabling her to keep her scheduled…
This collaboration between a rock group (Chain Gang), a turntablist (DJ Lord), and Public Enemy’s most political voices (Chuck D and Professor Griff) is no longer unique for its fusion of styles. However, comparisons between Confrontation Camp and today’s popular rap/rock acts aren’t especially valid, as the group evokes the classic soulfulness of Living Colour more than the aggressive grind…
Just in time for the election, The Presidents of the United States of America were back, although the band is now known as The Presidents. More or less, the only thing that’s changed is the name. The songs on Freaked Out and Small (released in September) are still catchy little power-pop ditties chock-full of hooks that would love nothing more…
On the surface, it seems as if Johnny Cash shrewdly is prolonging his legendary career by releasing the same safe album every few years, a covers-heavy assortment of alt-rock hits and obscure blues and country nuggets produced by modern-music mastermind Rick Rubin. But while American III: Solitary Man (released in October) follows this formula, it completely eschews the rock approach…
Everlast’s Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, one of the most surprising albums of the 1990s, remade the fun-loving knucklehead from House of Pain into a soulful bluesman with a social conscience. From “Painkillers,” which left the protagonist a paraplegic, to “The Letter,” a touching apology set to a sparse piano-based beat, Everlast proved himself to be an engaging storyteller. On…
Like Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson, local bands haven’t been able to make their break-ups last. Musicians have been re-emerging on the scene like so many down-on-their-luck boxers coming out of “retirement,” whether to relive glory days before setting sail for a warmer climate (Molly McGuire) or just to ring in the new year (Annie On My Mind, which went…
Marilyn Manson may be a political flibbertigibbet, but James Heath, who preaches rockabilly gospel under the name Reverend Horton Heat, is a Texan. He’s sure. “I liked Ronald Reagan. I think Al Gore and George W. Bush are both great guys,” Heath says from his Dallas home with a low, hair-of-the-dog chuckle. “Neither may be super-exceptional is all. Now George…
God used to provide inspiration through dreams, but now, in the wireless era, he’ll occasionally just holler at his children on their cell phones. Ask gospel playwright/director David E. Talbert, who received his latest inspiration from such an ordained phone call. Okay, so the voice on the other line wasn’t booming down from heaven — it was his friend, gospel…
Given the stress and emotional turmoil associated with family holidays, in the cinema as in life, it’s very peculiar that anyone feels obliged to entertain the notion of Thanksgiving anymore. Really, thanks for what, exactly? Jammed freeways? Delayed flights? Overcrowded supermarkets? Big, dead birds? Witch hunts? Territorial conquest and genocide? Well, for one reason or another, the characters in…
Candle in the wind: At her father’s funeral last month, Robin Carnahan urged mourners not to let “the fire go out.” She wasn’t just eulogizing Mel Carnahan — she was making a calculated political statement, trying to get out the vote for her dead father in the race for Republican John Ashcroft’s U.S. Senate seat. Whomever new Governor Roger Wilson…
By the time the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stepped in, there was a mess to clean up. To build its auto mall on the northwest corner of 135th Street and U.S. 69 Highway, Overland Park developer Terra Venture Inc. had bulldozed through a stream it wasn’t supposed to touch. The Corps — charged by the federal government with overseeing…
Tara Larson and her children are stringing Christmas lights on a fence in the Armourdale neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. Larson glances toward the intersection of South 11th Street and Scott Avenue. On the other side of the street rests the house where Pamela Butler lived. “It’s quieter around here than it used to be,” Larson says. Larson last saw…
For the birds: No American holiday focuses on food as much as Thanksgiving, the annual tribute to the nation’s first public banquet. In romanticized paintings and children’s books, Puritan settlers and native Americans sit together in a friendly fashion, sharing the bounty of a land they’d soon fight over. So much for historical interpretation. But unfortunately, the also-romanticized traditional —…
I looked up from my baked chicken breast just in time to see her: a beaming octogenarian in a blue knit cap, a purple polyester floral dress, knee-length stockings woven in a rainbow of pastel colors, and sturdy brown shoes. She moved slowly through the dining room, carrying her check and her overcoat and smiling at everyone she passed….
23 Thursday B.Y.O.B. breakfast parties are rare, as are Thanksgiving breakfasts, which makes a combination of the two a true oddity. The Thanksgiving Blues Breakfast Dance, produced by the Grand Emporium and held at the National Guard Armory, 7600 Ozark in Lenexa, brings back old-school blues by Bobby “Blue” Bland and Denise LaSalle. They’ll play from 10 a.m. to…
Throwing food is generally considered wasteful, but members of Kansas City Food Not Bombs have mastered the art of launching food missiles both generously and without resulting injury. Working with Wild Oats, the Breadsmith, and Price Chopper, Food Not Bombs rescues surplus items — food that has survived the “sell by” date and is about to get tossed. The members…
No staged theatrical performances have taken place in the Ape House yet because Kansas City’s 12-year-old Gorilla Theatre has been using the old storefront on 18th Street for storage and rehearsals. But on Saturday, the brown-painted door (which tends to stick) will be unlocked for a poetry reading titled Words, Words, Words, presented by Vigilo Productions. Vigilo (Latin for…
