The traditional “holy land” for three of the world’s major religions — Christianity, Islam and Judaism — remains the ancient city of Jerusalem, home of historic sites sacred to all three beliefs. For the devout, the idea of a pilgrimage to these holy places often is a great dream. Even my late father, a halfhearted Catholic at best, considered…
12 Thursday Although its story doesn’t sound like fun, John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath makes a great play that deserves a second chance. After all, most people formed their first impression of the book when they were high school students confronted with several hundred pages of a story that takes place in the most boring of all…
After fifteen years of “a rough marriage,” Melissa Waddy-Thibodeaux finally was motivated to make a change when one of her four daughters mouthed, “Mommy, let’s leave.” “It’s like they say, ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’” Waddy-Thibodeaux says. A trend toward the one-person show that is equal parts confessional and catharsis (including Camryn Manheim’s Wake Up, I’m Fat and David…
The Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912 — and everyone knows what happened after that. On April 14, 2001, the Titanic’s hull presumably still will lie rusting on the ocean floor, with the coal that was to fuel the ship’s voyage being sold by the piece at Kansas City’s Union Station. Titanic, the Exhibition opens on the anniversary…
When sex for money is put on film or the stage, more often than not the workers are hiding proverbial hearts of gold beneath their leather or lace. There are exceptions — the latest being Jennifer Connelly’s utter degradation in Requiem for a Dream — but the rule of thumb seems to be to spare us the down and dirty;…
In the Mollien Room of the Louvre Museum hangs an extraordinary oil painting by nineteenth-century artist Eugene Delacroix. The Death of Sardanapalus is lush and wild and contains the most sumptuous reds I’ve seen in a work of art. I want to own this painting so I can look at it every day of my life. Sadly, this will never…
When Reprise introduced Australian trio The Living End to American audiences by repackaging its two manic rockabilly EPs onto one disc, the group seemed poised to assume The Reverend Horton Heat’s thankless throne, one that requires constant maintenance in the form of touring. However, The Living End’s self-titled 1999 full-length debut went on to establish its members as sneering dispensers…
In case Meat Puppets fans aren’t already feeling like old farts, try this on for size — the band’s first EP, In a Car, came out in 1981. That wouldn’t matter so much if Golden Lies didn’t feel like the group’s last gasp. Guitarist and cofounder Curt Kirkwood assembled these new Puppets, a capable group of young Texas musicians that…
Welcome to the pop-star retirement home, where, instead of going gracefully toward the light, the likes of Culture Clubber Boy George and Deee-lite’s Supa DJ Dmitry craft careers as international turntable jockeys. Dmitry deserves a bit more DJ cred than George, having served as a disc manipulator in his past musical life as well. And Deee-lite, to paraphrase a line…
Christina Rosenvinge started out her career as half of the Latin-American radio-pop duo Alex and Christina before she left behind stardom to start from scratch in New York City, where she joined forces with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo. Frozen Pool sounds alternately stripped-down and expansive, with Rosenvinge’s voice providing the disc’s most complex and versatile instrument. She wields her potent…
1959 was a landmark year for jazz recordings: Miles Davis completed Kind of Blue, John Coltrane put the finishing touches on Giant Steps and Dave Brubeck released Time Out. Countless jazz enthusiasts discovered the genre via Paul Desmond’s delicate sax melody on “Take Five” or Brubeck’s quirky piano lines on “Three to Get Ready.” More than forty years later, Brubeck…
Much has been made of the fact that each of the eighteen tracks on Moby’s Play has appeared in commercials. But even if Moby monopolizes the advertising airwaves, there are still plenty of “background noise wanted” openings for musicians. For example, MTV still plays music, albeit largely as a backdrop for its dramas, so enterprising acts can hear their tunes…
In theory, it was a can’t-miss, undeniable attraction: pay $5 to see 25 of the area’s best bands perform at five Westport clubs. However, as organizers of worthy benefits and local music events know, things can go wrong — weather can prove uncooperative, other concerts can split the draw, headliners can disappear at the last possible minute. Fortunately, the…
A name like Smut Peddlers, an album title like Porn Again and cover art that depicts vulgar Howard Stern Show prankster Beetlejuice flanked by six tantalizing babes who look as if they just left the set of a Jay-Z video all let listeners know what to expect when they press play. But while this New York-based group spits its share…
It’s a thankless job toeing the razor’s edge between sophistication and dullness. There are appreciative audiences for each side of the divide, but crawl too close to the border and prepare to bleed, prepare to be abandoned. A solitude foisted on musicians as a result of nothing worse than sonic ambition, the desire to broaden the palette, is the precursor…
On Wednesday, May 16, Timothy McVeigh will be executed at Terre Haute Federal Prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, for his role in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City six years ago. Only a few of the 168 victims’ families will be able to fit in the witnesses’ room for McVeigh’s execution, and a federal…
French director Patrice Leconte is a chameleonlike talent: Among his films to reach American screens are the psychological thriller Mr. Hire; the period satire Ridicule; and the offbeat comic romance The Girl on the Bridge. But, in truth, all of Leconte’s films are romances at heart, though they often are complex and in them it is unclear who loves whom…
You may not know the name Anthony Anderson yet, but you will. Having had significant roles in four major films last year (Big Momma’s House, Me Myself and Irene, Romeo Must Die and Urban Legends: Final Cut), he’s trying to top himself this year with appearances in five. Already he’s been a cowardly henchman in Exit Wounds, a film whose…
The stark simplicity of A Time for Drunken Horses, one of the few films that has slipped out of postrevolutionary Iran to the West, does nothing to obscure its emotional power or the complexity of the geopolitical issues underlying it. Filmed on location in wintry Kurdistan, it is the heartbreaking story of a boy’s fight to hold together what’s…
Keep a diary and one day it’ll keep you,” said Mae West, and while the sentiment rings true, it does little to explain the mystery of why Helen Fielding’s sliver of literary history managed to keep anyone. Fluffy, shrill and approximately as deep as Cosmo magazine, the book somehow hit home for a lot of people, so, naturally, we…
Josie and the Pussycats is not a comedy, and it’s even possible the movie’s not a work of fiction, despite being “based on” Dan DeCarlo’s 38-year-old Archie Publishing comic book. It’s tempting to brand the film as documentary, this year’s Scared Straight. There’s very little that’s funny about a movie that reveals, in horrific detail, what some of us…
“While I’m stretching and warming up before the game, I have a guy yell at me, ‘Randa! I’m going to be here all three games and I’m not going to stop. I’m going to be on you the whole game!’ Obviously it doesn’t affect you, but that guy just sits in the back of your mind; you can hear his…
Bob Thomas, UMKC’s second-year athletic director, is seeking counsel from a higher source. He’s taken so much heat from the local media that he consulted Carl Peterson last summer about how to handle the smack. “I told Carl to do something with the Chiefs so the media would quit UMKC basketball,” Thomas says. The latest media assault comes with word…
Royals Flushed Bat boy: In response to Greg Hall’s article “Flogging the Royals” (March 29), I would like to voice my support for the baseball opinions of Mr. Joe Posnanski. In his column, Hall calls Mr. Posnanski “unprofessional.” This is a serious charge for one “journalist” to make against another. After reading Hall’s article, I re-read Mr. Posnanski’s with Hall’s…
