In the Puglia region of Italy, a trulli is a little house or outbuilding with a conical roof. In Overland Park, Puglia-born Joe Avelluto’s Il Trullo boasts a wood-burning oven in the center, built in the same style as his homeland’s round, mortarless homes with peaked roofs. And out of that oven, which perfumes the restaurant’s parallel dining rooms with…
10 Thursday Kansas Citians have been eating at Bo Ling’s Restaurant for a long time, partaking of a variety of foods displayed on red tablecloths. What may be most unusual about Bo Ling’s, however, are the chocolate-covered fortune cookies bathed in sprinkles — which make such statements as “You value hard work and discipline” seem a little more like fortune…
Marco Maggi, whose artwork is on display at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, has suggested that it is more interesting to look at the utensils than the menus at fast food restaurants. In a world that somehow has managed to necessitate sporks, he may be right. As museum visitors attempt to ingest Maggi’s strangely circuitous art this Saturday, they…
Stephen Blackburn waited more than a year to see his first book published. Each One Teach One: Up and Out of Poverty: Memoirs of a Street Activist, co-authored with homeless-activist Ron Casanova and published by Curbstone Press in 1996, was hailed by Booklist as “an eloquent voice for Americans too often ignored or scapegoated.” When it came to his…
Expect nothing and hope for everything,” some sage once said about relationships. Put into practice, this kind of advice acts as psychological insulation, forming a buffer zone around the human heart. The same advice could apply to accepting gifts and attending the theater. Anyone with knowledge of musical theater expects more than nothing from Stephen Sondheim. Even a sketchy…
The brilliant satirist Evelyn Waugh wrote, “What is youth except a man or woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?” Well, Waugh was born crotchety, and his statement cleverly ignores his own youthful triumphs. The fact is, youth has the energy, idealism and passion to undertake what older and purportedly wiser folks will not risk. Sometimes…
Howard Zinn is one of the most important and influential writers of our time not only because he flips the script on the Great White Men versions of history but also because he finds hope in the stories that have been left out of our textbooks and our popular culture. Zinn’s vision is crucial, but his writing style is devoid…
Between the Chiefs and the Rams, the Royals and the Cardinals, there are plenty of athletic rivalries to inspire heated debates between Kansas Citians and those I-70 neighbors under the arch. But the music scenes are hard to compare because the cities excel at different sports, with Kansas City scoring high in the indie/emo ballpark and St. Louis boasting hip-hop…
When legends meet teen prodigies onstage, the pairing often is as ill-fated as a child-adult switching-places film. Either the up-and-comers embarrass the past-their-prime elders, or the hall-of-famers offer audience members a glimpse of what makes them great and remind the crowd that the young bucks still have a lot of catching up to do. However, on Friday night, the Folly…
Cheap Trick treated a Beaumont Club crowd to a crisp run-through of its catchiest numbers on Friday, April 27, but a vocal portion of its audience grumbled on its way out the door. The group wrapped things up at around 10:30 p.m. after a fourteen-song set, making for a much earlier evening than many fans who arrived at 10 or…
Now in its twelfth year, Culture Under Fire, a string of anticensorship events sponsored by Kansas City’s Free Speech Coalition, has lured its share of underground music icons to the area, including Fugazi’s Ian McKaye, Henry Rollins, ex-X vocalist Exene Cervenka and the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra. These punk legends have given riveting speeches, but none of them performed any…
Eugene McDaniels’ story is a sadly familiar one. This 65-year-old singer, songwriter and producer is yet another musician ripped off by his record company, another artist with a tremendous amount of talent who never received props, another innovator whose music became the backbone of several rap songs although he was never acknowledged or given any money for the sampling of…
There’s a dark and a stormy side of life/There’s a bright and a sunny side too. — “Keep on the Sunny Side,” The Carter Family During an era in which most Nashville acts sing about life and love in a single perky key using what sounds like the same arrangement, Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance” stands out…
One doesn’t watch Amores Perros (Love’s a Bitch) so much as absorb it — like a body blow. “I wanted to make a movie that smelled of filth,” Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has said about his feature directorial debut. He has succeeded beyond perhaps even his wildest dreams. A stunning achievement, thematically, emotionally and artistically, the film has a visceral impact…
Let us first in olden verse this critic’s cynical curse disperse: The greet unwashede consummethe crappe, Fro Jerrye Springgere to ganggsta rappe; Bothe yonge and olde, ’tis sore pitee, Doth foule thir hertes with drede teevee, Thus slye produceres, with bisynesse cunning, Devysde a shew to pyne come running Consummeres of actione and classik rok, And, with markete researche…
“Most teams are happy to win ten games, get into the playoffs. But if you get into the mentality that anything less than winning the Super Bowl isn’t good enough, your level of play gets to that level.” — Elvis Grbac, new Ravens quarterback, Washington Post GH: Is Elvis taking shots at his old teammates from 1,500 miles away? You…
The old Chiefs are gone — released from intensive care. They are no longer on a Marty Schottenheimer respirator in the Gunther Cunningham Asylum, masquerading as a new-and-improved club, then sitting out the playoffs. Dick Vermeil’s kinder, gentler bedside manner has done the trick for Lamar Hunt’s ailing team. Cunningham didn’t bother to shop last Christmas for his wife. He…
Card Sharks Getting carded: Thank you to the Pitch for Deb Hipp’s excellent article on the benefits discrimination against gay and lesbian employees at Hallmark (“Doubting the Benefits,” April 26). It takes guts to shine the light on the unfair behavior of one of our area’s largest employers. Hopefully, Hallmark will soon realize that “diversity” doesn’t just mean the repetition…
The wild, wild west: If Kansas City feels a little safer this weekend, it’s because the National Rifle Association is in town. That’s assuming the members can actually get here — it can’t be pleasant to travel after you’ve left your cold, dead fingers at an airport security checkpoint. The visitors are looking forward to a packed weekend; their annual…
Heath Ledger, wearing the scowl of the anxious and uneasy, is having trouble standing still. He most certainly would rather be anywhere but here: killing time in a TV studio, waiting to be interviewed during a live afternoon newscast. Waiting to promote his new movie. Waiting to assume the guise of pitchman and product. The actor fidgets with whatever…
On Wednesday, April 4, John Ashcroft stood before members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, who were having a luncheon in the Grand Ballroom at the Washington, D.C., Marriott. The attorney general enjoyed a warm welcome and called out to Rich Hood, editorial page editor of The Kansas City Star. “Wherever you are, Rich, I appreciate your friendship and…
Last winter, as Sandy Brown spent the holidays with her family in San Antonio, Texas, she realized her Citydog dog-walking and pet-sitting business in Kansas City had absorbed too much of her life. She fretted about the dog-visitation schedule she’d left for her employees. She regretted having to turn away a few dogs because the staff was fully occupied. She…
The gray whale breaks the surface of the Sea of Okhotsk and sets a course for the inflatable Zodiac. The whale’s head rises high in the water, exposing the yellowish baleen hanging from its jaws. It glides past the five-meter boat with ten meters to spare. The crew stares into the eye of the whale, a split second before the…
After a recent binge of eating Indian cuisine, including several pleasant meals at Overland Park’sTouch of Asia, I found myself craving — truly, madly, deeply — such uniquely American dishes as ice cream sandwiches, cheeseburgers and Little Debbie snack cakes. Totally ignoring my doctor’s orders (“Go on a diet!”), I made a journey to Stroud’s (1015 E. 85th Street) one…
