Raymond “Boots” Riley was dressing his daughter for school when he heard the news on the radio. Like most Americans, he was disturbed by reports that terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But Riley didn’t jump on the patriotic bandwagon, purchase a made-in-China American flag and begin waving it frantically. “The American flag stands for…
After venting his spleen in theater and film for a quarter century, it seems like David Mamet should be ready to divulge something human about humanity. Sure, his fervid fans may point to Mamet’s Pulitzer and sing hosannas to the author’s frothing hucksters and sexual miscreants, but after all the cock-a-doodle-doo, what remains? In the case of Heist, not much….
The heroine of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s bold and bracing new comedy, Amélie, is Amélie Poulain, a doe-eyed crusader with the face of a porcelain doll and a sleek helmet of jet-black hair. From her high perch in Montmartre, where she works as a café waitress, Amélie secretly resolves to emancipate all of Paris — or at least every traumatized Parisian…
War and Peace God and countrymen: C. J. Janovy took a rather smug, condescending view of locals from Knob Noster as well as the military community at Whiteman (“Holy War,” October 25). Janovy took to her pulpit to depict the locals as some type of naive, simple-minded country bumpkins who worship the B-2. She also attempted to paint the military…
Alias beings: Bibleman wants to move back to Kansas City — or at least to Olathe. The caped scripture-thumper is former TV star Willie Aames, previously incarnated as the darling Tommy Bradford in Eight is Enough and the horny Buddy Lembeck in Charles in Charge. Aames lived in a country home near Olathe in the late ’90s, where he launched…
It was a dark and stormy night. Wind rattled shutters, blew out candles and knocked over fake gravestones in the front yard at 33rd and Karnes, in the prime candy-gathering neighborhood of Coleman Highlands. The full-moon darkness pressed phosphorescently against brittle tree limbs, twisting gnarly shadows over sidewalks scattered with little kids wearing plastic firefighter suits. But Halloween’s scariest moment…
Just about everyone with inside knowledge of the Kansas City school district agrees: Elma Warrick is Clinton Adams Jr. The opinion is shared by people across the fractured district. “She’s almost a shadow puppet for Clinton Adams,” says a prominent African-American activist. A former board member agrees: “She says she’s autonomous of Clinton, but I still only see her as…
As usual, news from the Kansas City, Missouri, school district has little to do with education. The latest political mud has been flying around the unaccredited district since October 1, when Superintendent Bernard Taylor hired Linwood Tauheed to be his chief of staff. That’s because Tauheed — and school board members Lee Barnes Jr. and Michael Byrd — are members…
One local personal trainer views pizza with such disdain that she calls it “baked fat.” And anyone who’s enjoyed a slice of deep-dish or stuffed pizza from the Green Mill Restaurant and Bar (see review) knows that the doughy, cheesy concoction isn’t a health food. But another trainer, Todd Markley, confesses a fondness for pizza. He eats it (New York-style,…
In 1957, my parents became engaged over spaghetti and meatballs at an Indianapolis joint called the Milano Inn. When they told the story, which was typically unromantic — my father grabbed my mother’s hand under the table, shoved a diamond ring on her finger and said, “Well, that’s over with. Let’s eat” — they remembered that they drank Chianti…
1 Thursday The members of Hubbard Street Dance are not embarrassed by their troupe’s humble origins — they named their company not for a renowned choreographer but for its original downtown Chicago address. Founder Lou Conte wanted only to start a tap school. But when his dancers performed in such venues as retirement homes and his own style began…
Paulina Del Valle, the matriarch of a transplanted Chilean family, is an “astute bewigged Amazon with a gluttonous appetite.” Under her orders, a coachman is parading a behemoth, elaborately carved Florentine bed through the streets of nineteenth-century San Francisco. He stops and rests the ruby-canopied bed beneath the balcony of Del Valle’s husband’s concubine and rings a tiny bell…
Few things contradict common religious ideals more than a combination of cigarettes, alcohol, nudity and all-around partying. But that’s what’s been going on this week during Adoracion de San Simon, a festival produced by artist and snack-bar owner David Ford in honor of the so-called patron saint of bad habits. People have been offering their vices to sculptures of…
There cannot be man, woman, child or beast alive who does not know that on November 6, Fox will debut its new series 24. Long before the fall season was to begin, it had already been appointed the most anticipated and beloved show of the year—by critics who had seen only one episode, no less. Much was made of…
“If I was on this team, I would have cut my throat night. This is supposed to be ‘Terrorhead’ Stadium. It’s a freaking Disneyland out there! We’re 0-4 at Arrowhead Stadium, 0-4! Trent Green, quit smiling out there; you look like Krusty the Clown. I may get fired from my color job , but I’m tired of being a homer!…
Chiefs fans are suffering through their worst season in over twenty years. Football teams at Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri are crashing at least as wretchedly as they did back in the day when Sports Illustrated referred to our region as “the Bermuda Triangle of college football.” So if you want to happily chill your kidneys at a postseason…
In the wake of New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani’s plea to get back to normal, Kansas City boys Paul Rudd, Arliss Howard, Don Richard, Joel Carlton and Brian Barnhart are doing their parts to bring the Big Apple’s residents and diminished number of visitors to the theater. The men have been performing, or are getting ready to perform,…
Ask any caveman (or Rod Stewart) and he’ll agree: Every picture tells a story. Sometimes two or three. Paintings presumably arose from the impulse to communicate tales of the hunt, the gods and ordinary human existence. Over the millennia, visual storytelling — whether cave or cathedral or canvas — has transmuted countless times in countless fashions. But the impulse…
On October 21, Tool unveiled its Mulholland Drive to OZZfest’s Corky Romano, its bid to convert Kemper Arena into the Kemper Museum. Pairing each selection with riveting original images, which changed dramatically during the songs’ frequent crescendos, Tool created a spectacle that closely interacted with its music rather than serving as a flashy distraction. Sometimes it was easy to forget…
Saturday night marks Shiner’s CD-release party for The Egg, but thanks to the band’s strategy of filling its sets with fresh material in anticipation of a new release, fans have caught sneak previews of album tracks for months. The group has unveiled such prime selections as the disc’s majestic opener, “The Truth About Cows,” on which an eerie guitar hook…
People appreciate music for countless reasons: nostalgia, melodies, dancing potential, instrumentation. For Wesley Willis, though, music means more — it exorcises the demons from his head. On his fortieth album (give or take), the schizophrenic Willis continues to mine the endless options provided by a mind full of formless thoughts. He’s a street-corner renaissance man, assuming different personae over the…
Ben Folds has a thing for character sketches. After delivering two (“Kate” and “Steven’s Last Night in Town”) on his ’97 hit album Whatever and Ever Amen, Folds seemed to outdo himself with 1999’s The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, a full LP seemingly devoted to a single fictional psyche. But here’s Rockin’ the Suburbs, in which the song titles…
Can it really be that almost a quarter century has passed since Nick Lowe’s solo debut, Pure Pop for Now People? And who would’ve guessed this many years on that Nick the Knife would finally get around to making the best album of his career? The Convincer maintains Lowe’s longtime strengths — the clever wordplay, the knack for musical allusion,…
Exodus 16, Verse 32: “And Moses said, ‘This is the thing which the Lord commandeth. Fill an omer of manna to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.” As scripture goes, this isn’t the most captivating passage,…
