Rare is the modern restaurateur who still plays host in his or her establishment, greeting guests, chatting with regular patrons and acting the bon vivant. I can think of only a few such hands-on restaurant owners: Barbara and Mano Rafael at Le Fou Frog, the Mirabile brothers at Jasper’s, Tony Ferrara at his namesake eatery, and the shy Bob Gaines…
There’s something comforting about Technicolor. The film process favored by epics and musicals of Hollywood’s golden age, Technicolor offers a reassuringly unreal spectrum of colors, an impossible warmth to go with improbable spectacle. Nothing looks better than projected Technicolor — not high-definition video, not TV, not DVD. For something so visceral, you have to leave the house — or even…
If anyone can trademark the term event, it’s 83-year-old dance legend Merce Cunningham. To commemorate the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s fiftieth anniversary, the troupe is holding six one-week residencies in such cities as Munich and Oslo — and Kansas City. Event is one of a set of semispontaneous pieces created with nontraditional spaces in mind — the modus operandi the…
Rawson Thurber has been so busy the past few days that by the time he finally returns a reporter’s phone call, he does so at 1:30 in the morning—and he doesn’t even realize the late, or early, hour till he hears the groggy croak on the other end. He’s sorry as hell—”Aw, dude, you were asleep, weren’t you?”—but all things…
Unlike Rob Marshall’s orgiastic success with the current film version of Chicago, Joseph Mankiewicz’s movie musical of Guys and Dolls was a blister on the genre’s reputation. “The Broadway version is legendary; the movie provides no clue as to why,” wrote the late film critic Pauline Kael. If you can think of Marlon Brando and Richard Gere in the…
Do-Ho Suh dreamed he was sunbathing outside his parents’ home. “I was wearing sunglasses and drinking a lemonade, and I heard my parents talking inside of the house,” recounts the sculptor (whose name is pronounced dough-hoe sue). “My dog was running around all the plants and trees.” Then the dream changed. “It was kind of zooming out slowly,” he…
It’s official: Sixpence None the Richer has become the WB’s house band. Its cover of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” magically appeared on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and the same song will soon grace the Smallville soundtrack. (With its Christian pedigree, SNTR’s Seventh Heaven stint can’t be far away.) When taking time away from hanging with the frog, SNTR…
No, this isn’t a flashback. This is Dark Star Orchestra, one of today’s most talented Grateful Dead cover bands. When the Rex Foundation — the philanthropic arm of the Dead’s vast musical empire — wanted a tribute band for a benefit at San Francisco’s Warfield Theater last April, it called the DSO. Although that by itself was a pretty strong…
Ben Kweller’s 2002 album Sha Sha was so catchy that even Kylie Minogue would be, like, whoa. It’s impossible to hear a single song from this album without getting it stuck in your head, and you’ll be grateful for the inconvenience. It’s the perfect combination of smile-inducing guitar jangle, Pavement’s making-it-up-as-we-go spirit, the Ramones’ good-natured juvenile-offender attitude and Weezer power…
The Melismatics’ Postmodern Rock doesn’t invent any new sounds, but it does cleverly merge moods. Equally uplifting and bummed out, the group burdens peppy keyboard pop with angst-eriffic lyrics such as I remember when I used to like people. The disc offers one catchy melody after another with intriguing, if somewhat superfluous, detours into sitars and beat programming. The live…
Boston-based songwriter Melissa Ferrick (pictured) and Chicago’s Anne Heaton both showcased their skills at this year’s Folk Alliance Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, but folk is only one way to describe what they do. Ferrick appeared in “Women in Rock” features in the early ’90s alongside Melissa Etheridge and Liz Phair. She had a couple of great records (Massive Blur and…
Kabal, the city’s latest attempt to bring beats, rhymes and nightlife north of Westport, is already attracting local-celebrity guests such as Mayor Kay Barnes. Though she wasn’t busting any moves when spotted at the club on January 21, the mayor did rap with a decent-sized crowd about her plans to revitalize the area. (Asked if it might be advantageous…
During a recent spoken-word performance, Henry Rollins eulogized a number of musicians who died in 2002, including Joe Strummer. Ever outspoken, Rollins took issue with U2 frontman Bono, who, he said, is always called upon for a pompous summation in these circumstances and who never fails to insert his own interests into the equation. “Without the Clash, there would be…
Call it hippie music, christen it the bastard child of ’70s rock experimentalism and ’80s fusion jazz, or label it a blatant excuse for the endless noodlings of overenthusiastic instrumentalists. Definition notwithstanding, the jam-band movement’s growing influence on an antiquated music-industry business model is hard to deny. While consciously defying the mandates for commercial success compiled over the past fifty…
“Hi, this is Neko’s cell phone. Um, I’m probably totally wrecked on tooth pills and sleeping in my clothes right now.” Beep. Actually, Neko Case just returned from Europe, and she’s gearing up to leave her apartment in Chicago for another trek across the states. It’s been four months since the red-haired siren was under the influence of dentist-prescribed painkillers,…
Astaire and Rogers. Hepburn and Tracy. Heck, Vardalos and Corbett. Over the decades, Hollywood has proved that its romantic comedies needn’t suck. But alas, they often do, as is the case with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The setup is an industrial-strength emetic featuring relentlessly cutesy peeks into the parallel worlds of stupid-women’s publishing and stupid-men’s advertising….
If nothing else — and there’s nothing else to this movie — Shanghai Knights allows Jackie Chan, he of halting dialogue and poetic movement, to pay direct homage to his idols. He hangs from the arms of Big Ben, dangling off the stories-tall clock like Harold Lloyd in 1923’s Safety First; he tangles with a little tramp, who by film’s…
Barnes dance: Regarding C.J. Janovy’s “Park Play” (January 23): C.J. plays the very serious threats to Penn Valley Park like it’s a silly mistake. Like there is no history. Like the conflictual arrangement between the Parks Department and Sailors was what? Like giving the Pershing building project property from the park for parking (leased at $1 a year for twenty…
In general, we feel sorry for Kansas City Star readers’ representative Doug Worgul, who has to answer the phone whenever anyone’s pissed at the paper. But our hearts aren’t bleeding for him when it comes to the Star’s latest insult to several hundred Kansas Citians. Back on January 19, a crowd of people stood near the J.C. Nichols Fountain on…
For years, homeowners just up the hill from the Plaza have been afraid of developers. Now they’re starting to bicker among themselves. At issue is how to stop being squeezed by construction in the neighborhood north of Barnes & Noble. Homeowners haven’t controlled most of the land in their neighborhood for years — they’re in the minority, packed together Monopoly-style…
Last summer, the Kansas City Water Department bought a full-page advertisement in The Kansas City Star. The reason? After months of routine testing, its engineers had determined that the area’s drinking water was contaminant-free. “That’s because every drop is subjected to our state-of-the-art treatment process — keeping your water so dependably good, you’ll never have to think about it,” the…
The Reverend Dan Bonner knows where most of his church members spend their days and nights. Some drift off to sleep listening to the periodic whoosh of highway traffic on a bridge overhead. Others feel the occasional splatter of bird droppings on their sleeping bags. A few wake each morning at one of the city’s emergency shelters. They work at…
