In the five years between Liz Phair’s third album, 1998’s Whitechocolatespaceegg, and this year’s self-titled disc, she got divorced and continued raising her son. She started writing fiction. She took singing lessons. She won a small role in the movie Cherish. She tried to escape her Capitol Records contract after that company dissolved its relationship with Matador, the label that…
Pieces of April, made by playwright-turned-novelist-turned-screenwriter-turned-director Peter Hedges, could be confused for a reel compiling someone’s home movies. Shot on digital video using ambient light, it looks like something assembled by a film student for a final and lost soon after. It begins and then barely ends, and what’s in between is less a story than a collection of dropped…
Remember that silly-little-girl version of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, snuffling “I’m difficult!” through a charming tantrum? Meet Ryan’s new incarnation in the psycho-sexual thriller In the Cut. Post-Crystal, post-Hanks and even post-husband Dennis Quaid (toward whom this performance plays almost like revenge), she’s an actress reborn, birthday suit and all. That’s half the delight: She’s actually acting…
Take my wife, sleaze: In his letter to the editor in the October 2 issue, David Youmans starts by saying he’s a single man and that sometimes a guy wants to get laid. He goes on to say that he doesn’t want to deal with games and rejection. So, inevitably, most men pay for sex by either buying it from…
The Strip didn’t expect to get much more than a few yawns out of this year’s big Duck Derby — until, that is, this flank steak got a look at the early leader in the race. When we spotted the front-runner, it was floating past a string of shit-caked fountains and picking up speed. Hey, we wondered, whose name is…
Despite the fact that a catfish fillet with a side of mashed potatoes and greens costs a hefty $14, the Peach Tree Restaurant, in the 18th Street and Vine Jazz District, has become a top destination for elected officials who want to conduct business over lunch. But when one councilman, Troy Nash, took a party of six there a few…
One Thursday morning in April, Kim Douglass walked into the Jackson County Courthouse to face the man police believed to be her daughter’s killer. It had been more than four years since the December afternoon when Douglass’ phone rang and her nineteen-year-old daughter’s roommate delivered sickeningly vague news: Something happened to Jenai. Douglass had jumped in her car and raced…
A couple of months ago, we accompanied Date/Not a Date, who had finally been upgraded to Date, to his ten-year high school reunion in Wichita. (“Glad you’re seeing someone who’s actually been out of high school for ten years,” one of our coworkers commented snarkily.) It was a fun weekend — with numerous bars in close proximity, downtown Wichita was…
he Kansas territorial Governor’s Meeting House (see review) was already a venerable 65 years old in 1919 — the same year the Western Union Building opened at Seventh Street and Walnut. At the time, downtown Kansas City was loaded with restaurants, nightclubs and theaters, including the Grand Opera House right across the street. The opera house hasn’t been a theater…
At some point between World War I and the Great Depression, many of Kansas City’s hoity-toity neighborhoods got a fatal kick in the head. It suddenly became too costly to maintain the big, drafty mansions that lined Independence Avenue, Main Street and Millionaire’s Row on Troost, so most of them were torn down. The ones that lingered evolved into funeral…
TUE 10/28 If the phrases artillery shell and exceptional musicians don’t mesh well with your delicate sensibilities, that’s just what the performers of Scrap Arts Music were expecting. The five musicians, performing at KU’s Lied Center (1600 Stewart Drive in Lawrence) at 7:30 p.m., have created an ensemble show that may border on visual and aural overload.Using mobile instruments handmade…
SAT 10/25 Somewhere in California there lives a three-year-old punk rocker named Dresden, who may well be the luckiest three-year-old punk rocker in the world. Is he lucky because, at this early stage in his life, he’s already been through his embarrassing mohawk phase (which only lasted three days)? Well, yes. That’s pretty lucky. Elevating young master Dresden from luckier…
MON 10/27 The accordion is extremely loud and extremely easy to mess up — it has a whole row of keys and a jillion buttons, and the slightest slip is noticeable to anyone in a one-square-block radius. So it speaks volumes about the confidence of the Cool Cats Accordion Orchestra that the twenty-kid ensemble plugs into a 2,000-watt sound system….
SAT 10/25 It may not have monsters, satanic incantations or a three-story slide for an exit, but the Frontier Fright Night at Fort Osage in Sibley, Missouri (14 miles northeast of Independence), should be just as much spooky fun as any haunted house in the West Bottoms.The reconstructed frontier garrison overlooking the Missouri River uses living history to transport visitors…
TUE 10/28 If KKFI 90.1 personality Connie Crash had included the over-the-top 1956 recording of “I Put a Spell on You” by Screaming Jay Hawkins on a radio play list when the song was originally released, it might have cost her a job. Columbia Records’ Arnold Maxin wanted Hawkins to play up the scary side of the song, so…
If there’s one thing that’s sure to keep people running, it’s fear — not endurance. And let’s face it: Most of our fears point — with a bony, skeletal finger — toward death. That’s why area runners might want to sign up for the first annual Graveyard 5K Run and Family Walk, which takes participants on a marked course through…
Thursday, October 23, 2003 Our fun in Iraq and Afghanistan has only just begun, but our troops in Korea have been dug in just south of the 38th parallel for more than fifty years. Korean War scholars, veterans, survivors and policy makers meet today at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library (500 W. U.S. Highway 24 in Independence) for a…
Joyce Youmans and Leesa Fanning fear nothing. They can laugh in the face of the hooded, scythe-carrying figure of Death and raise a cool eyebrow to a hissing, dripping-fanged vampiress. Youmans and Fanning are assistant curators at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and they’ve unlocked the secrets of our collective subconscious for a lecture called Monsters! In the course of…
On October 12, BBC America aired the second-season premiere of The Office, the beloved mockumentary that follows paper-selling rats ’round the maze of cubicles leading to the office of head cheese David Brent, a pathetic little man who says in public things no rational human being would even think in private. On October 13, those of us addicted to…
As a child, a friend of mine of Italian heritage was warned to stay out of the sun, lest he get too dark. Hispanic, Jewish and African-American mothers (and it always seems to be mothers) have issued similar edicts. It seems there’s an unspoken rule about skin color: the darker the shade, the shadier the character — ugly, even….
It was supposed to be a party, but the high ceilings and pillars at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art seemed more oppressive than elegant. A live band butchered covers of Santana and Van Morrison songs; during a particularly painful rendition of “Play That Funky Music,” a lone couple boogied down on the marble floors of the Nelson’s main hall. The…
New York City DJ and multi-instrumentalist Mark Ronson has connections like AT&T; he’s bagged enough A-list artists on his vibrant, extroverted debut album to excite radio programmers nationwide. Here Comes the Fuzz is rammed with surefire, carefree party music. Ronson comes from privilege — he’s the son of glam-rock guitar hero Mick, and he used to spin at hip boîte…
San Francisco’s Deadweight is a new kind of power trio. Consisting of a violinist (Ben Barnes), a cellist (Sam Bass) and a drummer (Paulo Baldi), Deadweight peddles hard rock with swerving torque and orchestral grandeur. As expected with such an odd lineup, these guys exhibit prog-rock tendencies, but the playing is muscular and linear enough to get mosh mooks to…
When the Ying Yang Twins dropped the irritating singsong sleeper “Whistle While You Twerk” a few years back, it seemed as if the Atlanta duo was destined for one-hit noveltydom. So its a bit of a shock to see that the Twins are among the most commercially viable rappers out there. The resurgence comes courtesy of an impressive star turn…
