To those of us born and raised in Texas, it is the Greatest Story Ever Told and Retold. At 5 a.m. on March 6, 1836, some 189 Texian soldiers and volunteers were slaughtered while trying to protect a former mission from Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna’s army. It is not, one would think, the best material from…
No, Kay: Regarding Tony Ortega’s Kansas City Strip (April 1): What a sick, twisted mind Senator Kay O’Connor of Kansas has. She must be an illegitimate love child of Fred Phelps. Roger L. Beard Prairie Village Step Off Break dance: I am just writing to thank the Pitch for its continuing devotion to hard-hitting and savvy reporting. I am writing…
The Strip wonders — will this town ever be the same after it loses its own Nick and Jessica? Last week, sizzling TV couple Jeremy Hubbard and Taunia Hottman took their parting shots at Kansas City as they prepared to leave town for jobs at stations in Denver. This meat patty had always appreciated Hottman’s role as peppy yet vapid…
In his scrubs or a lab coat, Wayel Noureldin looked like any of the 400 would-be doctors making rounds at the University of Kansas Medical Center last January. As a fourth-year graduate student in neurology, Noureldin examined patients who were suffering from dementia caused by diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, and he prescribed drugs to help them cope….
For Karl Barth, starting a job as the electronic postmaster at Drexel University in Philadelphia was like flipping the light switch in a room infested with cockroaches. Barth became postmaster in July 2002. Since the previous March, the volume of junk e-mail clogging Drexel’s servers had quadrupled. Barth, who had worked on big e-mail systems up and down the East…
For a town that recently ranked high on ESPN the Magazine’s sports enthuse-o-meter (No. 1 in Ultimate Cities, baby!), there’s a sad dearth of sports celebrity-owned food drinkeries around here. Sure, Neil Smith has Copeland’s, but it’s part of a chain. And, of course, Marcus Allen has his cars, but what’s the cachet of that, unless you do the John…
Last month marked the 15th anniversary of the Thai Orchid Restaurant. But April ushers in a monthlong celebration surrounding the golden anniversary of Jasper’s (1201 West 103rd Street), which includes various specials, including slices of Strawberry Anniversary Cake, served to diners throughout the month. Jasper Mirabile Jr. — the restaurant’s chef and son of the late Jasper Mirabile (who first…
My mother grew up in a small Midwestern city along Highway 40 — the old National Road — and during her childhood in the 1940s, going out for dinner was a big deal only if they were driving to the next larger city. After all, in her town, the choices were slim: a couple of cheap cafés, a steakhouse and…
THU 4/1 The often insular bubble that is Lawrence gets a dose of the outside world this week with the World Music and Cultural Diversity Festival. The festival, which continues until next Monday, features a world-encompassing variety of concerts and workshops. To give an idea of the breadth of the festival, Friday’s events at the Kansas Union (1301 Jayhawk Boulevard…
FRI 4/2 There is, in hell, a special place reserved for people who write boring artist statements. We say this not as authorities on eternal punishment (though we do look forward, with morbid curiosity, to having such expertise) but as people who read a lot of boring artist statements. So it’s no small achievement that Tara Nicole Tonsor, the artist…
SAT 4/3 When two events require your presence, they inevitably are scheduled at the same time. Everyone’s been there — agonizing over the pros and cons, eventually just flipping a coin. Such is the case with two equally significant soccer games slated for this weekend. The Wizards’ home opener against the Chicago Fire starts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Arrowhead…
ONGOING Seriously, can a miniature museum get bigger? The Toy and Miniature Museum (5235 Oak Street) just did, and it unveils its new 12,200-square-foot addition this week. The result of more than a year of construction, the expanded space includes a new auditorium and some dramatically designed display areas that can finally show off long-stored treasures from the museum’s collection….
The radio advertisement for War of the Warriors, a mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, promises that the full contact, no-holds-barred fights will be so brutal that fans sitting in the front row will be “catching teeth.” With one look at the knuckles on street-fighter-turned-martial-arts competitor Darrell Innis’ left hand, we have a sinking feeling the hilariously disturbing radio spots aren’t…
Thursday, April 1, 2004 This may sound like a cruel April Fool’s Day joke, but we’re totally serious. The West Wyandotte Branch of the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library (1737 North 82nd Street) will be hosting a Bird Circus at 6 p.m. and again at 7 p.m. Yvonne Patterson is back with her talented, feathered flock. The four macaws, a…
“It began with a painting of a forest rendered in a dozen shades of green … a painting that lured me to enter,” explains Susan Vreeland of her enchantment with the work of Canadian artist Emily Carr. Visiting Victoria, British Columbia, in 1981, Vreeland happened into a gallery where she saw, for the first time, the work of Carr, who…
Full disclosure: I like precisely one and a half Kevin Smith movies. There’s the one everyone else hates, the John Hughes homage Mallrats, and the first hour of the one everyone else loves, Chasing Amy, which dries up around the time Ben Affleck dumps Jason Lee for Joey Lauren Adams. There are bits of Dogma worth remembering, but I am…
George Catlin and His Indian Gallery Back in the 1830s, George Catlin made his first trip west from St. Louis, recording his observations of Native American Plains tribes by sketching and painting their portraits, ceremonies and landscapes. During Catlin’s lifetime, representatives from the U.S. government (which was busy passing the Indian Removal Act) ignored his efforts to sell them his…
Amazing Grace The transcultural Rainbow’s End Theatre that took over the old Theatre for Young America space at the Mission Center mall stages Shay Youngblood’s adaptation of Mary Hoffman’s book Amazing Grace. Heroines from Joan of Arc to Hiawatha spin out of the inventive title character’s imagination — even Peter Pan, though her classmates try to squelch that one…
The concept of a musical revue centered on hot flashes sounds rather lowbrow, like an amateur theatrical staged for ladies night at the club. But damned if the New York production of Menopause the Musical hasn’t generated heat of its own. This tribute to one singular cessation has become a sensation. The 90-minute show has been playing at New…
If you’ve seen the sign hanging above the garage that is home to the neo-retro Succotash, it will come as no surprise that long, contentious debates have raged in an attempt to determine whether the character in the logo is a bean or a stomach. He’s a large, amorphous body to which tiny feet and arms are attached. Think…
This Eudora is not what you think. This Eudora is not a quiet little gas-and-burgers pit stop off K-10. This Eudora is not home to the Black Lodge indie-rock laboratory. This Eudora is not a compilation of Get Up Kids B-sides. This Eudora is … uh … well. This Eudora is … um … none of the above. The jazzy…
A Cast of Thousands is an appropriate title for Elbow’s sophomore effort, even if it is an understatement. The Manchester quintet is joined by at least that many backing musicians and vocalists this time around, resulting in a credit list as lengthy as the ones that follow most major motion pictures. French horn blowers, trombonists, the London Community Gospel Choir…
It doesn’t take much to make a “supergroup” these days. Like a bad reality-TV show, Brides of Destruction matches a pair of Los Angeles hair-metal has-beens (Mötley Crüe founder Nikki Sixx and L.A. Guns ax man Tracii Guns) with Scot Coogan, whose primary claim to fame is a stint as the touring drummer for boy-band All 4 One. Handling vocal…
McMurtry’s dispatches from the world where the Wal-Marts meet the meth labs have never gone down easy. He’s a hell of a writer, but he sings the way Ashcroft probably hides the salami, which is to say he grits his teeth and gets it out, and afterward it’s not his problem if your rocks ain’t off. But here, finally, after…
