Temperatures are up and bus fares are down, as Kansas City suffers another week of unsafe air. But there’s nothing like elevated pollution to fire up our inner poets. Wednesday marked the eighth time this summer that the Mid-America Regional Council has issued an Ozone Alert. In the past three years, the air has reached an unsafe level so…
Katie Hurcomd, Inner Balance Studio, has designed a special class just for the 3-6 year olds in your life. Give it a try! $2/child/session/and your first session is complimentary. Wednesdays, 9:30-10:45 a.m., 2007 Tags: Katie Hurcomd, Night & Day
In this week’s Pitchcast, the Wayward Son talks to Mac Lethal and hears one new song and two unreleased songs, including “Make-Out Bandit” from his upcoming Rhymesayers debut, 11:11. Get it through iTunes by clicking here, download it on the Web by clicking here or click the bar below to listen: Categories: News Tags: Apple iTunes, Columns
Poet William Trowbridge’s latest collection imagines King Kong traipsing across a handful of patently American pursuits, Forrest Gump-style — there are baseball, auditions at the William Morris Talent Agency, Vietnam. The clever idea sends the iconic monster fumbling through the middle decades of the 20th century. Eventually, the beast is felled by the war toys of man. Tonight at 7…
Overland Park isn’t exactly prime real estate for an anti-war protest. Call it youthful idealism or high school ingenuity, but that’s precisely why local teens are banding together for a peace rally in the heart of conservative Johnson County. Michelle Mubarack, a student at St. Aquinas High School, says she and fellow rally organizers were sick of simply talking about…
Golf tournament to benefit Johnson County’s only comprehensive provider of services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Tue., Aug. 21, 8 a.m. Tags: 98, Night & Day
It’s pretty unfair that the originators of the doggy paddle can’t even practice their move in public pools. Somewhere near every health-official-approved watering hole is a sign banishing animals — never mind that a kid is more likely than your dog to pee in the pool. Well, at least Scooby can dive in one day a year at Ad Astra…
To the faithful, the similar accounts of people who have had near-death experiences are evidence of a life after this one. Some medical researchers argue that these similarities are sensory phenomena with a purely neurological basis. The International Association for Near-Death Studies, an organization that includes health-care professionals, researchers and those who have had near-death experiences, publicly explores these issues….
In week three of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s French Film Classics: A Sense of Place, moviegoers are whisked away to scenic, sleepy Provence in Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette. You’d think the 1986 picture (with Yves Montand and Gerard Depardieu) would be a light and whimsical affair, much like 2001’s Amélie. Au contraire. Depardieu and Montand star as a…
Actor and comedian Thomas Miles has captivated audiences around the country and has received outstanding critical praise for his performances as a stage actor in King Lear, Soldier’s Play, Twelfth Nite, Colored Museum, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and What Ever Happened to Black Love. Thomas joined his Uncle Steve Harvey on the nationally syndicated…
Sample 5 Spanish Wines along with delectable cheeses. Reservations required as space is limited. Sun., Aug. 19, 3 p.m. Tags: Night & Day
The Dead Milkmen, that highly satirical punk band, sang, “Dear, I think our new neighbors might be ethnic.” Zoo animals might be saying the same thing during this weekend’s 28th annual Ethnic Enrichment Festival in Swope Park (Meyer Boulevard and Swope Parkway). An ever-successful event, the festival invites participants to experience different cultural traditions from all corners of the world….
Few dudes sans castration can imitate Robert Plant faithfully, so the notion of an all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band seems pretty spot-on. And since there’s probably more than a few meathead headbangers who have secretly dreamed of making love to longhaired rock gods in tight pants, the notion of actual hot chicks performing the Zeppelin catalogue is Kashmir to the…
Today, load up the kids and head to Bonner Springs for the Family Values Tour! The gates at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (633 North 130th Street) open at 1:30 p.m. By 3, you’ll be rockin’ to some divinely inspired rock jams. Oh, wait. That’s what will happen later this month during the Starlight Theatre’s Rock the Light Festival. Ironically, original Korn…
The film-directing profession seems dominated by megalomaniacs. Creator, arbiter, executor: You’ve practically got to fancy yourself a god to get the job done. Few artistic ventures offer such control, allowing you to order others around like chess pieces simply to fulfill your vision. However, you might have to suffer debt, less-than-ideal filming conditions and other outsized egos — at least…
Americans chuck an estimated 130 million cell phones in the trash every year. Consider that cell phones are just pretty packages for such toxins as antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc. Suddenly, they seem less like disposable accessories and more like a Superfund cleanup project. As a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Mission resident Katie…
It’s almost too perfect for a balladeer nicknamed The Train to kick off the third annual Boxcar Music Showcase. Wayne “The Train” Hancock is a dead ringer for Hank Williams, and he pens his own bar burners for Bloodshot Records. He’ll do the honors tonight alongside hillbilly rhythm-and-blues ace Webb Wilder and Texas twangers Eleven Hundred Springs. The three-day showcase,…
Science fiction of the 1970s had motifs as distinctive to the era as four-on-the-floor dance percussion, biorhythm charts and halter-neck catsuits. Citizens of the future wore white unitards; all computers had Gary Owens-announcer voices; the Statue of Liberty was repeatedly destroyed. Often, Donald Pleasance was involved. In the ’70s, there was a lot of concern among filmmakers about “the Man”…
Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking: Carrot Top? You’re honestly recommending that we see that unfunny, prop-tossing, eyeliner-sporting, potentially plastic-surgery-getting, oddly orange-hued, frighteningly muscled, collect-call-pitching weirdo? Well, you just hold your hatin’ right there. First of all, the recent Flava Flav roaster also known as Scott Thompson doesn’t do those commercials anymore. Second, his live show is an adept…
For younger generations often considered ignorant about history and current events, VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture was a self-affirming experience. Shout every member of Flock of Seagulls from the sofa? Totally. Point out Iraq on a map? Not so much. Now, Generations X and Y are hungry to demonstrate their trivia prowess in bars across the country. The Granada…
Nobody wants a slice of sweatshop labor on their hamburger or a side of overtime exploitation with their taco. And so since 2001, the Alliance for Fair Food has been urging the fast-food industry and its consumers to wise up to the labor rights of tomato pickers in Florida, who work for poverty-level wages with no overtime pay and no…
The 1998 book Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Curious Adventures documents author Louise Rafkin’s experiences as a maid encountering slobs and unlikely spiritualists, some of them celebrities. Also the writer of playful volumes that imagine what cats and dogs dream about, Rafkin applies her sense of humor in Other People’s Dirt to such surreal moments as having two hands in…
P.T. Barnum had nothing on the owners of the National Football League. Even Barnum, who made his money by exploiting the gullibility of the American consumer, would be amazed that we football fans happily buy pricey tickets to watch an August scrimmage between players who will be forgotten in weeks. The Chiefs’ preseason begins today when the Miami Dolphins come…
Any pot smokers worth their weight in bong water are hip to Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. The duo released popular comedy albums and starred in a litany of stoner flicks, from 1978’s potent Up in Smoke to 1984’s bunk Corsican Brothers. Sadly, Cheech and Chong smoked their last bowl together in 1985, citing creative differences. Since then, Marin…
