When word surfaced that the annual football rivalry between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri would play out this year and next at Arrowhead Stadium (1 Arrowhead Drive, 816-920-9400), factions from Lawrence and Columbia kicked and screamed over projected lost revenue for local businesses. The Red Lyon Tavern — a popular game-day spot on Massachusetts in Lawrence…
Union Station (30 West Pershing Road, 816-460-2020) celebrates almost-native son Walt Disney in December with Behind the Magic: 50 Years of Disneyland, an exhibit dedicated to his first theme park. The display tells the history of the vacation spot in Anaheim, California — famous for its Space Mountain roller coaster, Sleeping Beauty Castle and $45 soft pretzels. (Panchito Pistoles-brand nacho…
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to escape the world’s troubles simply by dousing yourself in fairy dust and thinking pleasant thoughts? Then you could fly to a magical land, fight pirates and live in a tree with your best buds. Tonight, the University of Kansas’ Lied Center (1600 Stewart Drive in Lawrence) provides an escape into Neverland through the musical Peter…
From the time he first graced airwaves, John Denver and the holidays have gone together like a warm fireplace and smooth cup of eggnog. A beloved folk singer, peace advocate and nature lover, Denver — who died in 1997 — sang gentle anthems of harmony, love and tolerance. This made for cherished television Christmas specials and multiple Muppet Show appearances.Denver’s…
A couple of days ago, you probably feasted on a bird whose kind was long ago rejected as a national symbol. Today, hit the road for a glimpse of the high-flying predator that did earn iconic status. This time of year, bald eagles are often among the feathered friends hanging out at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, 100 miles north…
Radio stations are oozing those canned Christmas tunes, and receptionists everywhere are donning tacky holiday sweaters. The kitsch can mean only one thing: ‘Tis the season for rampant consumerism. But there is hope, o ye of anti-Wal-Mart spirit. Instead of suffering through the crowds at the nearest big-box behemoth, shoppers who head to Lawrence Fair Trade can spread holiday cheer…
Seven years ago, a group of artists that included Héctor Casanova jointly opened the Green Door Gallery (1229 Union, 816-421-6889) in the West Bottoms. “Everybody figured out after two shows that it was a whole lot of work,” Casanova says. The other artists moved on, but Casanova and his fiancée, artist Renee Laferriere, kept the Green Door ajar with monthly…
Love him or hate him (or hate to love him, love to hate him), Dane Cook has done more than serve as a comedy gateway drug to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have cared about over-exaggerated observations. To wit: 2005’s Retaliation went platinum and had the highest Billboard chart debut of any comedy CD in three decades. DaneCook.com has set the…
If you’re stuck in a turkey coma or are procrastinating gift-buying or holiday cards, karaoke and drink specials are a fail-safe way to catapult you out of holiday depression. On Friday, November 23rd (day after Thanksgiving) you can drink and sing your belly pains away at the Brick for the Holiday Karaoke Ball. Local heartthobs, Alicia Solo (of The Beautiful…
Sometimes it takes a long time for the things we imagine to become reality. John Lennon imagined a day when his artwork would be taken as seriously as his music. But in his lifetime, much of the art world brushed off the rock legend’s whimsical drawings. Some folks even complained that Lennon’s sketches of himself and wife Yoko Ono in…
Perhaps California artist Wayne Forte overdoes it with his exhibit’s long title — Liturgical Art Forms in a Postmodern Context — but at least it’s accurate. The long banners that serve as his canvases recall those in Christian churches. Forte’s postmodern context: Each banner illustrates one or more biblical passages with symbols applied through collage techniques. “Sabbath Banner,” for example,…
What began in a Lawrence living room 18 years ago has become one of the area’s most anticipated art shows. Six female artists organized Bizarre Bazaar in 1989. “The art shows that were juried were too expensive, and the craft shows didn’t really fit the bill for their art,” says Kris Barlow, Bizarre Bazaar coordinator. Over the years, the event…
The King Khan & BBQ show is the decency-wrecking union of two music scholars. Mark Sultan (BBQ) multitasks on vocals, guitar and a foot-triggered drum kit. Blacksnake (King Khan) croons and beats the hell out of vintage guitars on reverb ‘roids. The Montreal duo’s inspirations include early gospel, R&B vocal groups, juke-joint blues, doo-wop, rockabilly, garage punk, beat and…
If you feel trepidation about approaching Martini Corner on a Sunday evening, be advised that the prix-fixe dinner at The Drop (409 East 31st Street, 816-756-3767) from 5 to 10 p.m. is an excellent justification for avoiding the end-of-weekend “nesting” behavior associated with, oh, let’s say, your mom and dad. While they’re curled up in their housecoats watching Animal…
Creative gender swapping is how Hollywood has always worked, right on back to His Girl Friday, Howard Hawks’ rat-a-tat romantic remake of The Front Page. A sensible fellow, Hawks understood that star Cary Grant — in the role of Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns — glimmered brighter with a lady around. So he subjected a key male role from The…
Not much is guaranteed this Chiefs season. But every Sunday morning, without fail, Coach Herm Edwards will get down on his knees and ask God for two things. His requests never change. They’re nothing like the wishes muttered in those prayer circles before games or the thanks offered by players who point to the sky after a score. Even…
We’ve given them land. We’ve given them money. We’ve given them patience. Now I’m prepared to give them a columnist in a tutu. I speak of Cordish, the East Coast company that’s developing the Power & Light District in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Once-dismal streets in the south loop are snapping to attention. The brick shells of buildings along…
Hold still” — it’s what the hunters say to the hunted in Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men. The first time we hear the words, they’re spoken by out-of-work Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), to the antelope he spies through his rifle sight while perched on the crest of a West Texas ridge. A bit…
Something about that movie, though, well I just can’t get it out of my head/But I can’t remember why I was in it or what part I was supposed to play.— Bob Dylan, “Brownsville Girl” Bob Dylan isn’t “there” in Todd Haynes’ staggering mix tape of a biopic, I’m Not There. Rather, he’s everywhere and nowhere, a Heisenberg particle…
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse At last available on DVD, Eleanor Coppola’s 1991 documentary about her husband’s tumultuous trek downriver remains, easily, the best film ever about the making of a movie and unmaking of a man. Francis Ford Coppola thought he was going to spend 16 weeks in the Philippines making his film about the Vietnam War,…
The unsettling tone is established early in Call of Duty 4, when the president of a Middle Eastern nation is publicly executed on the world stage, and you, the player, experience the deposed leader’s final minutes through his own eyes, witnessing — through the rear window of a car — a city’s last throes as it succumbs to a…
In 15th-century Florence, wealthy Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici was a patron of the arts who commissioned the painter Sandro Botticelli to paint “The Birth of Venus,” that much-imitated and parodied image of a fully grown, auburn-tressed goddess emerging from the sea, naked, on a giant seashell (think Bette Midler concert tour or the scene in the first James…
Flip to the entry for Sweden in the encyclopedia, and the description sounds almost utopian: phenomenal public schools, impossibly low crime rates and a universal health-care system that could silence Michael Moore. At first listen, the music of Peter, Björn and John, the country’s freshly minted indie-rock poster boys, appears to reflect this idyllic existence. It’s bubblegum pop that could…
Feature: “Uneasy Riders,” November 8 If It Bleeds… Hopefully, Carolyn Szczepanski’s article “Uneasy Riders” serves as a wake-up call to motorists in KC. As one of the subjects (described as “Injured”), I’m a little bit disappointed, though. First off, the article is scary. I know the mantra: If it bleeds, it leads. I’m sure it wasn’t intended to frighten riders…
