Is there any band more quintessentially Texas than Explosions In the Sky? OK, about a thousand. But the Lone Star State has been good to the quartet, setting the stage for the dynamic, instrumental rock group’s contributions to the soundtracks for the Friday Night Lights film and TV series. In a state that values its 36,864 ways to make a…
Anti-Flag attacks many societal ills in the same curt fashion, placing “fuck” in front of the offending entity or “sucks” after it. This formula generates rallying cries, but it doesn’t provide much perspective. For a more nuanced take on these topics, fans should arrive early for opening act Street Dogs. Informed by singer and Army veteran Mike McColgan’s service…
No matter how big Spoon gets – Saturday Night Live and two bona fide hit singles notwithstanding – the celebrated avant-rock band never seems to jeopardize its street cred. That’s a credit to founding members Britt Daniel and Jim Eno, who utilize a home studio to bake each critically exalted album with new ingredients. Last year’s Ga Ga Ga Ga…
Leonardo DiCaprio was virtually unknown when he garnered an Oscar nomination for portraying the developmentally disabled teen Arnie in 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. It’s a testament to DiCaprio’s skill that viewers at the time wondered if this unfamiliar performer was really handicapped. Johnny Depp, fresh from interactions with another developmentally delayed character in Benny & Joon, plays Artie’s…
Turnabout, they say, is fair play. And when Leavenworth resident Chris Love and his friends heard that Topeka’s notorious homo-hating minister Fred Phelps and his clan were planning to picket memorial services for Brokeback Mountain actor Heath Ledger, they wondered, “Why hasn’t anyone picketed Fred?” That’s when Love and his friends began planning a picketing party of their own —…
They have hairy faces and sexy fishnet stockings, and they’ve been fighting for a more ethical art world for more than 20 years. They are the Guerrilla Girls, a masked collective of feminists who want to see art galleries filled with the works of women artists — not just men’s depictions of women’s naked bodies. From behind gorilla masks, the…
Google the name Lee Bowers and you get dozens of links to pages about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. At the time of the 1963 shooting, Bowers was a 38-year-old railroad worker who allegedly had an unobstructed view of the infamous grassy knoll. Bowers testified before the Warren Commission and eventually died in a 1966 car accident —…
A lot of us fell asleep in college art history courses, an easy feat given the dimmed lights, comfortable auditorium seats and endless slides of Caillebotte’s midcareer works. Thanks to the naps, the works of certain Spanish artists ran together — was that portrait painted by del Mazo or Miró? The Westport Center for the Arts (201 Westport Road)…
When Art Morey began judging Kansas City Golden Gloves events nearly three decades ago, the amateur boxing tournaments packed the seats at Municipal Auditorium. Golden Gloves is still a breeding ground for future pros and Olympians, but it seems to have lost some popularity to more extreme spectacles, such as mixed martial arts and pro wrestling. “A lot of people…
Marathons and triathlons are mere gateway drugs to the world of adventure racing. The fast-growing sport combines the standard disciplines of cross-country running, mountain biking, paddling, orienteering, climbing and rope skills with curveballs such as hang gliding or even camel riding. With races typically spanning 12 to 24 hours and sometimes stretching across multiple days, the sport markets itself to…
BCR, a band falling into the broad musical category of “Afro-nuclear wavabilly funk swing reggae turska,” somehow manages to transcend that genre with some serious musical pedigree and Sun Ra-influenced bombast. BCR founder Dwight Frizzell knew the late composer and conducted interviews with him in 1986, shortly after the Challenger disaster. “We asked Sun Ra what he thought about the…
If he watched soccer, Pat Buchanan would be very displeased. Major League Soccer has officially given up on becoming a venue for U.S.-born players in the prime of their careers. During the offseason, MLS replaced American-born players who left the league to play overseas with aging foreign-born players. While the media focus on David Beckham’s injuries, they have overlooked…
John Brown has a decidedly murky historical reputation. For the past 150 years, historians and pop-culture scribes have argued over his merits and flaws. Was he a heroic moralist, crusading against the cruel winds of slavery and trampling his less righteous opponents? Or was he a vengeful killer, allowing the hysteria of his times to drive his actions?Of course,…
There’s nothing like a lazy Saturday morning stroll through your local farmers market and conversation with the friendly folks who grow your food. It may be a few more weeks before you can trade a couple of bucks for the freshest produce around, but today the Kansas City Food Circle hosts a get-together for consumers and farmers to become better…
John Lennon asked us to “give peace a chance” almost four decades ago. Today, war continues around the globe, and some people still regard peace the way picky children do Brussels sprouts. Get hip to harmony today at the KC Rally for Peace on the corner of 95th Street and Quivira Road in Overland Park. The peaceful are invited to…
Onstage, Kansas City actor James Wright flips from comic galoot to suave, old-time crooner as if he had a switch under his shirt. Last month, in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, he showed a third, lesser-known setting: serious dramatic actor. Now see a fourth: singing altruist. Tonight at 7:30 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (11 East 40th…
To fans of Major League Baseball, April marks the start of six months of hearing cracking bats. With collegiate baseball, an aluminum ping replaces the sound of wood hitting leather, and the season begins in the gray days of February. Tonight at 7, witness KU take on the Wichita State Shockers at Hoglund Ballpark (adjacent Allen Fieldhouse, 1700 Naismith…
All dance classes feature live flamenco accompaniment with Beau Bledsoe and students from the Manos Rojas studio. All sessions include multi-media seminars about flamenco form and history. Call for times and prices. Saturdays, 2005 Tags: Beau Bledsoe, Manos Rojas, Night & Day
Recommended for grades K-3. Anyone who has ever been on a losing team will be able to relate to this humorous and entertaining production. Miss Nelson, Viola Swamp and the children of Room 207 are at it again in this musical romp of schoolhouse humor. As the action begins, it soon becomes apparent that all is not well at Horace…
Art about or inspired by war. Nov. 17-May 17, 2007 Tags: Night & Day
Author of The Ministry of Special Cases and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories appears at Helzberg Auditorium, Kansas City Public Library, 14 W. 10th St., Kansas City, Mo. Wed., April 2, 7 p.m., 2008 Tags: kansas city public library, Night & Day
One of the few films to deal, even in a fictional way with Jack Kerouac and the Beat movement of the ‘50s, this film is based on Carolyn Cassady’s memoir about her relationships with Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Alan Ginsberg. The story spans the periods of the late ‘40s to the late ‘60s, from the hip clubs of San Francisco…
Fundraiser for Accessible Arts. Thu., April 3, 2008 Tags: Night & Day
She was only 14 when her stepfather took her to Erotic City and allegedly prostituted her in the club’s “orgy room.” Sometimes, 20 men took turns having sex with the girl inside the anything-goes space, an oversized porn video booth where clientele, most of them gay men or swingers, met frequently for anonymous sex. The booth was big enough for…
