When selecting films with “Shanghai” in the title, it’s best to overlook Hollywood projects (Madonna’s Shanghai Surprise, Jackie Chan’s Shanghai Noon) and go straight to the source. Shanghai Dreams (or Qing Hong in Mandarin) portrays a family forced to relocate from China’s coastal metropolis to the rural-industrial berg Guiyang. The Chinese communist government compelled thousands of families to move inland…
Some saucy styles are making their way to eastern Jackson County by way of a new boutique in downtown Lee’s Summit. PopHearts sells lingerie, clothing and accessories by independent (and mostly local) designers from the flagship retail space in the Vogue Building (311 S.E. Douglas). PopHearts is the brainchild of 28-year-old Gabriel Garner. She peddles her own line of…
A game can be so beguiling to players that it takes on a life of its own. And just as all living things progress according to natural selection, so did the game of backgammon. After hundreds of years on the gaming scene with a name analogous to a Trojan War veteran, the checker-based contest of luck and skill endures. Roll the…
Tonight, dance barefoot at the Baila Westside studio (925 West 17th Street) as instructor Felipe Contra-Mestre Ninja teaches the samba and Afro-Brazilian rhythms of axé. It’s pronounced ah-shay, and it’s a form of dance that originated in Northern Brazil. “In the early ’80s, it took over where the lambada left off,” says studio owner Laura Beers. The drop-in class costs…
Kansas City football fans are desperate for a spring fix. So they flock to the Sprint Center to watch football’s version of methadone, the Kansas City Brigade. The Arena Football League lacks the passionate rivalries, history and even the rules of the NFL. That said, the AFL does deliver a reasonable facsimile of the NFL, utilizing the same scoring system…
In the 17th century — during the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, if you want to be specific — “natural philosophers” were fumbling toward what would eventually emerge as the scientific process. Obviously, one of their core interests was anatomy. There was no established system of posthumous body donations — “Prithee, won’t thee donate thy remains to alchemy?” —…
When it comes to the deep gulf between businesses focused on the bottom line and environmentalists worried about global warming, there’s no place like Kansas. But William Pizer is the kind of expert who bridges that fiery divide. A senior fellow at the independent, nonprofit Resources for the Future, Pizer puts the “eco” in economist. He is at the forefront…
It’s believed that the 19th-century authors of the unintentionally funny Portuguese-English conversational guide entitled English As She Is Spoke were actually unable to speak English. Offering up such nonsensical idioms as “The walls have hearsay” and “Take the moon with the teeth,” its sheer incompetence inspired Mark Twain to write, “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book,…
Last year, a cold wind and an obstinate tuba player kept the Hyde Park Easter Parade from happening outdoors. This year, Rev. Roger Coleman promises that the Loose Cannon Brass Band will march two blocks from Hyde Park (36th Street and Gillham) to Pilgrim Chapel (38th Street and Gillham), no matter what Mother Nature’s up to. “If we get…
Long-form improv. Fourth Saturday of every month, 2007 Tags: Night & Day
Stephen Shore’s documentary-style photographs color the familiar and the everyday with a personalized and almost diaristic aesthetic, imbuing the banal with a striking sense of humanity. More than 150 images make up this exhibition and include Shore’s celebrated series Uncommon Places, documenting America of the late 1960s and early ’70s. The American vernacular emerges through Shore’s images of parking lots,…
(1335 Baltimore, 816-221-9490). Enjoy $2 Bud Light drafts and $2.50 Bud, Bud Light, Bud Select and Michelob Ultra bottles from 4 to 7 p.m. See the happy-hour menu for appetizers that cost $5 or less. Starts: Aug. 20. Daily, 4:30-6:30 p.m., 2007 Categories: Beer & Spirits Tags: Baltimore, Bud-light, Michelob Ultra, Night & Day
Featured bottles of wine half-price ($50 bottles or less, bottles from $50-$100 are 25% off). Sundays, 2007 Tags: Night & Day
On Thursday evenings, dine with us and bring your own bottle(s) of wine, no corkage fee. (Bring the good stuff!). Thursdays, 2007 Tags: Night & Day
Coming together for the first time, the Urban Bush Women and the mend of Compagnie JANT-BI collaborate on The Scales of Memory, exploring and celebrating threads of human experience. Founded by Kansas City native Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, UBW is an all-female dance company dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Based in…
Food, contests, a hot air balloon rally and a music festival that will last all three days. March 23-25, 10 a.m.-11 p.m., 2008 Tags: 614, Night & Day
Two three-hour sessions with instructor Dennis Weiser. Registration fee required by March 1. Sat., March 22, 1 p.m.; Sun., March 23, 1 p.m., 2008 Tags: Dennis Weiser, Night & Day
Truman Road curves past a desolate corridor of gas stations, liquor stores and adult bookstores on the way east to Independence. The stretch is called Blue Summit, an unincorporated part of Jackson County known mostly for Erotic City, the adult-entertainment complex that includes a novelty shop, video booths and a strip club. In the early evening hours of January 17,…
After a six-year hiatus, the sisters Deal return with Mountain Battles on April 8. The Breeders’ fourth LP looks to take the band’s surf-and-turf brand of rock into international waters with a Spanish cover of “Regalame Esta Noche” as well as some “German Studies,” sung in German. We’ll see if Kim and Kelly Deal’s retention of foreign languages is any…
Max Bemis, leader of the New York band Say Anything, was diagnosed three years ago with bipolar disorder. Given his history of manic episodes, Bemis says the diagnosis made sense. In fact, he attributes the lyrics of the band’s 2004 debut, Is a Real Boy, to the disorder. Then, around the time that album came out, Bemis went through a…
“Druganaut” by Black Mountain: Tags such as prog or stoner aside, Black Mountain is, above all else, a rock band. The Vancouver band’s list of influences (Zeppelin, Floyd, Sabbath, Yes) reads like the required listening from School of Rock, and any track on its 2008 Jagjaguwar release, In the Future, would make for a bitchin’ level on Guitar Hero. When…
When Cheyenne last wandered onto the musical landscape, there was little doubt about the Oklahoma natives’ Midwestern tendencies. The band’s first full-length, I Am Haunted, I Am Alive (released on KC label the Record Machine), was as sparse and breezy as the open plains it called home. But change is a part of life, and the band’s latest release, The…
Biographical Landscape: The Photography of Stephen Shore, 1969-1979 American photographer Stephen Shore’s exhibition includes more than 150 images of ’70s-era parking lots, motel rooms, restaurants, highways and other familiar road-trip images from across the country. Anyone who has been on a road trip knows these images by heart. The exterior photographs of filling stations, desolate dirt roads, billboards and other…
“27 Jennifers” by Mike Doughty, from Golden Delicious (ATO): Fans of the now-defunct Soul Coughing are divided when it comes to former frontman Mike Doughty’s solo career. Some argue that he’s playing it too safe; others say his beat-poet delivery has matured like fine wine. On his recent solo LP, Golden Delicious, Doughty proves he’s still capable of the lyrical…
