As if the opportunity to play late-night skeeball wasn’t enough reason to head to Velvet Dog (400 East 31st Street, 816-753-9990) any night of the week, how about two-for-one cocktails? That’s right — on Thursday nights, you and a pal can drink for the price of one. Or those who prefer to double-fist their rum and cokes and appletinis can…
It’s a more than six-hour drive to get from Kennett, Missouri (population 11,260), to Kansas City’s Starlight Theatre (4600 Starlight Road). Yet it seems likely that a few Kennettians will make the trek to see their native daughter, Sheryl Crow. (Additional biographical trivia: Crow is also a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia.) While it’s not quite an official homecoming,…
Here’s the true measure of the epochal awfulness of the present administration: There’s so much shit flying these days that most folks hardly remember that President Bush actually lost a major U.S. city. The survivors of Katrina do, and thankfully enough writers and artists are turning to the subject and daring to turn that real-world hurt into real-world hope. Louisiana-born…
Painter Nicole Mauser has been generating warm feelings in the hearts of curators and gallery directors around Kansas City over the past two years, including Kate Hackman of the Charlotte Street Foundation and Jennifer Bohatyritz, gallery director of the Arts Incubator. Mauser’s June exhibit at the Arts Incubator (115 West 18th Street, 816-588-1850), opening tonight from 6 to 9, has…
Aside from Ron Paul supporters and professional wrestling fans, it’s difficult to imagine a more hardened group of believers than those who accept the idea that extraterrestrials make regular visits to Earth. For what UFO enthusiasts lack in definitive evidence, the reticence of the U.S. government to say anything about secretive Area 51 or whether an alien aircraft crashed in…
Thanks to 1971’s A Clockwork Orange, a generation of filmgoers can’t hear “Singin’ in the Rain” without experiencing ultraviolent flashbacks. But if Clockwork survivors can weather the initial waves of revulsion, they might find that a viewing of 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain washes away the tune’s contextual tarnish and leaves only glorious feelings. Ranked at the top of the…
At the end of May, Revue Boutique (1415 West 39th Street) closed its doors — kind of. Owner Terry Richardson plans to move a couple of doors over and open a new space this fall. Her new venture, Colfax, will host weekend trunk and fashion shows on a regular basis. In the meantime, Donna’s Dress Shop — the vintage boutique…
Chances are, more important things seem to override your good intentions to work out, like, say, triple-margarita hangovers. But throw in the benefit of tiring out your mutt at today’s Dog-n-Jog, and even last night’s tequila sidecars shouldn’t keep you in bed. About 1,500 people and 1,000 dogs are expected to run or walk one or two miles through the…
When Fred Astaire arrived in Southern California at the dawn of Hollywood’s golden age, few were wowed by his singing, acting or even his now-legendary dancing. Nobody predicted that Astaire would go on to set the dance standard for decades to come in America’s movie palaces, pairing with the likes of Ginger Rogers and Bing Crosby in some of the…
Creative minds are a bit like ants: One of them is a whisper in the wind, but a mass of them could carry you down a hole and eat your brains out, like in that scene in the new Indiana Jones movie. Five years ago, two architects in Tokyo devised Pecha Kucha Night as a forum for young designers to…
These days, it’s not just the gas pump that’s sucking you dry but also the grocery store. One way to save a few bucks is to cut out the corporate middleman. So skip that trip to Hy-Vee and buy some produce from someone such as Joe Jennings. Nearly 80 years old, he’s been growing food — without chemicals — for the…
Just as homosexuals reclaimed the word “queer,” the performers in the 999 Eyes Authentic Vaudevillian Freak Show are reclaiming the word “freak” and showing the world just how freakishly awesome their genetic anomalies are. Among the ranks are Lobster Girl and her claw hand, Elephant Man and his lumpy skin, Flipper Boy and his short arms, Lil’ Miss Firefly and…
Do you find musicals too sissy and operas too stuffy? Then perhaps you can benefit from musical theater’s great compromise — the rock opera. Sure, the actors still break into completely unnatural fits of song. But the songs are rock songs! And in the case of The Who’s Tommy, they are songs dreamed up by a superfamous and important British…
In a town that worships men in powder-blue jerseys or helmets adorned with arrowheads, it comes as some surprise that sports stars haven’t figured out how to sell us cars or serve us meals. The recent closing of Jared Allen’s Sports Arena & Grill was the latest, if not the shortest-lived, in a string of pro-athlete-owned businesses to fail in…
Experience the Council of Women Talking Stick Ritual and learn from the Wisdom of Women. This sacred container allows us the opportunity to experience the sanctity of hearing each other and telling our story without judgement or breaking the bond of our secrecy. Embrace your soul’s desires and manifest magic through our ceremony and ritual. Meets the last Friday of…
Lawrence residents Shawna Davis and Jeffrey Whitenight start every day hoping they’ll receive the phone call that could give their 18-month-old daughter a chance to live a healthy life. Addison needs a liver transplant. In the meantime, there are steep hospital bills to pay and sacrifices to be made. To get by, they need a little help from their friends…
Longtime fans of the late, lamented Late Nite Theater might expect a certain flavor of camp humor in Ron Megee’s production of Pink Floyd’s The Wall at La Esquina (1000 West 25th Street, 816-221-5115), but according to Megee, they’re in for something different. “It’s straightforward,” he says. “It’s such a tragic story: A boy takes drugs and builds a wall…
Marlene Dietrich stars as a nightclub singer who becomes torn between two men: her husband and the wealthy playboy (Cary Grant). Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Shown as part of the Forbidden Hollywood film series. Thu., May 29, 6 p.m., 2008 Tags: Cary Grant, Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich, Night & Day
Don’t let East Coasters tell you Kansas City isn’t cosmopolitan. We’ve got a rocking music scene, enough art galleries to fill an entire district and enough theater performances to fill several playhouses. But dog parks? Uh, no, the city only has one of those. Help change that at 6:30 p.m. with a public hearing to discuss opening an off-leash dog…
After wandering the desert for 40 years, what’s another 2.3 miles? Today, Israel’s supporters in Kansas City join 100 other communities around the world in a global Israel Walk to celebrate Israel’s 60th Independence Day. Participants gather at 10 a.m. at Congregation Kol Ami (7501 Belinder, Prairie Village). At 10:45, beginning at the sound of a ram’s horn, walkers will…
The soundtrack of the city can be a constant drone vibrating the psyche. As the sounds of jackhammers, 200-cc crotch rockets, leaf blowers and dogs drag your midtown ass down, consider the stress relief of the sounds of woodwind instruments. Hoping to “open the audience up to realms beyond the everyday,” Thomas Aber and the Rev. Dwight Frizzell of the…
With the crumbling of the U.S. credit markets has come an increasing reliance on foreign capital, especially from sovereign wealth funds, leading many an investment banker to lament, “Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai or goodbye.” Hard though it may be to believe amid today’s drumbeat of doleful economic news, there was a time in recent memory when our nation exercised muscular financial…
There’s always racy folderol goin’ down on Howard Stern’s show: strippers, little people, porn stars, little-people strippers who are also porn stars. But who’d have thought that Stern could help one find true love? Comedian Jim Florentine found it. You stoners may remember him as “Special Ed” from Crank Yankers, the hilarious cable half-hour in which honest-to-gosh prank calls by…
Here’s a startling fact about one of our favorite founding fathers: In 1779, Thomas Jefferson — who was considered a liberal by his contemporaries — proposed a law that would have required castration for gay men and mutilation of nose cartilage for lesbians. It’s safe to bet that no one was organizing gay-pride events back then.Though a few Jeffersonians still…
