The riverfront town of Quindaro had a relatively short life. The bustling anti-slavery city was all but abandoned after the Civil War. But the Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood that still bears its name has fought for historical recognition and renewal for decades. Community activist Richard Mabion and business owners along 17th Street are determined to breathe new life into a…
Mike and Bob Bryan seem like a Disney Channel show turned into reality: identical twins both make it big in tennis and end up playing as the world’s No. 1 pair. When the Bryan brothers knock into each other in their signature chest bump, it looks like somebody’s running into a mirror. Mike is even right-handed, while Bob plays with…
Mike and Bob Bryan seem like a Disney Channel show turned into reality: identical twins both make it big in tennis and end up playing as the world’s No. 1 pair. When the Bryan brothers knock into each other in their signature chest bump, it looks like somebody’s running into a mirror. Mike is even right-handed, while Bob plays with…
Mike and Bob Bryan seem like a Disney Channel show turned into reality: identical twins both make it big in tennis and end up playing as the world’s No. 1 pair. When the Bryan brothers knock into each other in their signature chest bump, it looks like somebody’s running into a mirror. Mike is even right-handed, while Bob plays with…
Like they teach you in law school, Mentiri est contra James Stewart ire: To lie is to act against Jimmy Stewart. The American screen’s most reassuring presence closed out his most successful decade with 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder, which winds up the Kansas City Public Library’s “Unreeling Riffs” series tonight. Director Otto Preminger’s wry, tough courtroom procedural earns its…
Washington correspondent and veteran political journalist Carl Cannon discusses the managerial failings of America’s first MBA president, George W. Bush. Tue., July 15, 6:30 p.m., 2008 Tags: Carl Cannon, George W. Bush, Night & Day, Washington, DC
Blame it on fear of malignant melanomas and the resurgence of modesty, but this summer’s swimsuit collections generally emphasize coverage. Unfortunately, some sun worshippers will not be satisfied with low leg cuts, tankinis and removable soft cups. For those who have already scheduled their bikini and back waxes and enjoy their time soaking up healthy UVB rays, it’s time to…
For a generation of obsessive music fans and thwarted monogamists, Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity defines the idea of the instant classic. Much of the book’s Talmudic authority remains in the 2000 movie adaptation (need a good song for your funeral? Try “Many Rivers to Cross”), but the film detours into whininess. Not so tonight’s staged reading of the screenplay…
Raconteur and Pitch food critic Charles Ferruzza hosts the Tipped Off! writers series, an open-mic showcase of present and former service-sector workers spinning songs and literary accounts of their restaurant experiences. John Hastings, Kaite Stover and The Pitch’s Lorna Perry share the bill. “This is kind of a spinoff of a similar program we did at the Writers Place a…
The Canadian singer/sonwriter got her start playing in an all-girl punk band named Placebo that played their first gig opening for the Ramones in 1991. Feist spent the next five years touring across the U.S. and Canada perfecting her distinct rock & roll sound. Feist released her first solo album Monarch (Lay Down Your Jeweled Head) in 1999 and then…
Wanna show your support for women’s reproductive rights over a game of badminton? Head to the Loose Park Pavilion (51st Street and Wornall) for the KC On Target BBQ. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri’s annual outdoor picnic honors the efforts of the organization and sympathetic legislators. “This year is a great celebration because we didn’t have any anti-choice legislation…
Born the same year that a UFO allegedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, Oliver Christianson has always been inspired by the paranormal. He collected clippings about Bigfoot and other strange sightings as a kid. Now 61, the local cartoonist has devoted a whole book of art to his favorite subjects — “ghosties, flying saucers, mummies and werewolves, and all the…
There’s an old episode of The Twilight Zone in which a book-obsessed introvert jerk survives the apocalypse only to accidentally break his spectacles, leaving him as shattered as the ocular glass he depended on to read. Sure, this cautionary tale highlighted the importance of human relationships, but it also made a far more important point: If he had read more…
People aren’t supposed to bend that way! Oh, but they do, and the Cirque du Soleil’s performers prove it. They will bend, jump, juggle, roll and fly — among other physiology-defying acts — as they kick off an eight-performance gig tonight at the Sprint Center (1407 Grand, 816-949-7100). The urban-themed Saltimbanco, one of the longest-running Cirque du Soleil shows, takes…
Long before a charming animated loop informed Internet users that “Kenya’s got lions,” Born Free communicated the same information in a much more evocative, if no less musical, fashion. Like The Lion King, Born Free focuses on an orphaned cub with an unorthodox upbringing, but it uses real animals and authentic African backdrops. The movie’s title song even won an…
Casting off its usual negative disposition of gloom and depression for one night only, the Lenexa Optimist Club presents the 13th-Annual Lenexa Midnight Bike Ride and offers a choice of two routes, which begin in Old Town Lenexa at Santa Fe Trail and Pflumm. Contrary to counterculture hippie rides, this city-sanctioned ride will feature a bike-safety and headlight check from…
The Northern League’s version of the Yankees the Winnipeg Goldeyes, visit the T-Bones tonight at Community America Ballpark (1800 Village West Parkway in Kansas City, Kansas, 913-328-5600). Like the team in the Bronx, the Goldeyes have been around for a while (since 1994, which is an eternity for an indie-league club) and play in a substantially larger market than their…
Could there be a more appropriate place in the metro than Johnson County for a castle? Caenen Castle, at 12401 Johnson Drive in Shawnee, makes an idyllic setting for parties — especially the weddings of brides who want to feel extra princessy on the big day. Chef Renée Kelly lords over the historic building, preparing the eats for many posh…
Jason Isbell has a Southern-rock pedigree to which any alt-country junkie can testify. Born to a musical family near Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Isbell spent six years spreading the so-Southern-it-hurts gospel of the Drive-By Truckers. That band’s sweeping vision benefited greatly from Isbell’s muscular guitar prowess, but he was merely one cook in a crowded kitchen. His 2007 release, Sirens of…
Seeing Dropkick Murphys at the Beaumont in the middle of July may not be the same as catching one of the band’s legendary St. Patrick’s Day concerts in Boston, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be the most fun you’ll have at a show all year. Regardless of the season or location, it’s hard for a crowd not to coalesce…
“Leavin’ on my Mind” by the Hacienda Brothers from Music for Ranch and Town (self-released): The Southwest music scene lost one of its greats when Chris Gaffney succumbed to liver cancer on April 17. The 57-year-old songwriter and accordionist paid his dues as a honky-tonk singer and a sideman for Dave Alvin before landing in the Hacienda Brothers with co-conspirator…
“Horizons” by Son Ambulance, from Someone Else’s Déjà Vu (Saddle Creek Records): This Omaha collective, led by a former chess prodigy, is musically all over the board. Its tunes are like those dreams in which you know you’re somewhere familiar — your grandmother’s house or your second-grade lunchroom — yet your mind has redecorated it to look like a minimart,…
“Everything is Everything” by Black Diamond Heavies, from A Touch of Someone Else’s Class (Alive Records): Best paired with sticky summer heat, the sounds of Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Black Diamond Heavies turn listeners into believers in dirty, destructive, sinful Southern blues. Made up of Fender Rhodes-bangin’ monster John Wesley Myers and drummer Van Campbell, this two-piece makes its Alive Records labelmates…
Wild rumors are standard-issue for the intentionally enigmatic Reggie and the Full Effect. But if the latest Internet scuttlebutt is true, Last Stop: Crappy Town is KC-native James Dewees’ (meaning the entire band’s) final album before he goes full time as the keyboardist for My Chemical Romance. Such a change might explain why the unexpectedly serious Crappy sounds exactly like…
