The United States’ Office of Stability raids an outlaw concert. The guns and chaos fail to silence a defiant singer passionately crooning Bright Eyes’ “I Must Belong Somewhere.” The concert is a violation of the America’s ban on emotion, an attempt to end violent crime. A bullet silences what fear cannot, leading the heroine to fight against the government’s suppression…
Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. He does this for one reason: Knowledge is power. The Gamecock Date: May 1966 Discovered at: Prairie Village Antique Mall The cover promises: “The Monthly Magazine Devoted to Game Fowl.” Also: if you own this,…
In the Middle Ages, mostly only clergy had access to the Bible. As a result, average folks interested in the stories of the Old and New Testaments had to rely in part on “mystery plays”: street performances staged by craft guilds that re-created scenes from the Bible. This weekend, Kansas City’s Owen/Cox Dance Group presents The Christmas Story — a…
Last year, 10- to 18-year-old participants in the Red Echo Group’s “Let’s Make a Movie” after-school program created short films about such topics as peer pressure, mean-girl cliques and top-secret efforts to pilfer a cold cure from a government lab. Important subjects, to be sure, and the filmmakers presented them well: Participants from Olathe’s Indian Trail Junior High, competing against…
In one of the few funny scenes in Semi-Pro, Will Ferrell exclaims, “Everybody panic! Oh, my God, there’s a bear loose in the coliseum! There will be no refunds! Your refund will be escaping this deathtrap with your life!” It’s hard to imagine anything quite as entertaining happening at a Kansas City Spartans game, but at least our town’s newest…
Sons of Brasil Not to knock a good thing, but when your town is known for its legendary jazz, a lot of those bands can start to sound awfully similar. That’s not the case with Sons of Brasil. By incorporating the upbeat, samba-influenced styles of — you guessed it — Brazil into the Kansas City jazz template, the Sons have…
(302 Southwest Main, 816-525-1871). Wells and domestic draws are $2 from 4 to 6 p.m. Keep drinking until 8 p.m., when Jerry’s hosts its Tuesday Bluesday Jam. Mondays-Fridays, 4-6 p.m., 2008 Tags: Night & Day
(219 Southeast Main, 816-524-9966). Happy hour runs all day with $2 PBR bottles, $2 Mac’s drafts and $2.50 pints of Flying Monkey wheat and amber. Stick around until 6:30 for R&B by Lonnie McFadden. Mondays-Fridays, 2008 Tags: Lonnie McFadden, Night & Day
(224 Northwest Oldham Parkway, 816-524-2400). Play pool on one of 34 tables while enjoying $6 double wells and $2.50 20-ounce domestic drafts from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., 2008 Tags: 2516, Night & Day
The descent of colorful incandescent festoonery over familiar landscapes has become a signifier of two traditions that Americans hold dear: legalized gambling and Christmas. The Plaza’s Thanksgiving lighting ceremony is followed this month by Longview Lake’s annual Christmas in the Park celebration at the Longview Lake Campgrounds (10711 West Scherer) through December 31. With hundreds of thousands of lights and…
In muted tones, Kevin Sink’s new book of photography, Illuminating Kansas City, radically reinterprets urban space. By contrasting architecture with the natural elements surrounding it, Sink imagines the city’s most famous structures as interconnected units of an organic whole. Landmarks such as Union Station and the City Market are not seen, the way urban structures often are, as unmoving edifices…
Remember the Plaza lighting ceremony a couple of weeks ago? And how David Cook showed up? And the thousands of people bursting with holiday cheer, huddled around the fountains and waiting for the illumination of miles of light bulbs? Didn’t that suck? Aren’t you tired of being crammed in with those unable to afford a $200 Brooks Brothers shirt or…
The Record Bar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207) begins a new monthly tradition tonight with Justin Lake Whedon’s Listening Party. “The idea is to do some nights where you’ll hear music you would normally not get to hear if you went out in Kansas City or Lawrence, etc.,” the DJ says. “Stuff you’d only hear on your car CD player, your…
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation arrived in theaters December 1, 1989 — and marks the last time we can reliably say Chevy Chase was ever funny. Following that last high-water mark, Chase appeared in a string of flaccid, unfunny movies and hosted perhaps the most wincingly awkward (and mercifully short-lived) late-night talk show in television history. But in the third outing…
If you head over tonight to the Kansas City Artists Coalition (201 Wyandotte, 816-421-5222) thinking you know what the word drawing means, you may be in for a surprise. New York sculptor Ben Entner has thrown conventional concepts of the medium out the studio window in favor of a more playful approach. Both graphite and charcoal figured into his two…
There are plenty of reasons to look forward to tonight’s Christmasy show from Full Frontal Comedy. First, salty comic pros such as Tina Morrison, Bill Case and the astonishing Shelly Stewart spike the holiday cheer with their upbeat rudeness. Second, by stewing together classic improv games with the ambitious long-form “Small Town,” the troupe treats audiences to a wide range…
Visit the Crossroads galleries on any First Friday, and you’re nearly guaranteed to leave with the makings of a hangover. Free drinks, friends and, of course, art abound. These evenings are meant to be culturally enlightening, but for many of us, it’s all about the party. For art lovers who don’t want that morning-after headache, the Crossroads Community Association has…
As the history books tell it, Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the second century B.C.E. In other words — partay! Kehilath Israel Synagogue (10501 Conser in Overland Park, 913-642-1880) kicks off the Jewish holiday season tonight at 8 with a pre-Hanukkah party. The…
What’s cuter than little kids tugging at Santa’s beard? Dogs chewing on it! See if that’s the reaction your canine has to old St. Nick today during Paws Meet Claus at Penn Valley Off-Leash Dog Park (29th Street and Wyandotte). From 10:30 a.m until noon, Kris Kringle himself will pose with pups and pass out Scooby snacks — to the…
‘Tis the season for unwrapping lavishly decorated packages. And tonight at Union Station’s H&R Block City Stage Theater (30 West Pershing, 816-460-2020), audiences can witness a whole mess of unwrapping onstage — but not in the traditional sense. This yuletide evening is all about unwrapping warm bodies.No, there isn’t a special holiday edition of Bodies Revealed or a festive de-mummification…
Click here to find out what makes this book so crappy Click here for more Studies in Crap. Click here to write a letter to the editor. Categories: News Tags: 36, Columns
Prog is cool again. This is the impression I’m getting, sitting at a table in the mostly empty Czar Bar on a Thursday night. I’m watching two dudes in jinky sorcerer capes and hoods summon the eldritch gods of the misty mountains using a fat guitar rig, clattering stop-start drums and young-Geddy Lee screeching. Paging By-Tor. The band in my…
The Faint has been churning out dystopian robot music since the dawn of electroclash and the R&B vocoder. The group’s epileptic beats and magnetic synth-pop hooks have inspired many a disaffected hipster to bust into fits of herky-jerky dancing. The Omaha band’s fifth album, Fasciinatiion, is its first self-released effort on the heels of a break from Saddle Creek Records….
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Who doesn’t in this economy, even if the currency in question is rupees and winning means being pegged as a fraud and getting a firsthand education in interrogation methods? Such is the fate that greets Jamal, the 18-year-old Mumbai street urchin turned game-show contestant at the center of Danny Boyle’s ebullient Bollywood-meets-Hollywood concoction. Slumdog…
