%{}% Coca-Cola just got slapped down by China’s government after it tried to buy a juice company there. For better or for worse, communes are back and quickly becoming popular. Dubai is struggling in this economy but it’s decided to make its case to tourists even more difficult by enforcing stricter laws in the city. Sorry lovers — hand-holding and…
%{}% Tonight, Barack Obama will be the first sitting American president to appear on the Tonight Show, guest-sandwiched between Andy Dick and Kevin Pollack. When he moves to the middle of the couch to accomodate Kevin Pollack, Andy Dick will keep doing annoying shit like asking the President to “Smell my finger,” holding his finger under Obama’s nose, and interrupting…
I shot some shaky videos of the St. Patrick’s Day of the party in the Power & Light District. The Pitch Action News team — me and Jason Harper, Nadia Pflaum and Peter Rugg — had headed over. But we almost didn’t get a chance to join the festivities. Harper had regrettably worn a plain white T-shirt. That’s a big…
Yesterday, Kansas City Star sports writer Joe Posnanski started a new blog: “The Future of Newspapers.” But Joe Po doesn’t want to write the blog. I’m hoping to do very little writing on this. What I would like to do is find smart people — business people, editors, bloggers, writers, readers of all kinds — and have them rant about…
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. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power. Assorted South Dakota Tourist Pamphlets Date: 1941 — the mid 60’s Discovered at: River Market Antique Mall The Covers Promise: “Other families get to have fun….
I wish I would have gotten this up on the blog a few days ago. Pitch theater critic Alan Scherstuhl sent me a couple of remembrances of Molly Jessup, who died from cancer on March 15. Yesterday, Scherstuhl sent me a link to Playbill.com’s tribute to Molly Jessup, “the leading music director in the Kansas City theatre community.” The Playbill…
Contemporary country crooner Phil Vassar comes to JCCC’s Carlsen Center for a special performance. Fri., April 24, 7:30 p.m., 2009 Tags: Carlsen Center, Night & Day, Phil Vassar
Paul D. Miller, a composer, multimedia artist and writer also known as D.J. Spooky That Subliminal Kid, will give a lecture as part of the Current Perspectives lecture series at KCAI. Wed., March 25, 7 p.m., 2009 Tags: DJ Spooky, Night & Day, Paul Miller
(900 Westport Road, 816-561-1101). Tuesdays through Fridays, enjoy food and drink specials in the cool lounge from 5 to 7 p.m. A Kobe burger plus a good red make for a fine night. Tuesdays-Fridays, 5-7 p.m., 2009 Tags: 2817, Night & Day
The Republic of Estonia has a forlorn, if not downright depressing, history. The former Soviet Union took control of Estonia in 1940. Nazi Germany then invaded Estonia in 1941. In 1944, the Soviets regained control of Estonia, which remained under communist rule as a Baltic stronghold until the disbandment of the USSR. Estonia declared official independence in August 1991.Amid this…
Jazz pianist Mike Ning and vocalist Sherry Jones perform with drummer Victor Perelmuter as part of Johnson County Community College’s Jazz Series. Tue., March 24, noon, 2009 Tags: Johnson County Community College, Mike Ning, Night & Day, Sherry Jones
One of the chief virtues of Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre is the way this no-longer-upstart-but-not-quite-established company flourishes anywhere it can. Like our hardiest evolutionary ancestors, MET is quick to adapt, which means it survives, even in a sustenance-starved environment like this recession-plagued arts scene. Part of surviving is expanding territory, and MET stakes out new ground when it presents script-in-hand performances…
Tonight’s 7 p.m. reception for Inda:5, an exhibition at Rockhurst’s Greenlease Gallery (53rd Street and Troost, 816-501-4407), is about “building relationships with the public,” according to co-curator Julia Cole, chair of interdisciplinary arts at the Kansas City Art Institute. “There’s a core in the show of pieces that are oriented toward community engagement,” she says. “So, for example, one of…
Real ghost hunters lead tours the through reportedly haunted John Wornall House Museum. The hourly tours incorporate real ghost hunting equipment and conclude with scary stories around a campfire with Civil War re-enactors. Fri., March 20, 7, 8, 9 & 10 p.m.; Sat., March 21, 7, 8, 9 & 10 p.m., 2009 Tags: John Wornall House Museum, Night & Day
Tonight and tomorrow night, dancers from the Kansas City Ballet and the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance will put on their toeshoes for charity. The narrated performances, in UMKC’s White Hall (4949 Cherry), are titled “Pointes of View: The Art of Dance” and feature a mixed bag of ballet numbers representing various styles of music and choreographers. Proceeds from…
Part of what made Jeff Bridges’ turn as villain Obadiah Stane in last year’s Iron Man so satisfying was remembering him in 1982’s Tron. Titan of industry Stane reads as a dark response to the actor’s role in that earlier movie: cocky, loose-limbed programmer Flynn, an anti-establishment type who finds himself beamed into a fascistic video-game landscape in cinema’s first…
For anyone still lamenting the absence of a pro hockey team in this city — and the corresponding lack of hitting — there’s a much cheaper, even more violent alternative happening tonight: War of the Warriors, which, er, kicks off at Sports Lodge (19310 East 50th Terrace, Independence). The mixed-martial-arts fight card includes a squadron of homegrown bruisers, including 135-pound…
Models and students will hit the Plaza this afternoon when Rockhurst University’s Zeta Tau Alpha sorority puts on its second-annual Strut to Save Fashion Show. Held in the space that used to house Arrowhead West (4750 Broadway), the show features outfits for men, women and kids from local boutiques, including Hemline and Addie Rose. All the struttin’ is for a…
Considering that it has been denounced as “blood libel,” quasi-banned from the New York Theatre Workshop and awarded London’s Theatregoers Choice Award for “Best New Play of 2005,” Kansas City audiences might be wondering what to expect from tonight’s local premiere of My Name Is Rachel Corrie. The controversial story concerns an American woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer in…
Workplace productivity takes a beating this week as the NCAA men’s basketball tournament gets under way. Adding to the excitement, opening-round action takes place at the Sprint Center. The hometown gym is dark today, so bracket watchers can drink in the quadruple-header on television at their favorite pubs. The Power & Light District will show games on four screens in…
Today, celebrate the first full day of spring by witnessing the transformative power of puppets. Sound odd? It shouldn’t. The StoneLion Puppet Theatre, a nationally recognized ensemble of puppeteers with an eye for civic improvement, is hosting A Picnic for the Planet from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Tony Aguirre Community Center (2050 West Pennway). The puppet masters…
For some brave souls, drunken bike riding is an art. So why shouldn’t it happen on a stage? It will at Harling’s Upstairs (3941 Main), when cyclists race fixed-gear stationary bikes in front of an audience. Cheer racers on while watching their miles per hour projected on a big screen or, for $5, bust out the bike shorts and sign…
The Taj Mahal, a mausoleum for Shah Jahan’s beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, may be the world’s most spectacular arrangement of arches, minarets, plinths and domes. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Its completion around 1648 was the height of Indian art’s classical period, toward which lazy students of the era could vaguely wave and say, “The Mughal dynasty? That was…
