Today is not only the last day of April, it’s also the last day to get tickets for only $30 to Taste of KC. What is Taste of KC you ask? Why only one of the largest annual food and drink extravaganzas in the city sponsored by none other than this magazine. This year’s event is May 17 in the…
I can’t decide whether this Craigslist ad is real or a work of fiction. In any case, it’s the most hilariously written — just perfectly framed and executed — musical-equipment-for-sale ad I’ve ever read. (Thanks to RG for the tip.) I’m not sure which member of the band placed the ad, but I’m deducing that it’s the band’s frontman, based…
In accordance with the wishes of the National Pork Board, I’ve stopped saying “swine flu.” I have a soft spot for vested corporate interests and trade groups and the factory-produced meat industry in particular, and I love it when those organizations literally tell me what terminology is and is not supposed to be coming out of my mouth. After the…
%{}% Combining Russia with Korea: bad when talking about the Cold War, good when talking food. It’s a small world. How else to explain running into somebody you know more than 500 miles away from home. Be careful when you teach your child to make coffee, the machine’s part might have been recalled. An interview with an author who claims…
It may not look like much. Twenty-four-year-old Tyler Coey’s MUTT toy is a hand-assembled plastic box cut out of PVC with an angled face and a rounded tail. That’s all. But hand the simplest of toy platforms to 50 artists, and the MUTTs become a heard of mixed-up mongrels beyond their creator’s most paint-fume-enhanced fantasies. Coey, an artist in his…
Anthony Amato Last night, the public got a chance to question the finalists for Kansas City School District superintendent. So it’s as good a time as any to check in on KC’s last superintendent, Anthony Amato. After less than a year, Amato was pushed out, leaving a lot of arguing behind. Were his key programs just canned plays he always implemented? Was…
Looking to ease into some KC blues this weekend — and maybe a purple silk shirt, too? On Friday night, the Hideout (6948 North Oak Trafficway, 816-468-0050) hosts the J.D. Summers Band. Led by Jordan D’Ray Summers, a 29-year-old guitarist, keyboard player and vocalist, this band boasts a solid party song lineup. How could you not respect a band that…
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. E-Mail From God For Teens Author: Claire & Curt Cloninger Publisher: River Oak Publishing Date: 1999 Discovered at: Goodwill, Olathe The Cover Promises: Can God craft…
Crossroads art gallery the Blue Bouquet presents recent works by Debbie Barrett-Jones, who is known for her color, handwoven panels. Fri., June 5, 6-10 p.m.; Sat., June 6, 1-5 p.m., 2009 Tags: Debbie Barrett-Jones, Night & Day
Draw the Line, a gallery style show includes a collection of graphite, colored pencil, pen & ink, and other media depicting realism, cartoon and caricatured images with over 70 entries. The Draw the Line featured artists are award-winning illustrator, Bob Holloway, known for his memorable historical art; Charlie Podrebarac, whose cartoons have appeared in newspapers around the world; and Lee…
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated. In October 2007, Katherine Olson was looking for work. Since graduating summa cum laude from St. Olaf College with a dual degree in theater and Hispanic studies, she’d mostly cobbled together part-time jobs—waitressing, teaching Spanish, coaching high school speech. Olson was looking at nanny listings on Craigslist.org when she came across an ad…
Relive the British invasion through a musical journey of the Fab Four. From the Beatle boots and Vox amplifiers. . .to the mannerisms and unmistakable harmonies, “1964” captures and recreates a live Beatles concert to perfection. Fri., May 1, 8 p.m., 2009 Tags: Night & Day, the beatles
Let’s speak hypothetically for a minute. Suppose there were a strip of beach about 40 miles north of Kansas City. It’s not the most beautiful beach you’ll ever see, bordering as it does on a lot of tall grass and some woodlands, with a mixture of clay and sand in the water, along with a few dead branches below the…
As good as some of the songs on Day & Age are, the Killers’ third record seemed to elicit more shrugs than gushes. Perhaps it was the neo-Pet Shop Boys syrup of the first single, “Human,” or the squirrel-pelt shoulder pads that Brandon Flowers wore on Saturday Night Live. Either way, it wasn’t a half-bad album — probably a better…
Local designers have been working around the clock to get the Nelly Don Estate ready for the Kansas City Symphony Alliance’s 40th-annual Symphony Designers’ Showhouse. The house, located at 5236 Cherry, is open through May 17 (closed Mondays). The Symphony Alliance keeps the doors open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays and holds house parties, which kick off today at 5:30…
When his son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004, Rupert Isaacson says he felt grief and “this weird, irrational shame, like I had cursed this child by giving him these faulty genetics.” Sometime later, though, during rides together astride a horse named Betsy, Rowan began to talk, letting his father into his world and prompting Rupert to wonder whether…
KCAI concludes its Current Perspectives lecture series with a presentation by Santiago Cucullu. Cucullu was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and currently lives in Milwaukee. He received his M.F.A. degree from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1999 and B.F.A. degree from the Hartford Art School in Connecticut in 1992. Thu., April 30, 7 p.m., 2009 Tags:…
There’s a reason that this whole “boyfriend jeans” trend has legs: Someone else’s clothes are always more appealing than your own. The organizers of the Restyle Runway Fashion Show have a cure for stagnant closets. They’re challenging area fashion-design students to create four to six outfits using donated clothing from Goodwill Industries’ stores. Models will rock the creations down a…
As a component of Happy Tree Friends (Part II) —-an exhibition featuring contemporary artworks that* *that depict, reference, incorporate, document, and otherwise derive or draw inspiration from trees, on view at Paragraph gallery April 17-June 4—-participating artist Kurt Flecksing will host a series of public programs on Saturdays in May. These presentations, by leading area arborists, will take place within…
Hey There, Harvey Girl!, an interactive, dinner theater mystery, is set in 1889, a time when the men were tough, the range was rough and a woman’s touch was sorely needed. The famous Harvey Girls were going out to civilize the west . . . when murder is served up as the main course! With a killer on board the…
The gallery at 1816 Charlotte doesn’t have a name yet, so owner Tarin Eicher has saddled it with a slightly ungainly temporary handle — Charlotte Street Open Studios. “We’ll eventually give it a gallery name, and we’ll be doing a grand-opening sort of a deal. The First Friday show is sort of preliminary,” Eicher says, who inaugurates the space, along…
Colorado artist Regina Benson’s exhibit On the Curve features several soy wax resist rusted fiber works. Creating fiber art in concert with nature, Regina has re-designed ancient mar-making techniques to work gently with the earth and textile. Using her own surface designed cloth, Regina creates works that undulate on and off the wall, inviting the viewer to step in and…
This first day of May happens to fall on a Friday, so the Crossroads District is obviously going to be jampacked for the monthly art crawl. But the arts district isn’t the only place to take in exhibitions of creativity this weekend. However, it would be a mistake to assume that you’ll avoid crowds if you opt for the 24th…
Go ahead and admit it: If you’re not already living in a downtown loft, you have a voyeuristic curiosity about that kind of lifestyle. Is it sexy? scary? expensive? “There are a lot of surprises for people who live in the suburbs,” says the Downtown Council’s Mike Hurd, a former suburbanite himself. “This community is so walkable, for one. And…
