All summer readers, campers and carnival-lovers are invited to enjoy one last fling to celebrate a wonderful summer. Win prizes at the skeeball, the infamous dunk tank and many more. Enjoy food, face painting and lots of family fun. Tickets need to be purchased for each game. Sat., Aug. 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., 2009 Tags: 944, Night & Day
Enter through the butterfly breezeway where native species abound, then stroll through the free-flight conservatory among hundreds of exotics such as the Blue Morpho, Gulf Frittilary, Mexican Bluewing. Informational programs, special exhibits and activities for children will be available. Fri., Aug. 7, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 8, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 9, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 14,…
It’s fitting that jazz, the one purely American art form, was hitting its stride just as recorded sound came to the movies, an art form that Americans just do better than anyone else. (Yeah, we said it. Wanna rumble, France?) When jazz and film came together, they inspired graphic artists to create movie posters as dazzling as the music and…
While you’re enjoying the downtown Kansas City, Kansas, Second Friday Art Walk tonight, the YWCA 6th Street Gallery (1017 North Sixth Street in KCK) would like to draw your attention to the work of Atlanta realist painter Tony Quinton, a former Kansas resident. In his portraits, Quinton emulates the period costumes, poses and styles of master Dutch painters of the…
Join the Education Ambassadors for a Sunday afternoon gallery walk and talk as they discuss aspects of artwork currently on view at the Kemper Museum. This week, Martina Michelova, a fine arts and design major at Park University, will discuss Dan Christensen’s painting April Blue (1995) on view in Dan Christensen: Forty Years of Painting. Michelova will explore the content,…
Iain Ellis and Daniel A. Hoyt met at The Replay Lounge in Lawrence, Kansas, in August of 2000. During the next four years, they shared many rounds at the Replay, hours and hours on the basketball court, and multitudes of conversations about popular culture. They both withstood hugs by Bob Pollard (on the same night!), and years later, they each…
Though it may be Broadway’s gold standard, the musical doesn’t much make it to Hollywood now. Every so often, though, movie producers seize upon some singing-and-dancing stage smash and stick it on the screen. That happened with Chicago in 2002. Remember the star-bright cast, featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellwegger as charming but murderous 1920s vixens and Queen Latifah as…
For the past 20 years, KKFI 90.1 has been an independent, commercial-free voice on the FM dial. But to keep its diverse programming streaming from the heart of midtown, 90.1 needs a steady flow of monetary support. Give the station some love when Knuckleheads Saloon (2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456) holds its fourth-annual Boxcar of Blues festival tonight. Performers include Texas bluesman…
Whether you think Andy Warhol was a genius or a fraud, there’s no denying his savant’s intuition for celebrity and its perception. Warhol, who would have turned 81 this month, takes over the Spencer Museum of Art (1301 Mississippi, on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence) today with the opening of Big Shots: Andy Warhol, Celebrity Culture, and the…
There’s no shame in putting with one hand if you’ve got a beer in the other. At least, that’s the mentality of the Tee Up for Equality golf tournament, a fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign. In political circles, HRC advocates for gay and lesbian equality but, on the greens, just wants to have a beer-drinking, cocktail-sipping good time. The…
Preseason pro football is one of the great rip-offs in sports. Teams force season-ticket holders to buy these games, which amount to practices with cheerleaders. That said, the Chiefs’ 2009 exhibition schedule should be interesting to watch. The franchise has a new head of talent acquisition, Scott Pioli, as well as a different head coach, Todd Haley. Tonight’s game, versus…
We all know that fighting is not the answer. Unless, of course, no one is killed, in which case it’s good for hours of total awesomeness! Recapture the bloodless warmongering of your youth at the international G.I. Joe convention, which winds up today at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center (2345 McGee). Registered attendees have been participating in workshops and contests…
If you’re not into opera, you probably think only of red-cheeked, portly singers decked out in 18th-century attire and emanating a discomforting level of vibrato in a foreign language. A reference to “unbridled emotions” on the Lyric Opera’s Web site, in a description of its upcoming production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, doesn’t really improve this picture. But, really, opera can…
The gorgeous weather in June and July seemed designed only to weaken our defenses in advance of a four-week heat wave. To that we say: Get thee to a margarita dispenser and just enjoy your goddamn tan.• Cactus Grill (3901 Prairie Lane in Prairie Village, 913-831-2227). A family-friendly restaurant may not be your first pick for a lime-and-sour happy hour….
Who needs “Love Is a Battlefield” when there’s “Rapture”? Tuck that mantra into your brain’s pleasure center like lipstick into a sequined mini-clutch before heading to the Crossroads KC at Grinders (417 East 18th Street), where Pat Benatar isn’t performing tonight. Instead, undying rock hottie Deborah Harry and her band, Blondie, take center stage. It’s a side jaunt on this…
Israeli documentarian Nati Baratz’s Unmistaken Child is a drama of faith, about a Tibetan monk’s search for the reincarnation of his beloved master, Lama Konchog. This long march, which lasted over three years, seems confined to Nepal and northern India; the discreet filmmakers never mention whether they’ve crossed the border into Tibet. The disciple “interviews” an assortment of 18-month-old potential…
It’s not really love that complicates things between Clare (Rachel McAdams) and Henry (Eric Bana) but, instead, Henry’s tendency to inconveniently melt in and out of the present, finding himself unceremoniously stranded somewhere in time, naked. The “absentee time-traveling partner” is an open invitation to apply your own metaphor — I favor a chronic-blackout-drinking reading, but it’s elastic enough for…
TheSTART is one of those bands that probably would be bigger if it had any interest in sticking to one niche or pandering to the masses. However, die-hard fans of the Los Angeles synth-pop group probably consider its ability to migrate from punchy pop-punk to industrial-influenced dance numbers a strength. In fact, vocalist Aimee Echo and company have kept only…
Kansas City-based Internet radio station Popfreeradio.com hosts monthly showcases at the Brick, and Thursday’s lineup of Joe Firstman, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and the ACB’s makes a strong case for tuning in. Firstman hails from Los Angeles, but his easygoing, acoustic sound is more Midwest than SoCal, with its chilled-out feel that recalls both Harry Nilsson and Ray…
The great ocean deep proves a natural canvas for Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), whose latest feature riffs on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale of The Little Mermaid, albeit with the distinctly Miyazakian twist that the mermaid princess is an anthropomorphic goldfish with magical powers, and her handsome prince is a 5-year-old schoolboy in full possession…
A documentary except when it’s a mockumentary, this is all kinds of adorable and heartbreaking — the doc part, at least, in which Charlyne Yi (Martin Starr’s girlfriend in Knocked Up) sets out to cross the country and find the meaning of true love because she’s pretty sure she’ll never experience it herself. Sad, right? Except it isn’t. Along the…
If a band can last two decades, it must be doing something right. Throw in a marriage, and you’ve got the recipe for Over the Rhine’s long and lasting courtship with listeners who favor the group’s darkly nuanced, semi-alternative rock. Singer Karin Bergquist and Edge-imitating guitarist Linford Detweiler, the group’s leading duo, are every bit as artsy and sensual as…
Humpday opens with a pair of breeders in bed. A youngish married couple, Ben (Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Delmore), confess that they’re too tired to procreate that night. As if in response, the doorbell rings at 2 a.m., and Ben’s long-lost college buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard) stumbles in from deepest Mexico. Anna watches the unexpected bromantic action with grim…
It wouldn’t be far off to call Portland, Oregon’s Blind Pilot a pop band in folkie disguise, but it would be a little unfair. There’s something to be said for the skill with which principal members Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski dress their hooks in dusty old clothes. By relying mainly on an acoustic presentation, the duo (which tours as…
