Five hundred years ago, the Aztecs used the cacao seed as currency. So claims Chocolate, the Exhibition, the plainly titled show on chocolate at Union Station (30 West Pershing, 816-460-2020). Plenty of commerce still centers on all that confectioners derive from cacao, though only the exceptionally pliant and the young accept it in lieu of cash. If, in this season…
It’s the weekend — so, how about a Movie and a Meal? Thirteen Westport eateries have teamed up with Tivoli Cinemas (4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-5222) to make this classic combination a little cheaper. For the next four Saturdays and Sundays, you can see a matinee screening of a Hollywood classic for $4 and score a discount on grub before or after…
Each year, mixed martial arts builds a larger national following of fans who appreciate the sport’s blend of brute force and martial skill. MMA junkies got a kick out of seeing Strike Force fighters on prime-time TV in October, and the whole sport is rallying around the maligned health of its marquee fighter, Brock Lesnar. Kansas City fans can get…
Drinking Liberally is a national organization of liberal thinkers who also like to drink. One local branch of the group meets at 7 p.m. on the third Sunday of every month at Californo’s. Contact the organizers and join the email list at drinkingliberally.org. Third Sunday of every month, 7 p.m., 2009 Tags: Night & Day
Imagine a guy standing on a street corner, holding a painting. “Hey, look at this,” he says to you. You’re astonished by the most beautiful landscape you’ve ever seen. As you start to walk away, he tucks the painting into his overcoat and brandishes an unbelievably gorgeous abstraction. “Hey, look at this,” he says. Before you can ask him where…
Tea, it seems, is a peaceful drink. Perhaps not in this country — here we throw it off ships to start wars and use it to protest the fascist evils of universal health care. But in other parts of the world, tea is a quiet, thoughtful drink, one that communities are built around. And the link between community and peace,…
The Town of Kansas Pedestrian Bridge stretches 650 feet from the River Market over the bank of the Missouri River, with a long stairwell leading down to the Riverfront Heritage Trail and Berkley Park. It’s pretty great! But according to the Kansas City Port Authority, the bridge is not yet fancy enough. Today’s 4-7 p.m. groundbreaking party kicks off some…
Ken Peplowski, one of the top clarinetists of this generation, is equally adept on tenor sax. The Cleveland native has enjoyed a stellar career, fronting his own groups and recording with such musical icons as Mel Tormé, George Shearing and Benny Goodman. Peplowski’s clean and energetic clarinet style sounds remarkably similar to that of Goodman, the king of swing. It…
Entrepreneur Steven Schussler, a man with grandiose visions, is the CEO of Schussler Creative Inc., a collective of designers, engineers and developers that creates retail and restaurant venues. Specializing in spaces that border on total sensory overload (yet remain family-friendly), the team is the force behind the Legends at Village West’s T-Rex. This month, Schussler celebrates his second KCK opening…
Kansas City comedian Elliott Threatt is just as well known for his community service as for his stand-up. Proof: He was voted 2004 Businessman of the Year by the Black Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, and he was a 2008 Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat honoree. Despite his appearances on BET and Showtime as well as being nominated for…
For the last three years, Barnes & Noble on The Country Club Plaza has selected Cornerstones of Care (COC) as the charitable organization for their Children’s Holiday Book Drive in an effort to collect thousands of new books for the children of Cornerstones of Care and each COC agency. The Country Club Plaza location of Barnes and Noble is striving…
Orson Welles lives on, not only in posthumously restored director’s cuts of his movies but also as a character in other people’s novels, plays and films — notably Richard Linklater’s deft, affectionate and unexpectedly enjoyable Me and Orson Welles. Adapted from a novel by high-school English teacher Robert Kaplow, Linklater’s movie concerns Welles’ legendary 1937 stage production of Julius Caesar….
Frederick Wiseman’s magnificent film offers a portrait of suppleness and agility, not only of the dancers’ bodies but also of the august institution of the title. La Danse allows for spectators’ full immersion into the action within the walls of the Palais Garnier, the 19th-century, neo-Baroque opera house where the company rehearses and performs. Roughly two-thirds of La Danse is…
The money is on the screen in Avatar, James Cameron’s mega-3-D, mondo-CGI, more-than-a-quarter-billion-dollar baby. The bling is almost blinding. For the first 45 minutes, I’m thinking Metropolis! and wondering how to amend ballots already cast in polls of the year’s best movies. Then the 3-D wears off, and the long second act kicks in. Avatar is a technological wonder, 15…
There is something oddly familiar about Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, in which George Clooney plays a commitment-phobic business traveler with no use for meaningful human interaction. Could have sworn we’ve been here before. When was it? And where? Oh, yes, of course: Joel and Ethan Coen’s Intolerable Cruelty, released in the fall of 2003 and forgotten by that…
One of the best things about watching the local music landscape is when new bands stagger out of the woods and make you think, Where the hell did they come from? In the case of the Model Congress, the answer is Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Thomas and Sarah Mueller resided before recently returning to their…
Resembling Cursive, circa 2002, is the Greenville, Illinois, quintet Eagle Scout. It goes beyond singer and guitarist Brandon Hunter’s caterwauling croon — a near replica of Tim Kasher’s hard-bitten tenor. It’s in the chunky angularity of the guitar, which slashes out post-punk echoes of D.C. heroes Jawbox and Shudder to Think, and in the stuttering dynamics that go from slow…
Good Charlotte plays too many chords/And Toby Keith couldn’t cry in his beer, complains self-described ex-punk and honky-tonk picker Adam Cox of Cletus Got Shot. Though they wore that cowboy hat, they’re more punk-rock than me, he continues, heralding Willie, Hank and Cash on a song titled “Punk Rock.” Like many of its similar-aged peers, Cletus Got Shot has bypassed…
In his videos and songs, rapper Pitbull plays an archetypal bad boy who’s trouble with a capital P. But he’s a scoundrel so smooth, his advances are irresistible. Fond of sporting a suit, shades and a charming grin, the Miami native — who has collaborated with Lil Jon, Twista and the Ying Yang Twins — has recovered nicely from the…
To let him tell it, East Side rapper Rondoe is on his grizzly. That means the young artist is grinding, hustling and otherwise getting his with the ferocity of a teeth-baring, clawed, 600-plus-pound animal. Besides bringing along fellow rapping residents of KCMO’s 50s, such as Ron Ron and Young Devi, Rondoe seems to have brought his own thesaurus to the…
In his recent essay “Dear Musicians — Please Be Brilliant or Get Out of the Way,” Dave Allen argues that to make money in the digital age, musicians must abandon the old model of releasing albums on labels and focus on selling the experience that surrounds their own, individual brands. “Creating music is only the first step to creating something…
This week, the Americana-tinged Kansas City band Oriole Post will play two shows. It performs Saturday at the Main Street Café: a mellow, all-ages joint with a coffee-shop atmosphere populated by hip, coming-of-age Christians. And Monday, the band plays its first show at the Riot Room, a Westport bar frequented by raucous boozehounds and bands with such names as Koktopus…
Signs that say “Store Closing” are posted in front of West Elm, the snazzy, upscale home-furnishings and home-décor shop at the One Nineteen strip center in Leawood. But a few feet away, at another upscale joint, the suburban branch of JP Wine Bar has a nice crowd for a frigid Monday night. If you can’t buy expensive home furnishings in…
And so a year that began hopefully ends bitterly. The heartless cold freezing the city on December 9 and 10 turns out to be a metaphor for the year’s biggest argument and those left out of it. In Washington, D.C., on these same two days, a hundred cowardly senators are “debating” how little they can do to solve the problem…
