Any tour through the 2009 Review Studios’ group exhibition should make time for multiple activations of Beniah Leuschke’s “Yeah Right,” an assembly of gears attached to a welded steel valve that, when you turn it, operates an aluminum split-flap display, recalling an old-school digital clock, alternating noisily between the title’s two words. The beautifully fabricated piece draws together multiple Leuschke…
Dear Mexican: I’m an Asian female, and for some time now I’ve been fascinated by the Mexican culture. I find Mexican males to be very attractive. Their food, language and music are just amazing! How much of a chance do I have to date a Mexican hombre if I’m Asian? Muchacha China Curiosa Dear Chinita: Dios mío, are you in…
Martin: “School of Narcissism,” December 3 Politicians in Training It’s nice to see that David Martin really dug deep for his column on the UMKC Student Government incident. In fact, reading ripped and predigested material from college newspapers is exactly why I read The Pitch. However, this piece is merely meant to be entertainment, right? If so, Mr. Martin executed…
Santa Claus is coming up Grand Boulevard. Two horses are pulling St. Nick in a yellow carriage. White hybrid SUVs, piloted by Crown Center’s security force, are protecting Santa’s fore and aft. It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Midmorning sunshine warms the families who wait outside the Crown Center Shops for a glimpse of the man in the red suit. Barricades…
Cascading waterfalls. A classic marketplace reminiscent of the colorful bazaars of the Middle Ages. The world’s largest privately owned underground garage. These were the words Crown Center, the subject of this week’s feature story, used to excite potential visitors in the early 1970s, when pieces of the development took shape. The city and the Kansas City Library preserved a number…
City Hall and the Missouri Valley Room at the Kansas City Library’s Central branch have preserved a number of materials produced during Crown Center’s formative years. Here is a look at some of them.
Tom Wiggans is out of the Kansas governor’s race. Credit goes to Forward Kansas for breaking the story. The Pitch has also confirmed Wiggans’ flame out through a source. Forward Kansas quotes a statement from Wiggans to supporters saying the run would “take more time and resources than I can assemble to mount a winning campaign.” Therefore I believe it…
Lawrence-based reggae act YucaRoots is going to the Virgin Islands to open up for Bunny Wailer on New Years Eve. YucaRoots features members who are Brazilian, American, and Nepalese, all playing some classic, slow-jam reggae. They’re getting ready to release an album in 2010. Says band member Tom Johnson of the project: It’s pretty diverse…we’re all somehow happy with how…
That AC/DC show at the Sprint Center that was postponed due to Brian Johnson’s surgery has been rescheduled. According to LiveDaily, the show is now April 11. It’s still at the Sprint Center, and it’ll still rock. Not as much as that, though. Fuck. That’s just too cool. Categories: Music Tags: ac/dc, brian johnson, incoming, rescheduled show
This week, my Wayward Son column in The Pitch focuses on Biarchy, the new project from KC music veterans Brad Hodgson and Mike Myers. The two former members of In the Pines have released a digital album, Strength In Numbers, and are asking filmmakers — locally and around the globe — to contribute visual material to go along with their…
Yesterday, Plog reader tracy a. asked some astute questions regarding how Kansas City’s Regulated Industries Division decides on punishments after busting an establishment for selling alcohol to minors. The question was prompted by yesterday’s post, which reported that Sol Cantina’s liquor license will be suspended for seven days (January 1 through January 8, 2010) following a December 5 violation of…
There is pale ale and then there is not-quite pale ale. The former is well-known here in Kansas City thanks to the Boulevard Brewing Company; the latter has just arrived this month in an amber-colored pint glass from the Magic Hat Brewing Company — a craft brewer based out of Burlington, Vermont. Magic Hat #9 is now on tap at…
Yesterday, Kansas lawmakers pre-filed legislation to ban texting while driving for all drivers, regardless of age, and making jail time a potential penalty for violators, according to The Kansas City Star. At this early stage, the Kansas State Highway Patrol is throwing its support behind the proposed bill. According to Technical Trooper Edna Buttler, driver inattention is the No. 1…
Pizza is one of the few foods that is easy to share in theory but never in practice. Somebody always ends up with the smaller slice, causing a lot of relationship strife. Thankfully, as detailed in New Scientist, a few mathematicians have been on the case for the past two decades and have finally devised a system for determining the…
This track comes from The First KANU Radio Album. KANU is now better known as Kansas Public Radio, but back in 1974, it was one of the first stations gathered together under the aegis of the then-new National Public Radio banner. As a matter of fact, the last track on the LP is Susan Stamberg’s address at the re-dedication ceremony…
It’s usually leftovers that sit forgotten on the back of a shelf in our refrigerator, lost in the mid-week shuffle of preparing meals and shuttling the extra portions into Tupperware. But yesterday, I came face-to-face with an entirely different type of holdover: a fuzzy coconut of indeterminate age. The coconut is neither bad — although frankly, I’m not exactly certain…
Halfway Homes, the Kansas City facility that handles all captured and abandoned pets, is in crisis mode. A recent spate of animal drop-offs has maxed out the shelter’s space, forcing the staff to euthanize perfectly adoptable dogs and cats, often with little notice. “We have to make the decisions very quickly, which makes it hard,” says Jennifer Shive, adoption counselor…
The real Leona Yarbrough — the home-style cook who took a job at a Fairway restaurant called Anne Peterson’s in 1950 and bought out her boss 16 years later — is still alive. But by the end of this month, her namesake dining establishment, which moved out to larger quarters (in a building that once housed a Red Lobster restaurant) in…
This week’s Crown Center feature contains excerpts from a Calvin Trillin piece printed in The New Yorker in 1974. Trillin, a Kansas City native, took a skeptical view of what passed for progress in these parts in the early 1970s. He considered Crown Center to be symptomatic of a disease he called “dome-ism,” the worshipful belief cities held in massive…
Serendipity is by definition sweet, but when it has a chocolate hazelnut filling and strawberries, well then, it’s a creperie. Co-owner Ellen Trakas and baker Chelsea Williams both independently used the word serendipity to describe the development of Chez Elle , scheduled to open this morning on the first floor of the historic Summit Theater building at 1713 Summit on…
U.S. Senator Sam Brownback fashions himself an enlightened man of the world. He has worked to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, criticized the U.S. for not doing more to stop the genocide in Sudan and apologized in the Knesset for Christians’ historical mistreatment of Jews. Yet Brownback’s been slow to react to legislation proposed in Uganda that would…
