Bob Dole knows a little bit about Congress, having been elected to it 50 years ago. To commemorate this golden anniversary, the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas has announced its 2010 Presidential Lecture Series, titled “Bob Dole: 50 Years of Leadership and Bipartisanship.” The series kicks off this evening at 7:30 with “Writing the Life of…
Growing up in El Paso, Texas, Jason Sierra began crossing borders early. Crossing back and forth between Mexico and the United States, and being Mexican-American himself, Jason learned that sometimes borders can be fixed and severe, but oftentimes they are blurry or even non-existent. Jason’s cultural hybridity has played out throughout his life as he has spent time living with…
Author and historian Steven Watts discusses his new book Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. The book traces Hefner’s personal and professional life from his childhood to his founding of Playboy magazine to his company’s transition from simple magazine publisher to a large communications and entertainment company. Thu., Feb. 4, 6:30 p.m., 2010 Tags: Hugh Hefner, Night &…
George Foreman won his first Olympic gold medal at age 18. He won his first heavyweight championship at 23. More than 20 years later, at 45, he became the oldest heavyweight champion in the world. And all that was before he invented his best-selling grill, which you likely still have on your kitchen counter. The heavy hitter kicks off Black…
Now that the groundhog saw his shadow, we’re all doomed to six more weeks of gray, Midwestern winter. So it might be time to bask in the artificial glow of a spotlight at Missie B’s (805 West 39th Street, 816-561-0625) during the Mr. and Miss Pride Pageant. Beginning at 9 tonight, the pageant raises money for Show Me Pride, which…
Voice for the Voiceless is an exhibition of photographs by the Rev. Don Doll at Rockhurst University’s Greenlease Gallery (54th Street and Troost). Doll is a Jesuit whose anthropological focus and humanitarian objectives have resulted in work that bridges the span between art and journalism. He went to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1969 and began documenting…
On the first weekend of every month, vendors for the West Bottoms Urban Bazaar fill the second-floor space above Foundation Architectural Reclamation (1221 Union, 816-283-8990) with handmade gewgaws and vintage trinkets and unusual accessories for the home, body and soul. This being February, expect the artisans and treasure dealers to crowd their tables with decorative hearts and arrows, plus plenty…
Never know what to wear while eating your local, organic, fair-trade meals? An eco-friendly trunk show may have the answer. Fashion Loves People and Early Jewelry peddle pieces from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at Haught Style in Prairie Village (6951 Tomahawk, 913-677-0070). Fashion Loves People creator Janette Crawford packs her organic T-shirts with J. Kirk Davis’ vintage illustrations…
If you’re not quite sure what modern dance is, think of it in terms of different painting styles. There’s realism, in which the subjects look as they appear in life, and then there’s abstract expression and surrealism, in which the artist takes a free hand to subjects. Modern dance is like the latter: open to interpretation. See the concepts of…
Nightlife began stepping up in the River Market last month with the opening of Thirsty’s Cantina (529 Walnut, 816-221-9500) at the corner of Walnut and Missouri. Once occupied by the dark, sultry Vivace and, after that, by the short-lived gay bar Redhead Lounge, the building has undergone a face-lift, revealing a brighter, more inviting spot with happy hours every day….
In the decade before Cary Grant distilled, refined, mellowed, then decanted his particular vintage of Cary Grantness, perhaps no other actor embodied those same grace notes of sophistication, comic timing and self-deprecating charm as effortlessly as William Powell did. While talkies ended many careers, the mellifluous, stage-trained Powell emerged as a natural for the new era, cementing his stardom with…
OK, so technically you turned 25 back on January 25. Or maybe the big 3-0 is coming up February 12. Whatever. If your special day falls between mid-January and mid-February (astrological experts disagree on the precise cutoff dates), you — like Paris Hilton, Boris Yeltsin and Nick Carter — are a water bearer. And according to the stars in the…
The new Kansas City Repertory Theatre always achieves what it sets out to do. I admire even the shows that I don’t relish, such as the colossal, mechanical A Christmas Story. The current Around the World in 80 Days is also admirable and diverting, and sometimes possessed of the only-in-a-theater imaginative beauty that the Rep has consistently delivered since Eric…
Keeping Guy Blakeslee on point is like gripping a balloon in a whirlpool. You just have to let the curly-locked Adonis go. “I could get really new-age, but I’ll try to keep it in the music realm,” Blakeslee says by phone from California. The attempt is in shambles 20 minutes later when the Entrance Band’s 28-year-old singer and guitarist wraps…
Dear Mexican: How can a formerly proud Latina like me feel proud to be Mexican again after my beloved relative was murdered in Mexico by narcos while visiting? I still have love for my heritage and I understand that many Mexican people live in desperate situations because they have no opportunity. But on that day, I was not proud to…
Was the 18th Street and Vine area born with a debilitating disease, or did someone assault it? We know it’s hurting. Harper’s, a restaurant on the ground floor of the Lincoln Building, closed earlier this month. It followed the Red Vine and the Peachtree as dining establishments that either closed or fled. Public sources have pumped millions of dollars into…
Feature: “Battle on Armour,” January 14 Nowhere to Hyde Peter Rugg’s story was a great article on a troubling area of town — it sort of made me feel like I live in Mission Hills! My partner and I moved into Troost Plateau (part of the 49/63 neighborhood) three years ago. While the neighborhood is coming back up, we still…
As personal assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to France, James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) can keep himself in well-tailored suits and keep his terrific-looking kittenish girlfriend (Kasia Smutniak) in a nice Paris apartment. This is the basis for director Pierre Morel’s delicate study in trans-Atlantic manners, From Paris With Love, a work that recalls middle-period Henry James — I kid….
On top of having one of the quirkier band names in Kansas City, Howard Iceberg and the Titanics might be the best Americana act in town. Howard Iceberg (real name: Eisberg) delivers old-school tales of love, loss, war and women with a Dylan drawl and a weary worldview. His tunes stand up fine on their own, but the band’s electric…
According to the Missouri State Parks Web site, Camden County’s Ha Ha Tonka State Park is a “geological wonderland.” You could say the same about the rough-and-tumble rock of the park’s namesake band, Missouri’s Ha Ha Tonka. With whispers, shouts, blazing guitar riffs, soaring four-part harmonies, and an affinity for the Southern gothic, the Springfield four-piece makes music as textured…
Jesse Dayton may have grown up in rural Texas listening to old-fashioned country records, but he’s no stranger to stage makeup or fake blood. After fronting a couple of rockabilly bands and laying down guitar lines on Ray Price and Waylon Jennings records, Dayton embarked on a solo career in 1995. Since then, he has played honky-tonk music with tinges…
Disco isn’t dead, at least not according to Andy Butler. The DJ and producer behind the critically acclaimed electro-disco project Hercules and Love Affair conjures the mirror-ball glamour of the ’70s while staying rooted in the house and dance movements of the ’00s and beyond. Hercules and Love Affair’s self-titled debut topped a slew of 2008 lists, and “Blind,” featuring…
Title: The Story of Kansas City: The City at Work Date: 1958 Publisher: Kansas City, Missouri, Board of Education Discovered at: River Market Antique Mall The cover promises: At one time, Kansas City worked. Representative quote: “The town was growing fast. However, the citizens were so busy making money that they did not have time to think how ugly their…
When the Summit Theatre opened at 17th Street and Summit back in 1913, not even the fanciest dining room in town — the marble- and gold-leaf-bedecked Pompeian Room in the Hotel Baltimore, which actually held more patrons than the 660-seat Summit Theatre — offered anything as exotic as crepes. The paper-thin griddle cakes began appearing on local menus decades later….
