Apparently, Thom Yorke and Conan O’Brien have more in common than the fact that they’re weirdly brilliant gingers. Now hopping cross-country on his “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour” with Team Coco, Conan whipped out an obnoxiously-accented version of the Radiohead grunge classic during soundcheck at one of his first shows on tour in Eugene, Oregon. (So, technically,…
William Ouseley, a retired FBI agent who has written about organized crime in Kansas City, says that recent indictments do not signal that La Cosa Nostra is making a comeback. Ouseley, the author of Open City: True Story of the KC Crime Family 1900-1950, spoke to the Downtowners group on Wednesday. Ouseley sketched the history of organized crime in Kansas…
What You Do For Money Honey takes us beyond the music and into the cubicles, behind the desks, and on top of what local musicians do to pay the bills. Tom Johnson is a busy, busy man. He plays in three bands — Yuca Roots, the Shop, and Categories: Music Tags: Jobs, KJHK, Shop, Son Venezuela, Tom Johnson, YucaRoots
Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power. Your Career in Journalism Author: M.L. Stein Date: 1965 Publisher: Julian Messner, Inc. Discovered at: Salvation Army, Olathe The Cover Promises: Permanent, established institutions are not immune…
Hey, nothing against rotund opera stars, such as the late Luciano Pavarotti, but it’s a lot easier to believe the story of the most famous libertine in literature, the fictional sexy Spaniard Don Juan — Don Giovanni in Italian, the title character of the 1787 Mozart opera — if the baritone singing the role looks like the kind of man…
Several Lawrence businesses have teamed up to organize an Earth Day fashion show, and all benefits will go to Audio-Reader at the University of Kansas. The show, organized by Martha Pierce, owner of Vintage Van, is titled See the Earth, Hear the Earth, Wear the Earth. The evening starts with a Show and Sell art show at 7 p.m., followed…
There’s nothing all that funny about a grocery trip to Costco with your brother-in-law — unless, of course, you’re the humorist and writer David Sedaris. That would mean that (1) instead of tossing standard items into your cart, you’d be lugging a monster box of condoms, because you’d feel compelled to give out small party favors at your book signings;…
Before he became Adam Sandler’s, um, character actor of choice, before he was Deuce Bigalow, even before he was the Richmeister … Rich-o-rama … Rich-atollah … makin’ copies, Rob Schneider was an up-and-coming stand-up comic. (Of particular note is his dramatic interpretation of Priscilla Presley’s autobiography, Elvis and Me, as excerpted in People magazine.) But then Lorne Michaels called, and…
The success of the Fox Network’s Glee series has made choral singing seem fresh and exciting. Actress Margaret Shelby, a member of the Kansas City Women’s Chorus, calls her arts organization “Glee for grown-ups.” Shelby and the 89 other members of the chorus gleefully present a tribute to the hits of musical theater at 7 p.m. (and again at 2…
The Beer Institute ranked the state of Missouri 17th in the country for beer consumption last year, based on 4.3 million people over the age of 21 who consume approximately 32.5 gallons per person per year. Keep that number in mind during the seventh-annual Parkville Microbrew Festival, when 32 breweries from Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska set up at English…
Critical Manners, an alternative to Critical Mass, had its first official run in San Francisco in 2007. Unfortunately, the organized community bicycle ride, which encourages two-wheeled commuting and harmony with motorists, didn’t quite catch on nationwide. However, you can rediscover the importance of bike safety, fitness and the reduction of carbon emissions as Family Bicycles (7140 Wornall, 816-268-1757) hosts weekly…
The land of Vittorio de Sica, Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni still boasts a vibrant cinema, and the 2010 Italian Film Festival USA brings 12 award-winning films of recent vintage to audiences in nine cities. Five of the films — each nominated for or honored with Italian cinema awards — make their way to the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at…
For the past 60 years, greasers, lowriders, scooterboys and drag racers have all made their marks on Kustom Kulture, the movement that encompasses custom-built cars, fashion and art of the 1950s through today. Celebrate pinstripes, metal-flake paint jobs, bangs and fishnets, Sailor Jerry tattoos and all things rockabilly this weekend when Knuckleheads Saloon (2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456) hosts the second-annual Kansas…
The setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is Long Island, New York, in the 1920s. So why does the Excelsior Springs Cultural Guild call its annual arts festival Gatsby Days? Cultural Guild member Cindy Sloan explains that the heyday for Excelsior Springs as a spa destination for the town’s healing springs was the era of the flappers, jazz…
Weeks of events, marked with red ribbons and donation pleas, culminate today with the 22nd-annual AIDS Walk Kansas City. Hundreds of hustlers for the cause converge at Theis Park (at Oak Street and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard) for a three-mile stroll to demonstrate solidarity against a disease that affects more than 5,000 people in Kansas City. Proceeds generated from today’s…
April is almost gone, which means that National Poetry Month is almost behind us. Almost isn’t now, however, and those of you still seeking meter, meaning and rhyme should head to the YWCA of Greater Kansas City (1017 North Sixth Street in Kansas City, Kansas, 913-371-1105) for “Speaking Out: Empowerment Through Spoken Word.” April is also Sexual Abuse Awareness Month,…
Pablo Picasso, the last century’s most famous artist, told an interviewer in 1935 that “people who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.” If that hasn’t stopped anyone from attempting to explain Picasso’s pictures — along with his sculptures, his quotes and his sex life — consensus is that John Richardson, in his three-books-and-counting biography of…
Two months after hitting us with the homegrown Slammed!, a heartening — and heartbreaking — survey of the recession’s toll on Kansas City, UMKC’s stalwart Department of Theatre is proving once again that theater is a vital source for news, not just of the human condition but of life as it’s lived right at this very minute. Premiering tonight, the…
Dan Doran and Ernest James Zydeco will provide music as festival attendees dine on 700 pounds of crawfish, flown in from Louisiana and boiled to the strict specifications of a Cajun family recipe. Non-crustacean eaters can enjoy Kansas City style barbecue. All proceeds will benefit Headstart of Shawnee Mission. Sat., April 24, 6 p.m., 2010 Tags: Dan Doran, Kansas City,…
Support your local record shops — today is Record Store Day. In honor of this holiday of vinyl, local outlets like Vinyl Renaissance are offering special deals. So, stop putting off picking up that limited edition 7-inch release of the super indie classic that you already have a digital copy of. You know it sounds better on vinyl, anyway. Sat.,…
Ride your bike to UMKC and enjoy an outdoor movie. UMKC Clean Commute and Bridging the Gap present Fantastic Mr. Fox at 8:15 p.m. The agenda includes door prizes. Thu., April 22, 8:15 p.m., 2010 Tags: Night & Day
The nature study movement that arose at the end of the nineteenth century was characterized by increasing numbers of Americans communing with the natural world in an effort to cope with the rise of industrialism and its attendant isolation of people away from open spaces. In The Nature Study Movement Dr. Kevin C. Armitage illustrates that this movement gave rise…
