The film NUMB is the story of a man who has lost all connection with his emotions. His wife, a poignant symbol for beauty, he can no longer feel love for; his child, the archetypal symbol for innocence, he feels no attachment to. This battle to feel as he should towards his loved ones, leads him into a descent into…
Award-winning author Andrew Clements introduces his new series of books, Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School. Wed., April 7, 2010 Tags: Andrew Clements, Benjamin Pratt, Night & Day
If you read one book this spring, the Kansas City, Missouri, Public Library hopes that it’s Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. That’s the title selected for this year’s Big Read, an annual effort to stimulate the community through several weeks’ worth of events centered on a single piece of literature. “All of our Big Read selections are intended to make for…
Agree with him or not, it’s impossible to argue that National Magazine Award-winning writer and editor Lewis Lapham ever talks down to a reader. In scores of columns for Harper’s, the magazine he edited for almost three decades, and in his own Lapham’s Quarterly, he demands to be met on his own singular level. Writing in the latest issue of…
If Americans have mythologized anything, it’s baseball. And if baseball needs a goddess, Persephone would be an apt one: reborn in the spring, blooming in the summer and, with the return of the Yankees as World Series champs, descending back to Hades in the fall. The perpetual woes of the Royals may make fans wonder if they’re Sisyphus, doomed to…
You can walk against AIDS. You can run against AIDS. Tonight, thanks to Actors & Artists Against AIDS, you can sit down and laugh against the Scourge That Ronald Reagan Dared Not Name. To benefit the April 24 AIDS Walk Kansas City, Ron Megee, Missy Koonce, Jessica Dressler and a bevy of this town’s most concerned and committed theatrical pros…
Nine Inch Nails promoted its 2007 album, Year Zero, with an alternate-reality game, in which the Art Is Resistance movement combated oppressors such as the Bureau of Morality and the evil pharmaceutical conglomerate Cedocore. Players accessed the in-game forum “Another Version of the Truth” by visiting the eponymous Web site and clicking on a peaceful image of a farm, which…
If you divide the price of admission at the door ($25) by the number of rooms (five) at Artopia, the cost evens out to $5 per room — less if you purchased tickets in advance for $15 or $20 (or sprang for the new Pitch Passport, which includes admission to several of our signature throwdowns). Regardless, the flat fee you…
Exercise and physical fitness were integral components of the Victorian social construction. Workin’ that body back then meant bicycle riding (in corsets and nonbreathable fabrics). Relive the gaiety and glee of a bygone era this afternoon by participating in the Kansas City Tweed Ride. Weather permitting, the ride covers approximately 10 miles (done at a leisurely pace) and loops through…
Treat the night before Easter as though it’s New Year’s Eve at Happy Resurrection, Jesus. The 21-and-older event — in the Cabaret Room of the Uptown Theater (3700 Broadway, 816-753-8665) — is more dance party than religious ceremony, though organizers want you to wear white (a white shirt, at least) and skip anything Easter Bunny-related. Organizers request a donation at…
If the weather is balmy enough on Easter Sunday, eat brunch on the narrow balcony at Figlio (209 West 46th Terrace, 816-561-0505), looking down on the famous J.C. Nichols Fountain, which originally stood on the New York estate of millionaire Clarence Mackay, father-in-law of “Easter Parade” songwriter Irving Berlin. Figlio offers, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., a more elaborate…
If the weather is balmy enough on Easter Sunday, eat brunch on the narrow balcony at Figlio (209 West 46th Terrace, 816-561-0505), looking down on the famous J.C. Nichols Fountain, which originally stood on the New York estate of millionaire Clarence Mackay, father-in-law of “Easter Parade” songwriter Irving Berlin. Figlio offers, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., a more elaborate…
If the weather is balmy enough on Easter Sunday, eat brunch on the narrow balcony at Figlio (209 West 46th Terrace, 816-561-0505), looking down on the famous J.C. Nichols Fountain, which originally stood on the New York estate of millionaire Clarence Mackay, father-in-law of “Easter Parade” songwriter Irving Berlin. Figlio offers, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., a more elaborate…
Nationally touring standup comedian and burlesque performer Susanna Lee (Lucky DeLuxe) presents her fourth monthly show, which is a product of several years of work mixing the Kansas City native’s stand-up comedy and burlesque routines into cohesively blended performances. This show also features Bram Wijnands on piano, comedian AJ Finney, and vocalist Cynthia VanRoden, who will also emcee the show….
Ron Stinson, trumpet, and Patricia Higdon, piano, perform in the Recital Hall of the Carlsen Center as part of the free Ruel Joyce Recital Series featuring classical Kansas City musicians. Mon., April 5, noon, 2010 Tags: Carlsen Center, Kansas City, Night & Day, Patricia Higdon, Ron Stinson
Bill Sundahl is a man of many hats. He has quite a few to choose from, literally and figuratively. Recently, his favorite has been the fedora that he dons for gigs with his new roots-rock band, the Columns. It’s the kind of hat that Tom Waits would wear. Though Sundahl’s voice is warmer than Waits’, it’s an easy touchstone for…
Special Minuteman Project Edition Dear Readers: In honor of April Fools’ Day, I turn this column over to Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project movement, to answer your preguntas. Enjoy! Dear Mexican: I’m a white, college-educated, liberal, Democrat, socialist U.S. citizen. I don’t have any problem with Mexicans coming here to get good jobs. In fact, I don’t see the “problem.” From…
Like so many other places, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County is broke — layoffs, furloughs, service cuts, all that. A firefighter who works in Kansas City, Kansas, may be oblivious to the pain, however. The Kansas City, Kansas, Fire Department operates 18 stations — one fewer than the fire department in Wichita, a city with twice the population. Overland…
Martin: “Stop the Grouches!” March 11 Neighborhood Watch Ah, deadlines, the bane of journalists! Hard to find time to check all your facts. I am not privy to the events in the courtroom that David Martin described in his column about the Loretto redevelopment; I was not there. But I doubt that Martin presented the central points of the lawsuit….
Agreeing at the insistence of a Corsican mob boss to suck and then slash a fellow inmate, newly jailed Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) — poor, illiterate, a “dirty Arab” in the prison’s racist pecking order — gets what’s coming to him, but in a good way. Indeed, crime pays in A Prophet, the Gallic gangster movie that’s the most…
Whether Katie Jarvis is playing herself hardly matters. (She was discovered on an English railway-station platform, yelling at her boyfriend, and recruited for the lead in writer-director Andrea Arnold’s new drama.) As Mia, a foulmouthed, lost, 15-year-old child of the Essex projects, she gives a ferociously persuasive performance in an otherwise routine tale of domestic disaster. Neglected and abused by…
Seamstress Inge (Ursula Werner), professorial husband Karl (Horst Westphal), and silver fox Werner (Horst Rehberg) form a Berlin love triangle with more than 200 collective years of experience. She strikes up the affair after hand-delivering a pair of pants, and, within minutes, their living-room-floor intimacy goes beyond whether Werner dresses left or right. Rather than a tale of geriatric groove-getting,…
If Fanfarlo’s Reservoir sounds meticulous, it’s because the London quartet spent its first few years buffing its sound to a sparkle. The band’s 2009 debut was preceded by a quartet of polished 7-inch releases, and its practiced assurance is evident in a blend of stout theatrical carriage and supple, baroque sophistication. Swedish frontman Simon Balthazar’s wavering tenor recalls David Byrne,…
Passion Pit’s cloying euphoria clings to listeners like glittering hot-pink afterbirth. Michael Angelakos’ one-man project — fleshed out by four other band members — shares a name with a trashy ’80s skinflick, and its dance rock is even more effective at making palms sweat and hearts pound. Passion Pit’s debut, Chunk of Change, originally conceived as a valentine to Angelakos’…
