As of May 14, 4,402 Americans have died in the Iraq War and 31,810 have been wounded (according to CNN and the Pentagon). Commemorate their bravery as well as the military achievements of fallen heroes from wars past this Memorial Day weekend during the eighth annual Celebration at the Station, sponsored by Bank of America. The Kansas City Symphony, led…
The purpose for the Sensible Missouri Patient Conference is to educate the general public regarding the efficacy of cannabis for the treatment of chronic and terminal illness. Sat., May 29, 2 p.m., 2010 Tags: Night & Day, Sensible Missouri Patient Conference
Pez fans from across the nation gather to swap dispensers and trade gossip at the 2010 Kansas City PezHead Gathering (Holiday Inn Northeast, 7333 Parvin Road). Dealers set up to display their Pez-related wares, opening up shop to the public from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Admission costs $3; children younger than 5 get in free. But if you count…
If you’re the type who can’t stand to let a lost dog fend for itself, you’ll be in good company during the Broken Heart Fundraiser from 6 to 9 p.m. at Kelly’s (500 Westport Road). Animal lovers will swap their best rescue stories and give props to Halfway Home Pet Adoptions, a metro animal shelter that takes in hundreds of…
The short film We Will Make You Whole Again, by Trevor Hawkins and Justin Gardner, took two years to complete. It’s completely devoid of dialogue, and the only sound in the film is its score by Kansas City’s Olympic Size. Gardner suggested music by the Album Leaf and Mogwai as touchstones; from there, Olympic Size worked at Christopher Tolle’s Four…
Harvard, Yale, Oxford — these names have long represented the gold standard in higher education, offering a prestige unmatched by non-Western institutions. But times are changing. As author Ben Wildavsky reports in his book The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World, more people than ever study outside their home countries, and universities in China, Saudi Arabia…
• The Foundry (424 Westport Road, 816-960-0866). Named after the supermodel married to David Bowie, the Iman martini is made with vanilla vodka, Godiva dark-chocolate liqueur and Irish cream, and is $9. Wed., June 2, 2010 Tags: David Bowie, Godiva Chocolatier Inc., Iman (Model), Night & Day
• Re:Verse (618 Ward Parkway, 816-931-7811). Get the Wedding Cake, a blend of Smirnoff vanilla vodka, Godiva white-chocolate liqueur, Frangelico and amaretto, and served in a chilled glass, for $9. Wed., June 2, 2010 Tags: Godiva Chocolatier Inc., Night & Day
• Thomas (1815 West 39th Street, 816-561-3663). White martinis ($6 every Wednesday) are made with Svedka vanilla vodka, cream and Godiva white-chocolate liqueur at this bar with rooftop seating. Wed., June 2, 2010 Tags: Godiva Chocolatier Inc., Night & Day
It’s Thursday, May 13. Sitting at a white-draped table in a ballroom at the Jack Reardon Convention Center, Dawayne Gilley flips through the Kansas City, Kansas–Wyandotte County Official Visitors Guide. The cover of the glossy brochure boasts a grinning plastic dinosaur from the T-Rex Café at the Legends at Village West. Smaller photos show scenes from a T-Bones game, a…
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s bare-bones production of the intelligent but swoony musical drama The Light in the Piazza moved me on its own terms the second time I saw it. The first time I saw it, everyone in the show pretended that the leading man wasn’t bleeding from an open wound on his face. That first night, something felt wrong even…
Every relationship is about balance. For Hidden Pictures, it’s about balance, too: musical, emotional, elemental. “We’re like fire and ice, right?” Richard Gintowt asks Michelle Gaume Sanders, his bandmate. “Am I the ice?” Sanders counters. “I’m probably the ice, aren’t I?” “You’re probably the ice.” Sanders is genuinely surprised. “I’m such a Debbie Downer!” she says. “I’m so cold!” “You’re…
Dear Mexican: I have a sister. And I read your column each time it comes out in the Tucson Weekly. Once, we were talking about all the hatred against Mexicans in our state, and my sister said, “Sis, why do they hate Mexicans so much in Arizona? Why do they hate us so much?” I asked if she wanted me…
Feature: “Buy Our House,” May 13 Name Calling Thank you for Carolyn Szczepanski’s article on young students of architecture at the University of Kansas. But to call them “student architects,” as in your headline, is legally incorrect. You are only an architect once you complete the certification process. Those using this term while learning to become architects can be punished…
Say what you will, but the lead actors in Argentinian director Juan José Campanella’s latest film do have lovely (or at least handsomely shot) peepers. Feeling like he has missed out on life, retired court investigator Esposito (Ricardo Darín) visits his foxy former superior with an idea for a book about a woman’s rape-murder during the dictatorship-shadowed 1970s. Flash back…
Bruckheimered to the hilt with the same rollicking period-piece cheesiness that typified the producer’s (and studio Disney’s) Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, this Aladdin-indebted summer spectacle charts the efforts of noble prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) to clear his name after he’s fingered for his father’s assassination, a mission aided by a feisty princess (Clash of the Titans beauty Gemma Arterton)…
Say what you will, Michael Patrick King knows how to stage a fabulous gay nuptial. Sex and the City 2 begins with flair and good humor at the wedding of Stanford (Willie Garson) and Anthony (Mario Cantone), complete with a gay men’s chorus crooning a tastefully low-key “Sunrise, Sunset,” Carrie and Big in his-and-hers tuxes, and the girl gang beaming…
A genuinely hip, thought-provoking work of art disguised as a doomed documentary resurrected, Exit Through the Gift Shop is not just the definitive portrait of street-art counterculture but also a hilarious exposé on the gullibility of the masses who embrace manufactured creative personas. Though it’s credited as a Banksy picture — as in the ever-elusive U.K. graffiti ninja whose puckish,…
The last time Kansas City ventured upon Future Islands was when the band opened for Dan Deacon’s sweaty, psychedelic dance party at the Pistol last May. The North Carolina trio calls its sound “post-wave,” and it’s a striking description: Crystalline synths and rusty drum-machine beats drift within the group’s New Order-influenced compositions. Scene-stealing frontman Sam Herring possesses a gruff growl,…
Eluvium auteur Matthew Cooper has always been a classicist. Unlike his ambient-leaning peers Múm, Sigur Rós and the Album Leaf, Cooper demonstrates little interest in moody, cinematic epics or hazy psychedelia. Instead, his minimalist compositions rely on undulating melodies and watercolor washes of keyboards that recall Brian Eno’s trailblazing Another Green World. Eluvium’s first four albums differed subtly in tone…
The gritty power trio Screaming Females combines garage-punk rumble with metal muscle. Over the rhythm section’s hard-charging throbs, singer and guitarist Marissa Paternoster spices the mix with slashing licks. The diminutive, mop-topped Paternoster marshals a much larger sound than her size suggests. Her distortion-soaked riffs give way to scabrous runs, and her vocals move between scowling bellows and wall-scratching shrieks….
Equipped with matching small drum kits, guitars, synths and touch-screen MIDI controllers (JazzMutant Lemurs, what else?), Los Angeles trio the Glitch Mob crafts an electronic spectrum that soars far beyond samples and pulsing bass lines. Stepping outside the claustrophobia of prerecorded DJ remixes, Ooah, Boreta and edIT add live choreography and flashy video projections to their onstage spinning, which includes…
Your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. He does this for one reason: Knowledge is power. Title: Miss Springfield Pageant Souvenir Program Date: 1960 Discovered: at North Kansas City estate sale Your Crap Archivist tries not to fall for the idea that the America of…
You know what? To hell with nostalgia. I’ve been as guilty as anyone when it comes to comparing the restaurant in the hotel at 401 Ward Parkway — whatever that hotel is, because there have been at least four over the past three decades — with the groovy but dated coffee shop that used to be there. So much time…
