Futilitarian
Danielle Yakle’s fiber installation Futilitarian is an imposing display of organic forms suspended in a large gallery space. July 23-Aug. 20, 2010 Tags: Night & Day
Archives: July 2010
Ta Ta Support
As boob puns go, Save the Treasure Chest is pretty tame. But this breast-cancer benefit at the Beaumont Club (4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-2560) for the venerable Susan G. Komen Foundation’s 3 Day for the Cure Campaign is guaranteed to be rowdy. Two of the three bands scheduled are playing pirate songs, with the costumed Jolly Rogers and Musical Blades singing odes…
Green Fun
Leading a “conscious lifestyle” could be good for your outward appearance, if the Bliss Fest 2010 organizers’ photos are any indication. Coordinated by a team of pleasant-looking women identified at blissfestkc.com, this earthy festival and family event is billed as a “conscious lifestyle and music celebration” and features a vegetarian food court, a pavilion for body-movement demonstrations (including yoga and…
Nothing’s Funnier Than Self-Hate
A self-described “pompous white dick with a beard,” Kyle Kinane is an up-and-coming misanthrope in the world of stand-up comedy. He recently released his first album, Death of the Party, and was named by Variety as one of this year’s “10 Comedians to Watch.” A former Chicagoan now living in Los Angeles, Kinane uses his gravelly voice to deliver good-natured…
Cash Bar
Domestic bottles and wells go for $2.50 each from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. at this dark midtown man-cave. Wed., Aug. 4, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., 2010 Tags: Night & Day
Get Out!: Arizona and America Join Joe Arpaio in Rushing to Inquire: Are Your Papers in Order?
Editor’s note: Following publication of this article, U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton enjoined the state of Arizona from enacting key provisions of state Senate Bill 1070. Though the law’s most dangerous sections were put on pause, pending the outcome of litigation, the remainder of the law goes into effect, as scheduled, Thursday, July 29. See the full story on…
Is It Any Wonder?
Andy Warhol said everyone would taste the heady ambrosia of fame for at least 15 minutes. Now the fame-hungry don’t have to resort to reality television or Tiger Woods to get a shot. Get noticed at the fourth Night of Fame at the Conspiracy Room at the Uptown Theater (3700 Broadway). People are encouraged to dive right into the evening’s…
Trip Aces
The arc of Chuck Norris’ life goes like this: Air Force, karate-school entrepreneur, movie star, faded movie star, Walker: Texas Ranger, infomercial spokesman, Internet meme. Now he’s a right-wing pundit, easily the least-interesting of all possible culminations of that trajectory, but he’s still a pop-culture icon and a point of reference both ironic and not. Alison Filley’s Chuck Norris poster…
The Mexican remembers the 1950s, without nostalgia, and derives panocha
Dear Mexican: As an old gringo who calls himself a gringo (not a gabacho), I study Mexican culture and ask myself, “Where have I seen this before?” The answer invariably is 1950s America, that’s where. Current Mexican culture in the United States is about 50 years behind current American culture. Back in the 1950s, Americans had large families, were overtly…
Tokyo Police Club
Tokyo Police Club is not from Japan. It’s from Canada, whose leading export — musically, at least — is rock that’s so fantastic, legions of American youth have considered migrating to more snow-covered pastures. Though Tokyo Police Club once dabbled in dance-punk, it has spent the past few years embracing heart-on-the-sleeve indie, which suits the band better than arrhythmic dance…
The Kids Are All Right
Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right is serious comedy powered by an enthusiastic cast and full of good-natured innuendo. It gives a different twist to the battle-of-the-sexes and the adolescent coming-of-age stories, in part by creating a romantic triangle among a long-standing and devoutly bourgeois lesbian couple, Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore), and the newly identified,…
Happy Birthday
Because technology has made it possible for every kid with a MacBook to form a band, a good group name is becoming a rare commodity. Now bands with weird, out-there names have a harder time living up to their monikers (see: Phil and the Osophers). Fortunately, Happy Birthday has turned the energy it might have wasted on coming up with…
The Girl Who Played With Fire
This grim and bloody adaptation of the second volume of the late Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium trilogy — featuring journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) — moves the story into a very different register from the stand-alone murder mystery of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire is…
Dinner for Schmucks
In Steve Carell’s first few episodes of the American version of The Office, the series hewed closely to the template created by the series’ British mastermind, Ricky Gervais. But in the United States, audiences didn’t take to such a bleak comic vision. The tone of the series soon evolved from harsh satire to affectionate, gentle comedy. Ratings success ensued. Dinner…
Concert for Equality
Saddle Creek star Conor Oberst has gone on the record recently with several protest efforts, including the cancellation of Arizona tour dates in support of Zack de la Rocha’s Sound Strike. Now he’s resurrecting his former bands, Desaparecidos and Bright Eyes, in order to rally support against Fremont, Nebraska’s immigration laws, which bear a frightening similarity to Arizona’s S.B. 1070….
Charlie St. Cloud
In a go-nowhere Pacific Northwest town, dreamy high school sailor Charlie (Zac Efron) puts his Stanford plans on indefinite hold after he momentarily flatlines in a car accident, which also takes his little brother, Sam (Charlie Tahan). Half a decade later, Charlie has sunk into a shy, brooding routine as a cemetery caretaker, meeting his dead bro in the woods…
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
Using a combination of live action and CGI that will give some audience members PTSD flashbacks to the recent Marmaduke (hold me), director Brad Peyton has been charged with following up the 2001 original with the sequel no one was hoping for — in pointless 3-D. The usual pop-culture allusions are meant to keep moms and dads grimly entertained, but…
Nesto the Owner
First things first: Nesto the Owner is one of the finest lyricists in Kansas City, and the fact that he’s originally from Philadelphia shouldn’t stop Kansas City from claiming him. But with his second major release in less than a year, Nesto is still fighting for the attention of the city’s radio stations, DJs and hip-hop fans. On Career Killer II,…
Bear in Heaven
Bear in Heaven, owing a heavy-hat tip to krautrock, sounds like Kraftwerk gone pop (in the best way). The Brooklyn band’s sophomore release, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, is futuristic by way of ’80s analog. It provides a package of ominous anthems with laser synths, glowing falsettos, and droning bass without drifting into nihilism. The album’s sprawling momentum seems to take…
Julia Peterson’s songs have a barroom punch
Julia Peterson settles into her chair at JP Wine Bar. Her tall, slinky silhouette glows in the downtown lounge’s warm lighting. We’re winding our way through the extensive wine list. I’m lost. “I used to write wine lists, too. I can help you,” the singer-songwriter volunteers. Her voice — in person and on her recent release, There, Beneath the Sky…
At Leedy-Voulkos, David Gant’s tour of the Crossroads
Neuroscientists enjoy extolling the virtues of their own giant brains. One example: “The human brain is the most amazing computer ever created!” Maybe that’s true, if you discount its incompetence at mathematical calculations, its junkie dependence on sleep (with attendant withdrawal symptoms) and its susceptibility to amyloid plaque. Those would be unacceptable flaws in a desktop computer, but we put…
League of matrons
Title: Junior League Follies Program Date: 1934 Discovered: at Brookside estate sale In the thick of the Depression, the well-to-do do-gooders of Kansas City’s Junior League opened a thrift shop at 504 Westport Road, today the home of Karma (the “Eat. Drink. Rock” place). The women fixed up the spot in the fashion of, according to this book, “a Mexican…
Letters from the week of July 29
Feature: “The Prince of Right,” July 22 The Wingnut Strategy Kris Kobach might be the most politically dangerous person in the state. I firmly believe he knows that he has not a leg to stand on and that the laws he writes will get struck down for being unconstitutional. He knows that immigration is a complex debate where nuanced policy…
A Lebanese Village settles in a familiar spot
On my second visit to the Village, a new Lebanese restaurant in Overland Park, I ran into a guy I know who was finishing his lunch in the nearly empty dining room just as my friend Carol Ann and I were seated at a booth. He used to wait tables at a classy, now-defunct bistro in Westport. “How was it?”…
Find The Pitch
