Family pictures of a young Olathe man who fled theft charges and disappeared in Wyoming. Read the full story by Pitch staff writer, Ben Palosaari, here. Unless noted otherwise, all photos are courtesy of Starla Fuksa.
Opa! The Greek food chain, My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, opens in Olathe. Read Charles’ review and check out these pictures.
A touch of Andy Warhol has come to the Ward Parkway Center (8600 Ward Parkway). The display period for the 10th annual CANstruction — an art competition that had 13 teams creating sculptures from nonperishable cans of food — begins tomorrow (although you can get a sneak peek at the preview party tonight). The structures will be available for viewing…
A 16-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the slaying of 28-year-old Salvatore Mandacina at a Northland BP gas station on Sunday night. Mandacina was found shot to death at the gas station at 5002 Northeast Parvin Road around 7:36 p.m. Police released photos of a potential suspect taken from surveillance videos. KSHB Channel 41 reported that authorities haven’t…
Time published a story earlier this week discussing how raising Missouri’s laughably low 17-cent cigarette tax — the lowest in the nation — would be an easy and logical way to help close the state’s looming $500 million budget deficit. At the risk of sounding like a high school student trying to pressure a peer into smoking, raising the cigarette…
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. The Sharpshooter 3: Blood Bath Author: Bruno Rossi Date: 1973 Publisher: Leisure Books, New York Discovered at: Half Price Books, Westport The Cover Promises: When you eat…
Vince Vaughn is Ronny, co-owner of a boutique car-engine manufacturer. He’s the pitchman; the brains belong to Nick, played by Kevin James. Their intention: to build the guts for the first electric-powered muscle car and sell the prototype to Dodge. From Ron Howard, director of the better carmaker dramedy Gung Ho, The Dilemma has myriad subplots piled into the trunk…
Only inertia will bring people to Michel Gondry’s 3-D spectacle, The Green Hornet. Opening amid persistent negative buzz in the mid-January dead zone, this long-germinating prospective franchise, based on a character that first saturated the nation’s radio waves in 1939, seems pretty much DOA. The narrative has something to do with the flagrantly irresponsible son (Seth Rogen) of a crusading…
Marc Wolf’s Obie Award-winning solo show, Another American: Asking and Telling, begins at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre on the meteor tail of last month’s repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” From more than 150 interviews conducted with former and current service members and their families, politicians, academics and military officials, Wolf has constructed a portrait of our national controversy…
Stars, no matter how bright, don’t burn forever. Take the case of Johnny Mercer, a popular and well-regarded midcentury songwriter, lyricist and (occasional) singer. He penned more than 1,500 songs during the course of his career but faded from the collective pop-culture consciousness. In order to rectify this and brighten Mercer’s star, Quality Hill Playhouse (303 West 10th Street) presents…
Seen a video of a waterskiing squirrel on YouTube? It was probably Twiggy — or one of the various gray squirrels that have performed under that brand in heated pools around the country and in the movies Dodgeball and Anchorman. The next stop for Twiggy tricks is the Kansas City Boat and Sportshow, which turns Bartle Hall (301 West 13th…
Zombies have infiltrated pop culture with the persistence of a flesh-eating, post-apocalyptic bacteria, but there’s good reason for that: Zombies are awesome. They would probably become less awesome if one bit your brother, and you had to destroy his brain before he “changed.” But any excuse to paint your face green and splatter yourself with fake blood for a zombie…
Come face-to-beak with real, live, bald eagles, plus a host of other birds, and find out how the eagle population is doing around Kansas City. Sat., Jan. 15, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 2011 Tags: Kansas City, Night & Day
Sashaying through broad swaths of history and culture, the Celebrate People’s History project, by artist cooperative Just Seeds, pays homage to revolutions and resistance movements with eclectic posters from all over the world. The individual images stun — see for yourself at justseeds.org. Made up of more than 50 pieces collected by Just Seeds founder Josh MacPhee, the show presents…
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! So declared Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. He saw the promised land, though he didn’t live to see everyone move toward it. To honor his life today, the Kansas City Art Institute (4415 Warwick Boulevard) celebrates Martin Luther…
Here are some facts about Ray K. Metzker. Born in Milwaukee in 1931, he studied art at the Institute of Design in Chicago after getting out of the Army in 1956. His professors, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan (the photographer, not the Clint Eastwood character), were total badasses of midcentury American photography and taught him all about the medium’s range…
Rick Mitchell’s photography is for pure visual investigation and has no commercial purpose that he can identify. His involvement with photographic processes developed through study in design, graphic arts, painting, drawing, and to a certain extent, journalism. Rick says he discovered in himself an affinity for photography and educated himself through immersion in its technological and social history. Jan. 7-Feb….
Susan Grace has worked with the figure for many years but is not interested in portraying a particular person or in depicting a straightforward narrative. The figures, which are usually female, are frequently wrapped, preserved, and protected in some fashion, whether it is with flesh, such as hands or layers of fat, or a covering of cloth, or marks on…
If attending a book signing on a Friday night sounds nerdy, you haven’t partied with local author Brandon Tietz. Snubbed by Barnes & Noble, Tietz held his first release party for the self-published book Out of Touch at the now-defunct Blonde nightclub last year. Since then, he has captured the attention of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. This being the…
‘Tis the season for Hallmark’s favorite holiday and the play that made Eve Ensler famous. UMKC Women’s Center gives girl parts a voice in the annual production of The Vagina Monologues. Wed., Feb. 16, 7:30 p.m., 2011 Tags: Eve Ensler, Hallmark Cards Inc., Night & Day
For 30 years, Bill Shapiro has been teaching on-air, waxing about pop music both iconic and obscure (and its roots) on KCUR 89.3 every week. The songs that sandwich Shapiro’s stories are sometimes pure and beautiful enough to induce tears. At 8 p.m., some of his favorite tracks induce dancing on the stage of the Folly Theater (300 West 12th…
The king of the blues is approaching his twilight years, but that doesn’t mean the thrill is gone for B.B. King. He may be 75, but he still makes records — most recently, the back-to-the-basics One Kind Favor, which was produced by T Bone Burnett and earned a Grammy. Hear why King has a right to sing the blues and…
In 2010, the personal archive of the late author David Foster Wallace opened for researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to the author’s notes and manuscripts, the collection includes books by John Barth and Don DeLillo, which Wallace annotated heavily, plus a battered New American Heritage Dictionary in which he circled hundreds of words that captured…
Get your motor runnin’/Head out on the … dirt pile? That’s where you’ll find motorcycle and dirt-bike enthusiasts this weekend. Kemper Arena (1800 Genessee) hosts the AMA Arenacross Series, with professional races at 7:30 p.m. The event continues at 10 a.m. Sunday with open registration for amateurs. Arenacross is kind of like Supercross’ little brother. The venues are smaller and…
