Archives: August 2013

Prosecutors drop charges against Saudi citizen accused in killing Warrensburg bar owner

Charges have been dropped against Ziyad Abid. The Ziyad Abid case took another strange turn today, as prosecutors dropped murder charges against the Saudi national who had been accused of murder in the death of Warrensburg bar owner Blaine Whitworth last September. The story was strange from the beginning. Whitworth was a well-liked young business owner, and his murder shocked…

Smokin’ Fresh Streetside BBQ will sell you the whole barnyard

Facebook: Smokin’ Fresh The pulled pork at Smokin’ Fresh Streetside BBQ. Breakfast sandwiches are often the Trojan Horse to excess. You start with something simple like an egg sandwich, but before you know it, you’re eating half the farmstead. Smokin’ Fresh Streetside BBQ has just such a morning plan to topple your appetite. As you near the southeast corner of…

First Friday Hit List and Social Roundup

Plenum Space (504 East 18th Street) provides great artist introductions to KC’s scene. And it’s especially worthwhile to get there this First Friday to see Damia Smith’s wearable art fully engaged. Smith, who recently earned her MFA in metalsmithing from the University of Kansas, makes pieces that are part sculpture, part textile and wholly arresting. At Plenum, gallerygoers can don…

Royals win ninth straight game; time to get your hopes up

Winning… It feels so good! Strange, but good! All right, everybody get excited! This afternoon, the Royals beat the Twins 7-2 in Minneapolis to collect their second consecutive sweep and ninth straight win. It’s the team’s longest winning streak since 2003. It’s also the first time since 2003 that the Royals (54-51) have been above .500 this late in the…

The Dark Horse Tavern in Westport has closed

Dark Horse Facebook The nays have it. It’s the end of the road for the Dark Horse Tavern in Westport. After their Saturday-night shift this past weekend, employees were informed that landlord Bill Nigro is cleaning house, and that Travis Fields, who has served as general manager at fellow Westport bar Ernie Biggs for the last four years, will reopen…

Cronuts: Make your own, the really lazy way

The DIY Cronut. Just don’t burn yourself, OK? “What’s the big deal about cronuts?” one of my co-workers asked. “Every time I turn on my computer, I find something about cronuts.” In Kansas City, the conversation about cronuts – a combination croissant and fried doughnut that has become nothing short of a craze in New York City – is mostly…

The Postal Service’s nostalgia trip, last night at the Midland

Last night at the Midland, the Postal Service proved that there’s more to a reunion tour than nostalgia – even if that’s what’s filling up the seats. Ten years after the release of the band’s first and only album, the now-platinum Give Up, synth-pop brainiacs Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard have lost none of their enthusiasm. Neither have their fans….

Kansas City, Missouri, City Council kicks can down the road on $12 million Water Services Department contract

Marcason wants a fuller discussion on a $12 million no-bid contract. Civic-minded Kansas City residents with an interest in how their tax dollars are spent by City Hall should mark August 15 on their calendars. That’s when the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council will hold a business session to discuss a $12 million no-bid contract with a Chicago company to…

The sun sets on Kansas City’s All-Star Game era as Roma beats Major League Soccer’s best

The scene at Sporting Park Going to an All-Star competition feels like observing a political convention. Both events are preceded with months, weeks, hours and minutes of hype, bombast and anticipation for an event whose outcome, if not known beforehand, is fairly predictable. Fireworks and acrobatics were the show for a record crowd of 21,175 at Sporting Park on Wednesday…

I’m So Excited

“First class … used to be a better meal. Now it’s a better life,” Renee Zellweger famously says in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire. “Yeah, but the plane’s still going down,” is the retort implied by Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited, a seeming trifle that might be the director’s strangest movie in years. On the surface, the film is a frivolously offbeat comedy…

Standees isn’t quite ready for its close-up

Standees takes its name from AMC founder and multiplex visionary Stan Durwood — Stan D., if you need to think about it. There are a couple of other meanings at play, too: a reference to the cardboard cutouts that theater owners have long used to promote upcoming films in their lobbies, and the archaic fire-code-busting notion of “standing room only”…

Back and forth with Misha Kligman’s Threshold at City Ice Arts

The image of a threshold implies a certain tension, a pause in a marginal space before crossing from an old room or a familiar experience into something new. The pristine white walls and light-soaked gallery inside City Ice Arts provide an ideal stage for this tension in Misha Kligman’s solo exhibition, titled Threshold. The airy space contrasts dramatically with Kligman’s…