Look at you. You’re a smart person of the world. You’re not about to stand in line at Target or camp outside Macy’s in the chilly Black Friday air in hopes that you’ll nab that premium, limited-edition avocado slicer. No, you – you gorgeous, cultured thing, you – you’re going to be relaxing somewhere, drink in hand, happily sheltered from…
Wednesday, November 26 Mother’s tap takeover featuring $8 flights of Winter Grind, Squashed, Spiffy Britches and Imperial Three Blind Mice, at Screenland Armour (408 Armour Road, North Kansas City), 6:30 p.m. Also, the release of Horrible Bosses 2. Thursday, November 27 Fill growlers at Big Rip Brewing Co. (216 East Ninth Avenue, North Kansas City) 9 a.m.–noon. Friday, November 28Black…
The Hickman Mills School District, fresh with a revamped board, is making good on most of Missouri auditor Tom Schweich’s recommendations issued in March. Schweich’s office released a follow-up report this week on a district that earlier in the year was wracked by political patronage and loose accounting of the district’s finances and property. The Pitch in February published a…
Many, many months ago, we began what we hoped would be a regular blog column called Cine Local, featuring a round-up of noteworthy local music videos. Well, we couldn’t make it regular, but we haven’t forgotten about it. We’ve gathered a handful of videos from October and November that deserve some attention, and might even offer a distraction for you…
Vic Rodriguez has thought all week about the cocktail he’s going to prepare for me. When I sit down at his bar at Thou Mayest, early on a Friday afternoon, he begins to tell me about the elaborate concoction he has in mind. It makes me feel a little bad. “That sounds fantastic,” I tell him, “but the idea is…
Name: Nicole Collier White Occupation: Program coordinator, Repurposing Initiative, at Kansas City Public Schools Hometown: KCMO Current neighborhood: Waldo What I do (in 140 characters): Inform stakeholders about the Repurposing Initiative/Master Planning effort, in Kansas City Public Schools. Find ways to solicit feedback from parents, staff and community. What’s your addiction? Have you seen the show Naked and Afraid on…
%{}% %{}% As legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, the young British actor Eddie Redmayne gives a predictably impressive performance in The Theory of Everything, bending his body to match the heartbreaking progress of ALS, the cruel disease that Hawking has lived with since his 20s. What makes the performance so special is its emotional valence: Redmayne and director James Marsh never…
The bar at Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar is a fascinating scene, with the bartenders and the shuckers working side by side with a precise, balletic energy. Pry your eyes away from that elaborate dance, and you’ll find an equally appealing array of drink options. The Jax cocktail menu riffs on such classic cocktails as the Manhattan, the Moscow…
%{}% I blame my visceral squeamishness about oysters on my stuffy Midwestern roots. We didn’t have mysterious luxuries like fresh bivalves on our Indiana dinner table when I was a kid. We ate fish sticks. That doesn’t mean that I’ve never enjoyed oysters. In fact, the ones at Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar might finally have made me a…
%{}% %{}% Har Mar Superstar, Pizza Underground Sean Tillman — the pudgy, balding, sweaty silhouette known as Har Mar Superstar — is an unlikely sex symbol. Yet he’s a very capable one. With last year’s Bye Bye 17, Tillman seems to have finally — and gratefully, for some audiences — abandoned his sequined Speedos in favor of retro suits befitting…
%{}% %{}% It has been nearly four years since folk-pop band In the Pines played a live show. In 2010, following the departure of lead singer and guitarist Brad Hodgson (for Austin, Texas), violinist Hannah Kendle and drummer Mike Myers, the beloved local six-piece quietly faded from the scene. Most fans assumed retirement. Not yet. The remaining members — bassist…
How better to enjoy the night after Thanksgiving than with jazz that jumps? Green Lady Lounge offers opportunities upstairs and down. Music starts in the lower level Orion Room with dynamic singer Molly Hammer, whose theater background makes for an entertaining performance. Backed by her trio, Hammer owns the stage, singing jazz standards with a knock-you-down-in-your-chair wallop. At 10 p.m.,…
%{}% If local rock band Is Paris Burning has anything in common with the 1965 book and 1966 film of the same name, it’s a flair for the dramatic. The trio’s untitled EP, set for release in January, is a soaring, riff-heavy collection of heart-shaking anthems, the kind that modern filmmakers often pair with gritty battle scenes. These songs would…
Social justice is Danny Orendorff’s fair-trade bread and butter. During his tenure as curator-in-residence for the Charlotte Street Foundation, his exhibitions have tackled a range of social ills: the wealth gap, gentrification, art-world snobbery, queer bereavement. His final exhibition here, Loving After Lifetimes of All This, again takes up those concerns — centered, this time, on the act of crafting…
%{}% %{}% Out of the Great War’s great despair and suffering came poetry that brought eloquence and voice to soldiers’ bad dreams. And, as depicted in Stephen MacDonald’s 1982 play, Not About Heroes, deep friendship, too. Friends expect to lose friends in war, but it’s sudden and painful all the same. At Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, two soldiers find companionship for…
%{}% It’s often said that you’re not supposed to discuss politics or religion on a first date. In the Midwest, where politics and religion are often indistinguishable, the prohibition should extend to the Thanksgiving dinner table. That setting, for many families, can devolve into uncomfortable political debate when rarely seen relatives implore that they know what’s best. This year, you…
Last evening, KMBC Channel 9’s Micheal Mahoney reported that, after months of contentious public debate over what to do with Kemper Arena, the American Royal had withdrawn its plans to the city. The Royal’s plan called for the razing of Kemper and the construction of a smaller facility in its place that would host the horse and livestock events that…
Councilman Ford Letter Re. American Royal (11!24!14)-C-c
The commercial sign in front of the construction site at 6330 Troost still advertises a business that’s no longer there: the Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits restaurant that was razed earlier this year. The sign says, “Closed New Look Coming.” That’s a mild understatement. There’s not just a new look coming but a completely new building under construction, to replace the…
Those interested in Kansas City’s lamentable role in the dark world of online predatory lending should hop on over to Bloomberg and read yesterday’s story about the relationship among Mark Curry’s various businesses, the Otoe-Missouria tribe in Oklahoma, and Wall Street. It’s an increasingly common practice in the online lending industry to partner with Native American tribes, who enjoy sovereign immunity….
It took Johnny Marr long enough to get around to a solo career, starting with last year’s The Messenger. But the former guitarist for the Smiths is proving, particularly with his latest full-length, Playland, to be a very capable frontman. Playland, like Messenger, doesn’t really break new ground, but Marr doesn’t really need to. All he needs to do is…
Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in flames Monday evening and into the Tuesday-morning hours after a grand jury declined to indict a police officer there for shooting an unarmed teenager to death August 9. Relative calm seemed to follow in the moments after St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCullouch’s press conference explained why Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson would not face a…
