Start your December 5 First Friday over lunch, at the Commerce Bank Building’s Box Gallery (1000 Walnut). From 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., the space puts on an opening reception for a modified version of a strong multimedia installation by Tom Parish. His maps, high-def photographs, text and recordings document the native-stone, arched-roof root cellars of Kansas’ Flint Hills region….
Jerry Jarman was driving through Grain Valley at 9:25 a.m. on August 24, 2014, when he saw that police there had set up a speed trap. Jarman wanted drivers to slow down, so he sent out the universal warning sign by flashing his headlights at oncoming traffic. For this public service, Jarman was pulled over and issued a ticket. Grain…
There are cookies and there are Italian cookies: iced cucidati, those addictively good fig cookies, lightly glazed chocolate-spice balls, wedding cookies dusted with powdered sugar, crunchy biscotti. Vicki and Carol LaBruzzo — the daughters of the late Vito LaBruzzo who operated a popular downtown restaurant from 1962 to 1983 — felt that there was a need for Kansas City to…
If you took the North Carolina twang out of Eric Church and replaced it with, say, a more neutral singing voice — perhaps laced with a smoker’s grit — the 37-year-old country star would probably have to jump genres. As it is, his pronounced accent is about the only thing keeping him on country radio. On his latest album, The…
Christmas is coming — time to be kind to another like Jesus would have wanted spend a bunch of money so the global economy doesn’t crash! The holidays are high season on the Country Club Plaza, the whitest, safest shopping district in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s a great place to park your car, walk around in the cold and purchase…
Jenny Lewis is every woman’s spirit animal. In her 15-year music career, Lewis has never shied away from detailing her varying states of heartbreak. Take “Just One of the Guys,” the first single off The Voyager, in which Lewis laments being regarded as “just another woman without a baby.” She’s not saying she wants kids. At 38, she remarks on…
Lawrence rockers Hembree have a new music video for “Walk Alone,” off the band’s forthcoming album New Oasis, due out in January. With some pretty awesome 1980s video effects and some weird, psychedelic graphics, we’re predicting this nearly four-minute creation will be repeating itself on your computer screen for as long as you can get away with not working this morning. …
The stars have aligned for you to see Kurt Russell and WIlford Brimley Saturday night at Bier Station (120 East Gregory Boulevard). 4 Hands Brewing Co.’s Movies Without Borders tour stop at Bier Station, and Screenland Armour is busting out its 16-foot inflatable screen for the outdoor screening of The Thing. So don’t forget to bring a blanket and a chair. Bier…
Thursday, December 4Boulevard 80-Acre Hoppy Wheat Beer samples and Local Pig sausages with 80-Acre BBQ sauce, at the Boulevard Dry Goods Store (412 Nichols Road), 5–7 p.m. Deschutes Doppel Dinkel Bock tapping, at Flying Saucer (101 East 13th Street), 7 p.m. Meet Samuel Adams brewer Jennifer Glanville and taste barrel-aged Samuel Adams beers, at Lukas Liquor (13657 Washington), 2:30–3:30 p.m….
We tagged along with Stand Up KC, the local branch of the national fast-food workers’ movement seeking $15 an hour and a union for all workers, a few months back. There are some indications that the movement is starting to bring about change. According to Stand Up KC’s Facebook page, Popeyes in Kansas City has since given workers $0.50-cent raises…
Like nearly all professionals, most lawyers are smart, conscientious, ethical people — it’s the few bad ones who can ruin it for everyone else. Jim Wirken is one of the bad ones. Wirken once represented Gary Colton in a slip and fall case that resulted in a $185,000 award for his client in 2005. Colton, a Kansas City man, was…
Halfway through my 50-minute trial class at Leawood’s new Body Lab KC, studio manager Jena Green shouted into her clip-on microphone while upbeat dance-pop played in the background. “Find your edge!” I wondered if I could find a pair of scissors or a knife — something to slice away the resistance band looped around my heel. I’d been tied to…
Craig Howard just met his first goal. Assembling the rest of his dream business, though, may take a little more time. Howard, a 33-year-old urban farmer, who until recently operated a small organic grocery store in the former City Ice Arts building, wants to open a new, more ambitious business early next year. So he did what many do these…
Joe Birch has nothing against cherries-jubilee ice cream. But for eight years, the chef and restaurateur hoped that his neighborhood Baskin-Robbins would go away. He wanted the storefront at 336 West 63rd Street, a space adjacent to Birch’s eight-year-old Avenues Bistro that the ice-cream chain had occupied since 1980. This year, he got his wish. After the owner of that…
Sturgill Simpson with Lucette Knuckleheads Saloon, Kansas City Tuesday, December 2 For more photos from last night, go here. “Nights like this, I almost can’t wait for it to be over,” Knuckleheads owner Frank Hicks told me early last night, as he surveyed – with a trace amount of trepidation – the eager crowd swarming his venue for 36-year-old Sturgill…
Cinder Block Brewery has moved at its own pace since it opened in September 2013. Though craft-beer drinkers have clamored for Cinder Block to send kegs of its beer outside its North Kansas City taproom, owner Bryce Schaffter has chosen to wait until the time is right. “We always said that it’s going to grow organically,” Schaffter says. “When things…
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Name: Jason Bays Occupation: Children’s content creator, designer, daydreamer, robot drawer, professional 10-year-old Hometown: Amsterdam, Missouri (bonus points if you know where that is) Current neighborhood: Currently roaming free throughout many neighborhoods. What I do (in 140 characters): I create stories and characters that I hope will inspire children to someday be daydreamers as well. What’s your addiction? Stories told…
