%{}% Rankings and lists on the Internet about cities are almost always stupid. Few rely on primary reporting, most use thin statistics interpreted by unqualified writers (some don’t even use statistics), and all are intent on soaking up your homerism and converting it into advertising revenue. Worst of all, supposedly legitimate media operations, desperate for the very same advertising revenue,…
%{}% Kansas keeps acting like a problem gambler: It knows that the balance in the bank account is dwindling, but it still wants a seat at the poker table. Tax revenues in Kansas are coming up $61 million short of already-modest projections through the first quarter of the current fiscal year. Yet the state keeps giving away potential tax revenues…
%{}% Twenty-three states now allow physicians to prescribe medical marijuana to patients. (Recreational use is legal, of course, in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Alaska and Washington, D.C.) The movement is slowly working its way into the center of the country. Medical marijuana is now legal in Illinois and Minnesota. And if New Approach Missouri gets its way, the Show-Me State will…
%{}% There’s really nothing more fantastic than seeing a packed show with the audience going off, but it always seems to be a lot more impressive when it’s a local hip-hop artist. Despite the Midwest’s long and strong hip-hop scene, it’s a rare thing to see a packed venue for a rapper in these parts. Here’s a video that showed…
%{}% There’s a kind of delicious irony when a venue devoted to fresh, healthy meals is replaced by a store that specializes in handmade chocolates, caramel apples and glazed cinnamon rolls. Earlier this year, cook, Pilates instructor and writer Kathy Hale moved out of her combination kitchen and retail space at 8011 Wornall and began looking for new quarters for…
%{}% When I stopped into the J. Rieger & Co. distillery in the East Bottoms a few days ahead of the launch of the company’s newest product — its Midwestern Dry Gin — I was surprised to see only three people in the warehouse: Andy Rieger, the triple-great grandson of Jacob Rieger, the company’s namesake; Nathan Perry, the head distiller;…
%{}% When Thomas Frank asked, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” in his landmark 2004 book, he wanted to know why Kansans support politicians whose policies run counter to their self-interest. How would the folks of Independence, Kansas, answer Frank’s query today? Independence is the county seat of Montgomery County, whose voters last November overwhelmingly sent Sam Brownback back to Topeka…
%{}% On the eve of the Kansas City Royals’ postseason opener with the Houston Astros, ESPN has released filmmakers Josh Swade and Josh Shelov’s feel-good (and soul-crushing) documentary #BringBackSungWoo. The film tracks Swade’s mission to bring enigmatic superfan SungWoo Lee back from South Korea to Kansas City for the 2014 World Series. This is no spoiler: There isn’t a happy…
%{}% THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8Tallgrass Big RICC tapping, at Barley’s (16649 Midland Dr., Shawnee), 5 p.m. Torn Label Lumber Lung bombers and tap takeover, at Barley’s (11924 W. 119th St., Overland Park). North Coast tap takeover, with Blue Room and Brother Thelonious, at Green Room Burgers & Beer (4010 Pennsylvania), 5 p.m. Bell’s happy hour, with Oracle, Octoberfest and Best Brown,…
%{}% It’s a simple idea: Restaurants around the metro offer a special $5 hamburger for a week — a deal too good to pass up and too cheap for these venues to offer more than once a year. Well, good news: The Pitch’s Burger Week, October 19-25, is back, with more restaurants and more burgers but the same low price….
%{}% Name: Matt Bramlette Occupation: Owner, Mid Coast Modern Instagram handle: midcoastkc Hometown: Kansas City Current neighborhood: The Northland What I do: I’ve been a designer/art director for the past 15 years at various agencies around Kansas City. I recently made the leap to small-business owner opening a store called Mid Coast Modern at 2119 Washington. It’s a shop supporting…
Passion Pit Oh, how we’ve missed the precious, childlike falsetto of Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos in the years since 2012’s brilliant Gossamer. Angelakos is back, with the April-released Kindred, giving us the soaring ’90s synths and blissful power-pop chords that make our hearts lighter. For what it’s worth, Angelakos seems a great deal happier than he did on Gossamer and…
Lord Huron, José González If you get déjà vu when you listen to Lord Huron’s Strange Trails, you’re not alone. Something about the lush instrumentation and delicate folk pop recalls the celestial indie groups of the late aughts (Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, etc.). That doesn’t mean Lord Huron doesn’t have anything fresh to offer; the songs on Strange Trails often…
%{}% Conrad Herwig’s trombone is heard on more than 200 recordings, backing performers as diverse as Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra. He was part of Joe Lovano’s Grammy Award-winning Nonet, and he has been voted best jazz trombonist three times in DownBeat’s Jazz Critics Poll. Bringing a sophisticated exuberance that bounds through his bold trombone lines, he is the jazz…
“We don’t practice very often,” Colin Blunt tells me about the Thunderclaps, the two-man band he has formed with his cousin, guitarist Bryce Jones. Blunt doesn’t mean that the duo wouldn’t benefit from more rehearsal time. It’s just hard for him to get together with Jones, who lives two hours away in Salina. Blunt, 30, includes Jones, 29, in our…
Like many, I was first exposed to The Miracle Worker — William Gibson’s 1959 script about the deaf and blind Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan — in high school English class. Poor, well-meaning Mrs. Bolhoefer insisted that we act it out in class. Which meant assigning a freshman to voice Helen’s grunts and cries. “Serious” and “respectful” are…
Charles Fugate has seriously followed his bliss. How else to explain moving across the career continuum, from mechanical engineer to actor. Who knew that this performer had worked for Burns & McDonnell in the ’90s, “doing support work for their water and wastewater treatment division, metal plating and finishing facilities, and process chemicals division,” he writes in an e-mail. “Which…
Robin Young is the mother of two children in a one-car household. When her husband drives off to work at the Great Wolf Lodge, in western Wyandotte County, the rest of the family depends on public transportation. If the Youngs lived in Kansas City, Missouri, getting around would be a little more practical, owing to its sprawling bus network. But…
%{}% It’s not just people who get bad reputations. Places suffer from them, too — I can think of numerous examples in midtown alone — and sometimes they outlast the buildings. That’s the idea behind a lecture titled “Great Places With Bad Reputations,” which local historian Joelouis Mattox delivers at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 11, at the Lucile H. Bluford Branch of…
%{}% Seasonal changes mean menu changes, and there’s a lot of that going around at local bars right now. Today, Ça Va launches a new seasonal cocktail menu that features some brow-raising combinations. I stopped in for a preview of the Westport champagne bar’s fall offerings. Caitlin Corcoran, Ça Va’s general manager and the force behind the cocktail list, suggests…
%{}% On May 31, 2014, Damian Words, a clerk at the Short Stop Mini Mart, at 51st Street and Walrond, looked outside and saw a police officer across the street opening the door of his car. The car was parked illegally, on a dead-end driveway inlet. It was partially blocking the sidewalk. Words emerged from the store, crossed the street….
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