You may have mastered the table-top soccer game, but how about human foosball? Up-Down is transforming its parking lot into a 40-foot-by-15-foot court for a human foosball tournament on Tuesday, May 31.From 6 to 8:30 p.m., eight teams of six people will compete for a pretty sweet trophy. Signups start Monday at 6 p.m. at the arcade bar (101 Southwest…
Thursday 5.26Maria Bamford’s new half-hour series, Lady Dynamite, is full of odd comedic rhythms that take a little getting used to, but digesting it slowly might be the best way to reveal its riches. It’s a funny, semi-autobiographical, self-aware satire that deals with serious family issues, mental illness, and the cruel and unforgiving entertainment industry. All 12 episodes are available…
Leading off the latest restaurant news is word that Café Europa is opening a second location in Union Hill. The restaurant’s original Brookside (Crestwood, if you’re particular) location is staying open, and the new spot is slated to open this September in the ground-level storefronts of the new McGee Building at 2980 Gillham Road, which, once complete, will mark the…
Next year, Kansas City’s summer jazz season is slated to begin with what is already being touted as a major new festival. The American Jazz Museum has begun planning a free event for Memorial Day weekend 2017. The goal: to put KC on the country’s summer jazz-festival map.We could use the push: Summer 2016 is more notable for the area…
The patio at Rye offers a fairly idyllic setting for summertime imbibing. It is situated on the edge of a very green, well-manicured lawn, overlooking a serene pond wreathed with delicate-looking willow trees. The effect is a nearly unnerving tranquility, like finding yourself inside an impressionist painting.Van Zarr, Rye’s bar and front-of-house manager, doesn’t usually ponder this view. He’s making…
Missouri and Kansas are not generally known as wilderness destinations. Yes, a handful of national monuments dot the two states, but you have to look elsewhere for national parks. Compared with every state west of us, public-recreation land is scarce. With a little effort, however, hikers, swimmers, backpackers, campers and equestrians can still find commendable gems. Start with the state…
The zombie king of Kansas City bangs against a chain-link fence inside a building that was once a sporting-goods store in North Kansas City. The monster, birth name Dylan Thomas, carries out the bidding of Adam Roberts and Brent Miller, who run the Screenland Theaters chain and, now, a combination haunted house and escape room called Shock Treatment at 1735…
Kansas City is hardly starved for great live music, from both local and touring acts. But there hasn’t been a standout summer festival around here since the long-gone days of Wakarusa (or the shorter-lived days of, ugh, Kanrocksas). Which at least makes an excellent reason to gas up the car, pick out some road tunes and attempt to avoid highway…
Federal authorities arrested Kermit Washington, once a starting forward for several NBA teams in the 1970s and 80s, on Tuesday in a case tied to a Kansas City investigation, according to a report in TMZ.Agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Internal Revenue Service apprehended Washington in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the report says. Washington’s arrest is…
Now this is how to make a local festival memorable. September 10-11, the two-day annual LouFest, taking place in the seriously idyllic Forest Park in St. Louis, features a handful of major headliners — enough to make the short trip east more than worthwhile. The lineup includes LCD Soundsystem, Chris Stapleton, Lauryn Hill, Charles Bradley, the Kills, Buddy Guy, Big…
The Boulevardia 2016 lineup has finally been announced, and it resembles the tone of last year’s festival with a breezy pop headliner, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, along with classic acts Soul Asylum, English Beat and Gin Blossoms. You can also see Mariachi El Bronx, Meg Myers, Grizfolk and Nikki Lane. The festival, as in years past, also offers a…
“Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?” Big Daddy asks in Act 2 of Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The question is rhetorical, but just then, I suspect, many in the audience must have wondered the same.Big Daddy and his family members inhabiting Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play do a lot of talking…
Back in 2011, the FBI was part of a sting operation that sought to catch a specialized unit of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department in the act of stealing valuables from the houses upon which it executed search warrants.Dubbed “Operation Sticky Fingers,” the KCKPD’s Selective Crime Occurrence Reduction Enforcement Unit (SCORE) was sent to a house in KCK where…
You may have mastered the table-top soccer game, but how about human foosball? Up-Down is transforming its parking lot into a 40-foot-by-15-foot court for a human foosball tournament on Tuesday, May 31.From 6 to 8:30 p.m., eight teams of six people will compete for a pretty sweet trophy. Signups start Monday at 6 p.m. the arcade bar (101 Southwest Boulevard),…
Last week I got a tip about how the Church of Scientology was planning to sell the building it bought in 2007 at 1801 Grand.It was a tantalizing piece of news because this newspaper for years has wondered when Scientology was going to get around to doing something with the City National Bank building. Since buying the building — one…
Twitter handle: @carriemmhmmHometown: Denver, ColoradoCurrent neighborhood: Pendleton Heights (over by Cliff Drive — if you don’t know, you don’t know)What I do: Marketing (design, copywriting, strategy), personal training at GymKC and serving on the board of the organization I co-founded: the Lean Lab.What’s your addiction? Talking about brands, people watching and leg days.What’s your game? I play this game with…
Florence and the MachineIt’s easy to be impressed by Florence Welch: The sheer volume she can reach is enough to prove her skill, and volume — mixed with some beefy operatics — is what propelled Welch to the top of the charts with her 2009 debut album, Lungs, and 2011’s Ceremonials. But last year’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful…
Philip Nel specializes in children’s literature as an English professor at Kansas State University, but events over the past few months have kept a darker genre on his mind.“I feel like I’ve been living in a dystopian novel,” he says.The campus where he works will be subject to millions of dollars more in cuts because of Kansas’ ongoing self-inflicted financial…
Deniese Davis has no interest in placing bets.“I’m not a gambler,” she says. Davis, the politically savvy leader of the North Welborn Watch Group, lives close to the Woodlands, in western Wyandotte County. The track has sat abandoned since 2008, when horse and dog racing there came to an end. An effort now on the table to revive the property…
Thursday 5.19The third Thursday of every month through October, Screenland Armour is showing a free movie outdoors at Cinder Block Brewery (110 East 18th Avenue, North Kansas City). Tonight’s showing of the 1998 teen movie Can’t Hardly Wait kicks off the series. It may seem like an odd choice, but to its generation, this last-day-of-high-school party movie — starring Jennifer…
You can’t swing a Norwegian forest cat in the Midwest without running into someone claiming Scandinavian heritage. People slide their lineage into introductions, often accompanied by the flash of an old family portrait that appears to have been taken by Werner Herzog at a child’s funeral. I know this because I’ve done it. In lieu of a security system, I…
A box of surprise ingredients, the KC Live stage on a spring evening, six of Kansas City’s finest chefs — these are the essential elements involved in putting on The Pitch’s Golden Fork. It’s the culinary contest at the center of our Taste of Kansas City event each May, and this year I have an unusually close view of the…
The Devil Makes Three’s raucous performances have made the trio popular at folk and bluegrass festivals the world over. Those performances have attracted a number of special guests on the band’s albums, and that level of outside interest both challenges and complements the trio’s punk-rock take on classic Americana. I spoke by phone with the Devil Makes Three’s guitarist and…
Nearly 40 years since it was first erected at 49th and Cherry, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre has gotten its first makeover. In November, the Rep unveiled a new main stage as well as several renovations and amenity expansions. The upholstery is bright and plush; the stage floor has been reconstructed; the bathrooms are gleaming.It’s all for the patrons, says…
