Cody Critcheloe was tired of his face.One problem: The face (his face, other people’s faces) has been his muse. Critcheloe’s face has appeared in most of the videos for his longstanding music-slash-visual-arts project Ssion. And his other videos have been just as focused on human features — from Piper Harrow lipstick-kissing a mirror in “Earthquake” to the black-and-white images of…
Bad Religion, Against MeTuesday night’s show at the Midland will be a special treat for punk-rock historians: Heroic Los Angeles band Bad Religion — forever cherished for 1982’s classic How Could Hell Be Any Worse (a title worth revisiting this election year) — takes the stage. Lead singer Greg Graffin — who holds a zoology Ph.D. from Cornell University —…
Thursday, October 20With a bit of a mind flip, you’re into a time slip.%{}%It says a lot about where we are right now that a 40-year-old, R-rated fringe-camp classic about sexual freedom is now a much-hyped prime-time network-TV special starring a transgender actress (Laverne Cox from Orange Is the New Black). Technically, tonight’s Fox event is less a “straight” adaptation…
Bassist Ben Harris moved from Phoenix to Kansas City four years ago to join a vibrant jazz scene. He has established a monthly jam session in a corner of town not often associated with jazz, except as the onetime home of guitar superstar Pat Metheny. It’s in Lee’s Summit where, one Thursday each month, Dietrich’s hosts a “Night of Big…
Thursday, October 20Barbecue and beer, KC’s culinary power couple, renew their vows tonight at Smokin’ Guns BBQ (1218 Swift Avenue), where a collaboration dinner features beers from Martin City Brewing Company. The hearty and affordable meal starts with brie and candied bacon, followed by curry-rubbed chicken wings with yellow basmati rice, then smoked beef brisket with loaded potato skins and,…
It all started around a fire.Wait, wait — it started when we looked into space, at the dawn of time.No.Hold on, I’ve got it: It all began with a woman and a single stone….This is how I hear Erin Zona’s conversation with herself, how I picture the private studio moment when the artist conceived She Was Right, a show of…
On a warm fall morning at Notre Dame de Sion School, several parent volunteers had risen early to trim back the sweet-potato vines in the garden next to the 114-year-old private school. It was worth getting up with the sun, seeing more than 24 raised beds brimming with herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables — tomatoes and kale and peppers and…
Bon Bon, at 804 Pennsylvania in Lawrence, seems destined to be one of the most unusual restaurants in the area. Owned by Codi and Simon Bates, of Burger Stand, Bon Bon is located in an old limestone building in the rapidly developing area near East Ninth Street, and the menu is, well, eclectic.The starters include takoyaki (Japanese octopus fritters), sweet-potato-and-poblano…
Fernando Achucarro’s memories — conjured in graphite-and-chalk large-scale, high-relief drawings — merge into your own as you look at his solo exhibition in the Opie Gallery at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center (2012 Baltimore). The 18 works here, divided into three series and curated from a larger collection, are haunting and beautifully rendered. And the more you know about Achucarro (visible in…
UPDATE (Oct. 25): A spokesman for the Clay County prosecuting attorney says the case against Niec was dismissed Oct. 19, 2016UPDATE (Nov. 8): Niec is no longer a MODOT employee, effective Nov. 7, 2016.The leader of the Missouri Department of Transportation’s local office faces a misdemeanor assault charge for an episode involving his fiancée and her 15-year-old son. The boy…
Throughout its 40-year history, Project Censored has covered a lot of ground that the mainstream media have missed. Begun in 1976 by Carl Jensen, a sociology professor at California’s Sonoma State University, it has become an institution involving dozens of faculty members and entities working together. Each year, that collective effort results in a book-length list of the Top 25…
Two daily newspapers in the United States have endorsed Donald Trump. One of them is in Missouri.The St. Joseph News-Press’ endorsement of Trump is a right-wing fever dream evincing more hostility toward Hillary Clinton than confidence in Trump. The editorial casts Clinton as a villain “who has done so much over the last 30 years to abuse the public’s trust.”…
Kansas Congressman Kevin Yoder has a new campaign ad in which he tries to cast himself as an outsider.”We all know, for many in Washington these days, it’s about a career,” Yoder says in the ad, which opens with the candidate sitting on a stool in front of a white background. “But for me, it’s about public service. My only…
You know the movie you’ve just seen is powerful when it takes you a minute or two to adjust to reality once you leave the theater. Writer-director Andrea Arnold’s deeply immersive American Honey is one such experience; after I watched it last week, it took me awhile to find my legs. American Honey isn’t just a movie to watch; it’s a movie…
When Sigur Rós announced its 2016 tour — “An Evening With,” went the billing, with no opening act and no supporting musicians onstage with the trio — the Reykjavík band said on its website that it was excited about shows that would recall the “seat-of-the-pants feeling” that attended gigs of more than a decade ago. “Seat-of-the-pants” being a relative notion…
A plan to build a new convention hotel has snapped back to life. A Kansas City, Missouri, redevelopment agency on Wednesday approved an agreement with the team that put together a deal to build an 800-room convention hotel on the south side of Bartle Hall. Under the agreement, the city’s Tax-Increment Financing Commission will contribute $42 million toward the $311…
Thursday 10.13%{}%Mike Schur co-created Parks and Recreation, so it’s no surprise that NBC’s new single-camera sitcom The Good Place is breezy and witty. What is surprising is the level of depth evident in its “perfect” fantasy world. Let’s hope the show gets renewed and has time to grow. The premise: Kristen Bell has died and gone to a sunny suburban…
Thursday 10.13Waldo Pizza (4433 Broadway) will be hosting a Prairie Artisan Ales tap takeover from 5 to 9 p.m. — and offering those Prairie drafts for just $3.50. Sample Funky Gold Mosaic, Paradise, Bomb, Birthday Bom, Phantasmagoria, and Vous Francais. Head to Grinders (417 East 18th Street) from 6 to 9 tonight for a Uinta Brewing can takeover, which also…
This hasn’t been the year Joe West pictured.Six months ago, the chef — a veteran of the kitchens at Bluestem, the Cincinnatian Hotel and Wynn Las Vegas — was well on his way toward opening his dream restaurant, Kusshi, inside Erik Borger’s soon-to-open Komatsu ramen restaurant. In May, though, West and Borger dissolved their partnership, and Kusshi (already familiar to…
A patron and a library director face charges stemming from an event at the Kansas City Public Library in May.Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, a documentarian and activist who lives in Lawrence, asked provocative questions of a diplomat, who had just concluded a talk about U.S. presidents’ attitudes toward Israel. Kansas City, Missouri, police say they arrested Rothe-Kushel because he was disruptive. And Steven…
Poor Sam Brownback. Try as he might, the beleaguered governor of Kansas can’t spin his state out of a bad-news death spiral.Not that he isn’t trying. Recently his office announced that quarterly reports from the governor’s own Council of Economic Advisers had been discontinued. Those three-month analyses — a spellbinding serial narrative chronicling the endlessly bad state of Kansas finances…
Annapurna puts two people in a tiny trailer in the mountains, but Sharr White’s 80-minute one-act — which debuted off-Broadway in 2014 — affords us a panoramic view into the relationship of one estranged couple.It zooms in on them as well. When director Rusty Sneary called this an “intimate” show as he requested silent cellphones, he may have meant more…
The name Phil Canty might ring a bell, but if you’ve heard of Canty, it’s probably because of the production work he has done under the name P. Morris. In this guise, he has worked with Kelela, Feist, Chilly Gonzales and Fat Tony. Canty lived in Lawrence for quite a while but is now in Los Angeles. This past July,…
PhantogramBishop Briggs, Rachel Mallin & the Wild TypeRaise your hand if you hear Phantogram’s “Handful of Diamonds” and are instantly transported back to days spent on dingy couches at strange parties with cheap wine and cheaper booze served without mixers. That was one of the biggest tracks of 2009, back when wearing vintage outfits could still be considered kitschy by…
