On Wednesday, every secretary of state in the country received a letter from Kris Kobach asking them to send all publicly available voter data — full names, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of Social Security numbers, elections voted in since 2006 — to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a Trump-created commission that Kobach heads…
I had a great time at the live taping of the Savage Lovecast at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre. Audience members submitted questions on cards, and I tackled as many as I could over two hours — with the welcome and hilarious assistance of comedian Kristen Toomey. Here are some of the questions we didn’t get to before they gave us…
One summer night in 2012, I was at a friend’s birthday party when I noticed a red baby carrier in the corner of the living room. It was after 10 p.m., and I was thinking about cracking another beer. But the presence of the sleeping infant gave me pause. That kid’s parents should probably take her home soon, I thought….
Clarified milk punch: The phrase doesn’t suggest a thirst-quenching, crushable cocktail. If you’re like me, you picture a nutrient-enriched formula being ladled into Dixie cups on Christmas morning at a nursing home, the word punch a convivial little lie. But at craft bars around the country, clarified-milk-punch cocktails are showing up on menus — and turning out to be not…
On a chilly spring afternoon, I find Jim Ligon in his Crossroads workshop, the door wide open to let in some air. The room is gently illuminated by several light fixtures he has crafted from empty liquor and wine bottles. The hum of power tools greets me at the entrance — Ligon is working on a chandelier for a client…
“We have a bat guy,” Jane Almirall tells me. I’m browsing the shelves at Oracle, and I’ve just come across a small tree, on which taxidermied bats hang like Christmas ornaments. “Cool,” I say.But her answer to my question — where did you get these fuzzy critters? — raises still more questions. For one: Where does the bat guy get…
I meet Kye Colors at Joe’s Barbershop on an overcast, late spring day. His father runs the business, which is located in a plain strip mall off the Paseo, on the south side of Kansas City. The shop’s walls are painted a dark red and plastered with sports memorabilia. An episode of Family Feud is blaring from a television at…
I thought I knew what I was getting into. I’d planned my visits with the care of a pensioner plotting a bucket-list cruise, plotting exactly where to splurge and where to save. I’d received a $250 reimbursement cap from this very paper. (“All right,” my editor joked at the writers’ meeting when I pitched this as my next restaurant. “Everybody…
It is without hyperbole that I say the title track to White Reaper’s latest album, The World’s Best American Band, is the rock jam of the summer. The single from the Louisville quartet is the sort of thing that makes you roll down the window, crank the volume and pump your fist. It opens with fake crowd roar that’s still…
On the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, in the middle of the Paseo, at 16th Street, guitarist John Scofield spun solos around and through country standards and classic pop, reimagining them as jazz. Scofield is a jazz icon. He toured with Miles Davis. He won two Grammy awards this year, for Best Jazz Instrumental Album (Country for Old Men)…
When Kevin Morby isn’t at his place in Los Angeles, or touring the world, he can often be found hanging around Kansas City. The 29-year-old singer-songwriter recently bought a house here, which he shares with a friend, local filmmaker Christopher Good. It’s a stone’s throw from downtown Overland Park, close to where Morby’s family lives. He just picked up a…
Whitney Manney sits askew behind an immeasurably cluttered desk, dragging watercolor paint along white paper with the tip of a brush. Manney says she spends most of her time at this desk, which she keeps inside the vast white studio space at Westport Road and Main Street that previously housed multiple generations of drugstores — “26/8” is how she describes…
For all of a week, Kansas basked in the narrative of being the state that had seen the light. Thanks to action by its Legislature, Gov. Sam Brownback’s failed tax-cut experiment was finally history. Kansas had shown a perplexed nation that some leaders had remembered how to place common sense and quality of life ahead of ideology. Moderate politicians owned…
After several years as the Free State Festival, this year’s event returns to the Free State Film Festival moniker and restores film as the center of its programming. The theme of activism might not be be explicit, but whether it’s direct, as in the film Dolores — about labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta — or indirect, via the…
The twin forces of Troost gentrification and UMKC expansion arrived last month, inevitably, at 5424 Troost, home to the beloved brick box known for the last 50 years as Mike’s Tavern. The place closed not long after classes let out. By the time UMKC and Rockhurst University students return, in August, Mike’s will be operating under a new name: Brady’s…
Monday, June 26Sample a Buddhist-inspired vegan spread tonight at Bun Bros KC (115 West 18th Street). The feast, served family style, includes miso soup, a variety of pickles (including pickled green strawberries, miso-pickled carrots, napa-cabbage kimchi and curry-pickled turnips), mushroom steamed buns and simmered tofu in a mushroom broth. Sides include sweet-potato noodles, onigiri with shiso, and more. The dinner is $50…
Local-born Big Slick KC hosts Paul Rudd, Jason Sudekis, Rob Riggle, Eric Stonestreet and David Koechner brought to Kansas City a crowded field of celebrity ringers including Johnny Knoxville, Joe LoTruglio, Martin Starr, Travis Kelce, Jake Tapper, Kevin Pollack, Zachary Levi, “Weird” Al Yankovich, Blake Vogt, David Wain, George Wendt, James Van Der Beek, Kevin Rahm, Samm Levine – and…
TONIGHTDom Chronicles and the Spirit TribeWith Jooby Truth, Lindsey Alderman, the Kid Nicky Halt and Tye Angle8 p.m. at Encore (in the Uptown Theater), $18Dom Chronicles has a busy summer ahead. The Kansas City rapper is ending a short solo tour at the Uptown Theater’s Encore room this evening, backed by his new live band, the Spirit Tribe — which…
Dear Dan: I am a 34-year-old straight woman. I’m monogamous and have an avoidant attachment style. I’ve been seeing a guy I really like. He’s just my type, the kind of person I’ve been looking for my whole life. Thing is, he’s in an open relationship with someone he’s been with for most of his adult life. He was sneaky…
Musician Daniel Ash is known for his work with the seminal postpunk band Bauhaus, as well as Love and Rockets, which rose from the ashes after Bauhaus broke up in 1983. Perhaps less known is the side project Tones on Tail, which existed contemporaneously with those two acts — though you’re definitely familiar with the throbbing bass tones of its…
The GOP’s Senate bill to wipe away the Affordable Care Act arrived this morning, confirming the fears of pretty much every non-wealthy U.S. citizen about his or her ability to stave off infirmity, early death and/or bankruptcy. But perched atop The Kansas City Star’s paywall-fortified homepage moments ago was the day’s most important story. See above. (Squint and look down and…
Lawrence’s Willow Domestic Violence Shelter describes its mission as “restoring the health and safety of people who have experienced domestic violence or human trafficking by providing safety, education, and advocacy.” Among its advocacy services is a new collaboration with the Lawrence Public Library, which started in early May. From 9 a.m. to noon every Monday, a Willow advocate is on…
Guitar hero St. Vincent (Annie Clark) is returning to the KC area after a three-year break. Her last local appearance was at Liberty Hall, following the release of her self-titled album in 2014. She’s hitting the road this fall with her “Fear the Future Tour,” though there’s no notice yet whether a new album is in the works. She will…
“Is there not enough rain in the sweet heavens?” Hamlet’s King Claudius asked toward the end of the Shakespeare fest’s first half — an utterance that, a few nights ago, drew a good-sized laugh. A storm was, in fact, approaching. As the rottenness of Denmark grew ever more apparent onstage, the skies were lighting up and the wind was blowing…
