Largeprinting’s face shields. // Courtesy Largeprinting Largeprinting.com is the latest KC based business to pivot into making medical masks. PPE is in exceptionally short supply, and reconfiguring to this production format not only helps during the coronavirus pandemic for our heroes at hospitals, but also keeps employees retained during this difficult time. The Trabon Group from Kansas City made a…
Chris Rock in Fargo season 4 // Photo courtesy FX The Good News: If you’re looking for something new to watch because you have successfully binged all of the shows on your “to watch list,” there’s a new season of FX’s critically acclaimed Fargo that takes place in Kansas City. The Bad News: Due to COVID-19, the production of Fargo…
A good NextDoor post. // Courtesy @bestofnextdoor Jenn Takahashi found a small self-care hobby. Now she’s famous for it. “Good things happen when neighbors come together” is the tagline of NextDoor. If you’re unfamiliar with the app, it’s like Facebook but only for people that live in physical proximity to each other. In order to sign up, you have to…
Crisp plantains flank a creamy black bean purée. // Photo by Zach Bauman Editor’s note: Liz’s article covers how hard it is to review a restaurant that you won’t be able to eat at during stay-at-home orders. Trago is now doing carry-out Wednesday to Saturday. For more up to date details, please check their Facebook page. One of the drawbacks…
Murder By Death @ Liberty Hall // Photo by Brock Wilbur In March, the band Murder By Death swung through Lawrence. It was, as always, a great show. We were starting to hedge into coronavirus time and so our photographer couldn’t make it. My wife and I did. Simply an incredible show from start to finish. And now, I realize,…
Beignet at City Market // Photo by Google Maps On Sunday, Beignet in City Market announced that they were shutting their doors after 7 years of service. The New Orleans style Cajun eatery thanked the community for 2,514 days of supporting their small garage cafe. No reason for the closure was given but we can only assume it’s a result…
Royal Crest Lanes // Courtesy KCFFI Three weeks ago, the 24th annual Kansas City FilmFest International was still planning to go ahead as scheduled. Then came Coronavirus. “Initially, we were going to postpone, but as soon as we did that, the world blew up,” Veronica Elliott Loncar, KCFFI’s Executive Director, said. “Events were getting canceled, people were losing jobs, and…
It’s an exciting time to be part of the Drop Dead XX crew. The collective features members from multiple cities in America and Europe, though Kansas City is home to a solid chunk of them, and that chunk of them is making us proud. Just in the last week, a song by one of their groups, Blackstarkids, got placed on…
Since publishing our deep dive on the subject last week, we have heard from many readers who completed the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) application and are anxiously awaiting an official reply from the feds. Meanwhile, there are various media reports about the SBA’s electronic loan processing system struggling under the weight of application activity, while lenders are experiencing difficulties accessing the system and are…
Godzillionaire Negative Balance (Self-released) It’s worth noting that I have hanging in my living room a massive four-foot square oil painting done by Godzillionaire frontman Mark Hennessy. It’s of a robot angel ascending to Heaven, while there’s all kinds of skeletons and wailing souls going about a town being split from underneath by a massive, hidden snake. I say this…
The band, before social distancing // Courtesy Umphrey’s McGee Not unlike the rest of the country and the world, improv-rock gurus Umphrey’s McGee have found themselves with an empty-for-now itinerary and, in isolation, the strange daily balance of making sense of it all and making use of the extra time. Today, UM released “Easter In Quarantine.” Penned and recorded by…
Delivery in process // Photo courtesy Knoq A sales service has launched an initiative to convert operations during the pandemic, by shifting into support for local nonprofits. Knoq is a company that hires neighborhood representatives and trains them to push assorted products, usually related to businesses that don’t have a brick and mortar presence. In a time when knocking doors…
We used to have a podcast called City Rag that was hosted by former editor David Hudnall. Everyone really enjoyed those episodes and decided to restart the podcast. Brock Wilbur, our new editor, is hosting. New episodes go up every other Friday. Or maybe every Friday. We’ve all got some time on our hands. Streetwise is the name of the…
Life in a quarantine city. // Photo by Terry Lindsey of Toriru Photos We’ve been asking members of the KC community to submit stories about life under house arrest. If you’ve got a story you’d like to share, please send it to brock@thepitchkc.com for consideration. Today, local photographer Terry Lindsey captures snapshots of our time under COVID-19’s thumb and the people…
LEC logo // Courtesy of LEC The Latinx Education Collaborative, alongside a collection of other racially diverse educational organizations, are trying to make sure teachers have access to conversations and resources of value during this period. They launched a LEC LIVE Youtube channel, with content dedicator to thought-provoking conversations from an educator’s lens, relevant to coping with COVID-19 across the…
Thank you to everyone staying home and taking the time to relearn ourselves and each other; to fix what is broken and let go of things too far gone to be mended. I have friends who are sick, people whose parents and grandparents have died. It is a difficult death encumbered by loneliness. Death is change, change is scary and…
An Easter card package. // Photo by Luke Searles Social distancing from our at-risk loved ones is not just the kind thing to do, it’s the life-saving thing to do. This is why we need to find ways to stay connected in manners that don’t require face-to-face contact. With the Easter holiday around the corner, whether you celebrate or not,…
Blu-ray cover of Altman’s Kansas City / Cover courtesy of Arrow Academy Prior to watching Kansas City (1996), I had seen maybe, like, two Robert Altman movies in my life, and those when I was too young to really understand the difference between them and any other movies. Probably not the best way to establish my bona fides at the…
Making Chewie’s noises // Photo courtesy Screenland Screenland Theaters are a local business we’ve been trying to support through this difficult time. Even when the stay-at-home orders have been lifted, it’s gonna be a long time until people want to sit close to others in a small, enclosed space. Just one of many parts of the current situation that totally…
Announcement of Freeze Warning // Courtesy National Weather Service From 2 am until 9 am on Friday morning, the U.S. National Weather service has issued a Freeze Warning on the KC area. Yesterday it was 86 degrees. We had a Freeze Warning back on Saturday when the temperature dropped to 23 degrees. It then hit the 80s on Tuesday. I…
Photo by Zach Bauman If you’d like to listen to the audio version of this story, check out the Streetwise podcast: Kansas City might be one of the most crowded CBD markets in America. Its leading retailer, CBD American Shaman, might be the world’s second largest seller. And all of this cannabidiol might make us calmer, better rested, and less…
Illustration by Jack Raybuck Dear Dan: Your last two columns and your last two podcasts were all about the pandemic. Everything everywhere is all about the pandemic right now. Can you give it a rest? For maybe a week? Could you answer some questions that aren’t about pandemic? Any fun kink questions come in this week? I could all use…
Monster Closets is a randomly-regular column where Brock Wilbur takes a trip back through the highs, lows, and generally bizarre elements of the survival horror video game genre. This is exceptional niche writing but hopefully funny to the outsider by the nature of just how sheerly unhinged some of these works of art come. Please enjoy ahead of Halloween! Here…
