Night & Day Events

Thursday, June 16
Listen, our cousin’s wedding is coming up, and we need a date. Stat. So all we’re doing today is looking to pick up at the Bourgeois Pig (6 East Ninth Street, Lawrence; 785-843-1001) during its Bloomsday celebration and reading. We won’t pretend to have any other motive if you won’t pretend to have read James Joyce’s Ulysses, because we already know you haven’t. Nobody has. The Pig reportedly caters to literary wonks, smooth bartenders, overly smart undergraduates and a clientele likely to have made movies or written books or both — we’ll take one of each, please. In the unlikely event that Lawrence.com’s description of the place proves false, we have a backup plan: a bachelor auction later that night. The third-annual benefit for Health Care Access Clinic starts at 7 p.m. at J.B. Stout’s Sports Bar and Grill (721 Wakarusa Drive in Lawrence, 785-843-0704); tickets are $10 at the door. Would we really buy a date? Yes we said yes we will yes.

Friday, June 17

If you haven’t been to Town Center Plaza (5000 West 119th Street in Leawood) lately, man, are you missing out. OK, we’re joking, but the Town Art Show does kick off there tonight from 4 to 8:30 p.m., continuing from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. More than 120 artists from around the country are putting up booths for the weekend, and admission is free. No promises on quality, but if you’re looking for a space filler on your guest-bathroom wall, we’ve got a real good feeling. Joking again! Jeez! Call 913-498-1111.

Saturday, June 18

Film critic Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called Mad Hot Ballroom “Irresistible! A kind of Spellbound crossed with Strictly Ballroom!” The movie, which opened in Kansas City yesterday, is full of sassy and street-smart New York City kids who ballroom dance competitively. We’re so there. Inspired by this — and the fact that ballroom dancing has recently been recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a sport, though with the slightly more athletic (and goofy) moniker “DanceSport” — we’re rounding up some youngsters and dragging them to Arthur Murray Dance Studio’s weekly ballroom-dance classes for children, which start at 1 p.m. today at its Lenexa location (8626 Quivira Road, 913-599-4444). Future Olympians, get ready to foxtrot. And like it, damn it.

Sunday, June 19

Hakoah is Hebrew for strength, and we’re ready to be inspired by the talented female swimming champions of the legendary Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna, as portrayed in the documentary Watermarks. The club, founded in 1909 after an Aryan edict banned Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes, was shut down by Nazis in 1939. The swimmers managed to leave the country before the war began; 65 years later, Israeli director Yaron Zilberman reunited the team members and arranged a meeting — at their old Viennese pool. This screening kicks off the new season of the Tivoli Theater’s Film Forum, which shows provocative and little-seen movies. Writer Steve Shapiro gives a talk after today’s screening at the Tivoli (4050 Pennsylvania). See www.tivolikc.com for more information.

Monday, June 20
The sign painted on the side of Tchoupitoulas‘ building reads: “Coffee Food Wine,” but up until now, owner Nathan Graham has been able to serve only the first two at his Crossroads café (1526 Walnut, 816-221-0362). Now, with extended hours, Graham is looking to run not a bar that happens to serve coffee but rather a good coffee shop with a well-chosen selection of wines. On offer for oenophiles: four reds and four whites that will change often as Graham purchases single or limited cases of harder to find (read: yummier) wines. And whether your beverage of choice is a double espresso or Sauvignon Blanc, we recommend stopping in to check out Kansas City Art Institute grad Cara Long‘s first solo show. Long’s delicate drawings of spindly dames on thin sheets of porcelain are lovely — and ripe for discussing until the wee hours or at least until Graham shuts the doors at 10 p.m.

Tuesday, June 21

Each October, we find ourselves with a hole in our Tuesday-night television routine, one previously filled by PBS’ kickass, four-month documentary series P.O.V. For the next eight months we make do with Law and Order reruns — with the right cable programming, you can find about eight different episodes in a given three-hour block — but often those ruthless TV gods refuse us the Chris Noth nuggets we crave. Therefore, we’re most pleased that the docs we love in the first place are back for the series’ 18th season, starting tonight at 10 on KCPT Channel 19. The Education of Shelby Knox, a 2005 Sundance fave, examines a Lubbock, Texas, high school student as she weighs her Christian values against social realities. Shelby, who has pledged abstinence until marriage, becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex education and finds that her political and spiritual views change along the way. We’re not exactly sure how it fits into the greater theme of the series, which is supposedly “what men really want in life,” but we look forward to finding out.

Wednesday, June 21
You know how Six Feet Under always begins with a death? Well, when we were watching the season premiere a couple of weeks ago — warning: spoiler ahead! — we were disturbed that the chick who was finally taking control of her life got a poker to the brain via her eye socket. That sucks. But it also got us thinking that she probably paid her therapist a lot of money to, in effect, kill her. And that would really suck. Instead, she could’ve attended Jerry White’s $11 instruction on how to Make Your Emotions Work for You Instead of Against You, a Communiversity class that meets from 7 to 9 tonight at the UMKC School of Medicine’s Theatre B (2411 Holmes). He says to use your feelings as guides; in turn, they won’t run your life. Hmm. Call 816-235-1448 to register.