Photo Op

FRI 7/16
When photographer Garry Winogrand died in 1984, he left behind 2,500 undeveloped rolls of film. His incessant urge to, as he put it, “see what things look like photographed” drove him to wander the streets of New York City, shooting what he saw, and led to a sizable body of work, including the 1975 series Women Are Beautiful, which opens Friday at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (4420 Warwick, 816-753-5784). The series consists of black-and-white photos of female subjects taken in the ’60s and ’70s. Though critically lauded, Winogrand claimed no artistic ambition beyond the desire to take pictures of attractive women. In fact, he originally planned to call the collection Confessions of a Male Chauvinist Pig.— Christopher Sebela

Killer Tomatoes

SUN 7/18
Science and industry may have combined forces to make longer-lasting tomatoes, but that hasn’t made our bloody marys taste any better. Luckily, there are heirloom varieties of nonhybrid tomatoes grown today. Succotash (in the City Market at 15 East Third Street) hosts an heirloom tomato-tasting Sunday at 5:30 p.m., complete with virgin-mary mixes and sample dishes. Local Harvest provides the tomato samples, which could be Cherokee Purple, Garden Peach or even the infamous Mortgage Lifter. American Wine and Food Institute members get in for $17; the tasting costs nonmembers $20. For details, call 913-851-2375. — Michael Vennard

Tome Alone
Experience the karma of literature.

SAT 7/17
The next time you see a forgotten book at a restaurant or on a bench, flip open the cover and check for an ID number and registration card. If they’re there, you’ve just been bookcrossed. It’s your duty as a bibliophile to read your discovery and post a review on BookCrossing.com, brainchild of Kansas Citian Ron Hornbaker. You won’t be alone — the Web site boasts more than 270,000 members and over a million books. Members register fiction and nonfiction alike on the site and then deposit the books in public places. Once stumbled upon, recipients read and review them, then pass them on. It’s like a book club for the extremely antisocial. Hornbaker comes to the Central Library (14 West 10th Street) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday to give a presentation and distribute books. Call 816-701-3400 (ext. 4280) for more information.— Annie Fischer