This Weeks Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Our fun in Iraq and Afghanistan has only just begun, but our troops in Korea have been dug in just south of the 38th parallel for more than fifty years. Korean War scholars, veterans, survivors and policy makers meet today at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library (500 W. U.S. Highway 24 in Independence) for a conference titled Conflict and Consequence: The Korean War and Its Unsettled Legacy. The conference starts at 9 a.m. with panel sessions devoted to personal accounts of the war, its strategic legacy and the prospects for reunification. Participants include a former Truman White House staffer and a translator present during the cease-fire negotiations. The conference concludes with a 7 p.m. presentation by former U.S. State Department official Robert Carlin, followed by a reception and dinner prepared by the Korean-American Association of Kansas City. The fee for registration is $20; call 816-268-8223.
Friday, October 24, 2003
The week is almost over. Trust us, you’re not going to accomplish much more this afternoon. You might as well say screw it and go to the Woodlands (9700 Leavenworth Road in Kansas City, Kansas) for live horse racing, which begins at 12:30 p.m. You might enjoy the hooky-playing experience with a white Russian, which tastes surprisingly good considering it’s made with individually wrapped coffee-creamer packets. On second thought, maybe you’d better go with beer and peanuts, the concessions of champions. Maybe you’ll bet on a winning trifecta. Maybe you’ll see a horse get disqualified by throwing the jockey. Maybe you’ll buy a horse-shaped cookie jar in the gift shop. The possibilities are endless. But November 1 is the last racing day of the season, so your time is running out, slacker. For information, call 913-299-9797.
Saturday, October 25, 2003
The strange bedfellows that are politics and fun lie down together today at 7 p.m. at Union Hall (1317 Union in the West Bottoms). The occasion is the release party for a book by William Binderup about the Angola Three, who were Black Panthers before entering the prison system three decades ago for unrelated robberies. They continued their political activism in custody, staging successful, peaceful strikes and sit-ins for better conditions. (One of the three was released in 2000 after being held for 29 years; the other two remain in solitary confinement.) Because Binderup is a comic-book guy, the result of his research about the Angola Three is a twelve-page book titled Free the Angola Three. Original art from the book will be on the walls tonight, and the money raised at the door and by sales of books, T-shirts, stickers and posters will help cover the inmates’ legal expenses, but other than that, it’s just a regular party. “It will be a fun night of comic books, music, friends, beer and changing the world,” Binderup says. The cover charge is $5; for information, call 913-345-9910.
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Long have we waited to tout an event that caters to our favorite hibernation-season activity: sitting around cozily with friends and playing Scrabble while drinking hot chocolate. In spite of our enthusiasm for rowdier events, it’s safe to say that on a Sunday night, you won’t be missing much if you say to yourself, What the hell — I think I’ll just hang out and play Monopoly tonight. For people whose game stash is looking sparse, the Cup and Saucer (412 Delaware) is the place to be for games galore — and for steamy beverages as well. We’ll be the ones with our own Scrabble dictionaries, and we’ll take a break from thinking up the greatest word ever to incorporate both a Q and a Z just long enough to plop down our big, bad hotels all over your sorry-looking Monopoly board. If you’re lucky, we might even put you in checkmate. Game Night starts at 4 p.m. For information, call 816-474-7375.
Monday, October 27, 2003
One hundred years ago last spring, Horatio Nelson Jackson set out to win a bet by making the first-ever American cross-country road trip. Jackson completed the journey and set the standard for the American road trip, bringing along a mechanic and a bulldog named Bud to help him cross the pre-interstate landscape. More than sixty years’ worth of road construction later, author John Steinbeck built a small cabin on the back of a pickup truck and hit the highway to rediscover America with his poodle, Charley. Tonight at the I.H. Ruiz Branch Library (2017 West Pennway), readers discuss Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and the American road trip as the first installment of the Route 66 Book Discussion Series, beginning at 7 p.m. For information, call 816-701-3726.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
According to Kevin Fox Gotham and Sherry Lamb Schirmer, the history of real estate development in Kansas City presents a tale of two cities. Tonight at the Embassy Suites Hotel (220 West 43rd Street), the professors host a program titled A City Divided — Race, Real Estate and Uneven Development in Kansas City. Gotham and Schirmer explore the reasons that continuing racial segregation has continued long after discriminatory real estate and lending practices were abolished. The authors will sign books from 6:15 p.m. until the program starts at 6:45 p.m. Tickets cost $25. For information, call 816-231-1077.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Although the title of tonight’s lecture by Sherman Alexie Jr. is Killing Indians: Myths, Lies and Exaggerations, the only things he’ll be killing are stereotypes of Native Americans. Alexie eschews the image of Native Americans as mystic warriors and instead portrays them as normal, everyday people in his poetry and in his film Smoke Signals. Before he begins two similar colloquia at the University of Kansas and at Haskell Indian Nations University, Alexie will lecture for free on the realities and stereotypes of Native American life at 7:30 p.m. today at the Lied Center, 1600 Stewart Drive in Lawrence. For information, call 785-864-4798.
