Wild Ideas

THU 7/24

During the recent war in Iraq, peace activist Kathy Kelly was shocked and awed by media coverage of the conflict, which she says embedded journalists grossly misrepresented in their reports. Kelly, who was in Baghdad throughout March, provides her own account of life among Iraqi civilians with her talk “Embedded Humanitarian: Eyewitness to the Iraq War.” In 1996, Kelly cofounded Voices in the Wilderness, which delivers medical supplies to Iraqis. The group also takes every opportunity to piss off governing bodies by ignoring economic sanctions and refusing to pay taxes for war; the group has made seventy visits to Iraq, giving special attention to children. Leading the nonviolent war resistance earned Kelly a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2000.

By the time American attacks on Iraq rolled around three years later, Voices in the Wilderness had organized the Iraq Peace Team to live alongside citizens before, during and after bombings and occupation. Kelly has been to Iraq fifteen times since 1996. She presents her take on the situation there at 7 p.m. Thursday. The talk, at All Souls Unitarian Church (4501 Walnut), is free. For more information, call 913-321-2206.— Sarah Smarsh

Jacqee’s Strength

Kansas City relives its struggle for civil rights.

THU 7/24

On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray murdered Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Just hours later, many major American cities — including Kansas City — were ablaze. The InPlay theatrical company sets its next show amid the chaos of that horrible day. Called Nothing Comes of Sleepers, the play was written by local playwright Jacqee Gafford, whose last effort — Harlem Knights — was a terrific, engaging tale of the Harlem Renaissance featuring such well-known characters as James Baldwin and Alberta Hunter. Gafford sets her newest work in a Kansas City beauty salon teeming with regulars who must take in the shock of a most irregular event. Nothing Comes of Sleepers, staged at the Just Off Broadway space at 3051 Central, opens today, with shows Thursdays through Saturdays between now and August 9. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Tickets ($12 at the door, $10 in advance) can be ordered at 816-235-6222.— Steve Walker

Tales of Humidity

You could cut the air with a knife.

TUE 7/29

Like every bayou novel that came before it, Tim Gautreaux’s The Clearing has Spanish moss, clamshell roads, mosquitoes and alligators. But it also has a man lost to memories of World War I combat, a band of Sicilian saloon owners and a pair of Pennsylvania brothers trying to make ends meet at a Louisiana sawmill. Everything in The Clearing is thick — the heat, the tropical vegetation, the swampland steam — especially the tension between two memorable characters. Gautreaux speaks and signs books at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 West 47th Street. Tickets are available at Rainy Day Books, 2706 West 53rd Street in Fairway. Call 913-384-3126. — Smarsh

Monstrous

7/24-9/5

We credit Frankenstein for teaching us about the dangers of resisting nature and the unhappiness that comes from too much knowledge. Frankenstein is more than a book, though; kids know what the oddly proportioned, square-jawed Frankenstein looks like long before they hear of Mary Shelley. Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature, at the Kansas City Public Library (311 East Main, 816-701-3518), shows how Frankenstein became an enduring myth. For the occasion, the library hosts book talks and film screenings, to boot.— Gina Kaufmann