Here's a short list of things more important than the terror that the above sculpture, at the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, is causing one think-of-the-children rube: (1) anything else; (2) no, really, anything else in the world; (3) especially the season premiere of The Real Housewives of New York.
Yu Chang's smart, socially engaged "Accept or Reject" is too nipple-y for noted art critic Stilwell mommy Joanne Hughes, who has started a petition to have the bronze statue hauled away from the public space. (She says she has 1,500 signatures.) Her stance may come from a place of pure, giddy ignorance, but you gotta hand it to her for sheer bravery: In last night's on-camera interview, she out-crazy-eyed the KCTV Channel 5 team - not easy! - achieving a kind of Michele Bachmann transcendence.
The Pulitzer Prize Board didn't give an award for fiction this year. In light of the snub, the Kansas City Public Library has stepped up and is asking for nominations for its first ever "Publitzer" Prize for Fiction.
Library Director Crosby Kemper III explains the Publitzer in the video above, but here's how it works: You nominate your favorite pieces of fiction published in the United States in 2011 (click here to nominate). The library's esteemed panel of jurors - including Pitch editor Scott Wilson, The Kansas City Star's Steve Paul, the Library's Director of Readers' Services Kaite Stover and author Whitney Terrell - make their nominations. It'll be boiled down to three finalists, which will be announced on the library's blog Monday, April 30. And then the voting begins, culminating with the first ever Publitzer being awarded.
Gary Huggins needed to raise $70,000 by 1:59 a.m. to make his first full-length feature film - and he did it.
Last week, I wrote about Huggins' Kickstarter campaign to make a film starring Kansas City, Kansas, cop Santiago Vasquez called Kick Me. More than 360 backers pledged $70,302. Congrats to Huggins and everyone involved.
Huggins is planning to start filming in May or June with a goal of debuting the film at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Filmmaker Gary Huggins is approaching the deadline for his Kickstarter campaign, set up to fund his latest film, Kick Me. The project is an action comedy that's slated to start filming this summer in KC. Just over the halfway point of reaching his monetary goal, Huggins still needs about $34,000 in the next 10 days.
Don't worry — he has a plan to get your money and show you some sick, sick shit tomorrow at Screenland Crossroads (1656 Washington, 816-421-9700).
Huggins is hosting the Flesh and Blood Show, a 10-hour event Saturday with what he's calling "five of the most blatantly mind-abasing, soul-knifing exploitation films of all time. Films so wild, they should be kept in cages!"
The Kansas City Public Library is consistently doing cool things. Capitalizing on March Madness, the library is doing its own tournament ... but instead of basketball teams, the library is pitting classic books against each other.
The field of 64 doesn't have seeds, so it'll be up for interpretation on what's considered an upset. There can be only one. Can Friday Night Lights beat Seabiscuit? Can Twilight upend Dracula? Can Pride and Prejudice survive To Kill a Mockingbird? It's up to you to decide; voting begins today (Thursday) over at the library's website (click here to vote).
Now I know you're saying, Hey, what's in it for me? You'll be entered into a drawing to win a prize pack that includes a copy of each of the final eight, er, elite eight books and a basketball autographed by KC author Whitney Terrell.
Winners will be announced April 3.
This is bittersweet: The final episode of Dead Wait's second season is here. It's been a bloody season of zombies preying on the living (of course) and taking bullets (and a nail-spiked baseball bat) to the brain. Good stuff. Congrats to everyone involved.
Kansas City's zombie apocalypse keeps getting bloodier. The latest episode of Dead Wait is a splatter fest.
If you've missed a few episodes, get caught up here.
This is possibly the best installment of the Dead Wait zombie web series yet. And if you haven't already, check out show runner Justin Parlette's interview in this week's edition of The Pitch (or read it right here).
Reality-TV production runs in Liese’s family. Her mother, Sharon Liese, created High School Confidential, a documentary covering her daughter’s days at Blue Valley Northwest High School. Its eight installments ran on the cable network WE in 2008.
Liese lives in Los Angeles, where she met casting director Christopher Catalano. His credits include Big Brother and Rock of Love With Bret Michaels. When Catalano got the call to find virgins, he asked Liese to join the search as an associate producer.
“I am so happy to be working for him now and was very excited to be casting for this show,” Liese says. “I am given the chance to cast people all over the U.S., but I was especially excited to be pitching the people I know from the Midwest who are virgins.”
Catalano adds: “The viewers are going to watch them go through this — being a virgin at 18 years and older. There’s only 20 percent in America that are. By the time that they’re 20 years of age, it goes down to 13 percent. They’re like a unicorn. You rarely see them.”
The Pitch recently talked virgins with Catalano and Liese. Here’s an excerpt from that conversation:
Here's the latest episode of Dead Wait, the local zombie apocalypse Web series. If you've missed a few episodes, watch 'em by clicking here.
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The Gumball 3000 makes a pit stop in Kansas City tonight (Monday)
Fifty years ago this week, Continental Flight 11 fell out of the sky over Unionville
Johnson County boobaphobe wants Overland Park to disappear arboretum's Yu Chang sculpture
Guy Fieri, Henry Ford and Johnny Trigg to be inducted into the National Barbecue Hall of Fame
The Pitch Questionnaire with Historic Kansas City Foundation executive director Amanda Crawley
Clemson, rumored to be interested in the Big 12, opens up its relationship with the ACC
New teen curfew goes into effect this weekend
KC's bakeries turn up the flour power