Face-high wrought iron fencing blocked the stairwell from the sidewalk. Bold letters as black as the spires announced on a sign that the restaraunt was closed. Lill’s on 17th is perched high on the street – an overlook on the crumbling sidewalk and the trendy-dressed urban dwellers who seem to pass casually by but actually frequent these streets and search them out as a diversion from the real lives they feign interest in suddenly along these housefronts. Lill’s is housed in a 19th Century Victorian, among the first built on what was then the city’s west side but is now the city itself, a few blocks from the high rise skyscrapers and corporate cubicles stacked layer after layer upon each other. But with a gentle push, the gate gave way and I held it open for another guest so that we could attend another Urban Times creative meeting. (more…)
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Tags: Urban Times
High Regard
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
I was asked to say some kind words about Urban Times Publisher Christina Boveri for an honor that could be presented to her soon by a local business magazine. When the request was made, it was unclear to me whether she was being nominated and my words would be considered in her selection … or if she’d already won. Regardless, these words ring true. I can’t announce the honor or mention the publication yet, but the following is what I wrote about the woman who gave me a start in 2006: (more…)
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Writers, being especially selective of the words they put to paper, can be surprisingly loose-lipped in conversation. One reason so many of them decide to communicate in written format in the first place is to put the words straight that might ordinarily come recklessly foaming about the enormous feet in their mouths. No one, then, should better understand the tendency to mispeak than writers. Counting myself in with this lot, I can tell you, we somehow still happen to be especially critical of the words said about us. (more…)
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Lulled to sleep by the soft, drifting snow, the city had turned in early and left the street lamps glowing as faint night lights. The snow was predicted to end some six hours earlier in the early afternoon, and yet here it was midnight-dark and quiet, the streets already piled deep and smooth – the severity of the weather barely noticeable in its slumbered pace. (more…)
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Out Today
Friday, November 7th, 2008
The latest edition of Urban Times is circulating at First Friday gallery showings in the Crossroads tonight. This month, I wrote the cover story about Julia Irene Kauffman and Tom Bloch, the heirs to two of Kansas City’s most prominent families. Be sure to pick up a copy if you’re downtown this weekend.
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Tags: Business, Urban Times
