Wednesday, June 7, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 2
Cary Strong prepares a cup of coffee for a patron. Strong opened the cafe at Strong's at 1025A Massachusetts St. Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Coffee locale opens on Mass St.
Cafe and antiques mix to create old-world aura
By Karen Lucas
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
KU students now can enjoy a cup of coffee and a sandwich while surrounded by antiques in downtown Lawrence.
Aimee's Cafe and Coffeehouse, 1025A Massachusetts St., opened in late April in the same building as Strong's Antiques.
"We started this on a half a shoe string," said Cary Strong, owner of Aimee's Cafe And Coffeehouse. "It was about as low as you could get."
With the help friends, Strong made the cafe's wood and tile bar and cabinets, which resemble
antiques. The cafe's small round tables and matching chairs are reproductions that Strong said he bought at a low price.
Not only does Aimee's have an antique look, but it's accessible through the antique store, which is owned by Strong's father. Antiques also are on display in the cafe.
Strong runs the cafe by himself for the most part. Sometimes his girlfriend, Aimee Heinold, for whom he named the cafe, waits on customers when she is not working as a flight attendant for Vanguard Airlines.
"It's kind of like chocolate silk in your mouth," he said. "It's real smooth."
In addition to coffee and espresso drinks, customers can order a soda or an egg cream, which Strong said was a popular drink on the East Coast.
Aimee's also serves pastries, soups, salads and sandwiches made on hollowed-out Italian rolls.
Strong said his lunch-time customers had brought him the most business so far.
Dave Boulter, owner of the coffee shop Henry's, 11 E. Eighth St., said he welcomed the new cafe.
"I'd like to get more of a morning crowd, more coffee drinkers on their way to work," he said.
"Any business that comes in down here will help everyone," he said. "Fill every space is my view. I think everybody has a niche."
Lindsay Rome, Holcomb junior,
visited Aimee's for the first time
during spring final exams. After
ordering a latte, she settled down
at a table and began studying.
"I hope I get a lot done here today," she said.
Strong said he welcomed students who used his cafe as a place to study.
"I think it adds something to the atmosphere," he said. "That's part of what owning a coffee shop is about. I think the more people you have in here, the more appealing it looks."
Alimee's is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m on Saturday. Strong said he hoped to expand the cafe's hours in August.
—Edited by BriAnne Hess
The Associated Press
Filmmakers still turn to Shakespeare
LOS ANGELES — Call him thor-
oughly modern Willie.
Shakespeare's in cinemas again,
with two new movies continuing a
trend that tweaks, updates and
dusts off his aura for today's masses.
A gutsy "Hamlet" hit theaters last month starring Ethan Hawke as a sullen cyberprince in contemporary Manhattan, with a multimedia conglomerate standing in for feudal Denmark.
On Friday, Kenneth Branagh's latest go at the Bard opens, a musical version of "Love's Labour's Lost" set at the start of World War II and using tunes from Gershwish, Kern, Porter and Berlin to augment the affections of four young couples.
Purists may scoff at such changes, but in his time Shakespeare was a popular entertainer playing largely to audiences of commoners. Treating the plays too reverentially can make them as brittle as pages in an antique book, says Hawke.
"If you have a real love for Shakespeare, you want to see it done as a living art form and not just put in some box where it's to be opened after yougenfect," he said.
Branagh said he substituted songs for some dialogue because it seemed words were not always
enough to convey the lovers' rush of emotions. And what better tunes to capture Shakespearean romantic sentiments than "I Get a Kick Out of You." "Cheek to Cheek" and "I've Got a Crush on You?"
"Singing in the throes of ecstatic passion is very Shakespearean," said Branagh, who directed and starred in "Love's Labour's Lost," his fourth Shakespeare adaptation for film.
"All through Shakespeare's work he refers to singing and dancing. A lyric by Cole Porter or Irving Berlin or songs by the Gershwins are witty today much the way Shakespeare was witty in his own time. Shakespeare and Cole Porter both enjoy clever rhymes and neat little linguistic tricks."
Shakespeare's cinematic history dates to the early years of film, with silent takes on "Othello," "Twelfth Night," "The Merchant of Venice" and others. Masterful adaptations were later crafted by Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles and Franco Zaffirelli.
Filmmakers often have played fast and loose with the plays' geography and times. Akira Kurosawa set "MacBeth" ("Throne of Blood") and "King Lear" ("Ran") in ancient Japan. Ian McKellen starred in a latter-day Fascist exploration of "Richard III." "Tempest" in 1982
starred John Cassavetes as a Manhattanite self-exiled to a Greek island, and featured Raul Julia as the savage Kalibanos hitting on pubescent Molly Ringwale with the line. "I got TV in my cave."
Most notable in modernized Shakespeare may be "West Side Story," the musical tale of the antagonistic Sharks and Jets; the movie was adapted from the stage production based on "Romeo and Juliet."
Even Jet Li's martial arts flick "Romeo Must Die," released this spring, updates the Montagues and Capulets to a gang rivalry between blacks and Asians in Oakland.
It was Branagh's "Henry V," in 1989, that set off the Shakespeare renaissance that continues today. Branagh and Mel Gibson both did "Hamlets," Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes entered an ultrahip "Romeo + Juliet" for the MTV age, and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" jumped to the late 1800s, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Kevin Kline and newfangled contraptions called bicycles.
"Shakespeare in Love," the best-picture Oscar winner for 1998, transformed the playwright's life into a bawdy audience-pleaser.
Such revisions aim to revitalize Shakespeare for modern moviegoers.
The grad in the mask
Mike Senften, Manhattan senior, prepares to march down the hill at commencement in the monster costume he designed. Senften put his theater design education to use last month in making the costume, which included stilts. Photo by Jim O'Malley/KANSAN