Denver Art Museum’s Focus: The Figure opens in time for the DNC

Living, 1992, by Gilbert and George. C-print photographs. Denver Art Museum; funds from 1994 Alliance for Contemporary Art Auction. See the slide show. In this week’s Westword, art critic Michael Paglia writes about Focus: the Figure, a reinstallation of permanent-collection galleries at the Denver Art Museum, which opened last week…

Barack Obama’s education plan gets help from Colorado principal

Slide show This week’s Westword features a cover story by Jessica Centers about Mike Johnston, principal at Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton and one of Obama’s education advisers. For photos of Johnston, his students and teachers, see Mark Manger’s slide show. And read on for the text…

Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams has Denver by the balls

Cindy Adams. The Democratic National Convention in Denver. Denver’s a cow town. Doesn’t mean what we’re going to see here is the milk of human kindness. Means like what’s coming is a large load of bull. Having covered these rah-rah sis-boom-bah hoo-has since Lincoln’s day, I tell you Denver’s a…

Diary of a DNC Party Crasher: Nelly, at Mile High Station

I didn’t Google-map the location of the MySpace-sponsored Nelly show on Monday night. I had a general idea of where I was going, but no actual concrete directions, which made it difficult, since finding this venue — the sprawling Mile High Station — is pretty much impossible. I drove around…

Live Blog: Tent State University Music Festival to End the War

UPDATES BELOW: With photos from Rage and the Flobots. Oh yeah, and the cops have the place surrounded. It’s just after 11 a.m. and things are just getting underway at the Denver Coliseum. State Radio just took the stage and is in the midst of playing an energetic set in…

All over but the attention-getting

Vote Satan-Angel. Once Clinton left the Pepsi Center stage, Jin Ho Kang and Yoougsook Kang, a pair of reverends from Aurora, delivered the closing prayer and the proceedings were promptly gaveled to a close for the night — at which point the band launched into Sly & the Family Stone’s…

Protesters to delegates: “Broncos suck!”

Our man on the scene — OK, he stumbled on the scene on his way to get a beer — reports that a large group of delegates just ambled past the protesers’ cage, where exactly four activists were holding things down. Their message to the passing delegates (none of whom,…

Hillary’s turn on the mic

Big mother. At last, the night’s big moment: Hillary Clinton’s unity speech, which was meant to convince supporters thinking about bailing to John McCain to throw their support behind Barack Obama despite the Democratic candidates’ bitter primary battle. The man in front of me, from the Connecticut delegation, was clearly…

The sign squad

Signs of the times. After a roof-raising speech by Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, whose charm and effectiveness undoubtedly reenforced his reputation as a rising Democratic star, the Pepsi Center’s lights dimmed for a Hillary Clinton tribute video — an odd mix of elements that featured two clips from Saturday Night…

Breaking out of the pack

My spot. It took me part of former Virginia governor Mark Warner’s keynote speech, all of the talk by Ohio governor Ted Strickland and the opening section of the address by Massachusett’s governor Deval Patrick to reach the opposite side of the Pepsi Center from where I started — directly…

Media: “This is boring!”

That blur in the middle of the screen is Katie Couric. As those of us in the (barely) moving mosh pit inched our way around the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night, we passed by broadcast platforms populated by network heavyweights. My photos of the CNN crew — Wolf Blitzer included…

The DNC floor scrum

Welcome to the Thunderdome, bitch. When I hit the Pepsi Center floor, former Virgnia governor Mark Warner was delivering the Democratic National Convention keynote address — not that I or anyone else around me registered one word of it. There were far too many bodies in a too-small space, and…

DNC press row

The press minions tapping away. Once I finally made it into the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening, I was directed toward section 106 — press row. The area has a couple of significant advantages over other spots in the arena. For one thing, it has power — the electrical kind,…

The longest three-minute bus ride in history

The buses arrive — at last. When it became clear that many of the people gathered outside the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening might not make it inside in time for Hillary Clinton’s big speech, Democratic National Convention personnel decided to allow anyone present who wasn’t carrying oversized media equipment…

The Daily Show‘s John Oliver on the downside of equality

“When we pose, pretend like you’re my best friend.” In the midst of the ridiculous line to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night, I found myself standing alongside none other than British-born comedian John Oliver, a correspondent for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart who I’d just enjoyed at the…