The Book of Mormon may seem gut-bustingly revolutionary, but creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are building on a tradition of god-mocking that is as old as belief itself, Josiah Hesse reveals in his pop-history of religious satire. From Chaucer and Voltaire to Kevin Smith and Bill Maher, comedians have…
See also: – Flobots, The Circle In the Square: Jonny 5’s track-by-track breakdown of the new album – Remembering Sandy Widener Sometimes Denver can feel like a very hip Mayberry. While waiting to meet the founding members of Flobots at the Denver Bike Cafe, I ran into Jason Heller –…
At this time last year, tents were already lined up outside the Sports Authority store at 10th and Broadway in anticipation of Sniagrab, the annual sale getting underway the Saturday prior to Labor Day. But that was before Occupy Denver popped up four blocks north on Broadway, and before the…
Charlie Palmer, the celebrated New York-based chef and restaurateur who owns and operates dozens of restaurants across the country, will close Charlie Palmer’s District Tavern and Wazee Wood-Fire Pizza at the end of dinner service — less than a year after he first rolled into Denver. Did he misjudge the…
The City of Aurora is conducting a survey through August 31, asking people what should be done with the Aurora Century 16, the theater where twelve people died when a gunman opened fire during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises; the results will be shared with Cinemark, owner…
John Elway has plenty of fans. But two of them could soon rival Number 7 on the Colorado celebrity scale. When they met with the local press to discuss The Book of Mormon , creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said that if there was anyone they wanted to see…
Aaron Bennett, the exec chef of Boulder’s Bácaro Venetian Taverna, is the focus of this week’s Chef and Tell interview, and some of his comments already have readers simmering. The one that seems to be causing the most consternation? Bennett’s list of pet peeves: “People who come into a restaurant…
Colorado is full of creative people — and some of them even earn a living being creative! In “Five coveted Colorado music-industry jobs” on our Backbeat blog, Samantha Alviani profiled a quintet of people doing everything from repairing guitars to marketing musicians…
Update below: Jesse Morreale has been spending a lot of time in meetings with the city recently, ever since the First Avenue Hotel, home of El Diablo and Sketch, was red-tagged on July 10. After a hearing before the Board of Appeals last week, he was able to reopen the…
And the wait is over. On September 6, we’ll publish the first review by our new Cafe critic: Gretchen Kurtz, the latest in a list of distinguished Westword restaurant reviewers that stretches back three decades and includes Laura Shunk, Jason Sheehan, Kyle Wagner and John Kessler…
And the countdown begins. In May, the Department of Public Works began installing parking meter sensors at 497 of the 5,900 Smart Meters currently in operation in Denver. Preliminary sensor testing started on June 1 as part of a ninety-day pilot program to determine just how smart those Smart Meters…
No good deed goes unpunished. While we’ve been looking for a new restaurant reviewer, Jenn Wohletz has been lending a hand, writing full-length pieces that play off her “Jenn in Chains” posts on Cafe Society. Last week, for example, she took on the British Bulldog, one of nineteen links in…
Thank God! After all the anticipation, we were worried that The Book of Mormon — written by hometown boys Matt Stone and Trey Parker — wouldn’t live up to the hype, and we’d be disappointed by their Broadway show on this first stop on its road tour. But Mormon is…
Stories on urban planning rarely inspire heated discussion, but Alan Prendergast’s “Trouble in the Rubble,” which details how a University of Colorado student filed an application to get historic landmark designation for the old Gates Rubber buildings, is a definite exception…
Metro started classes yesterday, with a new name — Metropolitan State University of Denver — as well as new buildings (including a hotel filled with art by Metro students, faculty and alums), new programs and a controversial new tuition structure for undocumented students. That Metro move earned the school a…
Nanny state or manny state? It looks like Elevation Beer Company in Poncha Springs might be able to go with its first-choice name for the smoked dopplebock it’s making this fall for Pints for Prostates, a non-profit organization that raises money to help fight prostate cancer, after all. The name?…
How will Denver’s ban of all outdoor advertising for medical marijuana businesses — approved last night in a quick, unanimous vote by Denver City council members — be enforced? A note sent to councilmembers last week by Tom Downey, head of the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, gives some…
Metro started classes yesterday, with a big new name — Metropolitan State University of Denver — as well as new buildings (including a hotel filled with art by Metro students, faculty and alumnae) and new programs. But the recent death of musician/composer Marvin Hamlisch brought a blast from the past…
Denver City Council had an action-packed agenda last night, giving final approval on a ban for any outdoor advertising for medical marijuana dispensaries, voting any police-brutality pay-out, and giving the go-ahead to put a measure to de-Bruce Denver on this November’s ballot — exactly twenty years after Colorado voters passed…
Le Grand Bistro & Oyster Bar was just a few months old last September, but owner Robert Thompson somehow found the time and energy to be a part of Dish 2011 — our first outside dining event (after seventeen years inside!), and also the first one for which Cafe Society…
Mayor Michael Hancock held his second “Cabinet in the Community” town-hall meeting Saturday morning at the transformed Rude Recreation Center in west Denver — a physical manifestation of his campaign promise to “reconnect people to their government.” Even if there were more government representatives than there were community people at…
Are Denver diners — including Jenn Wohletz — hicks to eat cream-cheese and crab wontons? That’s what VonBlancoLA suggested when he agreed with Denver Doughboy. And at this point, the discussion has gone far beyond wontons….Here’s VonBlancoLA’s take: I’m a Californian Refugee and I must admit, after four years here…
