Flick Pick

The first film in a new monthly series called Seeing Queerly, presented by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center of Colorado, will be No Secret Anymore — The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon. Directed by Joan E. Biren, the 57-minute documentary chronicles half a century of…

Making Book

I once actually put a moratorium on bringing books into the house. In all fairness to me, though, my boyfriend and I lived in a 300-square-foot apartment, and novellas and novels and short-story collections and true crime and biographies and classics were taking over every possible surface. Even the cat…

This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, January 15 At the recently renamed (+) Zeile/Judish, which is temporarily housed in the former Cordell Taylor Gallery space, at 2350 Lawrence Street, the new year takes on added meaning with a makeover that teams top gallery entrepreneurs Ivar Zeile and Ron Judish. They’ll make their inaugural statement by…

Serious Comic Books

Some would call comic books a guilty pleasure, a childish entertainment meant to be put away by mature adults (or at the very least, packed away neatly in sealed plastic bags as a bankable investment). And then there are those who can’t help themselves. They never quite leave behind that…

Haute Dogs

FRI, 1/16 Given enough time, I do believe that people eventually begin to look like their pets. I’ve seen it happen: English bulldogs marching their masters down the street, both of them with oddly sagging jowls; poodles with their hair and nails done, exactly matching their owners’ style. Honestly, it’s…

Ski-Haw!

TUES, 1/20 Expect to see lots of chaps worn over ski pants at today’s Cowboy Downhill. Steamboat’s thirtieth annual ski rodeo features more than one hundred professional rodeo cowboys from the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo that’s going on down in Denver. The free spectator event starts at 1:30…

Dream Time

FRI, 1/16 Why do we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day each year? Some would say it’s for the kids, for whom, especially, Dr. King’s vision still means something. That idea takes on a unique poignancy each year at the YMCA/Denver Nuggets Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, where young Denver-area…

Turning Point

TUES, 1/20 Mark Kurlansky has written books about the strangest things: cod, salt, Basque culture. But the one thing he’s constantly invested in all of them is a strong worldview — the social history of where such things came from and where they went. Though he’s focused on very singular…

Living a Legacy

FRI, 1/16 They say blood is thicker than water, and when it comes to The Duke Ellington Orchestra, the family lines are still flowing strong after more than 75 years. The pedigree is impressive. Edward “Duke” Kennedy Ellington led his illustrious orchestra to prominence in the 1920s through a series…

From Here to Modernity

Though he’d kept a low profile during the past ten years and only rarely exhibited his work during that period, longtime Denver artist Bill Joseph remained involved in the city’s art world until his death, on December 15. In fact, I ran into him in the company of his wife,…

Artbeat

The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder Street, 303-455-8999) is putting on Visions 2: Contemporary Colorado Photography, an impressive group show that takes a snapshot of the present state of contemporary fine-art photography in Colorado. As indicated by the title, this is the second such effort to have been organized…

Detecting Noir

McGuinn and Murry is a spoof of those ’40s detective movies in which the men wore fedoras and the women had gams. It’s a lighthearted, skimming take on the genre that’s neither cliche-ridden nor weighted by scholarship. The helium that keeps this smart, entertaining trifle aloft is Buntport Theater Company’s…

Caine Unable

Michael Caine is a revelation!” declares the Jeffrey Lyons quote currently appearing on ads for The Statement. Lyons is right, but not in the way you might expect. Indeed, Caine’s performance here is revelatory — who knew he could be this boring? Insufferable, yes — Oscar aside, his mangled “American”…

Adios, Hugo

In 1998, a passionate majority of Venezuelans elected a new president. His name was Hugo Chavez, and he was the first leader in generations to come from outside the ruling class. He vowed to redistribute Venezuela’s oil wealth and to involve the people intimately in the political process. Openly comparing…

Flick Pick

Be careful what you defrost this week. It might be Aunt Harriet’s scary Christmas fruitcake, buried in the depths of the freezer compartment since 1997. Or that leg of lamb you neglected to roast in ’93. Worse yet, it could be the gruesome alien predator that, once accidentally thawed, terrified…

Thom Yorke, Thom Yorke!

The last thing you’d expect from a stellar concert pianist, especially one on the level of Christopher O’Riley, is a rock concert. Riley, the winner of various prestigious awards, from a Van Cliburn to an Avery Fisher Career Grant, performs this weekend with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Scheduled to take…

This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, January 8 Nothing will put your life back into simple perspective more quickly than a long weekend at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities’ annual Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering, where Range Rovers still have four legs and a tail and run on grass and hay. It’s just…

CHAC It Up

At first it seems like a small thing: Out of nearly 200 artists nationwide whose work was chosen for inclusion in Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture and Education, an encyclopedic, comprehensive and absolutely gorgeous phone-book-sized pair of volumes put out by the Bilingual Press at Arizona State…

Moo U.

SAT, 1/10 The National Western Stock Show and Rodeo throws open the barn doors today for a two-week extravaganza showcasing bucking broncos, mutton bustin’, barrel riding, bull riding, calf wrestling, Wild West shows and fancy roping. The usual fun exhibits (the Colorado Elk Breeders Association! Mechanical bulls!) will be there,…

Jammin’

SAT, 1/10 Get ready for big-time excitement at tonight’s monster truck obstacle-course race at the Monster Jam, sponsored by the United States Hot Rod Association. “It’s really great, because it can be both entertaining and competitive,” says Monster Jam spokeswoman Kenna Conway. “These machines are huge, but they’re operating at…

Pajama Party

WED, 1/14 The media has romanticized the kiddie bedtime ritual. In the sitcom world, rosy-cheeked toddlers — clad in spotless PJs that actually fit — willingly slide between crisp sheets, lie still while their parents read them a brief story and then quickly drift off to dreamland. There are no…

Behind the Scenes

MON, 1/12 Who really knows, other than a sculptor, what goes on in a sculpture studio? It’s actually a loud, messy business — with machinery buzzing and dust flying — but it’s also an endeavor that undergoes many stages of evolution between drawing board and finished work. Most of us…