Beat icon William S. Burroughs (Bull Lee in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road) was a queer raconteur, a heroin addict, a world traveler, and the author of such brutally honest books as Junkie, Queer and, most notably, the game-changing Naked Lunch. He famously shot his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer, in…
Rocky Mountain National Park’s yearlong centennial celebration kicked off in September, but if you’re a stickler for details, today marks the park’s actual anniversary: One hundred years ago today, President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill designating national-park status to the area. In celebration, the park and the nearby towns of…
There’s an ingenious moment in Wolfgang Petersen’s 1995 film Outbreak, a disease-themed thriller that follows the Ebola-like Motaba virus as it overtakes a small Northern California town, when an infected man goes to a movie theater to enjoy a flick and coughs obnoxiously around everyone. The action pauses to follow…
Few filmmakers inspire more divergent reactions than Italian horror director Dario Argento, who started off his career in the late ’60s with Hitchcock-infused masterpieces like Four Flies on Grey Velvet, The Cat o’ Nine Tails and Deep Red, and eventually descended into overdone grotesqueries like his most recent films, Dracula…
The Denver Botanic Gardens has a permanent reminder of last year’s blockbuster Chihuly exhibit: “Colorado,” a piece by artist Dale Chihuly that was made possible through funds provided by donors Robert and Judi Newman and the Kemper family, and installed a few weeks ago. And now four more Coloradans have…
Everything in this world is alive. Nature lays a path from birth to death, one that’s impossible to predict. And now the final part of Patrick Mueller’s series, Salon Romantik: CREATION (re-creation), will bring his project full circle from its previous four performances, “exploring the romantic philosophy and ramifications into…
MCA Denver director Adam Lerner has promoted the idea that Mark Mothersbaugh — co-founder of the ’70s- and ’80s-era New Wave group Devo — is much more than simply a former rock star but is actually one of the major creative forces of our time. Lerner lays out this powerful…
Podcasts are in tune with the democratized spirit of Internet media; anyone with a microphone and a computer can offer their listeners unlimited hours of recordings, usually for free. Limited only by their imaginations, podcasters have a freedom of expression unrestricted by commerce, censorship or geography. Several great podcasts have blossomed in Denver’s flourishing arts community; here to celebrate them is Podcast Profiles, a new series documenting the efforts of local podcasters and spotlighting the peculiar personalities behind them.
Whiskey & Cigarettes is a podcast about podcasts, and much funnier than that glib description would advertise. Hosted by the local brain trust behind the Comics Against Civility comedy game show, Jake Becker, Zac Maas and Jake Browne. The podcast has evolved over the years. What began as an unfocused yet booze-soaked marathon of podcast clips and quips has sharpened into a more purposeful format boasting funnier episodes and attracting some high-profile guests. Be sure to join Browne and Maas at Spruce Tap House for the fan favorites round of Comics Against Civility, this Saturday, January 24th at 7:00pm.Westword caught up with the Whiskey & Cigarettes crew to discuss how the show has changed and their favorite guests.
“It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. It’s joyous, a little outrageous.” Edith Weiss is talking about 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, the play she’s directing that will open Friday January 23 at the Avenue Theater — and she knows all about funny: She made her living as…
To the untrained eye, Ari Shaffir would look like an overnight success. Hot off the heels of his latest 1 hour special Paid Regular, which aired January 16th on Comedy Central, Shaffir also has a new series, This Is Not Happening premiering on the 22nd. The taste-making network will also be distributing and showing reruns of Shaffir’s first hour Passive Aggressive. Despite the confluence of successes, Shaffir has been quietly plugging away at his act for years, generating web content like his video series “The Amazing Racist” and steadfastly recording the popular podcast The Skeptic Tank week after week in spite of his busy schedule. Shaffir is town this month to headline Comedy Works from the 28th-31st and starting off 2015 on a high note. Westword caught up with Shaffir to discuss his new special, offending audiences and his love of psilocybin mushrooms.
The runaway success of Logo TV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race has brought the subculture of drag performance into the spotlight, creating a global platform for the fabulous personalities who can blur gender lines into a fine and ferocious powder, polish their faces with it and then command a stage. The year…
Sexpot Comedy honored the Mile High City’s funniest people at the 2014 Denver Comedy Awards at 3 Kings Tavern on January 17. The big winner? Former Westword staffer Adam Cayton-Holland, who was honored not just as the Comic of the Year, but for his podcast, his website, the comedy festival…
I have lived and worked in over thirty spaces in Denver. Most of them have been in Five Points, City Park and Northside if you’re old school, Highland if you’re new. But notably, I was also involved in founding the third gallery on Santa Fe Drive back when it was…
Ten years ago, bilingual educator Kathy Escamilla noticed that schools weren’t tailoring education to the population of bilingual children who were entering the system. So she founded Literacy Squared, a research-based biliteracy program. “We created Literacy Squared specifically for kids who were coming to school with the potential of having…
Talent alone isn’t enough; Joe Miller believes practice and dedication are crucial to becoming a good artist. An Iowa native, Miller moved to Denver in 2003 after giving up a career in architecture; he’s been tattooing seriously for ten years. Today the owner of Old Larimer Street Tattoo, he also…
You hadn’t been able to smoke inside Paris on the Platte for several years now. But the cigarette-supporting coffeehouse was one of the last holdouts after the smoking ban went into effect in 2006 — its legal status as a “cigar bar” let the smoking indoors continue, until the spot…
The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore’s great misfortune isn’t that it replaces The Colbert Report, but that it premieres after Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. The Colbert Report was sui generis, and will likely remain so, because such a series makes leviathan demands on its host: crackerjack comedic skills,…
Hitoshi Matsumoto’s R100 takes its name from the Japanese rating system, which proceeds thusly: R15, safe for fifteen-year-olds; R18, safe for adults; and now Matsumoto’s invented category, which, depending on a centenarian’s ticker, could refer to either a calming montage of pigeons or a gonzo sex comedy. If you guessed…
Most of us can’t imagine having a disease that tugs and tears at the very threads of who we are. When we wake up in the middle of the night with outlandish fears, we strike reassuring bargains with ourselves: If I lose my sight, I’ll still have music. If I…
Brilliant. If you have any interest in modernism or fine craft — even if you aren’t particularly interested in jewelry — you’ll find something to marvel over at the Denver Art Museum’s winter blockbuster Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century. The show is a visual marathon, with so many things…
The Colorado history contained in the 26 miles of Colfax Avenue, the longest main street in America, is thick with truth and tall tales. You can read some of this history in the commercial signs that still exist on Colfax; we’ve already profiled the best commercial signs on West Colfax…
Fine-art photographer Michael Soluri was invited to step inside the world of NASA and apply his eye to a mission to repair the Hubble space telescope, and he published a book of those photographs — Infinite Worlds: The People and Places of Space Exploration. Sounds pretty amazing, right? You can…
