How to celebrate Cinco de Mayo: Shut up

A lot of people in America don’t know much about Cinco de Mayo. One popular perception, for example, is that it’s Mexico’s Independence Day; in fact it’s not — that would be September 16 — so it’s no surprise that, when we’re celebrating Cinco de Mayo, many of us have…

Your complete guide to Free Comic Book Day

Free Comic Book Day is going down this Saturday, and for many people around town, that means venturing into a comic book store for the first time. We understand that can be a terrifying experience, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered: If you happen to run into a trademark…

Denver Bronco Lance Ball loves the children

Denver Broncos Running Back Lance Ball held court (field?) at St. Elizabeth’s School yesterday for a charity event that happened to coincide with Teacher’s Appreciation Day. The children slithered all over him in that adorable, no-boundary-having way that kids do, and he absolutely loved it…

Pow Wow!

In the 1920s, the Denver Art Museum became one of the first art institutions in the world to collect American Indian material not be-cause of some historic or scientific interest, but because of its undeniable aesthetic qualities. Nearly ninety years later, the DAM has one of the largest and most…

Book of Life

These days, Judy Anderson is best known for her good work as director of PlatteForum, the nonprofit in the Central Platte Valley that pairs resident artist-mentors with at-risk kids for a start-to-finish exhibition experience. A talented artist in her own right, with a strong background in education and design, Anderson…

Doing Donuts

When Superior Donuts director Bruce Sevy, associate arts director at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, first saw the play at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, he wondered if it was too particular to the Windy City to translate. It is, after all, heavily steeped in one of the…

A Good, Hard Look

What’s the deal with hard-edge painting, anyway? As Plus Gallery’s Ivar Zeile notes, “Some people take it for granted. They look at it and say, ‘How hard can that be? Where is the relationship to life and philosophy?’” Maybe so. But if you take one good, hard-edged look at the…

The Ginsberg Beat

If you ask Naropa-schooled Austin performance artist Teresa Harrison, she’ll say that Allen Ginsberg’s groundbreaking mid-century epic poem Howl — recently in the public eye as the inspiration for last year’s film docudrama of the same name with James Franco as Ginsberg — fits modern times as handily as it…

Beat of the Drum

This year, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theatre will celebrate forty years of existence — which makes it the perfect time for the annual DanceAfrica nationwide cultural celebration to hit Denver. “DanceAfrica originated in Brooklyn,” explains the Cleo Parker’s Mary Hart, “but this is the first time it’s been done…

The Princess of Montpensier deals in corrupted love and pointless war

The finest Western you’ll see this year is set in aristocratic sixteenth-century France, in the heat of counter-Reformation. In The Princess of Montpensier, Mélanie Thierry’s father barters her for the titular title, marrying her off to Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet’s shy, pained prince — instead of her heart’s first choice, Gaspard Ulliel’s…

An Open Book

Forty years ago, ten Park Hill residents looking for like-minded literature lovers put their heads together and founded the Park Hill Community Bookstore, a non-profit business that has both sustained and been sustained by that community since 1971. “Seven women and three men signed the original articles of incorporation, and…

Cinco Swim

Denver’s Cinco de Mayo celebration is one of the biggest — if not the biggest — in the country, maybe the world (but then, the holiday is not that big a deal in Mexico). That’s the claim, at least, of NEWSED, the community-development nonprofit that runs the festival in Civic…

Up In the Air

Flying has become as important a form of travel as its grounded, four-wheeled counterpart, as well as an integral part of the global economy. That’s what Greg Lindsay and John D. Kasarda focus on in their new book, Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next. “I wanted to write a book…

All Downhill From Here

“Closing day is always bittersweet, particularly when we’re marking the end of a season as awesome as this one,” says Loveland spokesman John Sellers. The ski area got more than 500 inches of snow this season, including spring dumps that have left Loveland with its best closing-day conditions in a…

Southern (Vampire) Belle

Since she was conceived in the brain of mystery/modern paranormal novelist Charlaine Harris, Sookie Stackhouse has appeared in eleven Southern Vampire novels (the most recent, Dead Reckoning, has just been released) and has been the main character in HBO’s runaway hit True Blood, which caused none other than Snoop Dogg…

On The Ball

Balls — and the sports built around them — are key to understanding different cultures, argues Denver-based sportswriter Josh Chetwynd. And a trip to a London park to toss around a baseball with his son helped get the ball rolling on his new book, The Secret History of Balls. “We…

Comic Freedom

Free Comic Book Day is quite possibly the greatest day of the year for comic book aficionados. That’s partly because all you need do to score free books is hit up a participating retailer, but it’s also because the day shines a light on an often underappreciated storytelling medium. Started…

Have A Blast

Back in the ’70s, Walt Disney made an educational cartoon about venereal disease called VD Attack Plan. In the flick, gonorrhea and syphilis “germs” are soldiers who want to invade your body — and that’s not the only fun fact you’ll learn at Blast From the Past Film Night, a…