Denver Life

This week, Denver residents have a rare opportunity to see the genesis and current pinnacle of the kaiju genre with showings of both the original 1954 Japanese classic Godzilla (at the Sie FilmCenter) and the brand-new iteration (screening pretty much everywhere else movie tickets are sold). The original is better…

Ian Kennedy’s eye for style is in his genes. His family was in the antiques business, and as a child he’d go to auctions with his grandparents, seeking out items for their Native American and vintage store. Though that spot closed long ago, Kennedy has revived it through Ruby +…

#83: Andy Berg Andy Berg sees painting as an inner calling, and offers no conceptual mumbo-jumbo when explaining what he does: He paints. His large abstract canvases are imbued with the mystery of invention and the creative process, and almost paint themselves — using Berg and his armory of brushes…

Lorenzo Baca’s tattoos are influenced by both his hometown of Albuquerque, and his tendency toward perfection. His work as an artist began with graffiti, then turned to an interest in tattoos. He has been tattooing professionally for eight years and currently works at Thick as Thieves Tattoo. Westword recently caught…

On April 26, eight University of Colorado Denver mechanical engineering seniors won first place in the hydrogen fuel cell category at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas competition in Houston, after designing and building a vehicle — named Archetype — that could go 1254 miles per gallon powered just by a hydrogen…

Summer is fast approaching, and that means metro Denver’s two big amusement parks are now open on weekends. But comparing the two can be a bumpy ride, as we discovered when Byron Graham wrote about his favorite, Elitch Gardens, while Bree Davies defended the charms of Lakeside Amusement Park –…

Forget its reputation: There is no way that Plan 9 from Outer Space is the worst movie ever made. I know this for a fact, because I have seen dozens, maybe as many as a hundred, movies that are much, much worse. It’s not even the worse movie in its…

It’s a common trope among people who grew up in Colorado to express their preference for Lakeside Amusement Park over Elitch Gardens. Which is fine, your preference is your preference, however misguided. What really rankles my ankles, however, is when snarky Denverites try to argue that Lakeside is better than Elitch’s. Unless they have a vastly different conception of what the word “better” means, Elitch Gardens is the superior theme park by every metric that matters. I’m utterly convinced that Lakeside defenders are either clouded by nostalgia for a pre-Elitch era or are possessed of the knee-jerk contrarianism Coloradans sometimes develop around tourist attractions. Now that I’ve sufficiently trolled a healthy portion of the Westword readership, allow me to explain why I prefer Elitch Gardens, which opened for the season last week with the debut of a brand new ride.

Once upon a time, like twenty years ago, Lakeside and Elitch’s were comparable amusement parks of the turn-of-the-last-century persuasion. Yes, prior to being ripped out by its north Denver roots at West 38th Avenue and Tennyson Street and tossed carelessly into the Platte River area by downtown and rebranded as…

#84: Joel Swanson Words and letters and the physical act of writing elegantly float through Joel Swanson’s world, where he explores and deconstructs their shapes and meanings in stylish installations. And he’s a busy man: Swanson started the year with a well-received solo at MCA Denver; now he’s off on…

Jason Boatman believes that dedication is one of the most important attributes of a good tattoo artist. Coincidentally, that’s the name of the shop that he owns with Sam Yamini, Andy Canino and Brian Thurow. Originally from Little Rock, Boatman has been tattooing for fourteen years and has been working…

Denver’s May the Fourth Be with You Star Wars celebration expanded to a three-day party this year, but Saturday’s blowout at City Hall was clearly the high point, with a sci-fi costume contest hosted by Andrew Novick that featured the spectacle of the masked marching band Itchy-O. Photographer Brandon Marshall…

Denver entrepreneur, MasterMind and fashionista Brandi Shigley has teamed up with transformational speaker and coach Sahar Pazirandeh to take the WordLove Tour from Denver to California this month. For this transformational and inspirational program, the two women are joining their passions and voices to encourage other people to find and…

Patrick and Mike Liberty, the brothers behind Denver-based Akomplice Clothing, have created a new line that’s a testament to their commitment to youth culture. Akomplice partnered with Original Kids from Brazil on a collaborative T-shirt series that provided children in foster care a chance not just to create, but potentially…

#85: Kristin Stransky There’s a new kind of alchemy happening in the art world, a creative compound where art and science merge. At the University of Denver, it’s called Emergent Digital Practices, and Kristin Stransky, who teaches there, is at the forefront of the movement, making stuff that wouldn’t have…

What started as a pile of wooden pallets is now in the process of becoming Colorado’s first major upcycling festival, set for October in Denver. With founder Kenny Fischer leading the way, Upcycle Events is currently raising funds for PalletFest, a festival showcasing the versatility of materials usually considered waste…

I thought I was done with Star Wars. I really did. While I can’t deny that Star Wars was my first geek love, as it was for nearly every kid of my generation, our relationship has been rocky for almost fifteen years now, since the release of The Phantom Menace…

May showers bring spring flowers, and that means a bouquet of fashion events to brighten your days. For animal lovers, there’s the annual Handbags to Hounds fashion show; for the fashion faithful, the La Rue Fashion Showcase. Here are seven of the top fashion events in Denver set for May…

While we may have those “300 days of sunshine” to brag about, Colorado is home to another weather cliché: the idea of “construction season.” Yes, no matter the time of year, it seems that all of our major roadways are being worked on simultaneously, from the mess that is forever…

Timbuk2, which made a name for itself with its bicycle messenger bags, is about to open its second retail location outside of its home base of San Francisco. The new store, which will open on May 3, is at 1411 Larimer Street, where it will join the line of specialty…

Shawn McDonald believes the art of tattooing is experiencing a renaissance. The industry has changed a lot since his childhood in Massachusetts, where tattooing was illegal until 2000. Now a prolific artist in the industry, McDonald has been tattooing professionally for thirteen years and currently works at American Standard Tattoo…