What’s the funniest damn thing you’ve ever seen on television? The commercials. Specifically, the ones that aren’t trying to be funny, but try instead to sell you a load of crap in three easy payments — the Ginsu knives, slicing-dicing machines and spotless cleaning solutions of the late-night surf. The…
Yesterday Show and Tell introduced Wicked Wednesdays, our look at street style. And no, it’s not shorts in a snowstorm, or flip flops at a steakhouse. There’s a lot more to Denver style than that, and Mauricio Rocha plans to ferret out this city’s true fashionistas. But one reader wasn’t…
If there’s any jazz trumpeter out there who fully embraces Dizzy Gillespie’s legacy, it’s Jon Faddis. Gillespie was mentor and friend to Faddis, who closely emulated his idol through his sheer command of the trumpet and his ability to soar in the upper register. In 1987, Faddis played a primary…
Some of us are only just getting over the hangovers associated with our abuse of Irish stereotypes on St. Patrick’s Day, so it’s as good a time as any to get an education in some real Irish culture and folklore from performance storyteller Clare Muireann Murphy. Originally from Dublin, Murphy…
Snowboarding has played a huge part in the fifty-year history of Breckenridge Resort, something the ski area plans to acknowledge this weekend with the Rockstar Throwback Throwdown. “Breck was the first major resort in Colorado to allow snowboarding, and in 1986 we had one of the first competition halfpipes anywhere,”…
Those who attended the initial Vaporize psychedelic music-and-art extravaganza two years ago have been asking Liz E11even, one of the event’s organizers, when the Sculpted Sound crew planned to throw the next one. “It was a mind-blowing experience for them,” she says, “which is what we hear about a lot…
Hey, classicists: Before you shake your heads and moan about tonight’s concert, The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses, in Boettcher Hall, consider how many seats will be filled by people who’ve never been in an orchestra concert hall before. So what if some of those people will be…
You’re in luck if you’re looking for an evening of animation, hilarity and mind-blowing 3-D video: It’s Noah Ray McMahan’s birthday, and the Beauty Bar maven is taking the party public with a two-night run of Spike and Mike’s Sick & Twisted Animation Festival, which starts around 8:30 p.m. tonight…
It’s a trick to write a funny book that’s truly funny; it’s even more of one to write a comic novel. Christopher Moore has mastered both, bringing well-wrought characters and situations together in an equally well-spun tale that dips below the surface of life in a string of hilarious, cult-enticing…
Marc Maron has been writing and doing standup comedy for more than fifteen years, but it’s his popular twice-weekly podcast, WTF With Marc Maron, that’s really allowed him to hone his brand of neurotic-comedy chops. The podcast, which boasts 160,000 listeners, is largely unscripted and has featured guests like Robin…
Spring sprung awfully early in the high country this year, but for the Keystone Slush Cup, that’s actually a good thing. “The Slush Cup is our annual pond-skimming contest, and it’s all about getting wet and having some fun in the sun,” says Keystone Resort spokeswoman Laura Parquette. “We encourage…
Although John Carter, Disney’s latest entree into sci-fi, is set to lose a record $200 million, it earns serious street cred from one name on its writing roster. With both a Pulitzer (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) and a Hugo Award (The Yiddish Policemen’s Union) under his belt,…
If deconstructing invisible dominant power structures is your idea of a good time, you’re not alone in Denver, where a well-knit network of activists brings creative flair to community organizing. Today, the best minds in local muck-racking launch the Art of Social Justice Conference, three days of information, liberation and…
If you want to speak at the Conference on World Affairs, which takes place on the CU Boulder campus today through Friday, it’s a good idea to write a well-regarded book, or to report on a controversial war, or to have a brilliant idea that influences popular culture, business, technology…
Ivar Zeile of Plus Gallery won’t even pretend to explain what’s going on in the mind of painter Xi Zhang, the Chinese-born, Denver-based phenom whose first solo show at Plus, 11 Ceremonies, opens tonight. “This our first opportunity with Xi to present something with a distinct focus on works that…
Since Bobby Fischer trounced Boris Spassky in 1972, examples of exhilarating chess drama have been few and far between — at least in the United States. But the stage version might prove the exception: Chess, A Musical, presented by the Arvada Center, reinterprets the game of kings in a way…
More than fifty years after On the Road was released, Jack Kerouac still has a lot of local followers, in part because some of the novel was set in Denver. That makes Ed Ruscha: On the Road, at the Denver Art Museum, a must-see show for many. For this body…
Look out! You may be the next fashionista spotted on the streets of Denver. On a recent trip downtown, we found two individuals whose eye for assembling an outfit deserved special attention:…
Leigh Cabell says the reason she put off trying to be an artist for so long is that she, like other people, was intimidated by the challenge of making it. “It’s one of those things you want to do, but you’re not sure you’ll be good at,” she explains. So,…
Rapper, author, philosopher, activist, community organizer — those are just some of the many hats that Molina Speaks wears on a daily basis. But for tomorrow night’s interactive event, Future of Human Touch, he is an experiment facilitator. And what is the experiment, exactly? “In a very safe way, people…
“People are always coming up to us and asking, ‘Is this for real?’ And we tell them it is for real: we are playing Quidditch,” says Sven Ceelen, one of Denver’s biggest enthusiasts of a sport that was, up until a few years ago, confined to the fictional pages of…
The National Theatre Conservatory — a training ground for young actors, and one of the jewels of the Denver Performing Arts Complex — is closing its doors after more than 25 years. As a parting gift, the last crop of graduating students will offer showcase performances of Fahrenheit 451, which…
