On the Road

Better Block Project comes to Five Points: Don't fence us in!

The Better Block Project comes to Five Points tomorrow, when it will focus on sprucing up the block of Welton Street that's home to the legendary Sonny Lawson Park -- and its ballfield. Neighborhood groups have been meeting for over a year to discuss what to do with this parcel of land; at one of th ... More >>

Reader: I wasn't disappointed by On the Road

For fifty years, fans of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, an ecstatic recount of crossings and recrossings of North America in the late 1940s that provided a road map for the Beat generation, have been waiting for a movie of the book. Fans in Denver have a particularly interest: Muse Dean Moriarity was b ... More >>

In On the Road, Kerouac's classic becomes a fraud

Billie McBride channels Dorothy Parker in And Toto too's Pardon My Dust

Writer, critic and colorful Algonquin Round Table yakker Dorothy Parker was really born to be a character in a play; known in her heyday for her caustic tongue and running witticisms, she left behind a diverse body of work, from comic poems to Hollywood scripts. And her life story was epic, from her ... More >>

Top five picks for the Boulder International Film Festival from Kathy and Robin Beeck

The Boulder International Film Festival opens tonight with Muscle Shoals and continues through the weekend with three more days of independent cinema, symposiums and events featuring special guests from all over the world. It can be tricky to pick films from the festival's extensive schedule, so we ... More >>

10 things to do for $10 in Denver this weekend (9 free!), February 1-3

Did you pay your rent yet? Since it's the first of the month, we're celebrating tight pocketbooks everywhere by featuring nine events this weekend that are totally free. Whether you attend a Screw Your Resolutions party or sample the wide variety of First Friday art openings, there's plenty to do th ... More >>

Keeping the Beat

Sundance 2013: Sex with James Franco, sultry Scarlett Johansson and more

By Scott Foundas In his brief remarks before the first public screening of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford praised the Sundance Institute's ongoing filmmaker development labs as "our core," noting that the festival itself was conceived "to create an audience for the filmmakers in ou ... More >>

Lonesome Hero

Neal Cassady: The Denver Years gets in gear at 3 Kings tomorrow

Born and raised in Denver, Heather Dalton has long nurtured affection for one of the city's proudest cultural alumni: Neal Cassady, the larger-than-life literary macho-muse who inspired the character of Dean Moriarty, hero of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. For the past several years, Dalton, a musician ... More >>

Five Points community gets to the point at cultural potluck today

Jack Kerouac visited Five Points when it was at its most vibrant, when it was the heart not just of Denver's African American community, but of the entire Rocky Mountain West, when the Rossonian Hotel and other jazz clubs in the area were must-stops for black entertainers crossing the country. As Ke ... More >>

Sonny Lawson Park: Welcome to the neighborhood

For over a year, neighbors and stakeholders in the area just northeast of downtown -- the edge of the Ballpark neighborhood, Curtis Park, Five Points -- have been discussing how to improve this part of town. They've come up with some answers, and one big question: Why is Sonny Lawson Field, in the h ... More >>

Music legend David Amram on his creative process, why he loves the Colorado Symphony, and meeting Woody Guthrie

From collaborating with jazz legends to hanging out with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, David Amram has accumulated quite an impressive resume. He's written multiple books as well as musical pieces, and he's in Denver this week performing at a variety of events to celebrate the hundredth birthday of ... More >>

Reader: There are wonderful things happening on Larimer, few good things on Welton

The Rossonian Hotel turns 100 this year, and so far, there hasn't been much to celebrate. This former hotel in the very heart of Five Points, at the intersection of five streets in Denver's historic black neighborhood, was once filled with the sounds of the country's greatest jazz talent. Jack Kerou ... More >>

The Rossonian turns 100 in Five Points: Where's the party?

The Rossonian Hotel turns 100 this year, and so far, there hasn't been much to celebrate. This former hotel in the very heart of Five Points, at the intersection of five streets in Denver's historic black neighborhood, was once filled with the sounds of the country's greatest jazz talent. But the la ... More >>

Video: The art and mischief of Justin Simoni

Denver gonzo athlete Justin Simoni's singular achievement this summer in the Tour Divide, a 2745-mile mountain bike race that crosses the Continental Divide 39 times between Canada and Mexico, is the focus of this week's feature, "Going to Extremes." But cycling is only one of Simoni's multiple and ... More >>

In the world's toughest bike race, Justin Simoni rode from disaster to triumph

Also see: Video: Justin Simoni on what it takes to ride the 2,745-mile Tour Divide

Dan Fong's previously unpublished rock photos on display this Friday at the Gallery on Sante Fe

Generally, when you speak with someone with strong ties to rock history, you either get an earful of tedious name-dropping or you're forced to endure an exhaustive lecture about how kids today just don't get it. This is not the case with Dan Fong, the famed Denver rock photographer who has shot lege ... More >>

From Auraria's Archives: Allen Ginsberg's Postcards to Ed White

Before he restored landmarks like the Molly Brown House, Ninth Street Historic Park and Four Mile House Historic Park, and designed some landmarks of his own, architect Ed White was a student at Columbia, where he met many of the people who would become famous figures of the Beat generation, includi ... More >>

One Book, One Denver finally comes up with decent choices for next tome on the range

The ninth time's the charm. After years of serving up the literary equivalent of a Happy Meal for the One Book, One Denver program, the city finally has three great choices for 2012: Through June 22, you can vote for Denver, Enrique's Journey or The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan's book on the Dust B ... More >>

The urban-camping ban doesn't solve the Bumuda Triangle problem

Contemporary art with a Western edge fills Robischon

See more images from Appropriated: The Chronicled West

Photos: F*ck Yeah Colorado! celebrates the state you're in

For those not already in the know, allow us to introduce you to Fuck Yeah Colorado!, a tumblr site that celebrates Our Fair State's beauty and quirks with equal enthusiasm. Look below to count down ten shots that prompted us to declare, "Fuck Yeah Colorado!"

Road Warriors

Mile Highlights: Denver/Boulder area concert news, local radio playlists and top album sales

Here's what's hot this week in music on the Front Range: On the concert front, new shows featuring Cypress Hill, the Fray, Kaskade and Mojo Nixon were announced; Lola Black, Fresh Breath Committee and the Autumn Film got spins on local radio; and recent albums from Bruce Springsteen, Andrew Bird, Fu ... More >>

Natural philosophies link three solos at Space Gallery

Mile Highlights: Denver/Boulder area concert news, local radio playlists and top album sales

Here's what's hot this week in music on the Front Range: On the concert front, new shows featuring Girl Talk, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Battles, Bon Iver and Feist, LMFAO, Destroyer, Anders Osborne and Classix were announced; the Swayback, Coles Whalen and Strip the Stars got spins on local radio; ... More >>

Let Untitled take you on a road trip at the Denver Art Museum

It's always a good Friday when Untitled rolls into the Denver Art Museum: The monthly last-Friday series, which makes looking at art fun and proactively unboring, turns your museum visit upside-down from the moment you walk in the front door. Tonight's session, Untitled #44 (Road Trip), pays homage ... More >>

Ten things to do for $10 this weekend, February 3-5, 2012

The mounds of snow aside, there's plenty to do this weekend, whether or not you care about beefy dudes throwing a ball around. Yes, the Super Bowl is happening. But so are a bunch of equally exciting events that will happen despite the blizzard. We've got: A drunken spelling bee, a beatnik's birthda ... More >>

David Amram: "Playing jazz reminds me all the time of how important every note is, every person is, every situation is"

David Amram, who will perform at the Neal Cassady birthday tonight at the Mercury Cafe and tomorrow night at Dazzle, shared a close connection with Cassady, Jack Kerouac and other Beats, while also being a jazz musician who collaborated with Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Amra ... More >>

10 things to do for $10 this weekend, December 23-25, 2011

​All the cheesy commercials on television might make you think that everyone is at home baking cookies with their perfect families, but that's not the case! No, no, no. There is plenty to do outside of your home, all for less than $10. In fact, here are ten such events. Whether you have an idy ... More >>

Download John Common and Blinding Flashes of Light's just posted Daytrotter session

Johnnie Cluney​This past Friday, Daytotter.com posted the session John Common and Blinding Flashes of Light recorded at their studios in Rock Island, Illinois over the summer while the band was in the midst of its Midwest tour. If you're not already a member of Daytrotter, it's totally worth s ... More >>

Uni and Square set the street-art scene at UnseenDenver's fundraiser for Arts Street

Street art is usually a fly-by-night phenomena, one that the artists prefer no one -- especially the police -- witness. Just ask the Knapper twins, the subjects of this week's Westword cover story. But Denver has recently taken to the idea of live street-art events. And last Friday night, UnseenDenv ... More >>

One Book, One Denver goes to the dogs -- but why not take a bite of a Colorado book?

​When I equated the One Book, One Denver program with a McDonald's Happy Meal -- people-pleasing and easy to digest -- I didn't know that McDonald's had signed on to sponsor this year's celebration of reading, which will focus on The Art of Racing in the Rain. But hey, at least it's better th ... More >>

Street artist Theo on Banksy, Jack Kerouac and running from the cops

Theo's Kerouac stencil, looking pensive.​If he were around today, it's pretty certain that Neal Cassady, immortalized as Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, would appreciate what the street artist Theo has been up to lately. Cassady was a born rabble-rouser, after all, and in more way ... More >>

"Jack Was Here" graffiti pays stenciled homage to Kerouac

Jack Was Here: Showing you the places Jack Kerouac once was

Yes he was.​Jack Kerouac was here. He came here and wrote about it in On the Road, his most enduring work, and fell in love with Denver to the extent that, at one point, he actually bought a house in Lakewood. Yes, Kerouac was indeed here, but one thing that will not be here, apparently, is Fr ... More >>

Review: Willie Nelson at Red Rocks, 6/21/2011

​WILLIE NELSON at RED ROCKS | 06.21.11"While Willie Nelson is still a solid player and performer, seeing him these days is about nostalgia for a lot of people. These aren't the best versions of songs like "Crazy" and "Aint It Funny," but seeing Nelson up on stage performing them is as heartwar ... More >>

Today in Stoke: Sweetgrass Productions' Solitaire heads South for summer ski, snowboard action

​Solitaire, the new backcountry skiing and snowboarding film from Colorado-based Sweetgrass Productions and director Nick Waggoner, isn't scheduled for its Denver premiere until September 16 when the Fall flick frenzy gets into full swing. That hasn't stopped the company from dribbling out swe ... More >>

Snowsurf, noboard & backcountry magnificence from Sweetgrass Productions (VIDEO)

​There are, no doubt, saner ways to film the Cordillera Blanca of Peru than paragliding a few feet above jagged glaciers, vertiginous cliffs and freezing lakes, camera and breathing and life itself neatly suspended -- but that wouldn't be the path chosen by Sweetgrass Productions, a backcountr ... More >>

10 things to do for $10 this weekend, April 8-10, 2011

Evert BrownHungry? Why wait? Grab an edible book.​April is here, which means we've got weird weather that causes us to question what on earth we should be wearing at any given point. We blame April specifically for the jeans/flip-flops phenomenon that ruins our mental state on a yearly basis. ... More >>

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