Clyfford Still Unveiled. A master and pioneer of mid-twentieth-century abstract expressionism, painter Clyfford Still was something of an eccentric in the artist-as-egomaniac stripe. His anti-social behavior led to a situation where 94 percent of his artworks remained together after he died — a staggeringly complete chronicle of his oeuvre that…
The Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088, www.spacegallery.org) is one of only a handful of spots in the Santa Fe Arts District that can be counted on to have exhibits worth seeing. For its first effort of the fall, Space director Michael Burnett has paired two interesting abstract solo…
For its first big extravaganza of the fall, the Denver Art Museum will unveil Artisans & Kings: Selected Treasures From the Louvre on October 5 in the Frederic C. Hamilton Building. Bringing the show to Denver was a smart move, as it’s guaranteed to have broad popular appeal. You don’t…
Anna in the Tropics. The setting is a small, Cuban-run cigar factory in Ybor City, Florida, at the turn of the last century. In those days, such factories employed lectors to read aloud to the workers. The lector in Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics has chosen Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. As he reads,…
From everything I’ve heard about her, Wendy Wasserstein — who succumbed to cancer last year at the age of 55 — seems to have been one of the nicest people imaginable: funny, warm and kind. Still, her plays have always tended to leave me cold. So perhaps it’s a step…
Rachel Corrie has been a lightning rod for controversy since her death in Gaza at the age of 23, when she was run over by an Israeli soldier while attempting to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. But Rachel Corrie was more than just a symbol; she was a…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week The Audrey Hepburn DVD Collection (Paramount) Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Collector’s Edition (Sony) Christmas Television Favorites (Warner Bros.) The Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour (Image) Criminal Minds: The Second Season (Paramount) Day Night Day Night (IFC) Entourage: Season Three, Part…
Caligula: Imperial Edition(Penthouse) (Spoiler alert: Fisting!) One day back in the swingin’ ’70s, somebody mentioned how “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and then Bob Guccione, Gore Vidal, Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren and Peter O’Toole said, “Let’s make a big-budget movie about that, with come shots.” And Caligula was born. Actually, Penthouse…
Billiards is one of the few sports that’s as taxing on a computer screen as it is in real life. It’s played in pubs, after all, and its legendary star was named “Fats.” Unfortunately, most virtual billiards games are behind the 8-ball in terms of quality, with poor physics and…
Had Israeli director Eytan Fox’s new film, about a passionate affair between two men on opposite sides of the Israeli-Arab conflict, been released in the early 1970s (when I was the same age as its twenty-something hipsters and living in Tel Aviv), the movie would have attracted a smattering of…
After Hair, Hairspray, and the mass marketing of tie-dye, can the ’60s be shrunk to fit any further? Yes, indeed, here comes Julie Taymor to run the revolutions of sex, class and race through the PG-13 sieve. Not that one turns to musicals for deep thought, but John Waters at…
To some, the story of Christopher Johnson McCandless, the 24-year-old Emory University graduate who starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness in the spring of 1992, will never be anything more than a case of a spoiled bourgeois brat with half-cocked survivalist fantasies (and possible suicidal tendencies) who ran away…
I’m going to show you a bunch of maps,” David Theobald tells the undergraduates packed into the small lecture hall. “Don’t get caught up writing down the numbers. I want you to get a couple of key points.” As a rule, maps and the numbers behind them are a matter…
“I think it’s been really disheartening,” says J. David McSwane about press coverage that’s swirled around the Rocky Mountain Collegian, the Colorado State University-based student newspaper he edits, since an opinion banner reading “FUCK BUSH” was printed in its September 21 edition. “As a journalist, I’m extremely frustrated.” He should…
Get well soon, Dr. Rocha. Just don’t come back. That’s probably the most civil way to characterize the sentiment among many faculty members at Metropolitan State College of Denver with regard to Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Rodolfo Rocha. School administrators hoped that Rocha, hired in the summer…
Dear Mexican: I’m a minority, and I know we can be overly sensitive sometimes, but I just can’t stand Carlos Mencia. Not only are his jokes asinine, but I feel they are actually racist. Whereas Dave Chappelle tried to make fun of society’s racist thoughts, Mencia seems to promote them…
“New Forecast,” Michael Roberts, September 20 Trick or Treat I found the “compassionate conservative” pet tricks cute, but I’d be more impressed if Dana Perino could teach the president to be open, honest and truthful.Gary TateCastle Rock “Fourplay,” Michael Roberts, September 27 Party On, Dude! Sitting here at Tokyo Joe’s…
For several years, my college roommate was Ben, a kid from Oakland who was a diehard A’s fan. Every fall when we got back to school, his beloved Athletics were already storming into the post-season, only to inevitably lose in the first round, usually to the Yankees. I would watch…
The $17.99 T-shirt features a historic photo depicting a well-armed Geronimo and a few friends above this slogan: “Homeland Security: Fighting terrorism since 1492.” It’s available at the Colorado History Museum gift shop — but only if you ask for it specifically, since the clerks are keeping the shirts in…
Every once in a while, asking a stupid question pays off. As evidence, consider the following Q&A with guitarist Simon Taylor-Davies of Klaxons, a buzzy British band profiled in Westword’s October 4 edition. In about half of the pieces about this particular STD and cohorts James Righton and Jamie Reynolds,…
This week’s feature about CSU geographer and public lands guru Dave Theobald arrives just as the Colorado Conservation Trust releases its third annual progress report on the state’s struggle to preserve its working farms and ranches, scenic and natural areas, and dwindling wildlife. And what a struggle it is. The…
Whereas it is pre-emptively acknowledged that all sports mascots lose their appeal to right-thinking adults who have not sustained head wounds, and; Whereas it has become widely known that we here in Denver play home to the absolutely worst carpet-covered, shit-and-Febreze-smelling, sorry excuse for a cheerleading, anthropomorphized cartoon fossil, and;…
