THURS, 4/28 The off-Broadway satire Newsical is coming, and it’s going to be a bona fide celebrity shish kebab. The rowdy roast skewers household headliners such as Anna Nicole and Jacko while also sinking its fangs into any fresh tabloid fodder that slinks across the front page. “We poke fun…
MON, 5/2 Bush bashers refer to the powerful triumvirate of George W., Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney as the real “Axis of Evil.” In her best-selling book, Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species, Laura Flanders regards the women in and around the White House as an equally diabolical force. Combining…
After waking up on the floor of a weight room in a CU-Boulder fraternity house last week, covered in permanent marker and with a black eye, two broken ribs and a sore asshole, What’s So Funny was understandably confused. The portion of Funny’s memory that might be able to account…
THURS, 4/21 Dale Chihuly looks like a man of the earth, with his dashing eye patch, wild hair and blue-collar demeanor, so it’s not always easy to connect him with the torrid, delicate hand-blown fantasy worlds he creates from sand and fire. Chihuly could be called the swashbuckler of glass,…
SAT, 4/23 The post-war brainchild of contractor-turned-designer Edward Hawkins, Englewood’s Arapahoe Acres neighborhood has seemingly existed in its own little world for more than half a century, the 124 unique homes hidden enough to remain unknown to most Denverites, yet considered by many to be jewels of mid-century architecture. You…
So it would appear, dear readers, that you owe What’s So Funny an apology. That’s right, you owe us an apology, and not the other way around, like that time when we got all fired up from watching Deadwood and let loose with a rambling string of “cocksuckers” long enough…
FRI, 4/15 The seventeen-year- old Frequent Flyers aerial dance troupe will go bottoms-up tonight in Dairy Air, its spring production. “Everyone has some sort of desire to experience flight,” says the company’s artistic director, Nancy E. Smith. “This show continues the tradition, giving these amazing dancers a chance to flex…
THURS, 4/14 Adventurous gallery curator Simon Zalkind of the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture will throw Denver an aesthetic curveball tonight with Whispers of Contradiction, a site-specific, collaborative electronic-art installation created by multimedia artist Brian DeLevie of the University of Colorado at Denver and local quantum physicist D.S. Oakley…
“I’m actually surprisingly calm, which makes me nervous,” says Ginger White, consultant to the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and project coordinator for the inaugural Doors Open Denver, a free public event showcasing Denver’s best architecture on Saturday, April 16, and Sunday, April 17. Though White’s responsibilities are many –…
At their last performance, the band was billed as “Flowbots” on Herman’s Hideaway’s marquee, but if this high-energy rap act keeps stealing the thunder from the headliners like it did that night, the Flobots shouldn’t have that problem again any time soon. After existing for years as a sort of…
Look, we all know it’s going to happen. Pretending that it won’t isn’t going to make it go away. And shrieking hostile racist threats whenever anyone brings it up isn’t helping, either. You’ve really got to stop doing that. Whether we like it or not, Denver Public Schools superintendent Jerry…
SAT, 4/9 The initial run of the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway could have been monumentally disastrous. Utilizing a “cog” or “rack” railway system that was relatively new at the time — outside of a few steep tracks in Switzerland, there were not many such railways in existence — designers…
SAT, 4/9 What’s worse than a cheap cigar? A cheap dildo. Thankfully, you won’t find any of those at Hysteria, a new “feminist, progressive, sex-positive boutique” that opens at 11 a.m. today at 114 South Broadway. Wife-and-husband team Elizabeth Hauptman and Pete Yribia modeled their shop after the internationally known…
Some believe that Cuba is the birthplace of salsa dance and music, but neither is exclusively Cuban. Instead, most agree that the style is really a combination of many Latin and Afro-Caribbean dances and rhythms. As for the actual term, Salsa Central Denver founder Malina Farias credits the great Tito…
Growing up, most kids played some variation of Butt Ball. Though decidedly gay-porno-sounding in retrospect, the game was pretty innocent, even if it did fixate on players’ asses. Not sexually, though: The goal was simply to inflict the most pain possible. It was fun, people. Damned fun. Kids would gather…
A promotional postcard for this year’s Starz Denver Pan African Film Festival features a thuggish-looking white boy with headphones around his neck. Clad head to toe in hip-hop garb, he is a sign of the urban style that is ubiquitous not only in high schools, shopping malls and playgrounds across…
THURS, 3/31 Imagine, if you will, a sardonic tale of a maniacal cowboy prospector who, with the help of a greedy group of financiers, senators and businessmen, conspires to overturn an entire village in his crazed obsession for oil. Sound familiar? Well, believe it or not, there’s not a single…
FRI, 4/1 In this season of puckless hockey and spotty snow, the good hosers to our north are helping fill the void with the Radical Reels Film Tour, a spinoff of the Banff Mountain Film Festival that is dedicated specifically to adrenaline-sports cinema. Five years ago, the decades-old BMFF found…
TUES, 4/5 Ask any kid on the street who Charlie Chaplin was, and you’ll probably get a blank stare or, at the very least, a snicker about that retarded dude with the weird mustache and big feet. It’s just a fact of nature: The little guy on the flickering screen…
In academia, the rule has always been “publish or perish.” Or, if your name is Ward Churchill, publish — then perish. Institutions of higher education wish to appear as esteemed as possible in the public eye, so they demand results from the people they employ. You want tenure, professors? Then…
MON, 3/28 “‘Inchworm,’ 1998 — computers, aluminum, software, electronics, motors, 6 feet, autonomously mobile.” “‘I Like To Watch,’ 2000 — steel, aluminum, wood, electronics, motors, 9 x 8 x 8 feet, operating envelope.” Looking over the descriptions of some of Alan Rath’s “Robots” sculptures, it’s hard to tell whether you’re…
FRI, 3/25 You think you really know a place; then you get an aerial view of it, and your understanding increases tenfold. I’ve always considered myself an expert on Denver, but on a recent flight from Denver International Aiport, the plane took off toward the east and then looped back…
