In 2002, Alexandre Dumas — the long-dead author of The Three Musketeers — was moved from his eternal resting place in Villers Cotterets to the Pantheon in Paris. Three men dressed as his fictional protagonists (Athos, Porthos and Aramis) walked the casket from point A to point B in a…

If your DVR isn’t set for the X-Files, or if you’ve never watched a UFO program containing blurry photographs and retired Air Force colonels, then the UFOlympics is probably not your ideal weekend getaway. However, if the thought of little green men gets your blood pumping, then pack your tents…

Bits of scrap metal, pins, woven Tyvek, chopped paper maps, an unraveled sweater, recycled plastic, wool felt — this is the discarded and forgotten stuff of our times. However, any archeologist can tell you that this trash holds the key to how we live. It’s a smelly reflection of who…

Trouble scoring a ticket to this year’s Democratic National Convention? Although I can’t help you this time around, this weekend’s Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair will feature rare paper collectibles from around the country — including, yes, a ticket to the 1908 DNC. If you love collecting books, 400-year-old…

I think the world is going to shit. And not in that new-age, Nostradamus, Mayan-calendar doomsday-silliness sense — in the we fucked-ourselves-and-we’re-not-doing-anything-about-it sense. What pisses me off the most is that we had to sit back and watch eight years of a belligerent administration that hasn’t bothered to hide its…

Eddie Izzard’s heady and manic standup routines ramble like some Ritalin-popping offspring of a transvestite and my favorite Baileys-and-coffee-swilling professor. “Someone’s killed 100,000 people,” said Izzard in Dressed to Kill. “We’re almost going, ‘Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning. I can’t…

Thanks to eighteenth-century astronomer Charles Messier, amateur stargazing can be a marathon experience. Over the course of his life, Messier catalogued 110 deep-sky objects such as nebulae, galaxies and star clusters. “An amateur astronomer would really have to stay up from dusk till dawn to pull off the Messier Marathon,”…

“An uprising is the middle state between the disengaged stasis that we’re used to and those very powerful, well-organized social movements,” says author/columnist David Sirota. “And this current uprising is not going to dissipate. People are just too angry.” Tonight starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl…

“A professional football team practices and hones its skills, but when it comes to game time, nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen,” says No Holds Bard player Kate Kissingford. “Our approach to Shakespeare is kind of the same thing. There’s a sense of uncertainty that keeps spontaneity and electricity…

If you’re looking to get away to where sand tickles your feet and bronzed men and women strut around all well-muscled and half naked, then look no further than the AVP Crocs Slam Boulder. Starting today at 10 a.m. and continuing through Sunday at Folsom Field, 29th Street and Colorado…

After a year’s hiatus, the Fat Tire Classic is back with a weekend of mountain biking, live music and, of course, beer. “It’s not a race,” says media contact Rachel Hirt. “It’s just about getting up and riding the trails. We see that active people like to see their money…

If you feel more at home in cowboy boots than dress shoes, then rustle up your posse and mosey down to the Colorado Rifle Club and May Farms for a weekend of Wild West fun. Today starting at 8 a.m., the High Plains Showdown rides into Byers for four days…

After years working for Frommer’s Travel Guides, Eric Peterson decided to take a vacation from the strictly who, what, when and where of travel writing to try his hand at uncovering all those great things that fall between the cracks. From this simple premise, Ramble Colorado: A Wanderer’s Guide to…

Teacher’s Pet: I’m a People Person (Lies told in resumés and during job interviews) at Buntport Theater, 717 Lipan Street, is the latest installation in a monthly series that gives participating audience members five minutes on stage to do anything relating to that month’s theme — from singing to reading…

A few months ago, I witnessed multi-tasking in overdrive as a busy guy Rollerbladed, walked his dog and pushed a stroller — all while maintaining an animated conversation on his cell phone — without missing a step. I can’t even drive and change out my CD at the same time,…

There’s this little studio in Pittsburgh called the Mattress Factory. The least complicated but most interesting installation piece there is a black room minus the roof. As you watch the framed sky at dusk, the shifting colors are highlighted in a way most people never notice. An artist friend called…

Before being elected the first female president of Liberia, or serving as a World Bank economist, or getting exiled from her home country, or spending time in prison, or having her life threatened by then-Liberian president Charles Taylor, or receiving a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University, Ellen…

Even with the Judeo-Christian precedent of Creation in seven days, isn’t it arrogant to expect to “solve many of the world’s problems” in the same time span? That’s what was on the table when the Dalai Lama invited forty Western-thought leaders to the Himalayas for a week-long retreat. The resulting…

Ever wanted to donate to one of those really feel-good causes — but you spent all your money at the bar instead? Is rafting higher on your priorities list than helping starving kids in some Third World country? Today starting at 11 a.m., the Yagatta Regatta is your chance to…

Rarely do we stop to think how cool evolution actually is — particularly in the smallest sense. Sure, Earth as a whole is an amazing place, but it’s often those minute evolutionary quirks that allowed each creature to chisel out a unique niche. Whether it’s a hypersensitive eye or a…

Listen closely on the corner of 27th and Welton in Five Points: With a little imagination and the right kind of crazy, you might hear the ghostly improvisation of jazz legends such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. During the first half of the twentieth century,…

This year’s Democratic National Convention is going to tip our sunny, microbrew-buzzed cowtown right into the national spotlight. Just think: CNN and Fox News filming on the 16th Street Mall, or Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert sending their pseudo-reporters to La Bohème, or the History Channel rerunning Denver: 1908-2008. This…