There’s nothing good about jury duty — that fact is as universal as bad mother-in-laws and annoying teenagers. You wait in line with that stupid summons, file into the room, plop in an uncomfortable chair (if you’re lucky), think about lunch and discreetly fight for the armrest until your name…

Reaction to the first-ever Colorado Chocolate Festival has been so over-the-top that event organizer Dana Cain has already booked the Denver Merchandise Mart, 451 East 58th Avenue, through 2011. Starting tonight at 7 p.m. and continuing tomorrow at 10 a.m., the fest includes all things sweet and sinful for people…

“What the hell is a search engine?” might seem like a funny question today, but in late 1998, Charlie Ayers had no idea what he was getting into when he applied for the chef position at a small dot-com endeavor. Ten years later, the iconic Google has expanded exponentially, and…

What is it about Trevor Appleson’s new exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver that reminds me of Cormac McCarthy’s prose? Is it the intense quiet, the obsessive detail or the undercurrent of violence? Honestly, it’s probably a little bit of each. Edging out all background distraction with a large…

Polyester might not wrinkle like its natural-fabric cousins, but neither will this disco child get you laid. Well, actually, it won’t get rats laid. In Mary Roach’s new book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, you’ll learn about the Egyptian doctor who dressed vermin in little underpants for…

Some folks drive hybrids for the environment, while others sleep in trees, canvass neighborhoods and annoy you on your walk to work. Many tie newspapers in bundles and separate cans from bottles, and some even have a stinky compost pile. However, the easiest and most relaxing method of saving the…

As Barack Obama bids for a room in the White House, it’s hard to imagine that less than fifty years ago, blacks couldn’t even stay in the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. Legendary African-American blues singer Dinah Washington had something to say about that little fact in 1959: Instead of…

We drove an old faux-wood-paneled station wagon packed with six of us plus backpacks, tents and coolers. All for a music festival at the tip-top of Maine. Ironically, the craziest event on that trip had nothing to do with music, cramped quarters, camping, lighthouses or stopping for lobster rolls at…

The Annual Neruda Poetry Festival celebrates Chicano oral tradition and flor y canto (flower and song) — meaning a flowery, rhythmic style of reciting poetry. Each year, visiting artists define the individual mood of the festival; for this year, in particular, the late poet Raúl R. Salinas’s motto says it…

In club lingo, a “mash-up” is two or more seemingly dissimilar popular songs combined into a unified creation. “Bootie” is a double entendre, referring to the illegal nature of said pirated songs and what you shake when you hear them. Maybe this sounds too much like those tired rock/rap remixes…

If you took a bunch of Gary Buseys and locked them in a room with an equal number of typewriters, a buffet of psychedelics and an infinite amount of time, they probably wouldn’t re-create the works of Shakespeare. However, they’d have a damn good shot at nailing The House of…

There’s so much doom and gloom inherent in global warming. That’s why the second annual Global Warming Expo at the Boulder Theater is such a refreshing change of pace. “We’re bringing it all together,” says event coordinator Penny Berman. “We’ve got science and business, politics and music, dance and art…

Nerds are great. Not pocket-protector-sporting nerds, but those colorful little candies that are so addictive. Gobstoppers are good, too, but sometimes they require too much investment. When you need a variety of small satisfactions, you should definitely think Nerds. The Aspen ShortsFest took a similar smaller-is-better notion to heart: Beginning…

You have six minutes and forty seconds. Ready…set…go! Pecha Kucha Night (“chitchat” in Japanese) is a world-wide event that’s finally making its way to Denver. It’s like open-mike night meets variety show for creative folks of all stripes. But instead of just a microphone, you present twenty PowerPoint slides showcasing…

Take a multimedia tour through the jagged world of the deeply insane, exploring the aftermath of a broken mind’s civil war. In these twisted worlds, a jilted recluse keeps her wedding-day house untouched for thirty years — in case her fiancé finally shows up — and mad King George III…

The isolated community of Gee’s Bend is tucked away in a U-shaped curve of the Alabama River. Its inhabitants descend from slaves, many of whose relatives literally walked from North Carolina with their slave masters in the 1840s. However, from this history of strife, hatred and isolation grew world-famous quilts…

I once had a stupid dog that almost drowned every morning trying to get at those swimming kibbles in his water bowl. He used to tilt his head, crouch down and then plunge his snout into his water dish — always managing to smash his nose on the bottom. But…

The red carpet, paparazzi, an art show, funny awards, clever advertisements and really great wrap-it-up music: These are things you won’t find anywhere near a typical student film screening at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “Nobody wants to come to the student screenings,” says film student Tony Castle. “If…

It’s one of the most dangerous spots in the world — the only place where God gets sauced with the devil, where Indians inhabit Old West towns forgotten by Hollywood and drug routes are passed from father to son. In the Sierra Madre Mountains, just twenty miles south of the…

Brazilian performance artist Augusto Boal believes that standard theater divides people into a few who do and the many who watch. To Boal, this represents a model of the overall ruling structure in which monologue leads to oppression. In response, he wrote a book and set up a program called…

“My advice: Stay away from black holes,” says Dr. Phil Plait, aka the Bad Astronomer. While this may seem like a fairly sound piece of sci-fi wisdom that’s more suited for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy than Earth, even Arthur Dent never experienced anything that sucked him hopelessly in,…

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into town, the Denver Art Museum’s Untitled #18 (.gov) rehashes the DNC fervor. If you’re still riding that wave of political excitement, then make your way to the museum today at 6 p.m. for a slate of hands-on activities. This…