Best Place to Get Your Geek On 2008 | Cafe Scientifique | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Place to Get Your Geek On

Cafe Scientifique

It's no big secret that the Front Range is one of the nerdiest places around: We boast one of the highest concentrations of science and research labs in the country. And what do all of those research geeks do when they aren't watching the latest Heroes episode? They flock to the Wynkoop's Mercantile Room for Cafe Scientifique, the wildly popular free gatherings organized each month by University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center professor J. John Cohen. Each Cafe Sci features a local expert tackling a different, ripped-from-the-headlines topic: for instance, Gwen Huitt, the doctor who treated infamous runaway tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker, discussing drug-resistant TB, or Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey describing the latest developments in DNA analysis. While the subjects may be heavy, Cohen ensures that discussions are always lively and user-friendly (all the beers thrown back help, too). Get there early if you want a seat: These nerds are a force to be reckoned with.

Best Place to Have a Panic Attack

Widespread Wednesdays Moon Time Bar & Grill

The Urban Dictionary defines a Spreadhead as "one who is a Widespread Panic fan, on an extreme level. Often characterized by smoking copious amounts of pot, eating caps, and dropping the occasional hit, and traveling through 3 states to attend a WSP concert." In other words, the type of folks you'll find at Moon Time on Wednesdays. Although we can't attest to the pot or the caps, we know that this crowd has a strong affinity for a certain band from Athens, Georgia. At Widespread Wednesdays, Spreadheads gather and trade stories about the group while listening to live Panic shows (a new one each week). After that, there's live entertainment from local musicians like Lake Effect, along with the chance to win prizes.

Best Place to Watch Girls Shakin' What Their Mamas Gave 'Em

Pink Elephant Room

Although burlesque is just now taking off across the country, women have been taking it off — artfully, theatrically, legally — in Denver for more than a decade. And now they have a great place to do so. The Pink Elephant Room features not only the most red-hot burlesque in the city, but also creative cocktails to pair with the tantalizing tease shows, courtesy of Anika Zappe, who spent years bartending before she got a place to call her own. Happy hour, when cocktails are discounted by two bucks, runs from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, but for some even happier hours, stick around for the Shimmy Shaker Show. It features an array of Denver's best burlesquers, including the lovely ladies of Burlesque As It Was plus Mr. Exotic World 2007, Charlie Champale, the Room's own boylesquer. Bottoms up!

Best Poetry Exchange

PotLatch Poetry

As Robert Frost once said, "To be a poet is a condition, not a profession." Poetry is traditionally underfunded, leaving poets poor as church mice yet still determined in their ongoing quest to emote in chiseled language. In everyday prose, that means they're a forgotten bunch, often with only each other to look to for recognition. To formalize — and further fuel — that rarefied poet's network, local cultural couple James and Jessica Belflower started PotLatch, an online alternative book exchange where poetic souls can give away or swap poetry journals, books, chapbooks and more, all with the click of a mouse. That's what we call rhyme with a reason.

Best Political Show

Weather Report
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

Sometimes shows that take on political topics have the character of earnest class projects in a high-school corridor, but that was hardly the case with Weather Report: Art and Climate Change, a mammoth show organized by curator and art theorist Lucy Lippard. It not only filled the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art to capacity, but spilled over to the Boulder Public Library and various other places. Lippard tapped some of the most famous environmental artists in the world along with Colorado artists of the same ilk. The resulting show was as provocative as it was beautiful.

Best PowerPoint Presentations for Hipsters

Pecha Kucha Night

Twenty slides, twenty seconds each: That's the challenge issued to creative types in this international phenomenon, wherein invited presenters may expound upon their private worlds, credos, outlooks or whatever in a visual quickie with strict restraints. Denver is a new spot on the Pecha Kucha map; watch for these structured slide jams quarterly at Buntport Theater. To prepare yourself, visit the P-K website.

Best Prologue

Erik Edborg
Moby Dick Unread
Buntport Theater Company

No other company in town matches Buntport's humor and inventiveness, and the group's take on Moby Dick was no exception. But perhaps the funniest bit occurred at the very beginning, when Erik Edborg re-enacted the entire leviathan of a novel using nothing but a red plastic fish and a round fishbowl.

Best Purveyor of Artsy Rock

Denver Art Rock Collectivewww.myspace.com/denverartrockcollective

The term "art rock" conjures up so many negative connotations that most groups influenced by the style tend to prefer the word "progressive." But the Denver Art Rock Collective, also known as D.A.R.C., is devoted to resurrecting the label, as well as the movement's often loopy spirit of adventure. D.A.R.C. promotes concert appearances by such members as New Ancient Astronauts, Yerkish, Amphibious Jones and the Inactivists; it also compiled recordings by the various acts on Denver Art Rock Collective Vol. 1, 2007, which embraced the most intriguing aspects of the genre while avoiding its excesses. Finding that balance is a real art.

Best Purveyor of Electro-Pop

Jen Pumo

Adding electronics to traditional songs isn't exactly new. Decades after the form's pioneers began experimenting with Moogs and other doodads, however, many musicians still find it difficult to use this technology in an expressive way. Not so Pumo, whose most recent disc, All Over the Moon, finds her and collaborator Graham Pearce using the inherent chilliness of electronic accoutrements to enhance the atmosphere of such compelling tracks as "Sandstone" and "Space Girl." For both her sound and her future, the sky's the limit.

Best Reason to Go to Boulder for a Show — Still

Fox Theatre

Brandon Marshall
It may seem redundant to continue heaping praise on the Fox Theatre year after year. After all, the venue hasn't undergone any major renovations in recent memory. But it doesn't need to, because the Fox is still the best place along the Front Range to see a show. The sound is flawless, the sightlines unobstructed, and the talent is as compelling, relevant and diverse as ever. Nothing's changed at the Fox — and that's a good thing.

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