Personal Visions

Judy Hagler, owner of Translations Gallery in LoDo, has made a specialty of presenting contemporary work by artists active in the Western U.S. The venue’s new show, which opens tonight, pairs an Arizona artist with a Colorado one. The former is Sandhi Schimmel Gold, made up of portraits constructed from…

Get a Grip With the Yeti Betis

Ladies love dirt, too, and the mountain-bike racing Yeti Betis are out to prove it today with the first-ever Beti Bike Bash at Bear Creek Lake Park. “The Yeti Betis are all super-active in all aspects of racing,” says Beti spokeswoman Sarah Rawley. “We wanted to have an event that…

Heating Up With Salsa Wars

We Denverites have an unwavering affinity for Mexican food; we love our green chile more than our children, subsist on breakfast burritos rolled with scrambled eggs, potatoes and chorizo, and lap up bowls of salsa — the spicier, the better. And we argue – often heatedly — over our favorites…

Born to Be Mild

At one point in the not-so-distant past, riding a scooter was as much about tribalism as transportation. Affiliated with the mod and Brit-pop subcultures, Denver’s original scooter rally, Mile High Mayhem, was an annual gathering of that tribe. Resurrected last year, MHM is once again planning to bring together those…

This Man Is Your Man

Woody Guthrie’s impact on American culture hasn’t dimmed over the years – nor has his influence on popular music. In celebration of the legendary singer’s legacy, Swallow Hill Music Association is hosting the Woody Guthrie Festival: Weaving the Threads. In addition to performances by headliners Jay Farrar of Son Volt…

Dennis Hopper, Revisited

A major exhalation of grief rippled through the film world on the day that Dennis Hopper died, and it must have been because he was a rebel, a troubled one molded by the influence of classic anti-hero James Dean. On screen, he fascinated people, and it was a characteristically crooked…

Pretty Tough Guys

Now that Leonardo DiCaprio has been tapped to play J. Edgar Hoover in an upcoming biopic, America will be hearing a lot more about the controversial FBI director. Before that, though, the Theater Company of Lafayette is staging the satirical G-Men in G-Strings, a show comprising nine one-act plays that…

Planet Waves

Science and sci-fi collide in What If Earth Had Two Moons?: And Nine Other Thought-Provoking Speculations on the Solar System, a new book from University of Maine professor of physics and astronomy Neil Comins that theorizes about the possibility of life on an Earth thrown willy-nilly into physical scenarios other…

Graphic Talk

Book clubs don’t have to include stuffed shirts discussing “literature” or soccer moms fawning over Oprah’s latest selection. Just take the Koelbel Library’s Adult Graphic Novel Book Club as an example (by the way, that’s adult as in “for grownups,” not adult as in porn). Every 28 days, fans of…

Climb Every Mountain


Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carraba’s been touring in support of his band’s latest, Alter the Ending, and he’s taking that title literally: Today he’s asking his fans to hike to the top of Pikes Peak to join him at 14,110 feet for the Love Hope Strength Foundation’s Pikes Peak Rocks…

Green, Red and Funky

eTown has always had an environmental conscience: The long-running radio program, which airs performances and interviews by socially aware musicians recorded in front of a live audience, has focused on green issues from the get-go. And they’ll take that awareness even further with Green Rocks at Red Rocks, the annual…

Saving a Local Treasure

Michelle Barnes might be one of Denver’s best-kept secrets. Her illustrations have graced the pages of many a national magazine, and she’s led ongoing salons and art talks, kept a gallery newsletter and been an advocate for the arts community. But within the community she’s supported so well, she’s no…

Kids Helping Kids

At Camp Wapiyapi, a retreat near Estes Park offering respite for kids dealing with childhood cancer, ill children and their siblings don’t escape the toll their suffering takes so much as they learn that they’re not alone with it. They get to take a break from it all and have…

Show Your Colors

As if this month’s Biennial-driven Untitled happening at the Denver Art Museum (based on the doubly delicious theme of “Two” and celebrating diptychs, artistic duos, biennials and other things that come in twos) didn’t already have enough going on inside the museum, Denver’s fashion community is going to make unplanned…

You Are What You Eat

There’s no better way to describe Denver mover (and Westword MasterMind) Ashara Ekundayo than the way she does it herself: “I’m an artivist,” she proclaims. Her goal has always been to instigate change through a cultural lens, taking the sting out of race issues by blazing pathways of positivity through…

A Vampire Movie That Doesn’t Suck

Despite the tragic death earlier this year of star Corey Haim — not to mention a regrettable, never-should’ve-been-filmed sequel in 2008 — The Lost Boys remains one of the most enduring, rewatchable vampire movies of all time. The Two Coreys, Haim and Feldman, co-starred in the 1987 blockbuster, the story…

Crank It at Winter Park


As action sports go, downhill freeride mountain biking is about as gnarly as it gets. This weekend’s Crankworx Freeride Mountain Bike Series will combine guts, glory, gravity, grime, and some good old-fashioned gruesomeness as riders from around the globe battle their way through slalom, slopestyle, cross-country and downhill competitions on…

Flavor Savors in the Kitchen

There’s more to fresh food than eating it fresh, says author and speaker Eugenia Bone, who specializes in canning and preserving food as a way to keep the goodness going. “The kitchen ecosystem is an idea that you can apply to your kitchen that will help you understand why the…

South Pacific returns to its surprisingly raw roots

The songs from South Pacific are part of our daily diet. We hum them; we pray they don’t turn up in TV commercials; we endure bad renditions in a thousand amateur productions; and we occasionally stop to marvel that these melodies — “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Younger Than Springtime,” “This Nearly…

Opposites attract at Michael Burnett’s Space Gallery

There’s no question that Santa Fe Drive is the art district in Denver, and yet it’s also true that most of the galleries along the row leave something to be desired. To make matters worse, in the last year or so, the street essentially lost two of its flagships: Gallery…

Now Showing

Colorado Art Survey. Over the years, Kirkland Museum director Hugh Grant has relentlessly sought out and acquired new things for the institution’s permanent collection. In the current exhibit, Colorado Art Survey, he shows off some of these conquests and brings other things out of storage. There are some rarely seen…

Now Playing

Garage Sale Loud: This Is It. Almost every summer, the folks at Heritage Square stage what is essentially a musical review with a thin sustaining plot line and the word “loud” in the title. The conceit is that T.J. Mullin and Annie Dwyer are siblings, and they’re reliving their youth:…