Bling for a Cause

For Stephanie Shearer of Pandora Jewelry, a birthday party just wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t also a fundraiser for a great cause. Pandora, the long-lived anchor of the little retail/restaurant enclave on the 200 block of East 13th Avenue, turns seventeen this week, and to celebrate, Shearer and…

Street Chic

You know the scene in Lady and the Tramp where it’s just two dogs in love in an alley, with the moonlight and a plate of spaghetti? Alleys do have a certain charm, and, as in the case of local designer Trisha Hoke, they can be downright inspirational. Hoke’s latest…

Looking Good in Lyons

The 7th annual Lyons Outdoor Games, which kicks off today, includes kayaking events in the Lyons Whitewater Park, a skateboard contest at Kurt Carlson Skatepark, BMX racing and dirt jumping at Lyons Bike Park, fly-fishing clinics along the St. Vrain River, and dog competitions like Speed Retrieve and Canine Cannonball…

Yes, They Can

During the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the world saw Denver through the filter of the mainstream media. On the ground, though, was a crew of award-winning, Oscar-nominated filmmakers led by AJ Schnack, best known for his Kurt Cobain documentary, About a Son. The result is Convention, a new film that…

Hunter and the Hunted

The late Hunter S. Thompson, never a predictable character, surprised even his most ardent fans when he took up the cause of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman sentenced to life without parole after Denver police officer Bruce VanderJagt was killed in 1997 by her white-supremacist friend — after she had…

A Monster of a Show

It wasn’t easy, but I’m finally getting used to the idea of Broadway musicals based on comic movies. And vice versa, for that matter, but that’s another tale to tell. There was Hairspray. And The Producers and Spamalot and, lately, hysterical visions of Nathan Lane as Gomez Addams dancing in…

Play Time

Every starry-eyed playwright needs to start somewhere, and the Modern Muse Theatre Company’s “The Play’s the Thing” New Play Festival aims to be a stepping stone toward larger success. “When we started the company, we really believed in developing new work,” says spokesman Stephen Lavezza. “If the smaller theaters aren’t…

Flick Pick

In the days of Cannes, Sundance and even the Starz Denver Film Festival, the Breckenridge Film Festival is an anomaly. The fest has managed to retain a truly indie vibe throughout its thirty years of existence; this year, you can catch 51 different independent dramas, comedies, documentaries, short films and…

History for Hooligans

The 62nd annual FIBArk Whitewater Festival — “America’s Oldest and Boldest” — on the Arkansas River officially runs June 17 through 20, but head down early for today’s Yoga for Boaters session at the Yoga Tonic (8:30 a.m., 301 Oak Street, Salida) if you’re planning to participate in any of…

Opening Doors to the Outdoors

The Denver metro area has “a wealth of urban parks and outdoor recreation opportunities and “a world of outdoor adventure in all directions throughout the state,” says Bruce Ward, president of the Choose Outdoors board of directors and a spokesman for the third annual National Get Outdoors Day event at…

And the Beat Goes On

“The Kerouac School is not a lineage with a program, but a program with a lineage,” says Lisa Birman, director of the Summer Writing Program presented by the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. Co-founded by the late Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, the program is now…

Way to Grow

You don’t have to travel as far as Ouray or Crested Butte to enjoy Colorado’s spectacular wildflowers. In fact, you don’t have to go any further than Lookout Mountain Nature Center, 910 Colorow Road in Golden, where Jefferson County Open Space is hosting its annual Wildflower Festival from 10 a.m…

East Enders

Perhaps it’s a wee bit presumptuous for the members of Aurora’s East End Arts District to call their slice of town the “New Brooklyn.” But they’ve got the right idea picturing themselves as pioneers in a more affordable territory, and in order to understand what kind of scene is percolating…

Manning the Grill

Denver’s top chefs are playing with fire tonight at Elway’s Cherry Creek, the stamping ground for the second annual Hot Rocks Griller Challenge, a blowout bash and heated chef competition that benefits men’s programs through the Denver Health Foundation. “We created this event to raise awareness of men’s health issues,…

Hot Sounds at JazzFest

Since it began in 2006, JazzFest Denver has always been held in the winter. But this year, it moved to a warmer month and to a new venue: the outdoor amphitheater at City Hall. Festival founder Sterling Kamisky says he likes the venue because it has an open-air feel without…

Jamming on Old South Pearl

It’s Brewgrass time on Old South Pearl Street. This annual kick-ass bluegrass block party combines energetic guitar picking with dirty dancing, feasting and imbibing. The celebration, which rocks the 1200 block of South Pearl, kicks off at noon today with suds from fifteen breweries, numerous food booths and the Americana/rockabilly…

2010 World Cup: USA versus England

It’s been six decades since USA beat England 1-0 in one of the biggest upsets in the World Cup’s 80-year history. The teams haven’t met in the World Cup since that 1950 match in Brazil, so when they face off again at 12:30 p.m on Saturday, June 12, it’s bound…

Now Showing

Colorado & the West. This is the tenth summer in a row that David Cook Fine Art, the state’s premier purveyor of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century material, has presented a group show dedicated to historic Western art. This year’s version is anchored by more than two dozen oil paintings and watercolors…

Now Playing

Girls Only. The trouble with Girls Only, a two-woman evening of conversation, skits, singing, improvisation and audience participation, is that it’s so relentlessly nice. Creator-performers Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein have worked together for many years; at some point, they read their early diaries to each other and were transfixed…

OSS 117: Lost in Rio

In gleefully ripping on both classic spy movies and T&A-obsessed Frenchmen, OSS 117: Lost in Rio reasserts the primary definition of “burlesque”: broad parody rather than broads in pasties. Seemingly derivative of both James Bond and his groovy flip side, Austin Powers, the titular agent (played by Jean Dujardin) most…

Crude on the outside, sweet in the middle, Get Him to the Greek

There are myriad moments during Get Him to the Greek — the roller-coaster spinoff of Forgetting Sarah Marshall — when it feels as if the thing will jump the rails and smash to the ground in a thousand pieces of what-in-the-fuck. It’s a complete and utter mess, from the big-loud-dumb start…