Arts & Culture

True story: The first two seasons of Sesame Street: Old School were released on DVD with a parental warning. Apparently the Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird’s imaginary friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus, aren’t politically correct enough for today’s children. With the PC police sanitizing entertainment into bland, creepy oblivion,…

You can’t really call yourself an American until you’ve traveled a stretch of U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway, the Main Street of America and the Mother Road). Established in 1926, the thoroughfare stretched from Los Angeles to Chicago and was a major path for Dust…

Whether he’s painting a world leader such as Gandhi or a fantastic character such as General Grievous, Delton Demarest’s iconoclastic work is always eye-catching, thought-provoking and full of subconscious emotional resonance. His unique style recalls elements of pop art, surrealism and those lurid black-velvet paintings found at flea markets. Demarest…

The surrealist movement spawned a host of recognized artists, but you might not have heard of Vilem Kriz. The Czech photographer had a host of roadblocks thrown in the path of his reputation, including a move to the United States, stormy gallery relations and a decade-plus period during which he…

It’s generally agreed that the Who’s Pete Townshend birthed the rock opera: If you’ve seen the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, you’ve seen that band perform “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” a sparkling 1966 trial-run-in-miniature that paved the way for Townshend’s major works, Tommy and Quadrophenia. After that,…

As a child, I once got as far as mouthing the syllables “Mark David Cha—” before my aunt Mary told me that no one was ever to mention that name. The egomaniacal lunatic who robbed the world of John Lennon on December 8, 1980, was never to be referred to…

Richard Kelly shoots the moon with his rich, strange, and very funny sci-fi social satire, Southland Tales. The political phantasmagoria unfolds in an alternately pre- and post-apocalyptic universe in which Abilene, Texas, was nuked on July 5, 2005. Since then, oil prices have spiked and an absurd German multinational has…

Jerry González was nineteen years old when he started playing with Dizzy Gillespie’s band. Not a bad gig for a guy just out of high school. González — who’s equally skilled on trumpet and congas — then went on to record and perform with Afro-Cuban giants Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri…

The following is addressed to girls only: Remember your first diary, the one with the key kept stashed in the underwear drawer, where all your tender, pre-pubescent secrets unfolded in private, away from the prying, super-egoist eyes of your mother and that nasty clique of eighth-graders who got to wear…

Badi Assad is a real 21st-century animal: A multi-tasker within a multi-tasker, she nimbly rips through difficult guitar runs while humming and tongue-clicking rhythms simultaneously. Oh, and did I mention that she sings, too? Beautifully? Assad, the little sister of famed classical guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad (and a Villa-Lobos…

What do you do after you lose a child? If you’re like Page and Tess Phillips, you make an attempt to ease the pain of other parents suffering through the illness of a child. When the Phillipses’ son, Cash, was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and spent the last…

According to filmmaker and actor Ash Christian, I am a fat girl. So is he. As explained in Christian’s debut film, Fat Girls, anyone can be a fat girl, regardless of gender or body mass index. A fat girl is anyone who doesn’t fit in, who’s too quirky for the…

Shortly after Matty Brenner moved to Denver from Los Angeles, something unfortunate happened: At a motorcycle race, one of the racers lost control of his cycle coming out of a turn. The bike hit an embankment and flew into the crowd, pinning Brenner, breaking his hip and fracturing his femur…

Music evokes history. Songs remind us of a time, a place, a moment. Songs like Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” can take us back to the dark days of segregation, and “We Shall Overcome” recalls Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream for equality and peace. Tonight at 7 p.m. at the…

Bob Holme had a fantasy in mind when he came up with the idea for the Ruby Hill Rail Yard. He pictured some kid tearing up the Winter X Games ten years from now who wouldn’t have otherwise had a chance to start snowboarding. “To me, that would be the…

Judging by the title of her latest book, Memo to the President Elect, Madeleine Albright, who’s in town for an appearance tonight, is under no illusions that George W. Bush will listen to a single thing she says. Instead, she’s pinning her hopes for the future of United States foreign…

I have mixed feelings about psychologist, science writer, historian, founder of the Skeptics Society and editor of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer. I respect his work: His numerous books and columns for Scientific American use reason and a touch of humor to refute everything from intelligent design to Holocaust deniers, and…

Jerry Wartgow, who served as the superintendent for Denver Public Schools from 2001 to 2005, considers himself an optimist when it comes to public education. He’s certainly not a blind one, though. In Why School Reform Is Failing and What We Need to Do About It: 10 Lessons From the…

Well, here’s a race that tells it like it is: The Frosty’s Frozen 5 is just what it says it is, and a bit more. Featuring both five- and ten-mile courses, the second leg of the Winter Distance Series will be run regardless of frigid and icy conditions, through the…

Phil Bender has raided your grandmother’s attic. Bender’s Last Place exhibit at the Laboratory of Arts and Ideas highlights the barely recyclable stuff of culture, including old potato mashers, nutcrackers, matchbooks, wooden tennis rackets and quilted hot pads. After excavating our cultural flea market, he catalogued these forgotten objects like…

Prepare yourself for the return of the dinosaurs, the most awesome creatures ever to have walked the Earth. Thanks to the tireless efforts of some of the world’s best engineers, designers and scientists, these prehistoric beasts have returned to life. Okay, it’s only animatronic “life,” but it’s still impressive —…