Shopping-mall North Poles have long been accused of harboring bad Christmas tidings: pinched hindquarters, peppermint-schnapps breath, bribery to skip the line and go straight to the lap. And that’s just the elves. But these days, it’s possible to apply the scientific method to such capitalistic weigh stations of our avarice…
THURS, 12/16 If I had an alter ego, she would be sporty. Very sporty. Extreme-sports sporty. I’d snowboard (very sporty for a Colorado native who’s never hit a slope). I’d parasail. I’d skydive. Hell, I’d be able to just play a game of softball without shrieking like a schoolgirl whenever…
SAT, 12/18 All aboard for the season’s first trip on the Ski Train, “a Denver tradition for generations,” as general manager Jim Bain points out. And since that first generation of Eskimos rode up to Winter Park — this city’s own ski resort — the train has grown some, too…
SAT, 12/18 Ever wonder what true cowboys do at Christmas? Well, then, grab your ten-gallon hat and git on down to A Chuckwagon Christmas at the Flying W Ranch (3330 Chuckwagon Road in Colorado Springs), where folks gather ’round a pot-bellied stove in the bunkhouse, eat off tin plates and…
FRI, 12/17 Most people are only familiar with the work of Greg Brown because of the impact it’s had on a wide variety of more mainstream artists. Carlos Santana and Willie Nelson, for example, scored a hit when they teamed up to cover Brown’s “They All Went to Mexico” in…
The man’s heavily accented voice hesitated only briefly before he confessed to multiple murders: “I want to apologize. I don’t know if even what I did was wrong or right, but when I was in Israel for six months, I killed six Arabs at night with a gang of other…
Events Denver Nuggets: Spend your New Years Eve with Carmelo or at least watching him dribble down the court and shooting against Philadelphia. 6 p.m. Pepsi Center, 1000 Chopper Pl., 303-830-8497, www.pepsicenter.com. Downtown Denvers New Years Eve: Fireworks choreographed to a rousing soundtrack explode over downtown at 9 p.m. and…
Over the past few decades, the contemporary-art world has gotten so vast that no single approach can characterize our era in the way that abstract expressionism represents the ’50s or pop art evokes the ’60s. Now, just about anything goes, as long as it isn’t of the Bob Ross/ Thomas…
Though Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) has been in its new digs since this past summer, the members have yet to figure out what to do with the new spot. I have an idea: Wheel some of those temporary walls into the generously sized storage area. Better yet,…
Anxiety and Desire. Clare Cornell, assistant professor of digital imaging at the Metropolitan State College of Denver, put together Anxiety and Desire, an exhibit of photo-based pieces that address psychological concepts. He included work from an array of artists from around the country, each working in their own ways, though…
You’re familiar, of course, with the old theatrical plot line in which the lead gets sick, the understudy is forced to go on in her place, and, after a hesitant start, the young woman wows the audience and becomes a star overnight. Something like that happened on the evening I…
The Shakers were a utopian, egalitarian religious group, originally an offshoot of the Quaker community in eighteenth-century England, whose adherents dedicated themselves to God by separating themselves from the world and giving up all worldly pleasures — including sex. Shakerism was brought to the United States by a young woman…
Beirut. In Alan Browne’s play, Beirut is the name given to New York’s East Village, where, in a futuristic dystopia, HIV-positive people are quarantined (the play doesn’t use the terms “AIDS” or “HIV,” but the references are clear). Outside of this area, the world has changed. Sex is forbidden on…
If you’ve already decided to see Ocean’s Twelve, it’s probably best not to read much about it. Unlike its predecessor, a remake that clung to a hoary heist formula, the sequel contains ample pleasures, most of which amuse as the result of surprises both great and small. There’s no one…
Mark Brian Smith and Tony Montana’s fascinating documentary Overnight is a kind of instructional video about how to fail in showbiz. Actually, that’s putting it too gently. It’s really about willful self-immolation, about letting raw ego and crazy delusion run amok, about driving friends and family into storms of rage…
Those familiar with the films of David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls) probably have one big question about his latest feature, Undertow: Is there more of a story this time? The answer isŠsort of. Green, who favors meditative, meandering portraits and is often compared to Terrence Malick…
They walk among us. They resemble people, approximate our words and actions, present themselves more or less as human. And yet they are more — a different species, with their own dark legends, their own clandestine meeting places. They are dorks, and they are going to be pretty okay with…
All right, all right. It’s well established that White Christmas (1954) wasn’t nearly as good as its model, Holiday Inn, and never will be. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen were more energetic and appealing in other musicals, where the plots weren’t so thin and the dancing was better. And,…
The folks who started the Denver Gay and Lesbian Community Band rechristened it the Mile High Freedom Band shortly after its debut in 1984, figuring the new name better captured the essence of what the band was all about: supporting open-minded diversity and raising community awareness through music. And now,…
Thursday, December 9 Just when you thought you’d been through every place in town, along comes a fresh holiday shopping ground. The Arvada Center Art Market Show and Sale kicks off tonight with an artist reception and first-pick event from 5 to 9 p.m. (admission is $5) and continues daily…
Any film geek worth his weight in black-framed glasses knows the joy of sitting in a dark theater listening to the whir of the projector. The sound of delicate celluloid shooting through that machine in the booth overhead echoes an earlier era, when cinematographers changed film in thick sacks, their…
SAT, 12/11 Next to Santa’s workshop, could any place on earth be more magical to a kid at Christmas time than the Hammond’s Candies factory? Located right here in Denver since Carl T. Hammond Sr. set up shop in 1920, Hammond’s is especially known (and nationally, at that) for its…
