To call Free School Denver “grassroots” is almost too mild: Like a relic of the ’60s, DFS has no hierarchies. Formed in that nascent spirit of community education, the school offers all classes for free, and anyone can attend or teach one. Sessions tend to go down in private homes…
On Tuesday, artist Kyle Banister and a crew of Southwest Airlines employees and students from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design spent four hours creating a masterpiece. And just a few minutes later, it was gone. That very short life span is one of the challenges, as well…
At some point in all lives, we’ve all wanted to live in a tree house, but perhaps no one more so than tree house expert Pete Nelson, who will kick off this year’s Bonfils-Stanton lecture series at the Denver Botanic Gardens. “He’s extremely passionate about building tree houses,” says DBG…
Burro racing may sound like a silly sport, but its devotees are serious about it, and the one-hour documentary Haulin’ Ass explores that competitive drive by following three racers through the 2009 competitive season. “This is a little attempt at finding the true West and the lifestyles of the not…
It wasn’t long after former Westword staffer Joel Warner wrote about “Humor Professor” Peter McGraw (“The Nutty Professor,” August 26, 2010) that Warner went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Since then, he and McGraw have been traveling the world, trying to crack what they call…
In the age of Kindle, where is poetry? That’s one of many questions posed by e-Poetry: The Past, Present and Future of Electronic Poetry, a showcase and a laboratory for engaging works of digital literature. The exhibition includes multimedia installations and live readings from area poets, including e-Poetry co-curators Aaron…
Instead of choosing between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney this November, there’s another candidate you might want to consider: the Kinsey Sicks. The “dragapella beautyshop quartet” is running a fictional campaign on the Republican ticket and will be in Denver this weekend with a new show and album, Electile Dysfunction:…
This weekend’s Playa Bazaar-B-Q is a shopping extravaganza unlike similar events held at the Fusion Factory: It features vendors bringing “whatever they make,” says Meghan Woodhouse. “So we’ve got costumes, we’ve got artists bringing art, people doing jewelry, cupcakes, zombie dolls, fur costumes, hoops and fire toys and that kind…
The Street Rodders for Life car show began five years ago as a way for a few dozen gearheads to talk shop and show off their rides. It has since grown into a full-on contest celebrating a classic American pastime. Today, more than 400 cars, trucks and motorcycles, dating from…
There’s something different about the little neighborhood street festivals of summer: A communal block-party feel that connects people without overwhelming them. The Old South Gaylord Memorial Day Weekend Festival, going strong now for more than thirty years, represents all that and more, though what makes it work is really no…
Mountainfilm in Telluride enters its 34th year with the Moving Mountains Symposium on population growth, which will feature panels of scientists, filmmakers and experts who have experienced its effects firsthand. “There’s more programming than ever, spread across half a dozen venues,” says Mountainfilm executive director Peter Kenworthy, adding that the…
The opera Brundibar has a terrible yet inspirational past: Written in 1938 by Jewish composer Hans Krasa and librettist Adolf Hoffmeister, it was famously performed by children in the Theresienstadt concentration camp with a limited orchestra in 1943. On the surface a fairy tale about a brother and sister who…
Penelope Houston first made waves in the late ’70s as the frontwoman of the San Francisco punk band the Avengers (which reached its apex opening for the Sex Pistols at Winterland, at what was to be the seminal English punk band’s last gig), but after that two-year experiment, she spent…
Can’t you just picture this restaurant as a stop in some epic road-trip movie? Or maybe as the site of an awkwardly tense lunch scene in a Coen brothers film? A new website called Shoot Colorado is cataloging the state’s quirky attractions, sweeping vistas and abandoned ghost towns so that…
Though you can never truly count on the weather in Colorado, it’s been consistently warm out there for a while and the forecast calls for it to stay that way. Fortunately, the water park at Elitch Gardens will open May 26, just in time for Memorial Day fun. Here’s a…
Did you know Denver has more than 850 miles of paved off-road trails available to cyclists? This essentially means you don’t need to drive a car, ever. What’s better is that within our great city, Denver officials have declared certain roadways to be bike friendly — you’ll notice the bikes…
Artist Chuck Dorsey crouches down, cutting a letter out of tape on the wall of Certified Customs, a tattoo, piercing and barber shop on South Broadway. He’s wearing an old painter’s shirt, splotched with bright colors, and drops his knife in his bag to pick up a fistful of brushes…
At a preview yesterday for the upcoming Denver Chalk Art Festival, artist Kyle Banister got a reminder of what it means to be a chalk artist. At ten years, the festival may be long-lived — but the art it celebrates is ephemeral. Banister’s piece, which he worked on with Southwest…
Sarah Slater, founder of the Titwrench music festival, is a 2011 MasterMind award winner — and it looks like smarts run in the family. Because tonight, Sarah and her sister, Julie Slater, will host a special edition of Gorinto to celebrate Julie’s acceptance to college in Berlin, where she plans…
As the season starts to swelter, street fashion takes a more easy-going, laid-back approach. Yet for these individuals, that doesn’t mean compromising on style. Take a gander at this week’s subjects, who are creating their own looks…
It’s almost swimsuit season, and I was sporting a rocking case of “winter bush.” Ladies, we all know what that is: You wear jeans and heinie-hiding girl-brief panties all winter long, into early spring, and when you finally snap and look down at your privies in the shower, it looks…
It’s a brave proposition to start a new theater troupe, but Wit Theatre Company, an ensemble of eight that formed just a few months ago, is ready to put on its first show. Make that almost ready…
