O, Barnum! An ode to Denver’s least desirable neighborhood

If you happen to find yourself in Barnum and you don’t live there, chances are you’re lost. And not just because it’s not a neighborhood that lends itself to being found — find one of two streets that make their way down through the gulch, around the curve, back up…

The Corvo Brothers tell all tonight at Walker Fine Art

Nederland’s Corvo Brothers, a collaborative duo who co-create complex and surreal, carefully staged narrative photographs, take the art of Photoshopping to a whole new level. For their shared show with sculptor Jonathan Hils, Metamophosis, which opens tomorrow at Walker Fine Art, the brothers transform the strange territory of saponification, a…

In Stitches

Denver Arts Week and the grand opening of H&M will collide today at the Denver Pavilions in what’s definitely a big day for Denver’s legion of fashionistas. As the line grows in anticipation of H&M’s doors swinging open at noon, the waiting ranks will be treated to a live fashion…

Date Night

Can’t find a date for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Black Sheep Friday? Let MCA and Buntport Theater Company play matchmaker. The museum is looking for contestants for its version of The Dating Game: Win a Date With Buntport Theater. All you have to do is bring your A-game…

Playing With Wood

For the third annual Denver Lumberjack Party, organizer Kiki Nichols wanted to mix things up a bit. “This year, I wanted to use our powers for good,” she explains. “We won’t have a cover charge, and a portion of the bar tab will benefit the Denver Dumb Friends League. Lumberjacks…

Funk It Up

While some people might look askance at a klezmer-funk-hip-hop collaboration, world-renowned klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer sees the combination as completely logical. “Funk is the root of hip-hop,” he explains, “so you’re taking two traditional musics with hip-hop as the common denominator and bringing them together.” And they come together in…

Closet Case

You know the rule of the closet: If you haven’t worn it in over a year, out it goes to make room for new favorites. But few people have the wherewithal to stick with the edict unless there’s the promise of some kind of return. That’s why Anna Newell Jones…

Style High City

Not to split hairs, but style shows are becoming old hat in Denver. So with Konsepsyon, the Parlour’s design team set out to cut a different path. “We wanted to give back to the community, and we wanted to work with a charity relevant to our industry,” explains design team…

The Wheel Thing

The greatest rivalry in roller derby history could come to a head this weekend when the Continental Divide & Conquer 2011 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Championships roll into the 1STBANK Center in Broomfield, where the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls’ 5280 Fight Club — the defending champ — is angling for…

What Goes Around

The Destination Freedom radio-theater project overseen for many years by Denver actor/director/producer donnie l. betts started out as a revival of the 1940s radio dramas of Richard Durham, which explored the lives and contributions of great names in African-American history. In recent years, though, betts has sought to contemporize the…

Give PeaceJam a Chance

PeaceJam, the homegrown nonprofit that brings kids around the world together with Nobel Peace Prize winners, is turning fifteen — but it isn’t slowing down. “We’re more on fire, and more excited about the work we’re doing right now, than ever before,” says Dawn Engle, who founded the organization with…

How Tweet It Is!

Who’s the best Twittering bartender? Who’s the most shameless social-media self-promoter in town? Those illustrious categories and more are part of Westword’s second-annual Denver Web Awards, going down tonight at Casselman’s Bar & Venue, 2620 Walnut Street. Forty awards will be given out at the 8 p.m. ceremony, and the…

The Offensive Line

In his routine, comedian Moshe Kasher succinctly lays out his feelings about comedy: “If at any point you become offended, we’ve established that it’s just you being a bitch.” In Kasher’s world, the comedian is an entertainer who walks onto the stage to tell jokes, not cater to an audience…

Homecoming King

Bill Amundson, the unique Denver artist/satirist who absconded to Wisconsin a year ago to be near family, left a wicked hole in the local art scene when he left — a hole that could only be filled by his own intricate drawings, each crammed onto the paper in a babel…

An ode to the Denver Zine Library

This is part of a series of posts in honor of Denver Arts Week, saluting some of our favorite people and places on the arts scene. A few weeks ago, I got a text from a friend excitedly telling me that she had come across a zine I made when…