Arts & Culture

Before the Food Network decided to go the way of Bobby Flay, there was Alton Brown, the zany food nerd, cookbook author, Iron Chef America commentator and Twitter curmudgeon whose entertaining, intelligent and flawlessly researched cooking show, Good Eats, made the Food Network worth watching. But after six years of…

The Asian predilection for playing games — gambling games, in particular — rears its scheming head time and time again, as shown last year when Colorado Dragon Boat Festival director Erin Yoshimura threw a fundraising dinner with a side trip of mah-jongg and other wicked games. When it was time…

Curious about how to perfectly prune your bonsai? Ever wonder what it takes to make a taiko drum? Japan America Society of Colorado will have the answers to those questions and many more at today’s Harvest Moon Festival, a seasonal gathering celebrating Japanese culture and traditions. Along with information sessions…

Pop art has screamed for attention since its inception — and the Pop Art Ball, the first benefit gala at the new CU Art Museum, definitely deserves some. The ball will feature pop art-inspired cuisine from Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg, as well as live music and an auction (both…

“This race is much more than just running around and splashing through some mud,” says Brad Scudder, the man behind the Rugged Maniac 5K, slinging mud at a few adventure races put on by competitors. “We have large, involved, maniac obstacles like the Suicide Slide, which takes you into the…

It’s hard to imagine anything much more entertaining than watching robots dance and groove to music. But tonight you won’t have to imagine it, because Robot Prom will be packed with costumed humans, real robots, music and plenty more. “It started as just a robot-themed art show,” says organizer Matt…

We can all sink our teeth into the subject of food. A universal requirement of life, it’s what many of us plan each day around: Gathering, cooking, breaking bread together and eating are all essential and sometimes sensual human actions. But food has its dark side, too, when we think…

Although Civic Center Eats has ended for the season, some food trucks are still rolling. And from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., they’ll stop at the Morey Middle School basketball court, on 13th Avenue between Emerson and Clarkson streets, for Snack Attack, a benefit for Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods. “We…

When I was growing up, I was taken to many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, which, aside from the clever and classical ditties, were bound together by those silly Seinfeld-esque plot twists of misunderstandings and mistaken identities that always played out in a circular twist that somehow led back to something…

As assistant professor of music and the director of the guitar program at the University of Colorado Denver, Paul Musso definitely has some outstanding chops, which is more than evident on his latest effort, Tonescapes. For the most part, the seven-song album is a collection of mostly relaxed yet swinging…

Joellyn Duesberry is an integral part of Colorado’s arts landscape. Her plein-air views are a modernist take on a genre nearly as old as art itself, built in splashes of warm color and the structured patterns that underlie both natural and urban settings. She’s one of the state’s most respected…

Every month, Seven Cups brings in a speaker to discuss Chinese culture or tea culture — or both! “For me, it’s a way to give back to the community and educate them about two of my passions,” explains Seven Cups owner Greg Fellman, and this month is no different. In…

Reading the comics in the daily newspapers isn’t always as satisfying as it used to be, but some strips persevere by staying totally, completely, indubitably silly. Exhibit A: Pearls Before Swine by self-deprecating comic artist Stephan Pastis, a patchwork of bad puns, goofy animal characters and a coven of stone-dumb…

When Mark Obmascik left the Denver Post in 2002 to write a true tale about three slightly insane birdwatchers, he had no idea that the book, The Big Year, would be turned into a movie starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin, or that his sons would find that…

This is not Sarah Palin’s version of Alaska. Primarily set in her home town of Wasilla, Sarah Palin: You Betcha! reveals a wintery non-paradise filled with backstabbing, petty squabbles and scientifically “creative” characters. It’s a Palin documentary not to be confused with The Unde-feated, the quasi-propagandistic film written and directed…

Billed as a “theatrical song cycle,” Bobby Dartt’s Love Songs for Poomouse first hit the stage in a workshopped version at last summer’s Boulder International Fringe Festival, where it was feted with the Encore Award. Now it will be fully staged at Wesley Chapel on the University of Colorado’s Boulder…

It’s a little bit vaudevillian and a little bit Halloween, but one thing’s for certain: Carnivalesque, a new group show opening at the Niza Knoll Gallery, 915 Santa Fe Drive, will fill viewers with a little bit of nostalgia, a little bit of joy, and then, well, something darker. Clowns,…

Harper Lee’s groundbreaking 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird still resonates with readers today — and there’s no doubt that the Denver Center Theatre Company’s stage adaptation will hit the same notes with audience members. “I do think it’s one of the great novels and movies of the twentieth century,”…

The star of the Forney Museum of Transportation’s new exhibit, The Phenomenal Ford Falcons, proves that history repeats itself — especially in the American auto industry. “The Falcons are one of a handful of what would then be considered ‘economy cars’ that were introduced to compete with the imports during…

No double take necessary: Although at first glance, Altered Nature: Notable Interpretations From South America, which opens today at the Metropolitan State College of Denver Center for Visual Art, seems like it might belong down the street at the Museo de las Americas, it fits right into the handsome Metro…