Centuries ago, the Aztecs celebrated their dead for an entire month during the summer; the festivities were overseen by their goddess of the dead, Mictlantecutli, who was often depicted with a skull-like face. When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, their Catholic sensibilities merged the Aztec tradition with All Souls’ Day…
What, exactly, would you wear to a prom on Mars or to change a bad energy pod as you cruise through the galaxy? Most sane people don’t put much thought into questions like these, but at MileHiCon 40, it’s not so out of place — considering the company. Today starting…
Once upon a time, a woman named Louise Crawford Hill lived in Room 904 of the Brown Palace Hotel. She kept her room in the hotel from 1940 to 1955, ruling over Denver society. Years later, when Mrs. Hill was but a distant memory, renovations were being done to the…
Fortunately for you and me out here in TV Land, The Brady Bunch was just a sunny place to visit. For Maureen McCormick (aka Marcia), Bradyville was far worse than just braces and a broken nose. After the show ended in 1974, she shed the bell bottoms and flowered dresses,…
Have you read this year’s One Book, One Denver selection, Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man? What did you think? “There’s a lot of drinking in the book,” notes Gina Rubano of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, “and quite a bit of misogyny, and so we wanted to talk about…
In the video for “Ce Jeu,” a recent song by the French trio Yelle, singer Julie Budet shifts through hyper-color wardrobe changes like a snake shedding skin. One minute she’s wearing Nerf sculpture sunglasses; the next, grinding in a bold-stripe duo-chromatic body suit. Minimalism this ain’t. But it is keenly…
There are very few opportunities in life to see 500 people dressed in gorilla suits, so make sure you don’t miss one today when the fifth annual Denver Gorilla Run takes place. This charity event, which raises funding and awareness for the plight of the world’s few remaining mountain gorillas,…
Running through Washington Park at dusk with ghouls and vampires on your coattails might constitute a bad dream most nights, but tonight it’s just the Scream Scram, a spooky way to get in shape for any actual running you might have to do from monsters (or cops) on Halloween. This…
Although “Kick or Treat” sounds more like a really sweet option for rogue Halloweeners — wherein costumed delinquents are either given candy or allowed to kick homeowners in the shins, then squeal off into the autumn night — it actually has more to do with soccer. To mark the last…
You’d have to be living under a rock — or have absolutely no interest in contemporary art — not to know that Damien Hirst is a superstar. For more than a decade he’s been one of the top artists in the world, and just about everything he makes is worth…
When I went to the MCA/Denver (1485 Delgany Street, 303-298-7554, www.mcadenver.org) last week to preview Damien Hirst, the place was a beehive of activity. In addition to the Hirst display going up in the Large Works Gallery, another exhibit was being installed around the corner, in the Promenade Space. Called…
Braided Sorrow. No one knows exactly how many young women have been murdered in the Mexican border town of Juárez over the last decade, perhaps three or four hundred. The murder rate shot up after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1994, when several U.S. companies set…
Before the impressive Lord of the Rings trilogy (and the slew of Oscars he received) made Peter Jackson a household name, he was already a revered icon among horror fans for the brilliant, insane zombie opus Dead Alive (aka Braindead). The movie is probably the finest example ever of the…
W. may be less frenzied than the usual Oliver Stone sensory bombardment, but in revisiting the early ’00s by way of the late ’60s, this psycho-historical portrait of George W. Bush has all the queasy appeal of a strychnine-laced acid flashback. Hideous re-creations of the shock-and-awful recent past merge with…
Hurricane Katrina may have driven off a large segment of New Orleans’s African-American population, the providers of much of the city’s character. But in one sense the deadly storm was a uniter, not a divider: Only three years ago, the devil wind brought together much of the country in contempt…
Michael Frayn’s brilliant Noises Off is one of the cleverest, funniest farces ever written. This is a play within a play — actually, a play outside a play. It depicts the struggles of a third-rate company touring the English provinces in a corny sex farce called Nothing On — lots…
Adam Helms. This solo in the MCA’s Paper Works Gallery is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist…
In six billion years, the sun will swell into a red giant and toast Earth. In two billion years, the Milky Way will collide with another galaxy. Asteroids, black holes, space microbes, supernovas and sun flares — these are just some of the ways the world could end. Where will…
Is it possible to drive across the country and never stop at a single gas pump? Author Greg Melville knows for a fact that it is possible; he and an old college buddy, Iggy, did it in 2006, driving Melville’s 1985 Mercedes station wagon powered by vegetable oil. And Melville…
When Boulder-by-way-of-Canada newgrass musician and banjo virtuoso Jayme Stone blows into town tonight to perform in Swallow Hill’s Daniels Hall, he’ll arrive with more than just his five-string. Thanks to a seven-week stint in Mali, he’ll bring the knowledge and experience of two unknown musical ancestors, along with the konou…
Just when you thought there couldn’t be a bigger creep in the White House, along comes Charles H.P. Smith. “He’s a horrible guy,” says media contact Bob Wells. “Everything he does is bad — greed, torture, blackmail. He’s not based on any one president — wink, wink — but it’s…
It’s that time of year again, when nothing is more inviting than a shivery, spine-tingling ghost story. And that makes the new Hunger Artists Ensemble Theatre production Haunted the perfect evening out. “I’m part of a paranormal research investigations team,” explains playwright and Hunger Artist Maggie Stillman, “so when we…
