Give Paint a Chance

“Most of the peace events today involve marches or holding signs, stuff that I don’t think is fun, even though I love peace,” says Dana Cain, local collector, event planner and child of the ’60s. “Why doesn’t anybody do it like John and Yoko did it?” Such was the inspiration…

Monster Mash

A wise man once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” And that’s particularly true when it comes to Hollywood, which retells story after story in celluloid form. The question becomes, then, which is better — the old version or the new version? It’s an issue the Denver Film…

Flick Pick

Thankfully for the United States of America, slavery is one aspect of our past that we have struggled with and overcome. Or so most of us think. The fact of the matter is, there are more slaves on the planet today than were taken from Africa in more than 400…

Shock of the New

Though Damien Hirst was on her radar well before he sold a lot of art for nearly $41 million at Sotheby’s in September, departing MCA director and curator Cydney Payton says the time is right to be showing the controversial British artist’s large-scale works in Denver. It’s his moment out…

The Object of Her Affections

University of Colorado at Boulder dance professor Michelle Ellsworth is like the Roz Chast of performance: neurotic, quirky, concerned with the minute. But humor isn’t her intention when she creates a new work, which invariably employs choreography as a vehicle for something much more complex than sheer movement. “People think…

Ab Fab

Sure, you can peruse Vogue’s fall fashion issue to see the latest trends, but a better option awaits you at the third annual Absolute! Fabulous! Gorgeous! drag and fall fashion show presented by the Boulder Country AIDS Project tonight at the Diary Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut Street in…

Game On

Just as Star Wars wouldn’t have been complete without the music of John Williams, the stirring, grandiose work of Nobuo Uematsu has helped to elevate the Final Fantasy series to a legendary gaming experience. Now gamers and music lovers alike can experience Uematsu’s music live, on stage, performed with a…

Grave Surprises

Every cemetery contains at least a hint of mystery, and Riverside Cemetery is no exception. If you’ve always wanted to know just who is buried there and why they were once significant to our city, then the Riverside Cemetery History & Mystery Night Tour is perfect for you. “It’s a…

Yes We Scan

It was the turn-of-the-century Y2K scare and its threatened “digital apocalypse” that first inspired Omaha-based bar-code artist Scott Blake to develop his oeuvre, along with the dot-screen technique made famous by pop art icon Roy Lichtenstein: His first bar-code image was “Bar Code Jesus,” a pixelated portrait mosaic of Photoshopped…

Choice Words

As a pro-choice feminist, I have some choice words I’d like to share with the multitude of people who think it’s their right to dictate what I do with my body. But most of them are unprintable, and anyway, the people behind the New-York based Words of Choice performance can…

Let There Be Night

There’s something strange and wonderful about capturing the darkness, says Denver Darkroom director Standish Lawder, whether a scene is illuminated by streetlight, moonlight, or — better yet — the thousands of tiny bulbs that make a Ferris wheel glow. Tonight, Denver night photographer emeritus Chris James will lead a Darkroom…

That’s All Folk

“Folk is a bad word, in a way,” says Laura McGaughey of the Swallow Hill Music Association. “When people think of folk music, they think of old music that some white hippie wrote with a guitar.” Swallow Hill’s philosophy is to promote music by the people, for the people, that…

In the Bag

American poet Ellen Rachlin once said, “A woman in her lifetime will spend far more hours hugging a handbag than a man,” which is the only justification needed for Pocketbook Anthropology: A Treasure of Handbags, a traveling exhibition currently on view at the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Avenue in…

Masked Men

San Diego’s JabbaWockeeZ are beloved by MTV viewers everywhere for wildly imaginative and athletic performances that helped them land in the top spot on America’s Best Dance Crew, a breakout hit that spawned a live show taking place in Denver tonight. But Rynan “Kid Rainen” Paguio, one of the group’s…

Dirt into Diamonds

“It’s not every day you can buy tickets to see Jimmy Fallon or George Lopez,” says Comedy Works media contact Eva Magdalenski. It’s even more unusual to have the chance to see them both in the same month, particularly when you’re not living in one of those magical cities recognizable…

KOP to the Future

If you’ve finished this year’s One Book, One Denver selection and are wishing that Dashiell Hammett had set it on a planet far, far away, or if you’ve ever wondered how James Ellroy’s LA Confidential might have turned out if Ellroy grown up on a steady diet of science fiction,…

Back to Skulls

Halloween’s more elegant primo, El Día de los Muertos, is often misunderstood by those who don’t actually celebrate it: As local muertos artist Jerry Vigil notes, the true meaning of the annual and traditional tribute to the departed in Mexico is perceived by outsiders as the simple sum of its…

Atwater Under the Bridge

Just in time for one of the most important U.S. elections in decades comes a powerful, provocative documentary about one of the most important political operatives of the past thirty years. As the architect of the modern Republican Party, mentor of Karl Rove and the man who perfected the use…

Cat’s Pajamas off for a cat nap

Cat’s Pajamas is putting on its oh-so-fashionable jammies and taking a cat nap for a few months. During Cat’s hibernation, you’ll find regular features from this fashion blog in the Cat’s Pajama’s category of The Latest Word blog…

We know what women want, and it’s not Girls Only

The trouble with Girls Only, a two-woman evening of conversation, skits, singing, improvisation and audience participation, is that it’s so relentlessly nice. Creator-performers Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein have worked together for many years; at some point, they read their early diaries to each other and were transfixed by the…

Tiny Alice is big and brilliant at Germinal Stage

Some parts of Tiny Alice are laughably literal. At the beginning, for instance, a Catholic cardinal in full black-and-red regalia tweets affectionately at some caged birds — cardinals, naturally. Other words and images seem to offer easy metaphoric puzzles, as when Julian, the lay brother who will emerge as the…