Castle Crazed

Ann Westerberg first became fascinated by Colorado castles when she spotted one under the 16th Street viaduct. “There was a castle sitting in the railroad yard, and I thought that was so odd,” she remembers. She began taking notes on some of the other castles she encountered in her travels…

Girl Power

Sarah Kirwin, the mastermind behind Bovine Metropolis Theatre’s CHICK IT! workshop, “thinks that women really work well together, and that we can learn more about ourselves as women working together by exploring different relationships that exist between women,” explains Bovine’s Linnea Brutlag. “Also in this workshop, women will be taking…

It’s Only Forever

Some people have a new favorite movie every week. Mine has been the same since I was six years old; that was the year I first saw Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. I could watch that movie over and over and over again — which I did, until I’d memorized every last…

Larger Than Bike

Many thought that the fashionable devolution of transportation devices stopped with brakeless, fixed-gear bikes, but Boulder’s Captain Obvious and crew continue to defy expectations with the 27th Almost-Annual Matt Armbruster Memorial Big Wheel Rally. Forget carbon fiber: Go get yourself a plastic tricycle and head to the Walrus, 1911 11th…

Politics of Anger

“An uprising is the middle state between the disengaged stasis that we’re used to and those very powerful, well-organized social movements,” says author/columnist David Sirota. “And this current uprising is not going to dissipate. People are just too angry.” Tonight starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl…

Free Snarking

I’m the first to admit that Bill Maher is an asshole. He’s a sexist jerk and a foolishly staunch libertarian, and yet I love him to death and feel lost and depressed every Friday night that his HBO show is on furlough — which it is right now, until August…

Frida Files

Last year, the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council threw a party for what would have been Frida Kahlo’s 100th birthday; the bash was so successful that CHAC decided to bring it back for an entire month. “Last year was mostly Frida,” notes CHAC director Crystal O’Brien, “but this year we’ve…

French Meets West

The heart of the Wild West apparently has some Francophile blood in it. That’s what the annual French Summer Soiree, put on by the Alliance Française de Denver would seem to indicate: How else to explain a frou-frou French party taking place in our very own cowtown? Held in the…

Nashville Pussy

With their 1998 debut, the boys and girls of Nashville Pussy declared Let Them Eat Pussy. Seven years later, they’re still all about the muff. Their latest album, Get Some!, opens with the holler, “Well, all right, who wants some pussy?” The quartet’s two superhot, supercrass female members, guitarist Ruyter…

Low

Sometimes it’s nice just to call a spade a spade. Low provides just that sort of truth in advertising, easily earning high marks in the “slowcore” hall of fame. Through nearly fifteen years and ten albums scattered across half a dozen labels, including major backing from Virgin subsidiary Vernon Yard,…

Vibrant and Vivid

During “A Vivid View” — the 22nd annual Black Arts Festival, which starts today and runs through Sunday in City Park — visitors will lose themselves in a smorgasbord of pan-African creativity: song, dance, visual arts, crafts, pageantry, spoken word and soulful cuisine. Today, the Community Mural Project will complete…

Local Legend

Bonfils is one of the biggest names in the history of Denver; it belongs to the family who owned the Denver Post for many decades during the early to mid-twentieth century. And though she always said that she had lived in the shadow of her father, Frederick, Helen Bonfils –…

Local Designer Spotlight: Down Boy Down

This week’s local designer, Sherry Hern, is similar to some of our other recent picks because she is fairly new to fashion (she’s only been designing for a year) and she uses familiar materials in unpredictable ways. Her designs, sold under the name Down Boy Down, also have the same…

Mercina Grace Tillemann-Dick Takes on the Hungarian Fashion World

It’s hard enough getting thrown into the heady world of international high fashion when you’re still a teenager. It’s even tougher when the dominant language of the fashion house where you’re working isn’t your native language but instead, say, Hungarian. Though 16-year-old Mercina Grace Tillemann-Dick, one of the many players…

Retro Fashion Dreams

The last few weeks of my life have been utter chaos. As we prepare to move, I’ve been packing, painting, speculating on the true state of our finances and, above all, stressing out. With most of our movies packed, there wasn’t much to do last night in our box-filled house…

What About The Writer?

Teen fashion correspondent Sarah Bolliger brings us the teen view of the latest summer fashion trends. Have you ever been reading something that made you think, ‘I wonder what the writer is like?’ I know I have. I always want to know more about the person who wrote what I…

What’s In A Name?

I have always judged places by certain things. A doctor’s office gets kudos if they have good fashion magazines. I won’t go to a nightclub if the name is a one-syllable noun. And I have never had my hair cut at a salon with a title I didn’t approve of…

Local Designer Spotlight: Kelli Modica

Kelli Modica, our local designer for this week, has only been in Denver for about seven months but she’s already created some impressive and original fashion with the help of The Other Side Arts complex, which we mentioned in this profile of designer Jonathan Applegate. Kelli’s designs for her lable,…

The Fashion of the Westword Music Awards

Last week, we here at Westword took a cue from MTV and threw a big bash celebrating Denver’s local music scene, complete with a music awards ceremony honoring the best of Denver’s best. To be honest, I don’t really remember a whole helluva lot about it because when the people…

The Real American Girl

Let’s get one thing straight: American Girl — the inspiration for Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, the just-released movie starring Abigail Breslin — is a product. It’s a company. It’s a money-making enterprise. It’s owned by Mattel now. That alone speaks volumes. What it’s not is the sum total of…

History, After a Fashion

I have spent much of the past week researching 1858 fashions for a Colorado Inside Out show that goes back in time, and as anyone who tunes in to KBDI: Channel 12 tonight at 8 p.m. will see, the results are not pretty (see above) Rumor has it that 150…

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

In a nation of frightened dullards, there is always a sorry shortage of outlaws, and those few who make the grade are always welcome.” So wrote Hunter S. Thompson of the Hells Angels after riding with California’s motor-psycho Mongol hordes in the mid-1960s, a feat of embedded journalism that left…