Arts & Culture

Calling all otaku! Anime, manga and other Japanese pop-culture pursuits are the order of the weekend at Anime Wasabi, starting tonight and continuing through Sunday at the Holiday Inn DIA, 15500 East 40th Avenue. Besides rubbing elbows with other devotees of Gundam, Dragonball and the like, there’s plenty to feed…

I once had a stupid dog that almost drowned every morning trying to get at those swimming kibbles in his water bowl. He used to tilt his head, crouch down and then plunge his snout into his water dish — always managing to smash his nose on the bottom. But…

No matter how hard they tried, for a good seven years or so, plenty of Americans couldn’t forget that George W. Bush was president of the United States. But with all the excitement about the ongoing slugfest between Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over who will challenge presumptive…

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and you’re bored. You already had your fill of green beer over the weekend, when everyone else seemed to be celebrating, but now that the day of green is actually here, there’s no one to pinch and you’d rather not engage in another drinking marathon with…

Bob White got into art by accident. He started a vinyl and CD business in 1998. In the process, he taught himself graphic design, and soon he’d replaced his original concept with a design company that did advertising for small businesses. As he snapped and edited more and more pictures,…

The waters of Chile’s Patagonia region are under threat from hydroelectric dam projects that would mar the pristine beauty of the earth’s most beloved land’s end. Tonight, Global Response — an environmental action and education network based in Boulder — jump-starts its campaign to protect Patagonian rivers and wilderness areas…

There’s something unbelievably catchy about Irish music, whether you’re listening to a sad ballad about a young man never to return from battle or a rowdy, rabble-rousing drinking tune. And since tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, what better way to get in the mood than by attending a concert tonight…

I fell in love with vintage fashion at a young age. Growing up in the ’80s (full of neon) and ’90s (flannel), it was easy to see the beauty of a bias-cut ’30s gown or a voluptuous ’50s dress. Sadly, many vintage finds start to show their age — in…

Cassettes defeated eight-tracks. VHS trumped Beta. And Blu-ray recently overtook HD-DVD — which makes the timing of Disney’s Magical Blu-Ray Tour mighty fortuitous. “Blu-ray has now become the high-definition standard,” Disney Blu-ray spokeswoman Andi Matheny says of the display, which debuts today. “And we’re letting the average person really experience…

While there are plenty of Democrats in Hollywood, there’s nothing democratic about the film industry. The silver screen begins to look more like an iron curtain when one considers that most movie options are pre-ordained by a coterie of producers and executives. So when a few local deciders from the…

The isolated community of Gee’s Bend is tucked away in a U-shaped curve of the Alabama River. Its inhabitants descend from slaves, many of whose relatives literally walked from North Carolina with their slave masters in the 1840s. However, from this history of strife, hatred and isolation grew world-famous quilts…

As part of the ongoing effort to build a lasting peace between the jocks and the nerds, the University of Colorado at Boulder presents the latest in its series of weekend science lessons, this time demonstrating the Physics of Baseball at Mile High. The free lecture, which begins today at…

Storyteller Peninnah Schram and musician Gerard Edery are the two main players in The Minstrel and the Storyteller, An Exotic Journey. “Each of them has their own proficiency, their own expertise and their own magic in their own fields,” notes fellow storyteller Cherie Karo Schwartz, a longtime friend of Schram’s…

Comprising 23 acres of farmland along Sand Creek in Stapleton, the Urban Farm is many a young Denverite’s first exposure to cultivation, animal husbandry and riding horses. What began fifteen years ago as a horsemanship-education program has become a full-service agricultural/environmental education facility that serves thousands of urban youths. Although…

It’s one of the most spectacular wildlife migrations left in our ever more industrialized world, and one of the biggest in the Continental United States. If you’ve never seen thousands of Greater Sandhill Cranes take to the air all at once, swooping and crying out, it’s hard to explain. Among…

Eyes Caught Fire percussionist Joel Brown’s bass drum head reads, “Keep Hope Alive.” For any other band, that might come off as a cheap slogan. But from this Colorado Springs quintet, it’s anything but. The act’s collective voice contains a dark, lustrous majesty that whispers like the spectre of buried…

Even though I don’t like beer (and especially not green beer), St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday. First, because I actually am Irish. Second, because green is my favorite color — and incidentally, with my Irish coloring, I look pretty damn good in it. Third, because who couldn’t use…

I have a date with Mike Jones. Actually, it’s a threesome — with Paula Woodward. Tomorrow night, Jones, the gay escort/masseuse who made headlines in November 2006 when he revealed the identity of one of his regulars, will take the stage in Naked Before God: Exposing the Hypocrisy of Ted…

The final production of Colorado Ballet’s 47th season is The Repertory Series, a collection of contemporary works. First up is Anthony Tudor’s “The Leaves Are Fading,” followed by Lar Lubovitch’s “…smile with my heart,” set to Richard Rodgers’s music, and Dwight Rhoden’s high-energy “Straight Line to Never.” The program runs…

Obituaries are the final stories of our lives. And while they vary in length and detail, even the most cut-and-dried provoke questions about their subject. Poet Hilary DePolo based a series of 32 poems on obituaries she researched, then turned them over to artists who created pieces for Character Sketches,…