Have you ever looked up “nothing” on Wikipedia? It’s a six-part entry. Similarly, the enormously popular Seinfeld was a sitcom about nothing, yet ran for nine seasons. Today, Will Eno’s Pulitzer finalist, Thom Pain (based on nothing) opens at the Bug Theatre. Clearly, there is something to this nothing. The…
Although Terry Gilliam is the best-known director to spring from the coils of Monty Python owing to productions such as 1985’s Brazil, Terry Jones may be the man most responsible for preserving the comedy troupe’s maddest celluloid moments. He co-directed 1975’s riotous Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Gilliam;…
There are certain books that you run to acquire the day they hit the shelves. This summer, that book for me was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver and family. Having read nearly everything Kingsolver has written, I couldn’t wait to join her on an adventure after my own heart…
The Colorado Avalanche is thirsty, and only a really big cup can quench that thirst. After an all-time low end to their 2006-2007 season — they fell just short of the playoffs for the first time in their eleven years as the Avs — the boys in burgundy and white…
Just before The Matrix Revolutions was released, I had an in-depth conversation with several graduate philosophy students about the Matrix series up to that point. It was just as lofty and cerebral as you might imagine, with the obligatory references to René Descartes’s Discourse on the Method and a long…
Trust me: It’s impossible to win an interview with Al Gore when your media credentials are ozone-thin. You’d think he was trying to save the planet; you’d think he was a big-name politician or even a movie star, with all the hoops and fire-walks involved in four little e-mail questions…
When I lived with my artist roommate, we were always doing weird stuff — like printing “Sasquatch for President” banners during the 2004 election and making plaster casts of our faces. The latter activity wasn’t as fun as it might sound: We sat around waiting for the plaster to set,…
Ballroom dancing: Is it the next big thing? If you ask the six celebrity finalists in tonight’s YWCA of Boulder County fundraiser, Dancing With the Boulder Stars — designer Richard Foy, banker Wendy Reynolds, real estate maven Stephen Schaller, entrepreneur and self-help author Theresa Szczurek and Boulder parking czar Molly…
As with any worthwhile tale, the beginnings of the Manhattan Short Film Festival started with a dream. “I just wanted to make the Olympics of film,” says festival founder Nicholas Mason, who started the movie melee one September day ten years ago by projecting a handful of short films onto…
“The Farley Mowat was an 180-foot all-black North Sea trawler that had been converted into, basically, a pirate ship,” says Colorado adventure writer Peter Heller. “Its bow was ice-reinforced — ideal for ramming — and mounted with water cannons for defense. Then, four days out of Melbourne, Australia, two welders…
The first crime tome that really stuck to my bones was Meyer Levin’s Compulsion, the psychological profile based on the 1924 Leopold-Loeb murder. I couldn’t put it down until I finished it — all spooked and riveted by its awful realities — at three in the morning. Fascination and revulsion…
It’s not easy finding celebrities in Denver — but the Denver Marathon took a good run at it for this year’s Celebrity Inspiration Run Online Auction. Thirteen of the town’s biggest, boldest names will be auctioned off for a good cause, with proceeds from the online auction benefiting the celebrities’…
Science and art are among the most powerful forces for changing the world. When the two come together, as they do today at The Wonder of Science, they can create something spectacular. From noon to 6 p.m., the 29th Street Mall, 1710 29th Street in Boulder, will host a number…
With fall finally here, leaves aren’t the only things turning. Over at Marczyk Fine Foods, 770 East 17th Avenue, Peter and Paul Marczyk have fired up the roasters — actually, big barrel drums — for the sixth annual Pig Roast. Under the brothers’ attentive eyes, those porkers will turn all…
Bats are generally lumped in with nature’s creepy-crawlies; despite a strong cultural tie to vampires, however, the majority of them are merely interested in chomping on bugs and fruit, not flesh and blood. Tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Aurora Municipal Center (15151 East Alameda Parkway), Rob Mies, director of…
The eighth Target GO designer, Alice Temperley, has arrived! Grab your nearly maxed out credit cards, throw on your highest stilettos and get your asses to Target. Seriously, GO! Approximately every six to seven weeks, Target employs the talent of top designers to design affordable and chic clothing for fabulous…
I am all for individual expression, but there comes a point in a fashionista’s life when she must put her well-manicured foot down and say no. No more teeny, tight, stone washed shorts, white tights with lace on the bottom. And please, for the love of Christ, put the Lycra…
Contemporary art is in a strange period right now. Conservative approaches, notably conceptual realism, have taken center stage, while more progressive tactics, such as abstraction, have been pushed to the side. Contemporary German, Japanese and Chinese art, which have played increasingly important roles in the international scene, seem to be…
Clyfford Still Unveiled. A master and pioneer of mid-twentieth-century abstract expressionism, painter Clyfford Still was something of an eccentric in the artist-as-egomaniac stripe. His antisocial behavior led to a situation where 94 percent of his artworks remained together after he died — a staggeringly complete chronicle of his oeuvre that…
Mark Brasuell is using his solo, Magellan, at Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173), as a celebration of his twenty years of exhibition history in Denver; the title refers to a spiritual journey. He began his career in Denver in 1987 after moving from Texas and enrolling in graduate school…
Saturday Night Fever: 30th Anniversary Special Collectors Edition (Paramount) For all its camp-classic status as the ultimate disco-fever dream, John Badhams movie truly is remarkable — a foul-mouthed, mean-streets masterpiece that just happens to feature a Bee Gees score that spreads like melted cheese thirty years later. And, of course,…
How I Learned to Drive. “Look at me,” Uncle Peck pleads to his young niece, the narrator-protagonist of How I Learned to Drive. “Listen to me.” And that’s just what she does. Deeply and over a period of years, she ponders her relationship with the uncle who first molested her…
