The starting and ending point of tours at the Great Divide Brewing Company was formerly a chest-high metal tap station tucked into a chilly concrete corner of the brewery’s main production room. From that vantage point, more than a decade’s worth of tourists watched Great Divide brew, filter, bottle and…
Seamstress Jil Cappuccio is a fabric person. An avid thrift-shopper with a collector’s eye, she’s developed an irrepressible love affair with vintage cloth and prints — a yard here, a length there — that she magically transforms into reasonably priced, absolutely one-of-a-kind togs that are comfortably designed to fit like…
The less said about the plot of the long-fabled, finally-arrived Simpsons Movie, the better; I know this instinctively, as a member of that particular segment of geekdom most psyched and apprehensive about its unveiling. I’m talking about the people who ask, “Does it suck?,” then prayerfully add, “Please don’t suck.”…
Sadly, No Reservations is not the big-screen adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s snack-gulping, risk-taking Travel Channel show; you’ll find no monkey brains here, nor any attempts to party down in Beirut while Hezbollah and Israel blow each other to smithereens. This is just more of the same from the franchise factory…
The raciest thing I ever saw my mother do was read a brown-paper-covered Penguin edition of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover on the London Underground. She didn’t fool all the other passengers carrying similarly disguised copies, and though I was only twelve years old in that fall of 1960…
In the observation room of the spacecraft Icarus II, passengers sit on a bench in front of a large, rectangular screen displaying a view of what lies ahead. They gaze at the spectacle as you might marvel at special effects on some ostentatious plasma monitor. A seething orb of gas…
When a Hong Kong action flick comes into your grasp, what else can you expect but fast, awesome martial arts? Triad Election shattered that stereotype, making me feel like the asshole who speaks slowly and loudly to anyone who looks foreign, only to be answered with “I speak English, dumbass.”…
On one level, Who¹s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a very literate and sophisticated Jerry Springer show. George and Martha are a longtime married couple. He’s a history professor at a small New England college whose career is far less glittering than he’d once hoped it would be; she’s the…
Around the World in 80 Days. The Victorians became increasingly fascinated with stories of adventure as technological advances in travel made their world smaller and more accessible. It didn’t hurt that so much of that world map was colored an imperial red. In his famous novel Around the World in…
Clyfford Still, master and pioneer of mid-twentieth-century abstract expressionism, was something of an eccentric in the artist-as-egomaniac stripe. This characteristic is best illustrated by the fact that at the height of his acceptance, he pulled out of the New York art world and isolated himself in a rural part of…
For nearly three-quarters of the twentieth century, the heart of the art world in Colorado was in Colorado Springs. Artists were attracted to the then-charming town by its art-colony character, which was anchored by the Broadmoor Academy and its successor institution, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center School. Beginning in…
The American Landscape and Carny. Rule Gallery has typically presented single solos since landing in its new space several months ago, but this time, there are two different shows in that long and narrow sales room. The two work well together, though, as both are made up of photographs about…
Tiny adorable pineapples on knobby twigs pop up out of a vase; above them rise stems covered with thornapples plump, green and spiny. Along the wall, the antique cooler is filled with living treasures: blooming eucalyptus that looks like sea anemones, delicate blackberry stems with clusters of fruit, velvety brown…
Julia McClurg loves animals. A lot of people claim similar affinities, but McClurg is serious about her passion. She paints portraits of pets as her business, LuLu Bella, which is named for her Italian greyhound, She creates everything from wall-hanging masterpieces to greeting cards, and has done more than 400…
Although Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was called many things during his 67-plus years on the planet — brilliant, disturbed, innovative, dangerous and more — few observers ever accused him of being a role model. Nevertheless, Anita Thompson, who’s in town today to sign copies of The Gonzo Way, her new…
As Miss Talulah proprietor Robin Lohre sadly puts it, it’s time to open your purse and pick up a “little piece of Talulah history.” The girly store, which once upon a time moved from the Ballpark neighborhood to pioneer a space in Stapleton’s Town Center, 7477 East 29th Place, is…
What’s implied in the hip design store Mod Livin’s name has taken benevolent shape in Happiness Is a Mod Puppy, a unique benefit auction for the Downtown Animal Care Foundation. Featuring a pack of Eero Aarnio plastic puppies decorated by local artists and businesses — including Westword style blogger the…
I don’t understand how my nine-year-old daughter became fixated on the overly cheerful tunes of ABBA, the sound of which has never, in all my lifetime, been wanted or even allowed in my house. She brought it home from school like a virus, I guess. Day after day she sits…
Ladies…gentlemen…and children (over eighteen, anyway): Step right up and witness Emerge: Carnival of Shadows, a circus of the erotic, the bizarre and the musical. See DekO, the ringleader, and his merry troupe of Circus Rave Dolls, chosen for their sensuous beauty and hailing from every corner of the globe. See…
As president and founder of my high school’s Green Club, I was hated. I harassed students who didn’t use our recycling bins, and I ruined assemblies with staged funerals for the earth. We now live in an age that I don’t think my teen self would have ever thought possible:…
Nothing is worse than being out for a walk on a beautiful day, losing track of time and finding yourself miles from home — and suddenly needing to pee. You’re stuck in an unfamiliar neighborhood and can’t find any establishment that will allow you to use its bathrooms. Things start…
Conductor Carl Topilow is the bicycle of the symphony world. He’s wagged his wand on stages from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Owensboro, Kentucky. He’s been known to tease horns up and blow woodwinds down. He’s banged big brass and he’s brassy to big bass. He’s as comfortable straddling old classic…
