“Air guitar has allowed me to expand my musicianship in both the visible and invisible realms,” says Dan Crane, who co-stars in Air Guitar Nation, a documentary that screens today. Prior to 2003, when he competed in the first U.S. Air Guitar Championships, Crane, a Denver native, was losing his…
It’s been almost twenty years since Deckers Outdoor Corporation patented the three-part strapping system that elevated Tevas from just another sandal to the must-have sports sandal of the ’90s. Since then, Tevas have branched into flip flops, sneakers, water shoes and more — including some cute women’s styles more suited…
I’m an unrepentant mystery fanatic, but a selective one, and I like my authors neat, literate and hard boiled. One name that’ll never leave the top of my must read list is Michael Connelly, whose new books I long for, one after another. The poor man couldn’t possibly turn them…
Bill Butler is admittedly arrogant about roller skating. The “Godfather of Roller Disco” has been skating for 64 years, since he was nine. He trained Olivia Newton John for Xanadu and still gets called in whenever a movie, show or commercial features skate dancing. His most recent project is a…
Ever since I first heard about the Colorado Art Ranch, I’ve been thrilled. Now, we have our own writers’ and artists’ colony — except ours roves from small town to small town, experiencing all of the state’s artistic and cultural diversity. The first class of inductees was selected in April…
Memorial Day Weekend is when Front Rangers truly test the waters of summer. A lot of us take the first camping trip of the year or the first dive into the pool; still others haunt favorite watering holes of another kind or go out to dig in the garden. Whatever…
Don’t utter the word “downsized” around Jim DeLutes: The new director of the troubled Downtown Denver Arts Festival has been working his tail off to rebuild the fest, which returned Friday to the Denver Pavilions in a fresh incarnation for its ninth Memorial Day Weekend run. “There’s not a lot…
“Schizophrenic” wouldn’t be the word. More like multi-dimensional. Yes, that’s it: The Opus Fantasy Arts Festival is multi-dimensional. “Opus is live bands, an indie film festival, costume contests, film, drama, art, literature classes and workshops, and hands-on interaction with people who have defined a generation of imagination,” says Opus Arts…
So you’ve got a watercolor self-portrait you’re obsessed with showing people, huh? Or maybe it’s that black-and-white photo of your girlfriend’s navel, or a mosaic of Time magazine snippets forming a head shot of the commander-in-chief, or elbow macaroni pasted in the shape of a llama, or a sticky bun…
Cat is out today, working on a photo shoot for Westword’s annual Summer Guide, which comes out on June 7. The entire guide features fashions by local designers and from local shops. You won’t want to miss it. In the meantime, here’s a sage piece of advice from one of…
The perfect pair of jeans, the ones that make your bum look pert and thighs slim, are elusive. A mythical creature, almost. Like a fashion-industry unicorn. Sure, there’s always the promise that if you just pay the three figures for the Sevens or the Paper Denim & Cloth they’ll take…
Some of Denver’s favorite local boutiques made the New York Times Travel section on Sunday. There was a great deal of buzz and excitement when the photographer and reporter were out here a few months ago, and after all the waiting for our fifteen minutes of fame, here’s what the…
While Cat’s on the Vogue kick, here are a few of the ads that just popped. I mean, seriously, don’t we all read fashion mags for the ads, anyway? The words are sort of incidental. (Although, Cat always flips immediately and directly to Vogue’s “Nostalgia” column. The pieces are always…
Cat spent a good portion of last night sitting in a hospital room, waiting for her friend Dominique to pop out her first sprog. Let’s just say it wasn’t easy going, so Cat had plenty of time to finally read the May Vogue. And by read, Cat means flip through…
The other big shocker of Wednesday night was Jaslene taking home the America’s Next Top Model contract. Cat didn’t really have any opinion either way — she was pretty meh on this cycle all together — but odds makers were not favoring the lovely Latina lady. So yay for her!…
Scenes from Rick Owens’s Spring 2007 collection. (Photos by First Look.) Last night’s National Design Awards were a shocker, at least in the fashion category: Rick Owens beat out both Narciso Rodriguez and Phillip Lim for the ten-year-old honor bestowed by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. (More photos after…
Coming out of Shrek the Third, I asked the two smart preteen girls I had in tow what they had liked about the picture. Projectile vomiting and multiple farts, they said promptly, best Shrek ever. Ordinarily I’m not big on puking and flatulence, but in this instance I sympathized; there’s…
Awash in daily news of mass savagery, collective memory grows short. We feel for the women of Afghanistan, but who these days remembers the war widows and rape victims of the 1992-1995 civil war that sent Yugoslavia to hell and brought it back a divided country? Now comes the young…
Colorado’s own TIE, The International Experimental Cinema Exposition, exists to illuminate what curator and founder Christopher May calls the truest form of cinema: the experimental. On May 23, TIE brings the old guard of the avant-garde to a one-night-only screening in the Tears McFarlane Mansion in Cheesman Park. Super-8 Summer…
There it is. The last, ear-punishing note of the very last song, and the cast comes onto the stage for the curtain call. First the lesser characters form a smiling line that prompts a couple of people in the audience to stand up. Then the bigger fish rush forward and…
According to Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, major changes occur when members of Charles Schultz’s well-loved Peanuts gang reach their teens: Pigpen becomes a sex-obsessed, homophobic jock; Lucy’s in a psych ward because she set the little red-haired girl’s hair on fire; Linus, having been forcibly deprived…
Dead Man Walking. We are one of the last Western nations to retain the death penalty, but you don’t hear much about it these days. Where executions were once front-page news, they’re now relegated to single paragraphs far back in the paper — if they’re mentioned at all. In an…
