Under the name The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman has made a career out of making absurd, hilarious comics. Whether the subject matter is mundane (grammar, cats) or bizarre (the sex lives of angler fish, utilikilts), his particular genius lies in tapping into the Internet zeitgeist and delivering the kind of belly…
Haunted houses might be passé for some, but there’s other kinds of scary fun to be had this season. The best place for a satisfying helping of Halloween horror is the Yurei Cafe, a one-night-only pop-up cafe from Andrew Novick’s Gimme Gimme Pillow Toast. Drawing its inspiration from popular Japanese…
Six years ago, when SuicideGirls Blackheart Burlesque was last touring the country, “we were some of the only people doing non-traditional, non-old-timey burlesque,” says SuicideGirls founder Missy Suicide. Since then, the scene has exploded with more modern, edgy striptease shows, and that meant that when the girls decided to head…
Here in Denver, zombies are a big deal — a world-record-setting big deal. Now in its eighth year, the Denver Zombie Crawl has continually grown, challenging the other zombie-infested cities of the world for supremacy along the way. “The first year, we probably had forty people. We probably had 22,000…
Kim Robards Dance has settled in at its new home in the Aurora Cultural Arts Center, and to celebrate, the company is throwing a free benefit tonight called Ignite the Light, featuring a performance of its new work, Aurora. Presented in three movements, the show is both a celebration of…
Is hip-hop culture dead? That’s the question explored by Who Killed Jigaboo Jones?, billed as “a one-man mockumentary on the hip-hop industrial complex.” The show was created with the simple objective of making people laugh — and think: “To me, the character Jigaboo Jones represents the current state of hip-hop,…
The fourth annual Sports Authority Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon and Half Marathon will welcome more than 16,000 participants to the city of Denver today. Starting at the State Capitol, at Lincoln and Colfax, and traveling through downtown, racers will run to the sounds of live bands, cheering teams and entertaining…
The central character in Theresa Rebeck’s satirical comedy of wordplay, Seminar, is Leonard, an above-it-all literary figure so revered from beneath his cloud nine that he can’t be brought down for anyone or anything. Four hopeful writers, each of whom has paid $5,000 for the opportunity, sit at his feet…
Science fiction is enjoying a popular renaissance, with Hollywood — not to mention video games and toys — increasingly drawing on the speculative frontiers for inspiration and conventions celebrating those works drawing thousands of fans. Long before blockbuster sci-fi epics became the norm, it was all about the books, though,…
One thing we’ve all learned from the success of Fifty Shades of Grey: Readers do like a little literary spice in their lives. And there’s a whole new market of soft-porn aficionados out there hungering for a little naughty in their novels. That’s the market targeted by A Night of…
Former — and infamously outed — CIA agent Valerie Plame is through looking back. With past events and her memoir about them (How a Top CIA Agent Was Betrayed by Her Own Government) behind her, she’s now forging into fiction with help from best-selling thriller author Sarah Lovett, who helped…
Though its creations can make or break the look of a production, the costume shop at the Denver Center Theatre Company might go unsung most of the year, cranking out fancy duds for characters both Shakespearean and contemporarily urban: kings and clowns, beggars and bellhops, showgirls and sad old men…
Philip Dawkins’s Edward Gorey-esque musical fable Failure: A Love Story tells you right off the bat that three central characters — the Fail sisters — will all be dead by the end of the show. In a new production by Boulder’s Catamounts, this news is delivered by a chorus of…
“I’m so happy to be here tonight,” said W. Bruce Cameron as he took the podium at the Tattered Cover in LoDo last night to address roughly fifty fans, many of whom sipped on plastic cups of complementary wine or nibbled at various cheeses and fruits through his talk. Tattered…
It’s no secret that Denver’s comedy scene is thriving, and today the seventh annual Denver Improv Festival begins a five-day run of shows, workshops and parties that has attracted comedians from across the U.S., including Convoy from Los Angeles and Switch Committee from Chicago. See also: James Clark of Governor…
It’s probably the biggest cliche in the history of dating: You’re looking for someone with a sense of humor. But since it has nothing to do with money, social stature or good looks — things people are often most insecure about in dating — why is humor such a big…
Under the name The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman has made a career out of making absurd, hilarious comics. Whether the subject matter is mundane (grammar, cats) or bizarre (the sex lives of angler fish, utilikilts), his particular genius lies in tapping into the Internet zeitgeist and delivering the kind of belly…
The Halloween season isn’t just about candy and costumes — there’s a supernatural side to the holiday, and Colorado is full of great ways to get spooked. From cemetery walks to haunted wild West town tours, here are ten of the best opportunities for scaring up a good time (and…
Colorado roller derby fans will have plenty to cheer about when the Roller Derby World Cup rolls into Dallas in December 2014: Team USA announced on Tuesday that five skaters from the Denver Roller Dolls will be among the 32 skaters on the roster. “I’m shocked,” says Julie “Angela Death”…
Brian Corrigan and the Denver Theatre District have big plans to turn Champa Street between 14th Street and the 16th Street Mall into a life-sized video game arcade next summer, combining a number of media platforms to bring people together through gaming in the streets. Called OhHeckYeah, it’s a big…
Reading is about more than following a narrative or learning facts; it can also be a profound shared experience that culminates in a better understanding of ourselves and each other. In that spirit, welcome to the Westword Book Club, a weekly feature celebrating the books that inspire Denver artists.
Tata Harper’s father was diagnosed with cancer in 2005. During her meetings with doctors, Harper was asked to list all of the different things her father came in contact with on a daily basis. She gathered vitamins, food, lotions and anything else she could think of — and in doing…
