#38: donnie l. betts donnie l. betts quietly gets things done, while wearing every hat in the store: actor, director, filmmaker, African-American historian and radio-play producer. In his spare time — if you can believe he has any — he even markets a sculptural dog-waste receptacle called Paws Here. See…
I’ve thought about what it would be like to be famous — a lot. Being the self-absorbed person I am, one who grew up with parents telling me how great I was at everything I did definitely made me into an adult who wanted nothing more than total stardom. Since…
It’s been a long ride since last spring, when the Comedy Works New Faces Competition 2013 began. And now, with 130 comics eliminated, we’re down to the final ten, who will compete tomorrow night for a cash prize and the prestige of joining the ranks of previous winners, including Ben…
Zombie season is just beginning to amp up in Denver, and the Shoppe on East Colfax Avenue dug up a few undead beauties to strut the catwalk — and drop a few body parts — under the stars this weekend at the street’s monthly Second Saturday Block Party. Photographer Ken…
With its rough aesthetic, punk fashion demands attention on the streets. But there is also something very personal in the way that people create their outfits to suit their tastes. One prime example of punk menswear comes from London Slaughter, a local student who embellished his own jacket. Keep reading…
Science fiction can refer to space travel, time travel, futuristic technology, mutations and any other scenarios loosely based on science. 40 West Arts District will be exploring these different interpretations of sci-fi at its second annual Fall Arts Harvest exhibition, which opens tomorrow, October 15. “We have scientists who are…
What could else could Donna Karan do to make us look like runway models without resorting to dieting? Try asymmetrical, draping jersey knits, a little shoulder exposure teamed with a stunning neutral pallet of makeup from Bobbi Brown. Curtis Farnham, Donna Karan director of retail stylist, and Liz Boyle, freelance…
The circus from town is coming to town! The Squirm Burpee Circus: A Vaudevillian Melodrama features Denver’s own Handsome Little Devils Productions. Starting October 16, this troupe will be offering its memorizing cirque/vaudevillian act at the Lone Tree Arts Center. “We call it a vaudevillian melodrama,” says Mike Huling, actor…
For those who grew up in the decade between 1985 and 1995, there was no cooler destination in TV Land than Nickelodeon. Free of the artificial constraints of edutainment, the network delivered just what kids wanted: crass, silly shows bathed in torrents of slime. Unlike the safe, sanitized territory of…
Maybe you blew all your cash on the Great American Beer Festival or a weekend of leaf-peeping. But there’s plenty you can do in Denver this week — for free. You can catch a movie, check out local poets or see new photography by Kristen Hatgi-Sink at Goldyn, the high-class…
Many a Monopoly game has been upended over an accusation of cheating — but what would happen if cheating was a predetermined part of the game? Tonight’s Warm Cookies of the Revolution session, “Realistic Monopoly and Other Games,” is based on the findings of a study conducted by psychologist Paul…
From Facebook to Vine, social media is changing the way we follow the arts. At the 2013 Westword Web Awards, we’ll celebrate the artists, organizations and personalities that use it best — and we want your help finding them. There are two ways you can help us pick this year’s…
The annual race to be the first mountain to open Colorado’s ski season will go to Arapahoe Basin again, thanks to six inches of natural snow last night and a couple of weeks’ worth of ideal snowmaking conditions. “This is a very exciting time for us, and all of Colorado,”…
Two of the world’s most fashionable streets — Madison Avenue in New York City and Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles — now intersect in Denver, Colorado. Kristen and Paige Brown, a mother-daughter team, have opened Melrose and Madison on Old South Pearl Street. See also: Womenswear Wednesday: Chloe Sweem…
A game about a rectangular detective with a fedora-sporting cat as a partner may be the freshest idea yet to come out of Colorado’s anemic game-development scene. Hot Tin Roof is the latest project by Denver-based developer Glass Bottom Games, which made its first splash with the charming side-scroller Jones…
Halloween is still weeks away, but this weekend we’ve got some spooky primers, including a haunted walk through Castlewood Canyon and a zombie fashion show. But there are plenty of non-scary parties and art gatherings, too. Below we showcase ten cool things to do this weekend; for many more, check…
Every comedian has to deal with being vulnerable in front of a crowd of strangers. But few of them have as tough a job as transgender comedian Jordan Wieleba. While her comedy colleagues and large swaths of the Denver scene are endlessly supportive of, and charmed by, Wieleba, the club…
When Adam Sikorski designed the first Coloradical T-shirt four years ago, he intended it to be just one more thing in his repertoire of designs. He didn’t suspect that it would become his best-selling design, let alone that it would become a brand of its own. “It’s been a really…
This Friday, October 11, Taylor Gonda and Kevin O’Brien of the These Things Matter podcast will defend Waiting for Godot as actor Brian Colonna and comedian Andrew Orvedahl bring it for Waiting for Guffman in “Debating for Guffman,” the first off-kilter entertainment pairing of the 2013 Black Sheep Fridays season…
The Corvo Brothers, Marco and R. Gonzago, come from a filmmaking background, but their preferred art form is still photography. The Denver transplants manipulate multiple photographs to create dreamscapes that almost come alive as “one frame films,” explains Marco. This Saturday, October 12, at Groundswell Gallery, the brothers will present…
Geek culture is not a monolithic entity — far from it. Underneath the big tent of geekdom, you’ll find factions big and small, for every possible slice of nerd life. Few of us embrace only one slice of geek life, but even fewer of us are true polynerds, embracing any…
Anyone over 25 remembers him as heroic single dad Danny Tanner on Full House, or the jolly host of America’s Funniest Home Videos. But anyone plugged into standup comedy over the last decade also knows him as the desperately foul-mouthed comic with jokes so vivid and foul he makes William…
