Arts & Culture

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The ten best shops on Sixth Avenue

By Byron GrahamJune 13, 2013

Sixth avenue boasts more retail variety per square mile than any street in Denver. Where else in this fine city can the humble Denverite get an old-school barber shave, stock up on medical cannabis, shop for fly-fishing gear and get their dog groomed all within a short walking distance? Unlike Broadway, its perpendicular cousin where seemingly half the store-fronts are occupied by self-consciously quirky antique stores, or parallel Colfax with its long stretches of nothingness, Sixth avenue has plenty to offer in a small stretch of space. I don’t mean to diminish Broadway or Colfax in any way, I just want to refocus some of the attention enjoyed by the city’s most heralded streets toward Sixth avenue’s unsung charms. With that spirit in mind, Westword presents the ten best shops on Sixth avenue, in no particular order.

Westword Book Club: Lynda Hilburn on vampires, erotica and literary escapism

By Byron GrahamJune 13, 2013

Lynda Hilburn, a local author and psychotherapist based in the Boulder area, specializes in paranormal tales of romance with titles like Diary of Narcissistic Bloodsucker. Blending genre elements before such literary mash-ups were in vogue, Hilburn believes that escaping into literature is a vital coping mechanism. This week, Westword met up with Hilburn to discuss her love of disappearing into paranormal narratives, vampires and the erotic fiction business.

Spun weaves together several standout textile exhibits at the DAM

By Michael PagliaJune 13, 2013

When former director Lewis Sharp piloted the effort to expand the Denver Art Museum, the goal was to mount more temporary exhibits. This led to the construction of the daring Daniel Libeskind-designed Hamilton Building, which joined the landmark Gio Ponti tower in 2006. Two years later, Christoph Heinrich was hired…

Now Showing

By Michael PagliaJune 13, 2013

Charles Partridge Adams. Rocky Mountain Majesty: The Paintings of Charles Partridge Adams highlights the career of a prominent turn-of-the-nineteenth-century impressionist who lived and worked in Colorado for decades. Adams first came to Colorado in 1876, when he was only eighteen years old. He was self-taught, but worked informally in Denver…

Now Playing

By Juliet WittmanJune 13, 2013

God of Carnage. Let’s start with the setting, so pristine, white, minimal and tasteful — chairs with gracefully curving legs, a glass table on which art books are meticulously arranged, a vase of white tulips, nicely grouped. Even if you didn’t know the play’s title, you’d know what’s about to…

Watching Hey Bartender is like spending time at a good bar

By Diana ClarkeJune 13, 2013

Watching the documentary Hey Bartender is like spending a night at a good bar: It’s fun, easygoing, and it lasts just a little longer than it should. And the conversation, while delightful in the moment, often seems banal the next morning. It’s clear that director Douglas Tirola is passionate about…

In Superman, Henry Cavill humanizes the superhuman plot around him

By Stephanie ZacharekJune 13, 2013

Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is a movie event with an actual movie inside, crying to get out. Despite its preposterous self-seriousness, its overblown, CGI’ed-to-death climax and its desperate efforts to depict the destruction of, well, everything on Earth, there’s greatness in this retelling of the origin of Superman: moments…

In This Is the End, a funny prick becomes a funny man

By Alan ScherstuhlJune 13, 2013

From the peak of Anchorman to the nadir of Burt Wonderstone, the formula for studio comedies of the past twenty years has been simple: Dude acts like a dick for an hour, turns blandly sweet toward the end, and then everyone on the DVD commentary can claim to have made…

Dust Storm reimagines Japanese internment through a teen’s eyes

By Juliet WittmanJune 13, 2013

In February 1941, some two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, designating certain areas of the country as military zones. As a result, many Japanese people, immigrants and citizens, were interned in dismal, isolated and primitive camps. They lost their homes,…

Rocky Talk

By Robin EdwardsJune 13, 2013

Though the distinct literary styles of the coastal regions and the American South have been intensively explored, Conundrum Press publisher Caleb Seeling says that the Rocky Mountain region has not yet been given its due. That’s why he decided to buy and revamp Conundrum, a literary press founded in 1999…

Think About It

By Cory CasciatoJune 13, 2013

Big ideas deserve a big audience, and TEDxMileHigh is doing its best to bring both to the Ellie Caulkins Opera House today. As the local, independent version of the world-famous TED talks, the organization is gathering Colorado’s best and brightest minds for a daylong festival of thought, an exploration of…

Tracy, Tracy, Tracy

By Josiah HesseJune 13, 2013

Tracy Morgan knows white people. As one of the more memorable comics during his seven-year run on Saturday Night Live, and as the self-aggrandizing Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock, he’s had his fingers in the Caucasian comedy pie for some time. Inevitably, his standup is chock-full of ethnic observations. “White…

Back To the Future

By Amber TaufenJune 13, 2013

“I have crazy ideas all the time for these things,” says Khyentse James, the mastermind behind the popular, nostalgia-laden 1940s WWII Era Ball, the Voodoo Island 1950s Tiki Ball and the 1940s White Christmas Ball. “But only a few of them are actually doable.” What made the cut for tonight’s…

Be Inspired

By Bree DaviesJune 13, 2013

Art is happening everywhere, all the time. That’s the premise of Lakewood’s third annual INSPIRE Arts Week, starting today with a free open house and dress rehearsal for the Lakewood Symphony. Grown out of a grant project that asked the city what a rich arts culture would look like in…

Stretching Boundaries

By Amber TaufenJune 13, 2013

Leave it to Boulder to host the annual Hanuman Festival, an explosion of yoga, talks and music that attracts some of the top names in the field. This year, the festival is also offering a full day of immersive events on Thursday, including a three-hour workshop with Saul David Raye…

Foul is Fair

By Robin EdwardsJune 13, 2013

Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been performed countless ways in the centuries since it was written, but the Boulder Fringe Festival is offering a completely new interpretation — five interpretations, in fact. Inspired by a similar idea from the Minneapolis Fringe Festival, organizers have given each act of the play to a…

Go Camping

By Bree DaviesJune 13, 2013

Kalyn Heffernan took the name of her band, Wheelchair Sports Camp, from the summer camp that she first attended in 1997 and where she eventually became a counselor. The free week-long summer camp offers tennis lessons, swimming classes, rugby, basket-ball and more to physically disabled youth ages five to eighteen…

Flying Colors

By Bree DaviesJune 13, 2013

In light of the recent passage of the civil-unions law in Colorado, this year’s two-day PrideFest 2013 will celebrate with “Focus on Our Families,” a weekend highlighting inclusion and equal rights. “LGBT family rights have really come a long way now that we have relationship recognition,” says Dani Perea, marketing…