Photos: Burlesque and theater meet in Merry Widow’s Artisan Operetta

Led by title performer Merry Widow, Merry Widow’s Artisan Operetta features a rotating cast of local burlesque and theatrical talent that performs a variety of experiments, sketches and song-and-dance numbers at the Voodoo Comedy Playhouse on the third Monday of every month. Photographer Brandon Marshall caught up with the group…

Cleaning house: Goodbye crap, hello freedom!

I know. There are already whole blogs and books and television channels devoted to showing Americans how to organize, store and even get rid of their crap because, let’s face it: We are a culture of crap. We’re obsessed with crap, we watch shows about people bullying other people into…

Take a walk through the shadows and light of tesselate tonight at PlatteForum

Melissa Borrell has been making jewelry for years — stylish, lightweight metal or 3D-printed nylon necklaces and dangling earrings in clean, sculptural shapes. But recently, she’s had a hankering to create something larger and less functional. The result goes on display at PlatteForum when her installation, tessellate, opens tonight with…

Reader: What scares me? Khloe Kardashian and my microwave

What scares you? That’s what we asked in last week’s contest that gave away tickets to Haunted Mansion and 13th Door. Most answers focused on most common fears: spiders, zombies, alien attacks, being chased, the current presidential campaign. One more original answer didn’t win those tickets, but it definitely won…

Arapahoe Basin opening for 2012-2013 ski season on Wednesday

Arapahoe Basin CEO Alan Henceroth announced today that the ski area’s Black Mountain Express lift will start turning at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, October 17 to mark the start of the 2012-2013 ski and snowboard season. See Also: – Level 1 Productions, Stept, MSP clean up at IF3 International Freeski…

Photos: The spooky scenes behind the Mausoleum and Nightmare at Spider Mansion

As the temperature grows colder, Denver’s days are darkening earlier, which can only mean one thing: It’s prime haunted house season. Aaron Thackeray, Westword’s expert on all things horrific, has been patroling the city’s finest (and spookiest) scarestablishments and chronicling the chilling stories behind each one. Continue reading for photos…

Dampie displays 75 years of hemp culture in new show at HoodLab

Denver has become the leading destination for all things related to the marijuana industry, especially now that Colorado sits on the precipice of a decriminalization law with Amendment 64, and a cutting-edge show by Dampie, a progressive artist who specializes in hemp-culture art, just opened at HoodLab, the gallery located…

3 things to do for free this week, October 15-18, 2012

Journey with Jane Fonda this week to a sci-fi world — for free! That’s just one of the artistic trips you can enjoy this week without having to open your wallet.For a full list of events, visit the online Westword calendar, and if you know of any other free events…

DasHAUS: The future is here, in Sustainability Park

What is dasHAUS? Created in Germany, the compact pavilion demonstrates the most up-to-the-minute green technologies in home-building, from the sleekest of sustainable materials to renewable energy systems. Packed full of bright ideas, dasHAUS started a fourteen-city tour of the U.S. a year ago; now it’s at home in Denver’s Sustainability…

Fresh opens today in Cherry Creek

Fresh Nail, Wax and Dry Bar wants to change the business of nails and hair by delivering consistent service, high quality…and alcohol. Fresh is the first nail, wax and dry salon franchise in the country, and it got its start at Aspen Grove in 2010. A Cherry Creek location opened…

The Starz Denver Film Festival announces its lineup

The lineup for the 35th Starz Denver Film Festival, which runs November 1-11, was announced this morning, a slate that includes more than 225 films — sixteen of them local — from forty countries. See also – The 35th Starz Denver Film Festival is looking for volunteers – The Artist…

Orange crush! Punkin Chunkin will send pumpkins flying in Aurora

They’re out of their gourds! For the eleventh year in a row, the City of Aurora is hosting its Punkin Chunkin, an event that features pumpkins being catapulted, shot, Gallagher-ized and mutilated in all sorts of ways. Aurorans take their punkin chunkin’ seriously, and the city expects 10,000 people to…

Byers’s Big Feed: Art! Music! Beer! Roasted bison!

The tradition of the small-town social is vanishing even faster than Colorado’s small towns. All the more reason to head out to the eastern plains this weekend for The Big Feed, a unique blend of art show, county fair, hoedown and foot-stomping celebration of rural culture unfolding at the rodeo…