After the organizers of the Denver Dark Arts Festival decided to close up shop a few years ago, Brent Heinze saw an opportunity. “The team that did it before haven’t put the Denver Dark Arts Festival on in seven years; it got to be just a pain in their ass,”…
Between his standup performances and his Comedy Central show, The Jeselnik Offensive, handsome asshole Anthony Jeselnik has slapped the PC button of just about every sociopolitical demographic the world over. Whether you’re a liberal female with an eating disorder or a conservative Catholic who survived cancer, this sharp-tongued mockster will…
Chuck Sink, who died on April 12, just six weeks shy of his ninetieth birthday, was one of the greatest mid-century modernist architects to have worked in Denver. Born in 1923 in Indiana, he was first exposed to modernism at age ten, when he attended the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair…
Dan Sperry is the darker kind of magician. The self-labeled “anti-conjuror” says his magic is meant to test the limits of his audience’s comfort zone — and Sperry’s Marilyn Manson/Edward Scissorhands look alone accomplishes that. But while his tricks sit on the edge of shocking, the illusionist says his goal…
A lot of comedy audiences have an Us vs. Them attitude regarding what standups to like; they feel they have to decide between David Cross or Larry The Cable Guy. And while this attitude would usually push comedian John Caparulo into the latter category (he’s critical of healthy eating and…
Holy opportunity, Batman! Just in time for the second Denver Comic Con, Westword will publish its first Comics issue on May 30, 2013 — and we want you to be a part of it. We’re accepting submissions from any Colorado artist who’d like to create a cartoon about life in…
Unless you’re new to the Denver scene, you’ve probably had a hazy night in the RiNo district — seeing a show at the Meadowlark or the Larimer, getting a taco at a food truck, stopping outside MegaFauna to peer in at the locally-made clothing, prints and assorted sundries. MegaFauna owner…
The Grawlix have been one of the brightest lights on the Denver comedy scene for a couple of years now, most successful comedy team not to come out of Denver — but to live in Denver. Their crowning achievement thus far, though, has got to be this past weekend’s premiere…
In many pockets of Denver, there are visible connections to our city’s past that are, with each passing year, slowly being erased in favor of a more modern aesthetic. This concerns Black Eye Coffee co-owner Gregory Ferrari, who is promoting a Kickstarter campaign to install a large, early twentieth-century-style mural…
Westword art critic Michael Paglia visited Robischon Gallery for this this week’s review, which takes on four different shows at the gallery. The largest of them focuses on New York-based collaborators Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick and their fantastical artwork, while the other three exhibits are also rooted in the…
Are the Asylum’s mockbuster movies made in tribute to the films they mock or just to make campy fun of them? Either way, these flicks — Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, The 18-Year-Old Virgin and more — have inspired cult followings, and it’s no surprise that the posters hyping them…
Entering the Robischon Gallery right now is like walking through the looking glass, so to speak. Inside are four shows, each of which posits the existence of a fantastic faux reality expressing individual parallel worlds. Creepy and weird — not to mention accomplished and elegant — are just some of…
Not everyone can relate to the idea of defining yourself through popular culture, but anyone who gets it, really gets it. And for the last year Denver has been blessed with a sonic sanctuary for these poor souls: the These Things Matter podcast. This week TTM hosts Taylor Gonda and…
A galvanizing figure of the new craft movement, Ohio fabric and pattern designer Amy Butler is in Colorado for a Makerie Sewing Retreat at Chautauqua in Boulder. But she’s kicking off her visit with a meet-and-greet tonight at Fancy Tiger Crafts, the craft palace on Broadway run by Jaime Jennings…
Maria Sharapova, the number two-ranked World Tennis Association player and former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, just launched a line of boutique candies — including little lemon-lime tennis balls. This seems a little weird, considering Sharapova’s athleticism and the nation’s current examination of sugary sweets — but then, this country has…
“I was so excited! I just got out of Spanish class and ran down the hallway to meet her. It’s like meeting a rock star,” says Stella Brown, an eighth-grader at Boulder’s Horizon’s K-8 School. Brown was racing down the hall to meet Teddy Namuyiga — not Taylor Swift. Namuyiga…
Since the beginning of time — or at least the beginning of cinema — there have been chick flicks: three-hanky tear-jerkers and, conversely, romantic comedies. In honor of the Sie FilmCenter’s new Hey Girl chick-flick series, debuting April 24 with Dirty Dancing — which might just be the greatest chick…
Dressed in a slinky black cocktail dress and spunky Beatle boots, Natasha Leggero strutted with sarcasm and sass during the first show in her four-night run at Comedy Works last night. Delivering her characteristic bitter commentary on politics and lowbrow culture (sweetened by an Audrey Hepburn forgive-me wink), Leggero caustically…
Sara Century is everywhere: running her monthly freeform open mic, Baby Hair, with co-conspirator Erica Adams; playing solo and with various bands all over the city; and hawking tape rentals behind the counter at Video One. This Saturday, April 13, Century wears yet another hat, an artist’s, as Hooked On…
Along with their love of sleeping late and attempting nothing ambitious during daylight hours, millennials seem to have an unending appetite for nostalgia. Comedians have been capitalizing on this for some time, making jokes about vintage Nintendo games and comic books. So it only makes sense that someone finally came…
We gave the Broadway/Baker retail strip the award for Denver’s Best Neighborhood Shopping District two years in a row — in 2012 and 2013 — for so many good reasons: The area is spilling over with hip, modern creative ventures. But some of that contemporary spark flares further south, too,…
The William Havu Gallery is chock-full of interesting things to look at. On the main floor are three solos that have been interwoven into a coherent theme show on contemporary abstraction, and up on the mezzanine is a salute to the Month of Photography, which straddles March and April. On…
