Student Provacateur Max Karson Strikes Again

University of Colorado student and past Westword profile subject Max Karson is an accomplished button-pusher, and this week, his school and the media reacted as anticipated to his latest provocation — an opinion column for CU’s online Campus Press entitled “If It’s War the Asians Want…” Only someone who’s had…

Letters to the Editor

“Reminders,” Patricia Calhoun, January 3 It Could Have Been Us On December 22, my family (my husband and I, our two kids and our two dogs) were driving on I-80 by Rawlins. The blowing wind made the road conditions treacherous. We were right there; the horrific accident could have been us.  …

Absinthe Absent From Shelves

Liquor news is all over America’s drunkest city (thank you, Men’s Health), whether it’s speculation on the future headquarters of Molson Coors (Off Limits, February 14), the dastardly hops shortage hurting craft breweries, or a proposed state law that might finally, blessedly, allow alcohol sales on Sunday (thank you, state…

Superdelegate to Rescue Obama

I was recently fortunate enough to travel to Tanzania with my family. Our first morning there, we were loading our bags into a Jeep when a man on the sidewalk took one look, sized us up as Americans and yelled “Obama!” with a thumb up and a smile. How he…

A Post Reporter’s Jerry Maguire Moment

In the 1996 Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire, the title character, portrayed by Tom Cruise, is a high-powered sports agent who begins to feel guilty about the avaricious, unfeeling way he and his colleagues treat the athletes they represent. Then he has an epiphany. “The answer was fewer clients,” he…

The Magnet Mafia Sticks to Street Art

The city looks different when you have a pocket full of magnets. Bricks, concrete, glass and anything containing organic matter recede into the background, leaving only metal. So what Matt Feeney and Harrison Nealey see are dumpsters, light poles, air conditioners, electrical boxes and LOADING ONLY signs. Even in the…

Denver Envisions the Art Scene in 2028

Lauri Lynnxe Murphy: Hopefully just as vibrant and bigger, with international attention regularly and lots of cultural tourism. However, if we don’t have good stewardship for the scene we have now, that won’t happen. Ken Hamel, denverarts.org: It would be beautiful to see Denver as an international destination on the art scene, playing…

The View From Here

The Denver Office of Cultural Affairs is thinking very hard about what this city’s arts community will look like in twenty years. At the Cultural Visioning 2028 town hall meeting at the Denver Art Museum on January 29, DOCA director Erin Trapp led a couple dozen artists and arts enthusiasts…

Final Sentence

Convicted killer Alberto Valles will be sentenced Friday, February 22, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, likely becoming the last juvenile offender in the state to receive that adult sentence. He will bring the number of Colorado inmates serving life for crimes that they committed prior to…

2004 Best of Denver Winners

Westword published its twenty-first Best Of Denver issue and 2004, with nods to John Hickenlooper (Best Political Upset), the Denver Public Library’s web site (Best Free Service), Jeff Bzdelik (Best Pro Coach) and High Street Speakeasy (Best New Bar). See Best of Denver 2004 here…

“There Will Be Chaos at the Convention”

Chaos at the DNC, riots in the streets of Denver, 1968 relived – no, these aren’t just the protest slogans being voiced by the usual suspects in the local radical scene. They’re potential scenarios that were hashed out by high-profile Democrats on last Sunday’s Face the Nation. If Hillary Clinton…

Magnet Mafia Goes International

Jared Jacang Maher’s February 21 feature, “Magnet Mafia Sticks to Street Art,” profiles Denver’s attractive street art syndicate. Linked below are three slide shows that feature the work of the Mafia, and some magnets that have recently been shipped to Denver as part of an exchange with street artists in…

Denver Post staffer John Moore’s Web Manifesto

The February 21 Message focuses on a memo written by Denver Post theater columnist John Moore entitled “Straight Talk About Latest Newspaper Space Cuts” – and the missive certainly lives up to its moniker. The piece was originally e-mailed to folks inquiring about assorted theater-related trims in the physical newspaper’s…

Shmuck of the Week

It has been well reported that certain members of the state legislature have had difficulty comporting themselves, ahem, appropriately so far this session. In just a few weeks, one lawmaker resigned after making an untoward advance on a woman, one was forced to repeatedly apologize for a poor choice of…

La La Land

Denver boosters are always whining about this town’s lack of celebrities, so they should stock up on the current issue of Sports Illustrated — the swimsuit edition, of course — which features some local (at least for now) talent: La La Vazquez, fiance of Nugget Carmelo Anthony. She’s one of…

Denver Media Goes Ga-Ga Over Questionable Story

A significant number of folks in the mainstream Denver media have a far different idea of what constitutes a big story than I do. That fact is illustrated by the amount of coverage heaped upon the tale of Adrian Ulm (pictured), a middle schooler who was allegedly beaten by a…

The Green Machine

As reported in Off Limits this week, absinthe is now legal in the United States! And I don’t mean that phony shit that’s like anisette dyed green or that Eastern European stuff that tastes like cough syrup or that legally gray gunk shipped under cover and marketed specifically for its…

Obama and Clinton YouTubed

Whether Barack Obama’s Speechgate is a nonissue, a callous Clinton attack or the tip of the iceberg of Obama’s rhetorical and ideological harvesting, the real political marvel of the season is the emergence of YouTube as a viable political cyberhatchet. Somehow, sandwiched in between videos of drunk kids destroying dorm…

2003 Best of Denver Winners

In 2003, Westword published its twentieth Best of Denver issue, a celebration of the city that saluted everything from Best Goofy Sports Gizmo (the humidor and hyperbaric chamber introduced by Rockies manager Clint Hurdle to combat Denver’s thin air) to Best Blues Musician (Otis Taylor — finally a national star,…

Previous MasterMind: Brandi Shigley

“Do What You Love, Love What You Do.” A naïve trope verging on cliché? A trite slogan only a prepubescent could possibly accept without a hint of cynicism? Sure. But that doesn’t make it anything but a truism for 2005 fashion and design MasterMind winner Brandi Shigley. Denver’s bubbly homegrown…

You Can Put Pineapple on My Tombstone

I remember the first time I saw someone eating a pizza with pineapple on it. My friend Nick was sitting in his living room in Buffalo with a sixer of Molson Export and Beverly Hills 90210 on the TV, eating a Hawaiian pizza from La Nova covered with thin-sliced ham…

Previous MasterMinds: Lauri Lynnxe Murphy

Slide Show This week, as we look forward to this year’s MasterMind awards, we check in with previous MasterMinds. Thinking back on her 2005 MasterMind win for visual arts is bittersweet now for Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, since she had to close Capsule Gallery in January. Her Sante Fe Drive building…