FRI, 10/15 “I once danced on that table right over there,” said the executive vice president, pointing with a well-manicured finger at a metal table near the far wall of the Wazee Supper Club. “I once spent the night under that table,” her companion replied. No surprise. Over the years,…

SAT, 10/9 Centuries ago, minstrels roamed the countryside with lutes and mandolins, trilling ballads of romance, chivalry and the glories of ages past. Today the music of the masses has a little less hindsight. Consider: Legendary British songwriter Richard Thompson was one of dozens of rock dignitaries asked by Playboy…

FRI, 10/8 I remember spending glorious afternoons at my grandmother’s house as a child, thumbing through yellowing issues of LIFE magazine. The stunning photographs spoke to me, took me to places that a poor, small-town girl could only dream about. LIFE was truly a window on the world. In 2002,…

MON, 9/27 In his most recent online column, “Durst Case Scenario,” comedian Will Durst offers an Onion-like article under the headline “‘Stupid People Love Bush’ New Study Proves.” Quoting a fictional think-tank member, Durst writes, “It has to do with intellectual curiosity. Folks see Bush in front of a stream…

SAT, 9/25 One of the big-city touches that Denver has always had down cold is the tradition of the downtown street fair. If nothing else, we know how to throw a party. And now we can add the Festival Italiano to all of the old faves. Things begin tonight, sort…

SAT, 9/18 That Ike LaRue has such a vivid imagination. In Ike’s private world, a mild time out is a hundred-year jail sentence; the neighbor’s pet cats are really notorious, cop-evading canary burglars, and…did we mention that Ike’s a pooch? Dog or not, he’s a roguish character far too delicious…

MON, 9/20 “Whether it’s good or bad, it’s always entertaining,” notes Lion’s Lair bartender Dermot Carroll about the bar’s Monday open-mike comedy nights. Dermot has been serving drinks at the Lair, at 2022 East Colfax Avenue, since the first open-mike event, and he’ll serve them again tonight for the Lion’s…

Dancers have been trying to take flight since dance was created; they spring up, they sail through the air, they dive, they vault, they flip, they swing from trapezes. But alas, dancers have never actually flown, right? That’s what you think. Brooklyn-based choreographer Elizabeth Streb, a fifty-something spike-haired maverick with…

FRI, 9/10 Denver artist Tracy Weil is a fun-loving guy, and his River North neighborhood gallery/studio/house, weilworks, is just the place to have fun. “It’s my Barbie Dream House,” Weil says without irony. Sure — if Barbie’s house was a quirky, neo-modern space with an exhibition tower and a see-through…

SAT, 9/11 Fifteen-year-old Coloradan Zipei Feng is The Bride of the Go world, slaying twenty competitors at a time in the 4,000-year-old Eastern board game. It’s a complex, mentally challenging match — though certainly not as bloody as the encounters in Kill Bill Vol. 1. In China, promising Go players…

FRI, 9/3 If the title New World My Eye sounds a tad polemical, don’t be daunted: The group exhibit debuting today at the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council may cast a critical Chicano eye on the dominant American culture, but it’s intended to educate rather than to incite conflict. With…

These are the images we’ve seen over and over again, the indelibles, some in black and white, some in color, and all supremely indicative of the times they record. The 128 photographs included in Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs don’t just tell stories; they immerse us in the…

THURS, 8/26 It was August 26, 1964, general-admission tickets were $6.60 apiece, and parents feared the worst. They were utterly certain that when the Beatles took the stage at Red Rocks forty years ago today, the crowd, high on that mysterious evil force called rock and roll, would surely riot,…

TUES, 8/31 Americans are so darned smug. They think they own the world. But set foot into the University of Denver’s globally conscious language program, and you’ll begin to see a different picture, reflective of DU’s cosmopolitan student body and business-minded international bent. The school gladly shares its strengths in…

Here in the metro area, where small theater troupes tend to crowd the cultural landscape, even the staunchest supporter of independent theater must give little thought to the Bas Bleu Theatre Company. Based in downtown Fort Collins, the ensemble has performed in its tiny salon-style space since 1992. But the…

FRI, 8/20 Play all the folk music you want; it’s no good without the folks. To that end, Swallow Hill Music Association is putting on the Swallow Hill Folk Festival, its annual gathering of pickers and fans dedicated to the perpetuation of true American roots music. Four Mile Historic Park,…

WED, 8/25 Denver’s El Centro Su Teatro proudly traces its roots back to the 1960s theatrical-political actions of Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino, which supported César Chavez and the United Farm Workers grape boycotts, and later evolved into the prototypical Chicano theater group. Such solidarity is just part of…

SUN, 8/22 Attend today’s unique African Market at Augustana Lutheran Church, and you will never again think of Africans as a generic people. That’s the goal of the event, says Phil Gazley of Lutheran Family Services, a sponsoring organization that provides resettlement services to refugee groups from around the globe:…

William T. Wiley, art’s great old hippie, has been both revered and ridiculed. A leading proponent of the Bay Area Funk School that also included such San Francisco Art Institute cohorts as Robert Arneson and Roy DeForest, Wiley helped pave the way for art to take itself less seriously. And…

SAT, 8/14 Chas Gale took one long, sensuous step into the world of Argentine tango in 1997 and never looked back. “People always say they didn’t find the tango, the tango found them,” Gale says, and he was no different. “I tried swing dancing and dabbled in salsa, and then…

On vacation in Vancouver, Denverites Cal Smith and David Citizen wandered into a fragrant Chinese spice shop and fell in love with the place. More important, they noted that Denver had nothing like it, and in an entrepreneurial moment, decided to try their hand in the spice business when they…

Denver goes to the theater, and that’s a fact. From touring shows and homegrown, big-time productions at the Denver Performing Arts Center to independent projects funded by grants and realized through the sheer grit of small companies, the metro area supports quality presentations on many stages. Hand in hand with…