Everyone knows it’s good for the community to support local businesses and projects, especially in these economic times. Well, here’s an opportunity to put your money where your “buy local” mouth is: The world premiere of the brand-new Olivia Rox! — an independent film that was shot entirely in Boulder,…

In recent years, the tattoo industry has moved on from stereotypes of social deviance and freak-show connotations to become an art form that many people respect. (It’s much more difficult to find a tattooed lady in a sideshow these days.) A generation ago, tattoos were considered social suicide in certain…

When we were children, all good stories ended with the sentence “And they lived happily ever after.” Sadly, that happily-ever-after is becoming increasingly difficult to find in the modern age, which is where organizations like Weld County’s Building Healthy Marriages comes in. The non-profit group provides free relationship-education seminars to…

I’ve never been crazy enough to run a half-marathon — especially not one on a freakin’ mountain, and especially not a fourteener — but if I ever did reach that level of insanity, and if I actually managed to finish, here would be the first two things I’d want when…

Every writer should have a friend like Brian Polk, creator of the local zine Yellow Rake. “It’s essentially in existence because a lot of my friends, even professional writers, didn’t have an avenue for creative writing,” Polk explains. “A lot of these people would write stories, and they’d just be…

“We mountain people, generally speaking, are connected to nature,” says R.R. Shakti, event director for YogaRocks! Mountain Fest. “Yoga takes us to an inner space and awareness of ourselves, and that same inner power and meditational awareness can happen in nature as well.” Hence the second annual YogaRocks!, which will…

Did you die a little inside when Facebook’s Scrabulous game was removed from the site due to a copyright-infringement lawsuit? Did you rejoice when it returned as Lexulous? Does your entire family refuse to play Boggle with you due to your commodious and pervasive vocabulary? (And the annoying victory dance…

Every woman envies pin-up girls — beauties basking in male attention, making coy faces with those big doe eyes and stretching those impeccable figures into flirtatious poses. We envy them for obvious reasons: because we want to be them, of course — lovely and girly, rejoicing in female sexual empowerment…

If you’ve ever been to a mushroom festival — particularly the legendary Telluride Mushroom Festival, which this year runs from August 27-30 — you already know that mycologists (’shroom experts) are in a league of their own. And so is the documentary Know Your Mushrooms. The flick combines material filmed…

The good folks of Salida are pulling out all the stops for the inaugural Salida Riverside Fine Arts Festival, and the result should be worth the several-hour drive south. “I’ve been an officer on the Visitors Bureau in Chaffee County, and I became aware of how an event like this…

Now that the Merrell Oyster Racing Series is turning the advanced age of six, people may not remember that the mother of all scavenger-hunt-slash-adventure-races got its start right here in Denver in 2003. In fact, the race is named after Colorado’s most famous dish: Rocky Mountain oysters, of course, because…

“With so many film festivals that are run around the country and so few documentary film festivals, I felt strongly that there should be a documentary festival here in Colorado that can hopefully become the preeminent documentary festival in the West,” says Wade Gardner, artistic director of the inaugural DocuWest…

Artists and poets have long sought and found inspiration in the natural world and they way humanity fits into that world. Anne Waldman is no different; her new investigative hybrid poem, Manatee/Humanity, was conceptualized while looking at an old, scarred female manatee in Miami’s aquarium. “It was just an epiphany…

The first annual Dog House Music Summer Block Party came together in such a way that it truly seems it was meant to be. “We have this special focal point coming, the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus,” explains Dog House’s Gary Lennox. Lennon was Lennox’s idol, and the latter’s been…

What do cupcakes and the Horndribbles — those fantastic furry creations invented by Lucas Richards — have in common? Nothing, really, but the little monsters are coming for one night only to Colfax’s best cupcake and cereal bar — the Shoppe — for The Horndribbles Present Tote-Tacular. Shoppe owner Tran…

This year’s Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region is going to be a little different from those of previous years — but the changes are all for the good. “Our biggest news is the new partnership with Curious Theatre,” notes Red Rocks Community College visual and performing arts department chair…

What do surfing and Zen have in common? Well, nothing…and everything. To truly understand the connection, you’ll need to pick up a copy of Jaimal Nikos Yogis’s book Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea, which follows Yogis as he heads to Hawaii with a one-way…

There’s nothing new under the sun — and that proverb especially applies to the film world. It seems like Hollywood just can’t leave a great movie alone; every year, the industry remakes at least one awesome film, turning memorable characters and riveting plots into unwatchable shlock. That’s why film buffs…