The 21 Best Events in Denver, August 15-21

Consider August the golden hour: July’s heat is gone, but fall isn’t quite here yet, making this month the ideal time to get out and about. Celebrate Denver’s Mexican heritage and food at Westword’s second-annual Tacolandia, or kick off the High Plains Comedy Festival at a preview show. Give a…

Write Our World Shares Stories of Refugees and Immigrants

Write Our World: Crawford Elementary School highlights the experiences of persecution and triumph that brought immigrant and refugee families from all over the world — including Nepal and Bhutan to Somalia — to Crawford Elementary School in Aurora, where 95 percent of students are minorities and 75 percent are English learners.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard: a Giddily Irresponsible Action Comedy

Here’s what Patrick Hughes’ The Hitman’s Bodyguard has going for it: It’s exactly the movie it promises to be, but more so. It’s more wild, more hilarious, more giddily irresponsible — it’s the hard R action comedy that kids sneaking into it might imagine it’s going to be, minus ’70s…

Take a Ride With Black Cube Artists at Drive-In: Personal Space

The Black Cube Nomadic Museum is keeping Cortney Lane Stell more than busy in 2017. As director and chief curator of the Denver-based museum without walls, finding new avenues to explore as a curator comes easily to Stell. Case in point: the latest Black Cube project, Drive-In: Personal Space, an exhibit/performance she co-curated with Ruth Bruno of Colorado Creative Industries that will pop up for one night only in a vacant lot in RiNo on August 19.

RIP, Art: RiNo Residents Mourn the Death of the River North Neighborhood

The River North Arts District is booting out actual artists – that’s the claim of a group of arts activists who ramped up the fight against gentrification in the River North neighborhood by redecorating three iron slabs touting the RiNo Art District with flowers, crosses and other objects of mourning on Monday, August 14, 2017.

Eight of the Best Short Stories Set in Colorado

The author Lorrie Moore once described a novel as a marriage, while short stories function more like brief affairs. Colorado has inspired many literary hookups, some passionate and some bleak. Here’s a list of short stories set in Colorado that you can easily read on your next lunch break.

Menashe Makes Slacker Comedy out of Orthodox Life

On a crowded Brooklyn street, an Orthodox Jew adjusts his yarmulke, a tefillin bag under his arm. He speaks on a smartphone and practically struts. The man, as dandified as one can look in a black suit and a white shirt, is a red herring in Menashe. Several other Brooklynites,…

100 Colorado Creatives 4.0: Jeff Lee

Life partners Jeff Lee and Ann Martin are book people to the core: The couple’s shared love for our wild lands and the kind of socially engaged, place-based literature that argues for preserving natural spaces converge at the Rocky Mountain Land Library.

Free for All: The Five Best Free Events in Denver This Week

Though we’re already halfway through August, it’s still summertime…and nothing makes the living easier than a week full of great entertainment. Whether you’d like to picnic in the park during a blockbuster screening, enjoy laughs and quaffs at brewery-based comedy shows and Shakespeare parodies, or gather with a gaggle of…

The 48 Hour Summit Brings Socially Engaged Art to RedLine

“In order to be a strong ecosystem where artists can thrive, we have to have a healthy amount of cross-pollination” says Libby Barbee, Arts in Society and Programming manager at RedLine. It’s that aim, along with a vested interest in socially- and community-engaged art, that anchors the 48 Hours Summit, a free and open-to-the-public August 11-12 series of talks, workshops, and visual and performance art related to the gallery’s annual theme, (dis)place.

Ten Things to Do in Denver for $10 and Under (Seven Free)

After a particularly lively start, August shows no signs of slowing this weekend. The Colorado Classic and Velorama are rolling into town, and the National Poetry Slam is wrapping up its annual competition here. Meanwhile, artsy delights await at all kinds of venues, including a pop-up gallery, a historic park and even a drive-in movie theater.