THURSDAY|9.9

[ART]

POT HEADS AT THE CVA

Japanese ceramics have had a tremendous impact worldwide, and their aesthetic of elegant simplicity has been especially influential on artists in the United States. That means that Soaring Voices: Recent Ceramics by Women From Japan, at Metro State’s Center for Visual Art, is something worth checking out for anyone interested in clay.

“I haven’t done a ceramics show at CVA, so I’m excited to be doing one that’s as exclusive as this,” says gallery director Jennifer Garner. “An interesting fact about the show is that many of the crates that came in were marked ‘Restricted,’ with two curators having come from Japan to oversee the unpacking of them. I think this demonstrates the high caliber of art that’s in this show.” Garner also notes that the exhibit reveals a shift in Japanese attitudes about the field of ceramics, which has heretofore been dominated by men. Only in recent times has there been appreciation for women artists in the medium.

Soaring Voices gets under way tonight at the CVA, 965 Santa Fe Drive, with a VIP reception at 6 p.m. followed by the public opening from 7 to 9 p.m.; it runs through November 16. To learn more about the show, call 303-294-5207 or go to www.metrostatecva. org. — MICHAEL PAGLIA

[FILM]

PEDAL-PUSHING CINEMA

Mountain Bike Capital USA (the new alter ego of the Winter Park-Fraser Valley Chamber of Commerce) will present a kickoff party for the tenth annual Bicycle Film Festival tonight at 7 p.m. at the Shag Lounge, 830 15th Street.

Tomorrow, the BFF screenings get started at 7 p.m. at Starz FilmCenter, in the Tivoli building on the Auraria campus. First up is The Birth of Big Air, director Jeff Tremaine’s ode to BMX stunt legend Mat Hoffman. The locals will get some love, too: Check out Colorado Pride, an elevenminute short by director Dylan Pfohl, featuring BMX riders AJ Anaya, Adrian Bigil, Joey Cordova, Matt Cordova, Matt Olson, Gavin Malcolm and Josh Thurman.

“In some ways, the local BMX scene is coming up, but there’s nothing really to bring everybody together,” says Pfohl, who visited dozens of Colorado skateparks and other spots to get footage for his film. “Every park has its own little crew, and I made this film with the hope that it would inspire something bigger. I’m really proud to see it sharing a bill with the Mat Hoffman movie, which is a truly inspiring film.”

Saturday’s program starts at 3 p.m. and includes Stephen Auerbach’s featurelength documentary Bicycle Dreams and three rounds of short films.

A festival pass is $30; tickets for individual screenings will be sold as available. For details and a full schedule, visit www.Bicyclefilmfestival.com/denver. — COLIN BANE

[ART]

GENERATION GAP

John Madden is a big-time office developer, and one of his best-known buildings is the Palazzo Verdi, a glam-Italianate tower near the Denver Tech Center that was designed by Curt Fentress. But Madden and his wife, Marjorie, are serious art collectors, too. And among the many amenities of the glitzy Palazzo is the Madden Museum of Art, which showcases both the couple’s personal collection and pieces loaned by others.

The latest show at the Madden is Thomas Hart Benton and Anthony Benton Gude, which pairs works by the late Benton, the metaphorical father of 1930s regionalism, with those of his grandson, Gude, who works in a related style.

“This is the first time I’ve shown my work in an exhibition alongside my grandfather’s,” says Gude. “The show is actually a dream come true for me, and thanks to John Madden and art consultant Abbi Levine, it all just came together.”

The opening reception is tonight from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Madden in the Palazzo, 6363 South Fiddler’s Green Circle in Greenwood Village; admission is free. The show is on view through December 30. For more information, go to www.themaddenmuseum. org or call 303-763-1970. — MICHAEL PAGLIA

FRIDAY|9.10

[BEER]

BREWS YOU CAN USE

Denver may be the Mile High City, but there’s nothing here that doesn’t go better with a cold one, and beginning today, nothing will. For the second year in a row, the city is pulling out all the stops — and popping all the tops — for the Denver Beer Fest, a ten-day extravaganza celebrating all things related to hops, barley and yeast.

The fest began last year as a way to capitalize on the annual Great American Beer Festival, which hits town September 16 to 18, and dozens of restaurants, bars, hotels and other venues have joined the party, not to mention existing beer-centric events like Oktoberfest (now in its 41st year) and Brew at the Zoo.

A random sampling of events taking place during Denver Beer Fest, which opens today and runs through September 19: Breckenridge Brewery’s Gastravaganza of Beautiful Beer and Splendid Street Food, on September 18; Beer Gardens at Elitch Gardens, on September 10; the Beer Advocate Does Denver Pub Crawl, on September 17; brewery tours; beer buses; a home-brew competition at City, O’ City; beer-pairing dinners at numerous restaurants, including Panzano, Restaurant Kevin Taylor and Oceanaire Seafood Room; the Colorado Beer Ice Cream Fest at Sweet Action; beer burlesque; and meet-the-brewer nights.

The Denver Beer Fest is organized by Visit Denver, the city’s convention and visitors’ bureau. For details and a full list of events, go to www.denverbeerfest.com. — JONATHAN SHIKES

[BOOK SIGNING]

WORD NERDS

Jeff Deck wanted to change the world. “I thought, ‘What am I good at?’” he says. “And I’m good at editing — I can spot a typo at 100 yards — so I decided to make a national campaign out of it.”
With his partner, Benjamin Herson, in tow, Deck saved up some money and set out across the country with a “typo correction kit” in search of text errors wherever they might appear, correcting them — and blogging about it — as they went along. Unlike many grammar guerrillas, however, Deck didn’t just want to get things corrected; he wanted to raise awareness. “We’re trying to spread the gospel of how important it is to just take a second look at your text before you send it out into the world,” he says. In that spirit, Deck and Herson made it their mission to make those responsible for the typos aware of their mistakes and requested permission to correct them — with compassion: “We wanted to be the kinder, gentler alternative to what’s become the stereotype of the angry grammarian.”

The mission turned into a book, The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time, and now those two friends are back on the road on a promotional tour that brings them to the Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover, 9315 Dorchester Street, tonight at 7:30 p.m.

The event is free, but signed copies of the book ($23.99) are not. For more information, go to www.tatteredcover.com or call 303-470-7050. — JEF OTTE

[FOOD]

KEEPING IT LOCAL

Local, sustainable, organic, field-to-fork, garden-to-table, harvest-to-plate. These are all food-centric buzz words that encourage us to think about the bumper crop that grows outside our front doors. And now you can learn a whole lot more about foraging for food on a local level at the Local Foods Festival, which crops up this weekend at the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield.

“We’re really trying to encourage people to learn more about growing their own food and eating locally, and this weekend is a perfect opportunity to learn about both,” says DBG spokesman Will Jones. The two-day event, which goes from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, includes a professional and amateur chile competition, cooking demonstrations from local chefs, a rodeo and barbecue, more than fifty Colorado growers, food producers and purveyors, a food court selling stategrown foodstuffs and educational demonstrations devoted to growing fresh herbs and produce in your own back yard.

In addition, Chipotle Mexican Grill, a homegrown chain that champions (and serves) ingredients culled from farms that foster the humane treatment of their livestock, will do a demo showcasing its salsamaking prowess. Admission to the festival is free. The DBG’s Chatfield location is at 8500 Deer Creek Canyon Road in Littleton.To learn more, call 303-973-3705 or go to www.botanicgardens.org/content/ local-foods-festival. — LORI MIDSON

SATURDAY|9.11

[BEER]

ROOT ROOT ROOT FOR THE HOME-BREWED TEAM

The Great American Beer Festival sloshes into town in just a few days, and the Wynkoop Brewing Company is celebrating by sending a group of local beer makers off to the competition in style, with a pep rally and beer tasting. The Great Contenders will feature 61 beers, many of them unusual or seasonal offerings, from 22 different breweries, including some that even the biggest beer geeks may not have tried.

“The goal was to get a mix of established heavies and bring in some upstarts with really great beer, so we’re covering a good section of the state’s beer culture,” says Wynkoop marketing man Marty Jones. “It’s a nice plan B for those folks who were slow to move and missed out on getting a GABF ticket.”

Some of the unusual breweries include Pint’s Pub, Dostal Alley, Pug Ryan’s, the Sandlot and Golden City Brewing. Some of the heavy hitters include Avery, Breckenridge, Great Divide, Odell and Ska.

The Great Contenders — one of dozens and dozens of beer-related events that are part of Denver Beer Fest — runs from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Wynkoop, 1634 18th Street. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 today; anyone who buys a ticket online at
www.Ticketalternative.com will be entered into a drawing for two GABF tickets. For more info, go to www.wynkoop.com. For more on Denver Beer Week, go to www.denver. org/denverbeerfest. — JONATHAN SHIKES

[BIKES]

CHECKPOINT CHARLIES

A year ago, former bike messenger Jen Nordhem put on the first Femalley Cat, a bike race ridden in conjunction with the Bicycle Film Festival, as a competitive outlet for women bicyclists, who don’t have as many opportunities to be badass on the road. The guys, who know all about alley-cat racing (which involves carrying a manifest, messenger-style, to a number of checkpoints where difficult tasks must be performed), were left out, though they did have a chance to compete later in sprints.

But in 2010, things have changed: The Femalley Cat will now race in tandem with the Broseph Invitational, tailored for the dudes with its own set of challenges. “The tasks at the checkpoints are funny and sometimes cruel,” Nordhem explains, “but the Femalley Cat is more PG: The racers might have to do ten push-ups or drink a cup of coffee, things like that. The guys will have some, shall we say, extra challenges along their way.” She’s not telling what those might be, however.

Registration is at 3 p.m. in the Denver Performing Arts Complex Sculpture Park, under the Borofsky dancers; both races start at 3:30 and wind their way through a mystery map of downtown businesses and hot spots before ending at a secret location around 4:30 p.m., where side events, including a ladies’ Lipstick Shuttle Sprint and the Bro Wet T-Shirt Trackstand Contest, will take place. Finally, prizes will be given out later at Starz FilmCenter before the evening’s BFF screenings.

Registration for the races is $5 each, and Nordhem says the best way to experience them — if you’re not competing — is to volunteer to work the checkpoints, or show up at the after-event. Follow the Femalley Cat’s Twitter feed, http://twitter.com/femalleycat, for checkpoint information and updates on the final location. Or go to http://femalleycat. Wordpress.com for details. — SUSAN FROYD

[BIKES]

FAT SATURDAY

According to the second of the Ten Commandments of the Tour de Fat listed on the event’s website — Honor all other bikes — the eleventh annual cross-country party isn’t just a fun-lovin’ festival featuring beer, bands and costumed bicycle aficionados; it’s “the one bike festival that cherishes bicycle diversity on our Cruise-ade through town.” “Bike culture at large in this country is on fire and exploding, and that’s a great thing,” says Bryan Simpson, spokesman for the Tour de Fat and sponsor New Belgium Brewing.

“What we find is it brings a lot of different elements of bike culture together: You get your fixies with your road riders with the mountain bikers all in one place. It’s fun to get all those different sub-groups together.”

What begins near the City Park Esplanade with a six-plus-mile parade around the city turns into a keg-tapping brouhaha with entertainment galore and culminates with the Car-for-Bike Trade Celebration, during which one dedicated cyclist will hand over the title to his or her vehicle in exchange for a shiny new set of (two) wheels.

“Those people,” Simpson says of the car-for-bike swappers in each of the tour’s thirteen cities, “are true role models.” Bike parade registration is free (there’s a suggested donation of $5) and begins at 9 a.m. in City Park. Entertainment begins at 11 a.m., with the Car-for-Bike Trade at 2:35 p. m. Get a full schedule and more information at www.newbelgium.com/content/ denver-city-park. — DREW BIXBY

[CULTURE]

BE ITALIAN

Expect an abbondanza of vino, food, culture and entertainment this weekend at Festival Italiano, a two-day street fair and marketplace at Belmar. The two-day event, touting more than 25 Italian food, snack and dessert vendors, includes food and wine pairings from Frank Bonanno (Bones, Luca D’Italia, Mizuna and Osteria Marco) and Gabriel Aragon (Venice Restaurant & Wine Bar), and culinary demonstrations from Elise Wiggins (Panzano), Jon Emmanuel and Summer Polson (Project Angel Heart), Ben Davis (Tony’s Market), and Mark Kalix (Wystone’s World Teas). And if you don’t know how to ask for your meats, cheeses and pastas in Italian, you can learn while you’re there, since Italian language lessons are also part of the weekend festivities.

Italian wine tastings, a kids’ grape stomp, live Italian music, including opera and chalk artists, are on tap, too, though the biggest draw of the weekend is the testosterone-charged bocce tournament, played both Saturday and Sunday, in which the winning team walks away with $500 in prize money.

The festival takes place at West Alaska Drive and South Teller Drive in Lakewood’s Belmar district; admission is free, but a portion of ticketed event activities and food and beverage sales will benefit Project Angel Heart. For more info, go to www.belmarcolorado.com. — LORI MIDSON

[THEATER]

A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING

It’s an experience that’s memorable for few, yet one that few will ever forget: the first time. Initially a website (www.myfirsttime. com) and then an off-Broadway production based on stories culled from the website, My First Time traffics in tales of virginity lost — and now, for the “first time” (sorry), it comes to Colorado, to the Nonesuch Theater in Fort Collins.

Featuring a minimalist set design of four bar stools and a slide show (and no, the slides are not pornographic), the basic performance has actors using a script as a guideline that weaves in their own personal first-time stories — and a few from the audience — along the way. It’s a little offbeat, says producer and Nonesuch part owner Nick Turner, but it’s nothing too avant-garde. Turner emphasizes that the theater takes pains to create a safe environment: “It really fits what we’re trying to do with Nonesuch, which is kind of provocative, but also interesting. And it is. It’s sexy and funny and heartwarming — and real.” The performance opens tonight at 10 p.m. at Nonesuch, 216 Pine Street in Old Town Fort Collins, and continues through October; admission runs from $15 to $20.

For showtimes and more information, go to www.nonesuchtheater.com or call 970- 224-0444. — JEF OTTE

SUNDAY|9.12

[RECREATION]

HAVE A FIELD DAY IN BOULDER

For many people, the idea of Field Day brings back memories of three-legged sprints, wheelbarrow races, big blue ribbons and cheering friends. And that’s the spirit that Women’s Adventure event director Joanne Laubscher is going for with “The Playground,” the center point of her second annual Women’s Adventure Field Day at the Boulder Reservoir.

“It’s a day where there’s no pressure to do or be anything,” Laubscher says. “It’s just a chance to come out with your girlfriends and play. We wanted to try to remind people of that feeling of being a kid again and that sensation of trying new activities, that realization of being completely and totally alive.”

The $75 registration includes all-day access (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to clinics in rock climbing, orienteering, yoga, golf, bike maintenance, sports medicine, massage and nutrition, as well as equipment demos and opportunities to try stand-up paddling, kayaking, fly fishing, mountain biking, downhill skiing and other sports. There will also be gear giveaways, adventure-travel trip raffles, and swag bags put together by Women’s Adventure magazine, Merrell, Overland, Osprey, the Women’s Wilderness Institute, REI, Zeal Optics, Outdoor Divas and other sponsors. The Boulder Reservoir is located off highway 119 in Boulder County.

For registration and more information, visit www.thewomensadventure.com. — COLIN BANE

MONDAY|9.13

[POETRY]

GET YOUR SLAM ON

From his vantage point in the Denver poetry scene as a co-founder of the Mercury Cafe’s poetry slam team, Ian Dougherty saw that a lot of young poets out there want help with improving their work. But, especially in the slam-poetry arena, there’s not a whole lot of instruction going on, particularly if you’re not in school. At the same time, Shannon Fraley-Piserchio of the Bookery Nook wanted to host a regular poetry event at the store. Through a mutual friend, the simpatico duo discovered common ground, and the idea for Labtop Poetry, a combined workshop and open-mike series at the Bookery, was born.

Labtop will meet twice monthly from 6:30 to 8:30
p.m., for a workshop on the second Monday and an open mike on the third; tonight’s inaugural event features Slam Nuba poet Ayinde Russell, a choice Dougherty praises unequivocally.

“I had a chance to work with Ayinde on the Merc team in 2009, and he’s an absolutely incredible writer and a dynamic performer; he has an amazing stage presence,” he says. “His work is some of the best around in making the jump from the page onto the stage.” That’s a good start — and in the future, Dougherty, who touts the event with the slogan “Get in the Lab,” hopes to mix up presenters, offering alternating male and female perspectives as well as lecturers from genres other than slam poetry. Labtop Poetry is free and open to people age eighteen and older. The Bookery Nook is at 4280 Tennyson Street; for information, visit www.thebookerynook.com or look up Labtop Poetry on Facebook. — SUSAN FROYD

TUESDAY|9.14

[ZINES]

THE ZINE SCENE

When Alex Wrekk discovered zines as a teenager, a whole new world opened up to her. “I thought they were so neat, because they were these little slices of life of people I hadn’t met, but it felt like they were friends,” says Wrekk, a zine creator herself and organizer for the Portland Zine Symposium. “At some point, the barrier between consumer and participant vanished, and I realized, ‘Hey, I could do this!’” Since 1997, Wrekk has been creating her zine Brainscan, which “started out as a mix of pseudo-philosophical nonsense and the paper equivalent of bad observational standup,” she explains. Now, though, “I feel like my zine is as varied as I am.” In May 2009, Wrekk did a small zine tour of the United Kingdom and France.

“I met some awesome people, and we kept joking about them coming over here and doing a tour,” she says. Well, the joke is on us, because that’s exactly what Wrekk and five of her friends from across the pond (Isy Morgenmuffel, Edd Baldry, Nat Last Hours, Tom Fiction and Steve Larder) will be doing at Zines on Toast, tonight at 7 p.m. at the 27 Social Center, 2727 West 27th Avenue.

They’ll be sharing anecdotes and stories from zines, information, entertainment and more. Admission is by donation; visit www.Zinesontoast.org for information. — AMBER TAUFEN

[FILM]

KNITTING OF THE DAMNED Idle hands are the devil’s playground, but that won’t be a problem at this month’s Knitflix showing, even though the film is Village of the Damned. That’s because the whole idea of Knitflix is to work on your knitting (or embroidery, latchhook or what have you) while watching a fun film that facilitates a bit of socialization on the side.

“It’s not so much for filmies as it is for crafty people. They come, they bring their handcrafts, they can bring popcorn, maybe there’s some wisecracking during the movie,” says Simone Groene-Sackett, program associate for the Denver Public Library. “It’s an informal movie-watching atmosphere, for sure. It’s people getting together and crafting while there’s something up there on the screen.” Village of the Damned, a 1960 film about a brood of mysterious children with supernatural powers, was chosen for its back-toschool theme and because it seemed hard to take too seriously. “We really enjoy showing old movies more so than contemporary movies, because of the whole slightly campy factor of them,” says Groene-Sackett.

Catch Village of the Damned and catch up on your crafting tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the Level 1 Fresh City Lounge in the Central Library, 10 West 14th Avenue Parkway. Admission is free, but you’ll have to bring your own yarn. For more info, visit www.
Denverlibrary.org/fresh. — CORY CASCIATO

[THEATER]

A BIGGER STAGE

Andrew Lloyd Webber may be famous for the elaborate, but Rod Lansberry, director of the Arvada Center’s regional premiere of Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, thinks he can do the play one better. “Webber productions tend to be spectacles,” he says, acknowledging that, as a regional theater, the Center doesn’t exactly have the budget of the Broadway show. “We have some of that, but we don’t rely on the spectacle. I think it’ll be a cleaner and more concise production.” Lansberry says his rationale is that, to justify the expense of the production, the Webber show has to fill a lot of seats. At the Arvada Center, whose capacity is 500, even the nosebleeds are going to be better than you’d be likely to get on Broadway. “The intimacy of it gives you the opportunity to really connect with the audience.” That connection gets under way tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Arvada Center, 6910 Wadsworth Boulevard in Arvada, and continues through October 10. Tickets run $50 to $65, depending on seats and showtimes.

For information, call 720-898-7200 or go to www.arvadacenter.org. — JEF OTTE

WEDNESDAY|9.15

[OUTDOORS]

STAYIN’ ALIVE

“My biggest frustration is reading stories in the media about these really dramatic life-or-death scenarios people get themselves into, and knowing that most of those survival situations are entirely preventable,” says Ford Church, founder and executive director of the Cottonwood Institute. “With just the tiniest bit of know-how and some basic supplies, almost any of those stories could have been avoided altogether.”

The Cottonwood Institute primarily works with schools and community organizations to connect young people with the outdoors, and Church has made teaching basic survival skills a top priority: “We want people to connect with the outdoors and have some great adventures.

We also want them to be safe and come back!” Tonight at 7 p.m., the Cottonwood Institute presents a free all-ages workshop on 3-Season Survival Skills at the REI Denver flagship store, 1416 Platte Street.

“With the changing of the seasons, this is an interesting time of year for survival situations in Colorado,” Church says. “You could go from forest-fire risk on one day to heavy snow on the next. We’ll go through some interactive survival scenarios, evaluate key survival priorities and show you a few simple things you can carry in your personal survival kit to keep you from making headlines.” For more information on this and other Cottonwood programs, visit www.cottonwoodinstitute.org. — COLIN BANE