Early Friday morning, London police discovered a Mercedes wired to explode outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub – where “Sugar ‘N’ Spice,” a popular ladies’ night, was in full swing. Is nothing sacred?
Development in Denver may be booming, but the downtown core still suffers from a nasty blight holding up potential development and fragmenting the urban environment: surface parking lots.
These desolate stretches of asphalt and pay stations are a remnant of the1980 Denver real-estate bust in which properties earmarked for skyscrapers were hastily retooled into bland surface lots. Since there's little aesthetic oversight over the properties, the majority are grotesque wastelands of sun-baked, shattered concrete, besmirching downtown like festering sores.
From the Himalayas to the Rockies, Tibet’s chief oracle is bringing his positive energy to help overcome negative forces and obstacles facing the Mile High today. He’s the Dalai Lama’s advisor, protector of Tibet, all Tibetan people and Tibet’s government. So the organizers of Denver’s Summer of Peace movement are hoping that he can bring calm to this city’s boiling streets.
It’ll be comforting to many of the bikers in tomorrow’s Ride for Recovery that they need not fear the police, DUI, getting busted for drugs or drug paraphernalia.
This weekend Naropa is throwing a giant Kerouac Festival, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Beat poet’s seminal novel, On the Road. There will be a marathon reading of the book, panel discussions, films, music and more. For the complete schedule, click here.
This is the second blowout for On the Road and the time Jack Kerouac spent in Denver in the summer of 1947. Earlier this year the Denver Public Library hosted the On the Road scroll, sort of the Holy Grail of Beats. In honor of that, I assembled a Literary Map of Denver, featuring sightings from Kerouac's classic as well as other novels that name-check our city, which has long drawn authors on their own Kerouacian quest. We had a few rules for inclusion -- fiction only, not memoirs (except for Cassady); Denver proper, not Boulder, not the mountains -- and even within these city limitations, found a larger trove of titles than we would have imagined. From Whitman to Twain, Michener to Cussler, Proulx to Didion.
Here’s an excerpt of the introduction to that map, focusing on Kerouac’s time in Denver. To read the whole piece, click here. To view the map, click here. – Amy Haimerl
Read the feature here.
Along with biking season comes bike thieving season, but the bandits are particularly brazen this summer. Bikes are still getting jacked from the usual places like backyards and garages. The scumbag robbers are still breaking bikes free from their master’s locks all over town. But some stolen bikes are coming fresh off the bike room floor.
The June 28 Message column features excerpts from an anti-ESPN screed Denver Post sports writer Adrian Dater put on the newspaper’s blog, and his superiors quickly removed. Fortunately, a keen-eyed reader saved the text before it disappeared entirely. Below, feast on Dater’s entire piece, which kicks ass and names names in very entertaining fashion. It won’t take long for you to realize why Post editors didn’t want you, or anyone else, reading it.-- Michael Roberts
After years of being studiously – insultingly – ignored, I was finally called up for jury duty in Denver District Court a few years ago. I was eager to do my civic duty, particularly since the courtroom where I was sent along with dozens of other potential jurors was set to hear a bar-assault case -- and who better than I to weigh that sort of evidence?
Mayor John Hickenlooper has found a replacement for Stephanie O’Malley, the former director of the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses who now has her hands full as the newly elected Clerk & Recorder. Yesterday Awilda R. Marquez was named to head the department – and she’s going to have a full plate, too, with duties that include overseeing dozens of city permits, incuding those that authorize valet services and liquor licenses.
Only three months after replacing Lindy Eichenbaum-Lent -- the mayor's popular former press secretary who chose a reduced role as senior advisor to the mayor after coming back from maternity leave -- Marlena Fernández Berkowitz resigned her post. No word yet on who might replace her -- or who might want the job of upkeeping the mayor's image.
Here's the full text of the press release she sent out Wednesday, June 27 at 6:50 p.m.:
I wanted to let you all know that with great difficulty I have decided to resign from my post as Communications Director for Mayor Hickenlooper. I have the best communications job in Colorado, but my timing was off in accepting since my two children are still quite young, and the time commitment this role requires to do a great job is more than I can give.
This decision was a hard one to make because I have really enjoyed the role and working with all of you. I will be staying on until the end of July and I hope to close out my time with you in as a productive way as possible.
Thanks to everyone for all of your kindness and support.
Thanks!
Marlena
