Like gay marriage, marijuana use and tattoos, public perception of female sex toys is not what it used to be. While male sex toys still weigh heavy on the shame scale, a female pleasure device is mostly seen as a cute novelty. Encountering one while snooping is comparable to finding a rutabaga in the fridge or a Kid 'n Play record on the shelf: more "Oh, that's interesting" than "You filthy slut."

In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, which opens tomorrow at the Bug, takes us back to a time before female sexuality was acknowledged, when the buzzing phallus was used to treat women for "hysteria" -- and once its alternative uses were made known, was vilified as an unmentionable weapon of evil, a disgusting appliance of hell-bound harlots.

In honor of this theatrical monument to the social evolution of female sexuality, we are proud to present this brief pop-culture history of the vibrator:

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To call Free School Denver "grassroots" is almost too mild: Like a relic of the '60s, DFS has no hierarchies. Formed in that nascent spirit of community education, the school offers all classes for free, and anyone can attend or teach one. Sessions tend to go down in private homes or welcoming venues that range from coffee houses to public parks, and subjects might include anything from an ongoing Revolutionary Reading Group to Hemp Jewelry Making.

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Tube Top, the newest attraction at Elitch Gardens Water Park.

Though you can never truly count on the weather in Colorado, it's been consistently warm out there for a while and the forecast calls for it to stay that way. Fortunately, the water park at Elitch Gardens will open May 26, just in time for Memorial Day fun.

Here's a look at the latest addition to the park: "Tube Top," a four-story water slide.

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"Tea Time," Liese Chavez

There's a whimsical element in Liese Chavez's paintings. A woman is baking a pie, but there's feathers next to the pie, or a woman is holding a pear in her hand, but the pear is a house with a smoking chimney. The single maiden in a seemingly empty rustic house adds a fairy tale element, while the objects the women interact with derive from folk tales, like the blackbird pie. The result combines common still life objects with fantasy, and that's how Chavez takes her still lifes beyond the mundane in the group show, Intimate Views, Interiors and Still Lifes, at Arts at Denver.

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Update: Two corrections have been made: Tropic Thunder is now the only June 18 film, and viewers can vote on which film they'd like to see on July 16.

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It's finally here.

The 2012 Film On the Rocks summer line-up at Red Rocks Amphitheatre was announced this evening, and many movies that made the cut were picked for the people, by the people. Though carefully curated by the Denver Film Center -- and led by FOTR Program Director Britta Erickson -- if the inclusion of a film like The Notebook rubs watchers the wrong way, look no further than the audience itself:

"It wasn't just because this seems to be the year of Ryan Gosling," says Karla Rodriguez, Audience Development and Social Media Manager for FOTR. "It's because The Notebook has been one of our top five most-requested films consistently since it came out. From crowd surveys to Facebook polls, this is what the people want."

Read more about tonight's announcement and see the full schedule below.

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Does anyone ever want to wake up early on a Sunday? May 20 could be the day to try. The Kaiser Permanente Colfax Marathon will hit the street for the seventh year in a row this Sunday, and even if you're not joining the hordes of runners, there's plenty of fun on the sidelines. In fact, this unique urban marathon is already being celebrated with a two-day expo at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium that's now under way.

Runners who are joining in the 26-mile race are urged to arrive at City Park at 5 a.m. on Sunday (assuming they picked up the appropriate packet at the expo); the marathon will start promptly at 6 a.m.To tie up any loose ends on race logistics, view the video done by the race director Creigh Kelley.

Want to watch the race?

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The first Denver Cruisers ride of the season went down on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 with the "Back in Black" theme. Photos by Jim Wills for Westword.

View the full Denver Cruisers slide show.

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Photo by Frank Harbour

From Left to Right: Craig Noble's "Rift Icon, " Mary Ryan's "Starborn,"Anthony Monaco's "Transition," Ajai's "Maslow's," Melanie Levin's "Presence," and Leo Compliment's "Chalice of Light and Color."

There isn't one definitive way to view spirituality, and that's what Katie Hoffman and Hilary De Polo want to illustrate in their new show at Core. One of the reasons juried group shows like Spirituality are so interesting is that they can emphasize the diversity of a theme through many different viewpoints, and with 34 artists, this show promises to create a mosaic of ethereal perspectives.

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While it often gets overshadowed by the music scene, Denver actually has a rich history of underground literature. From the Kerouac-inspired bohemian coffee and bookshops of 1960s Colfax to the Yellow Rake readings at Old Curtis Street Tavern, our city has been spawning independent works of fiction and poetry for decades. And there are few locals today more closely associated with DIY publishing than Charly "The City Mouse" Fasano. Whether hustling his books of poetry or impressively crafted audio-books, or giving one of his now iconic readings (he once opened a sold-out show at the Gothic -- an audience size almost unheard of for a live poet), Fasano has rooted himself in this city, becoming as much a part of the creative fabric as home-brew or cutesy indie-folk bands.

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It's difficult to say exactly what "mod" means in 2012. Even when the movement reached its zenith in London in the early '60s, the definition wasn't clear: not quite hippie, not quite punk, not quite English, yet not quite American, either. Inventing a sort of bohemian dandy aesthetic, the mods wore pork-pie hats, listened to jazz records, gobbled down amphetamines like pac-man and rode Vespa scooters through London, on their way to fights with "the rockers." Ah, but some would say that's not quite right, either. In its evolutions from the Quadrophenia/mod-punk revival of the late '70s to the Britpop aesthetics of the mid-90s, what's considered mod has gone through many changes and titles -- yet, like the Supreme Courts definition of pornography, you know it when you see it.

Here in Denver, the mod lifestyle of high fashion, scooters and record-collecting has been growing, due in part to groups like the Denver Vintage Reggae Society, whose events allow people to get dressed up in mod (or skinhead, ska, northern soul, etc.) gear and dance to records made before most of them were even born. And this Friday, May 18, you can check out these bohemian dandies yourself at the Mods Mayday 2012 event at the Skylark Lounge, featuring DJs spinning ska and northern soul, as well as live music by The Manxx and The Sonic Archers.

Westword reached out to Mods Mayday 2012 event organizer Steve Antonio to discuss scooters, music and shopping for mod clothes in Denver.

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