As the season starts to swelter, street fashion takes a more easy-going, laid-back approach. Yet for these individuals, that doesn't mean compromising on style.

Take a gander at this week's subjects, who are creating their own looks.

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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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One of the 10 Facebook Tips we found on Twitter.

Ten Facebook Tips: It started as an informational list on Mashable to help people optimize their Facebook usage, but it's become a top trending topic on Twitter, full of helpful and not-so-helpful -- and some of it quite telling -- advice about Zuckerberg's site.

Most of the tweets, which only seem to offer one tip and not all ten, encourage people to delete their Facebook accounts and switch to Twitter (and more and more seem to be ads for porn sites), but within all of the hullabaloo, we managed to find a few real gems.

Here is the (quite meta) top ten "10 Facebook Tips" rundown. We troll Twitter, so you don't have to.

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Artist Andrew Novick's Food Face was one of several shows that opened on May 12 as part of Second Saturday on East Colfax. Below are a few photos from the exhibit at Groundswell.

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You've heard of running away from home. But author Jennifer Wilson, after losing her savings to the stock-market crash, gathered up her family in Des Moines and ran away to home, or at least that's the way she characterizes it in her memoir/travelogue Running Away to Home.

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No broom, though.

On Saturday, when a collision of cultural celebrations -- the Kentucky Derby and Cinco de Mayo -- had people sporting big hats and sombreros all over town, one person's style statement definitely topped all others.

Every witch way.

Here's a look at this week's Denver street style.

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All photos by Chris Morgan for Westword

On the calendar of nerd holidays, May 4 is certainly below Comic Con but at least a few pegs above the pirate convention that takes place each year near the airport. Yes, "May the 4th be with you," is a day every Star Wars fan can get behind obnoxiously -- and 100 percent. One such nerd is Dan Landes, owner of meatless restaurant City O' City, who organized the party there on Friday. Below are a few photos, but sadly for you nerds, there were no Slave Leia's to be found.

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If you haven't been down to Santa Fe in a while for First Friday, you can see what you've been missing through these photos shot by Laura Easley for Westword. This month's art walk included more than a few nods to Star Wars ("May the 4th be with you" and all that) and the Kentucky Derby, as well as a gentleman on a lowrider bicycle -- who we also spotted on Saturday at the Cinco de Mayo party -- and what appeared to be Uncle Sam playing a tuba.

With sights like this, why weren't you on Santa Fe last Friday?

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All photos by Britt Chester

There was great fashion, loud music and heavy-pours, and probably some hooking-up and broken hearts: Yes, it was Derby day again in Denver! Apparently, there was also a horse race in Kentucky or something, but those people are all backwoods rednecks, anyway. There were giant hats to be worn, people!

Did we mention there was great fashion?!?! Below are a few memorable outfits, fits and faces of the Kentucky Derby parties we snuck into over the weekend.

Also see:
- Downtown Derby Debauchery
- 138th Kentucky Derby at Chloe and the Lobby

Now, onto the memorable Derby'ers.

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