Last year, a federal animal-welfare inspector visiting Denver Zoo observed something worrisome: For long stretches at a time, the zoo’s male grizzly bear paced back and forth in his enclosure. He paced for 10 straight minutes one morning. When the inspector returned the next afternoon, the bear was pacing again. Over and over and over. […]
Culture
Posted inColoradans, Culture, News
“This just does not happen”: A Garden of the Gods garbage heap is revealing big clues about the founder of Colorado Springs
COLORADO SPRINGS — Trash in this city’s iconic Garden of the Gods Park is usually nothing to get excited about. It’s a regular blemish on a revered place. But along the park’s northern edge, a heap of buried refuse — discovered during work to build a retention pond to control runoff after a wildfire swept […]
Posted inColoradans, Culture, Environment, Outdoors
A Crested Butte adventurer is skiing to the South Pole like ice is an endangered species
They are not related but they might as well be. Crested Butte adventurer Eric Larsen has the same restless, unsettled mien of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the fabled explorer of the Antarctic. It’s like they share the same genes, Larsen and Shackleton. The frigid adventure beckons. And they leap. “We have mapped and charted the face […]
Posted inCulture, News, Politics and Government
How a movie about Gary Hart will make you rethink modern politics (and the media)
Thirty-one years ago, Colorado’s Gary Hart launched his presidential campaign at Red Rocks. It ended about three weeks later in scandal. Best remembered for the punchline of a boat named “Monkey Business,” Hart’s 1988 presidential bid gets a new look in the movie, “The Front Runner,” that opens Friday in Denver. The film recounts the […]
Posted inColoradans, Culture, Environment, Growth, Health, News
Is Denver’s contemporary architecture killing us?
In the not too distant future, a Colorado architect believes, someone will enter a novel, contemporary building designed with odd angles and sharp points, one of those places created to be “exciting” and “unusual,” and have a heart attack. And, this architect contends, as neuroscience advances and our understanding of neuroaesthetics deepens, the courts of […]
Posted inBusiness, Culture, News, Politics and Government
Wine, peaches and CBD: Hemp fills gaps in the Western Slope’s orchards and vineyards
PALISADE – Ribbons of fruit trees and grapevines run across hillsides under the rocky folds of iconic Mount Garfield, the place where legendarily good Colorado peaches grow. Now another crop — hemp — is sending up green spikes in the midst of all that fruit. Dozens of Palisade-area growers are grabbing hold of the lucrative […]
Posted inBusiness, Culture, Environment, News
Climate change could double the cost of beer. We are not kidding.
The risk of climate change just hit the cooler: Serious global warming is a threat to beer. An analysis by a group of international researchers shows the availability of beer declining and its price going up in the face of drought and heat, potentially doubling the cost of a six-pack of cold ones at exactly […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Culture, Growth, News, Transportation
Nobody looked twice at the old Denver building that stored a fortune in vintage Porsches — until its turn for redevelopment came
For years, the low building on the corner of 22nd and California streets covered an entire half-block with a structure that barely warranted a second glance. It was a bland mash-up of what used to be three distinct buildings, long since connected to create an 18,000-square-foot space while its exterior brick, devoid of identifying signs, […]
Posted inBusiness, Culture, Education, Growth, News
Why Maker Faire Denver — a celebration of the city’s curiosity and ingenuity — got a makeover
Not long after last year’s Maker Faire Denver, Dan Griner got a call from Elise VanDyne, the seemingly indefatigable leader of the annual creative event for the past five years. Griner, an industrial designer, had just moved back to Denver after living in India. He was happy to connect with his old friend. “She cold-called […]
Posted inCulture
A Gap commercial sparked partner dancing’s revival. Now blues dancers in Colorado are trying to reclaim a style lost in the frenzy.
Grey Ruffin had a vision for Denver to become a center of education around blues dance history, culture and style last year, when he took over as an organizer of one of Colorado’s largest blues dancing venues at the city’s Mercury Cafe. But first, he had to untangle the painful confusion and miseducation that wound […]