Down and Out in Denver

On Saturday night the DOD boys (and a very good lady friend of ours) attended CultureHaus’s big event at the Denver Art Museum: a celebration of the current DAM exhibit, Embrace, a multi-media show in which 17 artists have taken over the Libeskind-designed Hamilton Wing with their installations.

CultureHaus bills itself as the DAM-affiliated educational and social organization for the “young at heart” to appreciate art.  They sponsor talks and social functions for their members, and for anyone else willing to buy a ticket.  This particular event was probably attended by between 200 and 300 people and it was a relatively young crowd.   It was also a badly dressed crowd.  Or, at the very least, it was a crowd that had taken this opportunity – oh so rare in Denver – to dress up!  Now in many ways we applaud this as there is far too little dressing up done in the relentlessly casual Mile High City, but sometimes people get a little carried away.  There were a number of young and not-so-young women who had worn skin-tight or skin-baring clothing that seemed more appropriate to wearing out to “the club.”  It was just a little too well lit at the DAM for this sort of attire: lots of strappy, slinky dresses and what one friend of mine calls “novelty tops”: minimalist blouses of somewhat complicated construction that do not really resemble blouses in the traditional sense.  The men tended toward a uniform of jeans, blazer, and button-down shirt, the DOD boys among them.  Some paired this with ties; most did not.  One intrepid fashion innovator even paired his with a small mink stole (more on this below).  One trend I have been noting of late is the blazer with deconstructed or unfinished edges that almost look fringe-like with threads hanging from every edge.  I’m not yet sure what I think about this.  On the other hand, I do know what I think about blazers with all kinds of graphics all over the back, including words and phrases and images (eagles and falcons tend to predominate).  I saw one last weekend in SF with the word “Arrogant” in huge letters across the shoulders.  Horrible.  Unsightly. Unfortunate.

I could go on about the art – and indeed we took a stroll through the exhibits, one of which, “The Bathers” by John McEnroe, is featured above – but I’m just not very good at talking about art.  That’s Alastair’s department but he seems to be silent of late.  Instead let me discuss the food.  The passed appetizers (how I love a passed appetizer!) were quite tasty: mini crabcakes, barely seared tuna with wasabi on salty chips, and mini cheeseburgers.  Very nice.  But the stationary appetizer stations were a disappointment: the customary vegetable and cheese plates, pita and hummus (really!?), and great big chafing dishes of meatballs in sauce.  Snore.  My great complaint of the evening, however, has to be the fact that while the event ended at 10, the bars closed at 9:30.  Employees were literally packing up even as the party continued on, and some of us wanted a refill!

Post party many headed over to the Living Room, a spacious bar on Broadway, for cocktails.  It was crowded and sometimes difficult to get the bartenders’ attention, but otherwise quite fun.  The highlight, however, occurred at the end of the evening.  Mink-stole boy (MSB) had also migrated to the Living Room and ‘round about midnight seemed to have gotten into something of a scuffle with another patron who had either made fun of – or actually interfered with; I wasn’t sure – the stole.  MSB was not going to take this lying down.  I had a front row seat as he got up in the face of the mink anti-fan: “You don’t mess with the mink stole!  This was my grandmother’s mink stole!  You want to take this outside?  Come on buddy, let’s take this outside.”   A puffy-haired, white-loafer-sporting, mink-stole-wearing aesthete screaming about his grandmother’s fur and threatening to take out another bar patron is not something I expect to see again soon.  In short, it was fantastic. Who knew this was possible in Denver?