Xavier De Le Rue of France is nominated for Standout of the Year by the Transworld Snowboarding Rider’s Poll Awards. Catch the show tonight at the Filmore. Photo by Streeter Lecka, Getty Images.

Let those ski sellers and snowshoe peddlers make their deals at this weekend’s big SIA Snow Show convention downtown. Denver is using the event as an excuse to party. Local bars and businesses have banded together to create “The World’s Largest Après Ski + Ride Party” to show off Denver’s snowsports culture for the 20,000 incoming snowmobile salesmen — and include locals in the action.

“The (SIA) show itself is restricted to industry registrants, but because Denver has such a large population of ski enthusiasts, we wanted folks to be able to experience the next best thing,” said Jennifer Rudolph of Colorado Ski Country USA, one of the party’s sponsors.

The idea was to turn downtown Denver into one giant ski resort. Clubs and bars from LoDo to Capitol Hill and beyond are getting in the spirit, mountain-style. The celebration rages all weekend long.

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Corner Office bar supervisor Joey Seger puts the finishing touch on a Tsunami martini. Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post.

Despite creative attempts to broaden its appeal with a million sugary, colorful variations, the martini remains the classiest of drinks. Traditionally made with gin and vermouth, the martini has weathered countless fads and tweaks to assert itself as the ultimate cocktail — the kind any serious drinker can embrace (albeit gently. You certainly don’t want to spill that thing).

Of course, cheap and weak are not characteristics of the traditional straight-booze martini, but these days — when pretty much anything can end up in a martini glass — tipplers can find one to suit any taste. The definition has been mutating ever since bartenders started making martinis with vodka instead of gin. (Now it’s pretty much anything in a martini glass.)

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Boulder-based group the Motet will help kick off Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom latest and greatest incarnation this weekend. Photo from MySpace.

If there’s a hub for the jam-band scene in Denver, it’s Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (2637 Welton St.). Once the biggest link in a chain of Cervantes-themed venues, the ballroom and its neighbor, the former Quixote’s True Blue, changed hands last fall. Now owned by longtime co-owner Scott Morrill and Fully Tuned Productions — Duncan Goodman, Joshua Sonnenberg and Jeff Howell — Cervantes’ is celebrating its grand reopening and seventh birthday this weekend.

It’ll be a groovy event for sure, with two greatest-hits-type shows from Boulder funkmeisters the Motet. Dubbed “The Best of Halloween” for the band’s Halloween tradition of costumed tributes, the Cervantes’ shows will feature favorite songs by Prince, Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, Sly and the Family Stone and more.

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Chicago’s Greektown may seem a long way from Colorado in general, but not in Fort Collins. Photo from chicagohotels.com.

It’s hard to say which is sunnier, bartender Sandy Beardsley or the avgolemono soup she so cheerily serves at Cafe Athens in Fort Collins. If she’s not too busy, Beardsley will tell you how she makes the lemon-chicken stock, but she won’t give you the recipe.

“I lived outside Chicago for 14 years and went to all the Greek restaurants in Greektown. I loved that soup, but they wouldn’t give me the recipe because I wasn’t Greek,” she says. “After four pots I figured out how to get the lemon and the eggs together and make it creamy.”

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Comedy legend Robert Klein plays Comedy Works tonight and Saturday. Photo from the New York Times.

You know the face — that wry, grinning expression, the wily, devilish eyebrows and the “Really? Seriously? Come on…” mouth contortions. Even if you don’t know his name, you’ve certainly seen Robert Klein somewhere over the years. The stand-up veteran and actor has a resume to shame most living comedians. Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman idolize him. HBO broke into live comedy specials thanks to him. And along with a handful of other ’70s trailblazers, he set the template for what consider to be the modern comedian.

And even with more than 100 appearances on “The Tonight Show” and the “Late Show with David Letterman” under his belt — not to mention dozens of movie and TV shows — Klein isn’t about to slow down. He’s currently preparing his ninth HBO special and, as ever, touring the country’s top comedy clubs, including a two-night stint at Comedy Works tonight and Saturday.

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