The following article is from the February 28, 1997 issue of The Denver Post:

Crispin Glover doesn't quite qualify as your average Hollywood movie star. For one thing, despite the wide variety of movies he has appeared in, most people can't quite place his name or his face with the films. For another, he's been running his own unde rground book publishing company for the past 10 years.

And then there's the new movie he's making: "The film is the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe and how to get home as told through the eyes of a hubristic, racist monarchy," he said.

Ask him more about the project - titled "What Is It?" - such as why most of the actors have Down's syndrome or simply what the point may be, and he politely declines to dig into the issue any deeper.

Like his new movie, Glover isn't easy to explain in simple terms. "I tend toward liking more unusual films. Some of the film directors that I like are Werner Herzog and Luis Bunuel and Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski and David Lynch. Not to say that my film feels like any of their movies, but those are some of the directors that I admire."

Glover's dodgy and slippery personality seems natural for the 33-year-old actor, who has appeared in films ranging from "Friday the 13th - Final Chapter," Lynch's "Wild at Heart," "The River's Edge," and, perhaps most recognizably, as George McFly in the first "Back to the Future" movie.

He's also played Andy Warhol in "The Doors" and an attorney in the current "The People vs. Larry Flynt."

In each of these roles he transformed seamlessly into the character. As a result, more people recognize the fictitious personalities he has portrayed than the actor himself. But focusing on Glover as a movie actor, even as a distinctive and quirky talent, does not quite explain what it is like to experience his "Big Slide Show."

Ten years ago, a few years after he made a name in Hollywood in "Back to the Future," Glover started publishing books that he created. "Rat Catching" was the first work published by Volcanic Eruptions with three others following.

The small, hardbound volumes feature old pages from other books, photographs and Glover's sinewy ink drawings and text, which knot the elements together into complex aesthetic artifacts.

"I take old books from the 1800s and rework them and turn them into different books. I make them into books that are different from what they originally were. I turn them into stories that are completely their own, and they are very heavily illustrated."

To call the books simple collages would miss much of their peculiar narrative power and chaotic design finesse. To search for explanations that throw around words like "deconstruction," "surreal" or even "avant-garde" risks over-analyzing something that c an be enjoyed on a much more emotional level. And if this ironic fricton is the point of the books, or if they are simply a very persistent conceptual prank, Glover's not letting on either way.

"A long time ago, when I was 18, I'd gone into an art bookstore and seen that somebody had taken an old book from the 1800s and put artwork into it.

"I set out to do that. But I'd always written things, so I left some of the words in because I liked the way it looked with art in it. But it ended up turning into a story. And I liked how it came out, so I kept doing more of them."

He has completed 20 of the texts and blends readings from 8 of them into his slide show. While projecting images of the pages, Glover reads the story aloud, leaving the audience to find the thread of the tale and to plumb their indented meanings.

Now, with the rough cut of "What Is It?" completed on video, he closes each show with a screening of the feature-length film - an event that promises to be as entertaining and inscrutable as everything else he has done.

"It's going well. I am very pleased with how the audiences are responding," he said. "The thing I was most concerned about was if the audience would become restless. I didn't mind if they became angry or if they laughed or anything like that. I just wante d to make sure that it was intriguing and that people enjoyed it.

"And that is definitely happening. People are always watching it. They don't get bored or anything."

While he intends to continue acting in big-budget Hollywood pictures, Glover also plans to continue his own filmmaking projects. Lynch has agreed to be executive producer for a new film that "What Is It?" was originally intended to help sell.

"I'm really enjoying making the film. That's my favorite thing. I like acting in movies when I like the project. But it's very difficult to find."

Whatever he does, Glover, whether a genius eccentric, a cosmic joker or simply a sober genius, will continue to leave the rest of us wondering.

See Crispin Glover and His Big Slide Show, Thursday at Aztlan Theater, 974 Santa Fe Drive. Tickets are $11; call 573-0188.