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Arts & Life

Art of the city

Mayor’s annual awards celebrate and support passion and achievement of local creators

Alan Small 4 minute read Updated: 12:05 PM CDT

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Pinball pinnacle

David Sanderson 8 minute read Preview

Pinball pinnacle

David Sanderson 8 minute read 4:00 AM CDT

This weekend, Freddy’s Pinball Paradise in Echzell, Germany, is hosting the International Flipper Pinball Association World Pinball Championship, an annual get-together that draws pinball wizards from every corner of the globe.

Among the registered participants is Winnipegger Jack Tadman, a married father of three who is currently ranked as the No. 3 pinballer in Canada, and the 80th best of his kind on the planet. Tadman, a lawyer in his “real life,” hopes to improve on his 2019 showing, when he placed 12th out of a field of 64 at an equivalent competition staged in Milan, Italy.

Typically, Tadman’s wife Leanne would be there to cheer him on. The couple has three-year-old twins, mind you, so she wasn’t able to make the trip this time around, he mentioned during an interview at The Forks, days before he was due to hop on a flight to Europe. That doesn’t mean she and the kids won’t be with him in spirit.

“Like any other major event, you get butterflies, especially during the playoffs, so what I started doing to settle myself down was take a few minutes beforehand, to look at pictures of our family,” said Tadman, 41, dressed in jeans and a black hoodie emblazoned with the crest of District 82, a pinball arcade situated in De Pere, Wis.

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4:00 AM CDT

Glory to Rusalka

Immersive exhibit celebrates 60 years of Ukrainian dance troupe

Eva Wasney 5 minute read 3:00 AM CDT

Homecoming on film: Award-winning Mariupol documentary screened for 1st time in Ukraine

Jamey Keaten, The Associated Press 3 minute read Preview

Homecoming on film: Award-winning Mariupol documentary screened for 1st time in Ukraine

Jamey Keaten, The Associated Press 3 minute read Updated: 7:00 PM CDT

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The award-winning film “20 Days in Mariupol” made its premiere in Ukraine on Saturday, seen for the first time by some of the Ukrainian medics and first responders who were chronicled in the documentary about how Russian forces bombed and blasted their way into the southeastern port city last year.

Repeated standing ovations in a packed Kyiv cinema, mixed with tears and hugs, greeted those Ukrainian civil servants who toiled nearly non-stop in and around a Mariupol hospital that was a centerpiece of the film about the city early on in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

For some, the screening served as an unsettling flashback to their own brush with death in the city — a fate inescapable for untold numbers of other victims of Russia's invasion, including toddlers, infants and expectant mothers whose final moments were caught on video shown in the film.

“It was very hard emotionally because it reminded me of when we were leaving Mariupol, there were still a lot of casualties,” said Serhii Chornobrivets, 25, an ambulance worker who treated countless patients in the city, and is now a military medic. “I could have saved more people, but I didn't."

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Updated: 7:00 PM CDT

The Associated Press journalist and film director Mstyslav Chernov speaks to the audience during the Q&A during the Ukrainian premiere of his documentary film "20 Days in Mariupol" in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, June 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Roman Hrytsyna)
The Associated Press journalist and film director Mstyslav Chernov speaks to the audience during the Q&A during the Ukrainian premiere of his documentary film

Métis women’s struggles span generations

Reviewed by Kathryne Cardwell 3 minute read Preview

Métis women’s struggles span generations

Reviewed by Kathryne Cardwell 3 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Beautifully crafted and deeply moving, Manitoba-born, Newfoundland and Labrador-based Métis author Michelle Porter’s debut novel is a testament to the strength of Métis women.

Porter may be known best for her poetry, including her 2019 collection, Inquiries.

However, her background includes journalism, two works of non-fiction about her family history (including last year’s Scratching River) and teaching creative writing and Métis literature at Memorial University.

Porter’s range of experience shows in A Grandmother Begins the Story, a story about five generations of Métis women trying to understand their identities, overcome personal struggles and better connect with each other.

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2:00 AM CDT

A Grandmother Begins the Story

Songwriter blooms after 60

Alan Small 4 minute read Preview

Songwriter blooms after 60

Alan Small 4 minute read 4:00 AM CDT

One fateful day in 2008 let Karen Hammarstrand know it was time to hang up her lab coat and pick up her guitar.

The moment that has guided the Winnipegger’s venture into songwriting and performing feels as if it happened just yesterday.

“One day — I mean, it’s so weird — but I woke up and I had this song in my head. It had lyrics and music and I thought, ‘Wow, I should do something about that,’” says the former scientist, who specialized in zoology and anthropology before taking what she had sung into a tape recorder to the Manitoba Independent Songwriters Circle, a monthly hang held in the Exchange District at the time.

“It was just so exciting and that was it. There was no turning back.”

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4:00 AM CDT

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Karen Hammarstrand woke up one morning with a fully formed song in her head and made the decision to devote herself to music.

Full-steam ahead to honour faith, keep Shabbat on track

John Longhurst 5 minute read Preview

Full-steam ahead to honour faith, keep Shabbat on track

John Longhurst 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

In the religious home I grew up in, Sunday was viewed as a day of rest (and going to church). Play was allowed, but no work. Except homework, strangely enough. That was not only permitted, but encouraged, much to my chagrin.

These days, I don’t worry about not working on Sundays. Nor do most Christians I know. Which is why I am fascinated by Jewish friends who ardently observe the sabbath, or Shabbat, as it is known in Hebrew.

This includes my friend Jason Shron of Toronto.

Shron, 47, is an Orthodox Jew and successful businessperson who lives in Toronto but has close ties to Winnipeg (he married a Winnipeg girl).

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2:00 AM CDT

SUPPLIED

Jason Shron, 47, started model railroad manufacturer Rapido Trains with his wife, Sidura, two decades ago. While happy to be following his passion, running a successful business poses some challenges for an observant Orthodox Jew like Shron.

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Alan Small:

Songwriter blooms after 60

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What’s up: Beer fest, taco treats and dino-mite adventure

Ben Waldman:

Playwright immerses herself in Gabrielle Roy’s world to muse on warmest season

Ben Waldman:

New musical gives voice to solitary struggles

Ben Nuckols, The Associated Press:

Exclusive secrets of the National Spelling Bee: Picking the words to identify a champion

FILE - Saharsh Vuppala, 13, from Bellevue, Wash., competes during the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Thursday, June 2, 2022, in Oxon Hill, Md. The Scripps National Spelling Bee has its third executive director in the past two years. Scripps announced Wednesday, Dec. 14, that longtime bee staffer Corrie Loeffler will lead the competition.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Alan Small:

Historical art heavyweights help the WAG

Diversions

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Puzzles Palace is home to your favourite word games and brain teasers. Enjoy seven Sudokus, five crosswords (including the Thomas Joseph and Premier) as well as two new puzzles: Word Sleuth and Plus One.

<p>Puzzles Palace is home to your favourite word games and brain teasers. Enjoy seven Sudokus, five crosswords (including the Thomas Joseph and Premier) as well as two new puzzles: Word Sleuth and Plus One. </p>

Remakes OK, but how about some originality in your world?

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Preview

Remakes OK, but how about some originality in your world?

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read 2:02 AM CDT

If you’re wondering who the 2023 The Little Mermaid remake is for, it’s for me.

And by “me,” I specifically mean millennials who were children during Disney’s late-’80s, early-’90s heyday, when it was just cranking out the animated hits. Consider the astonishing run of The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994), which all came out within years of each other.

Back then, movies stayed in the movie theatre for months, imprinting themselves on our brains, before arriving on VHS some years later and then retreating into the “Disney vault,” which was honestly the biggest scam of our childhoods.

And these movies were formative. We spent summers pretending we were mermaids, and then we imagined we were lion cubs, tussling on snow forts at recess. I was absolutely jacked that there was a brown-haired Disney princess who loved books in the form of Belle, and I dreamed of having a pet tiger like Jasmine.

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2:02 AM CDT

Halle Bailey as Ariel in ‘The Little Mermaid.’ (Disney)

Dysfunctional dynasty got ending it deserved

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

Dysfunctional dynasty got ending it deserved

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read 9:22 AM CDT

Last week we said our last goodbye to Succession, to its petty power plays, its unrelentingly nasty dialogue, its excellent knitwear. Buzzy and brilliant, the series was so caustically funny, so emotionally exhausting, so tonally tricky that no one could decide whether it was a Seinfeldian “comedy about nothing” or a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions.

In its extraordinary, extended final episode, Succession somehow managed to be both.

The title, With Open Eyes, is a nod to a John Berryman poem that references eyes both open and sightless. It’s not just the characters who are blinded, though, their vision clouded by a desperate need for corporate power and paternal affirmation. The title might also be a warning to viewers, a hint that maybe we’ve been watching without always seeing.

Succession is a show that expertly manipulates expectations, and perhaps its best bait-and-switch has been to get us all obsessing over the issue of which deeply damaged, hugely unqualified Roy sibling would end up seizing control of the Waystar Royco empire.

Read
9:22 AM CDT

Last week we said our last goodbye to Succession, to its petty power plays, its unrelentingly nasty dialogue, its excellent knitwear. Buzzy and brilliant, the series was so caustically funny, so emotionally exhausting, so tonally tricky that no one could decide whether it was a Seinfeldian “comedy about nothing” or a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions.

In its extraordinary, extended final episode, Succession somehow managed to be both.

The title, With Open Eyes, is a nod to a John Berryman poem that references eyes both open and sightless. It’s not just the characters who are blinded, though, their vision clouded by a desperate need for corporate power and paternal affirmation. The title might also be a warning to viewers, a hint that maybe we’ve been watching without always seeing.

Succession is a show that expertly manipulates expectations, and perhaps its best bait-and-switch has been to get us all obsessing over the issue of which deeply damaged, hugely unqualified Roy sibling would end up seizing control of the Waystar Royco empire.

New in paper

1 minute read Preview

New in paper

1 minute read 4:00 AM CDT

Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos

By Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa with Philip Lerman (HarperCollins, $29)

The former Sopranos stars (and hosts of the Talking Sopranos podcast) chat with fellow cast members and crew from the hit HBO mobster series.

Hey, Good Luck Out There

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4:00 AM CDT

Woke Up This Morning

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