Unger brings debut novel to book club

Winnipeg venues saying no to AI-made advertisements

Although the days when telephone poles and notice boards across the city were thick with gig posters, either slopped up with wheat paste or wrapped tight with packing tape, are behind us, the art of making an appealing visual ad for live music events is still a vital part of the local creative scene.

However, a widespread backlash against a new kind of slop — the use of generative AI images — has been building, especially among creatives when it comes to promoting live music.

“Live music is and always has been a DIY type of scene, especially locally,” says Evan Simpson, who has been working as a graphic designer for nearly a decade.

“For years people have been making their own flyers, or if they have the budget, hiring a designer or artist to come up with some artwork for their flyers. It’s a whole ecosystem, a scene supporting itself. If you take away the visual side of it, the spark, individuality and uniqueness of each gig poster is lost. What a sad world it would be if all art were made by AI.”

Film fest showcases Africa’s best

Winnipeggers are sometimes accused of living within the Perimeter, meaning a visit to Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, might be out of the question for your weekend travel plans.

Unger brings debut novel to book club

The Winnipeg Free Press Book Club, in partnership with McNally Robinson Booksellers, is pleased to welcome first-time author Andrew Unger on Monday, May 31 at 7 p.m., as he reads from and discusses his debut novel Once Removed.

And while Once Removed (published by Winnipeg’s Turnstone Press in September 2020) is the Steinbach author and high school English teacher’s first foray into book-length fiction, fans of Unger’s satirical news website The Daily Bonnet will find plenty familiar in his book’s wry humour and wit.

Once Removed follows Timothy Heppner, a frustrated ghostwriter of local family histories in the fictional Manitoba town of Edenfeld, which acts as a sort of stand-in for Steinbach. In order to help support himself and his grad student wife Katie, Timothy also works for the town’s parks and rec department. The couple are also members of the local preservation society, watching helplessly as the mayor’s agenda sees historic landmarks razed in favour of new retail developments.

“The main conflict of the book [is] between those who want to preserve the historic buildings and those who want to destroy them,” says Unger. “I think it’s something a lot of people in Manitoba and otherwise relate to. Whether you’re in southern Manitoba or in Winnipeg, there’s this constant ‘there goes another historic building under the bulldozer’ kind of thing.”

Young Winnipeg Jet hopeful, Viggo Bjorck, shines brightly in prospects tournament

It’s safe to say Viggo Bjorck made plenty of new friends and fans this past weekend — including members of his own Winnipeg Jets prospects team which split a pair of tournament games in Quebec.

Take Davis Burnside for example. The undrafted 22-year-old forward, who signed with the Manitoba Moose last spring after finishing up at Ohio State University, couldn’t believe his eyes when he was put on a line with Bjorck, the eighth-overall pick from this summer’s draft and one of the most exciting young players in 2.0 Jets history.

“You see all the highlights and you just can’t wait to play with him,” said Burnside.

It wasn’t long before they teamed up for a highlight of their own. Bjorck made a sensational through-the-legs, no-look pass to Burnside on Sunday afternoon, setting him up for a shorthanded snipe in an eventual 6-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs young guns.

Man, 21, killed in animal attack on Manitoba First Nation

The family of “a kind and gentle giant” is grief-stricken as officials try to determine what kind of animal killed the 21-year-old man in western Manitoba.

Moses Campeau was walking on a road to a friend’s house in Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, about 600 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, when he was fatally injured Sept. 9, his mother, Paula Campeau, said Monday.

“Moses was a kind and gentle giant,” she said. “He was a person who (people) would ask to come and help them, and he would go without even hesitating.”

Manitoba RCMP said officers from the Swan River detachment responded to a report of a suspicious death at about 3:10 a.m. The scene was held and the RCMP’s major crime services took over the investigation.