Arts Editor’s Picks – Winnipeg Free Press

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

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

Not satisfied with taking a walk in Gabrielle Roy’s shoes, Marie-Ève Fontaine decided to sleep in the famed author’s bed.

The St. Boniface theatre artist was searching for inspiration five years ago when she was commissioned by Théâtre Cercle Molière to adapt Cet été qui chantait, an epistolary collection of naturalistic memories written by Roy in the evening hours of her literary heyday.

Compiled in 1972, released in English as The Summer That Sang, Cet été was inspired by the writer’s summertime writing enclave, a cabin in the Quebec town of Petite-Rivière-Saint-François.

From that cabin, Roy observed simple natural phenomena, capturing the drama and comedy of living creatures through a lens of youthful innocence and wonder, an experience Fontaine recreates in her hour-long puppet play, recommended for Grade 3 and up.

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New musical gives voice to solitary struggles

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Preview

New musical gives voice to solitary struggles

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Monday, May. 29, 2023

When we first meet Brennan, his mental illnesses enshroud him like a weighted blanket.

He wants to get moving, but he can hardly stand up. He wants to play an original song at an upcoming open mic, but he can barely bring himself to pick up his acoustic guitar — the thing he loves more than any other object in his possession.

Brennan is played by Ian Ingram in the sharp new musical Breaking Up With Me, written by Connor and Cuinn Joseph. It’s the second production to launch at the Gargoyle Theatre, which is dedicated to premiering new works by local playwrights.

Brennan is so convinced he will fail that he neglects to even consider the possibility he might succeed if only he were to try.

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Monday, May. 29, 2023

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

Ben Nuckols, The Associated Press 8 minute read Preview

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

Ben Nuckols, The Associated Press 8 minute read Monday, May. 29, 2023

OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — As the final pre-competition meeting of the Scripps National Spelling Bee's word selection panel stretches into its seventh hour, the pronouncers no longer seem to care.

Before panelists can debate the words picked for the bee, they need to hear each word and its language of origin, part of speech, definition and exemplary sentence read aloud. Late in the meeting, lead pronouncer Jacques Bailly and his colleagues — so measured in their pacing and meticulous in their enunciation during the bee — rip through that chore as quickly as possible. No pauses. No apologies for flubs.

By the time of this gathering, two days before the bee, the word list is all but complete. Each word has been vetted by the panel and slotted into the appropriate round of the nearly century-old annual competition to identify the English language's best speller.

For decades, the word panel's work has been a closely guarded secret. This year, Scripps — a Cincinnati-based media company — granted The Associated Press exclusive access to the panelists and their pre-bee meeting, with the stipulation that The AP would not reveal words unless they were cut from the list.

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Monday, May. 29, 2023

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)

Historical art heavyweights help the WAG

Alan Small 4 minute read Preview

Historical art heavyweights help the WAG

Alan Small 4 minute read Monday, May. 29, 2023

It’s a question Monty Hall might have asked on Let’s Make a Deal when the Winnipegger was at the top of the game-show world.

“Would you rather have these three paintings on this desk or this stack of hundred-dollar bills?” one can imagine Hall saying while opening a briefcase full of dough for everyone to ogle.

The contestant would be a winner with either choice, but choosing the art could make that person an instant millionaire. That is, if the estimates are correct for the June 8 sale by Toronto-based Cowley Abbott auction house, which includes a series of Andy Warhol silkscreens the Winnipeg Art Gallery is putting on the block.

The three paintings that were on display at Mayberry Fine Art last week — Nail-head of Trent Reznor by rock legend David Bowie, Tom Thomson’s Ragged Oaks, a 1916 landscape, and Lawren Harris’s Red House — are three priceless objects that will nonetheless be given a value at the auction of paintings and prints in Toronto, which will be livestreamed so buyers around the world can bid.

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Monday, May. 29, 2023

Newest country superstar left family farm at 18 to chase musical dream in Nashville

Alan Small 6 minute read Preview

Newest country superstar left family farm at 18 to chase musical dream in Nashville

Alan Small 6 minute read Saturday, May. 27, 2023

Hiding behind Lainey Wilson’s sudden rise in the country music world are the hours, days and months of work it took to become an overnight sensation.

The 31-year-old singer-songwriter became country’s newest superstar on May 11 at the Academy of Country Music Awards after winning four trophies, including female artist of the year and album of the year, as well as offering two dramatic performances during the gala.

Receiving an award from her idol, country legend Dolly Parton, is her crowning achievement, a reward for slogging through songwriting sessions and gigs in grungy Nashville bars after leaving her family’s farm in Louisiana when she was 18 to chase her dreams in Music City.

“I tell you, it’s been a whirlwind, but I do feel like I am exactly where I’m supposed to be,” says Wilson, who plays the Centennial Concert Hall Tuesday. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is be a part of the country-music family and have country music love me as much as I’ve loved it, and it really feels like that’s starting to happen.”

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Saturday, May. 27, 2023

New Pride collective to unite groups across province

Eva Wasney 4 minute read Preview

New Pride collective to unite groups across province

Eva Wasney 4 minute read Friday, May. 26, 2023

Pride season kicked off in Winnipeg this week with a slate of community events, a flag raising at city hall and a funding announcement that supporters hope will help create a more cohesive platform for LGBTTQ+ advocacy across the province.

“There needs to be a stronger voice,” Pride Winnipeg president Barry Karlenzig says of the $250,000 provincial grant received by the organization to spearhead a new Manitoba Pride Collective. “We have the most Prides per capita than any other province in Canada — that’s something to be proud about.”

The collective will provide core funding and operational resources for the 20 Pride organizations that operate throughout Manitoba. It will also offer the groups a chance to address shared issues as a united front.

“When something like this happens, there’s a collective of twenty Prides that can come together and make a statement and show support and solidarity,” Karlenzig says, referring to a recently rejected call to ban books with LGBTTQ+ themes in Brandon schools.

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Friday, May. 26, 2023

New music

8 minute read Preview

New music

8 minute read Friday, May. 26, 2023

ROOTS/COUNTRYBrandy Clark

Brandy Clark (Warner)

After making three records in Nashville, country singer-songwriter Brandy Clark has opted to work with Brandi Carlile as her producer on her latest, self-titled album. Carlile, the Grammy-winning star whose music might best be described as Americana pop/rock, whisked Clark away from Music Row to record at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio in Malibu.

If the intent was to strip Clark’s music of some of the overwrought and overt clichés of Nashville record production, it seems to have worked. Clark and Carlile have found a sweet spot at which Clark’s lyrical sentiment and clever wordplay can settle into intimate musical backdrops that defy genre. There’s no forced twang to Clark’s voice here, no immediately identifiable “sound.”

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Friday, May. 26, 2023

What’s up: Pride Month, live music and food festival

AV Kitching, Ben Sigurdson, Alan Small, Ben Waldman, Eva Wasney, Jen Zoratti 7 minute read Preview

What’s up: Pride Month, live music and food festival

AV Kitching, Ben Sigurdson, Alan Small, Ben Waldman, Eva Wasney, Jen Zoratti 7 minute read Thursday, May. 25, 2023

CMHR sashays into Pride Month with a pair of drag eventsLady Muse and the Inspirations

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Friday, 7 p.m.

Admission free, registration required

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Thursday, May. 25, 2023

Gargoyle Theatre refuses to let massive snowfall end recovery from pandemic

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Preview

Gargoyle Theatre refuses to let massive snowfall end recovery from pandemic

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

After starring in Sonja and Richard last February, Marina Stephenson-Kerr and Steven Ratzlaff earned the distinction of being the first actors to take the stage at the Gargoyle Theatre.

An unforgiving Winnipeg winter threatened to also make them the last.

Under the weight of the historic snowfall of 2022, the Ellice Avenue theatre’s roof was compromised, with water seeping into the newly refurbished, repainted and renovated interior.

“It pretty much immediately shut us down,” says Andrew Davidson, the local author who purchased the Mac building in 2019 and funded its rejuvenation.

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Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Miller’s masterpiece at 28th Minute

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Preview

Miller’s masterpiece at 28th Minute

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Long before he became a professor, writer and director in Winnipeg, George Toles was a 16-year-old in Hamburg, N.Y., whose passion for the stage was ignited when he read a play that managed to devastate, excite and enrage him in equal measure: Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

It was a work upon which the playwright staked his entire career: after the flop of his first show, 1944’s The Man Who Had All the Luck, the shrewd Miller vowed that should his followup suffer a similar fate, he’d find himself a new career.

“What I did was decide that I would write a play which would satisfy me in every conceivable way,” he told an interviewer in 1995.

It certainly had that effect on Toles, who vowed to mount a production before all was said and done.

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Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is only the latest movie made better by a killer soundtrack

David Sanderson 7 minute read Preview

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is only the latest movie made better by a killer soundtrack

David Sanderson 7 minute read Saturday, May. 20, 2023

Groot, err, great news for fans of the rock band Heart: within days of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 landing in North American movie theatres on May 5, Crazy on You, a cut from Heart’s 1975 debut album, Dreamboat Annie, that appears on the Guardians 3 soundtrack, became one of Apple Music’s most-streamed songs.

Ditto Spacehog’s In the Meantime, which also rears its trippy head on the Marvel Studios film’s soundtrack. Last time we checked, In the Meantime was Apple Music’s third-most downloaded tune, 18 years after its original release.

Older songs receiving a second life on the charts via the big screen isn’t a new phenomenon.

Rock Around the Clock, a No. 1 smash for Bill Haley & His Comets in 1955, cracked the Billboard Top 40 again in 1974, after serving as the title theme for the ’50s-based coming-of-age flick American Graffiti.

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Saturday, May. 20, 2023

Snowflake preserves and celebrates its history, from homestead and rail hub to nostalgic vestige of the Prairies’ past

Alan Small 10 minute read Preview

Snowflake preserves and celebrates its history, from homestead and rail hub to nostalgic vestige of the Prairies’ past

Alan Small 10 minute read Friday, May. 19, 2023

SNOWFLAKE, Man. — This southern Manitoba community’s two grain elevators tower on the horizon while driving south along bumpy Highway 242.

It’s only when you arrive that you realize there’s far more to Snowflake than a couple of old buildings.

Some shutterbugs on the internet have called Snowflake a ghost town, but the tractor and air seeder parked beside the newer-looking elevator on a windy Friday in May weren’t apparitions nor were the two men who were setting up a spout to fill the seeder’s tank phantom farmers from a bygone era.

It’s a small place, for sure, one that’s proud of its past and one that’s valiantly fighting to preserve its future.

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Friday, May. 19, 2023

Bergen back for book club seconds

2 minute read Preview

Bergen back for book club seconds

2 minute read Friday, May. 19, 2023

The Free Press Book Club is pleased to welcome back critically acclaimed Winnipeg novelist David Bergen to the next virtual meeting on Monday, May 29 at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss his award-winning novel Out of Mind.

Published by Goose Lane in September 2021, Out of Mind revisits the character of Lucille Black, who first appeared in Bergen’s 2010 Giller-shortlisted novel The Matter With Morris. In his latest, Lucille is at the centre of the story — a psychiatrist, mother and grandmother who ruminates on the death of her son Martin, travels to Thailand to check in on her daughter (who is falling in love with a man who may be a cult leader) and then to France, where she attends a wedding of a man she once thwarted.

In his review of Out of Mind for the Free Press, Neil Besner raved “Bergen has long been recognized for his spare and lean prose. His sculpted sentences are most often constituted via a remarkable alchemy: yearning, bleak stretches of absence, of loneliness and of pain become alloyed with a compassion and tenderness that seem first to emanate from a narrator’s oversight, but finally come to inhabit and inflect his characters as if these feelings were more truly their own… In Lucille, the signature Bergen worldview — always evoked at eye level through characters in charged relation — has centred itself in his most memorable woman, in the most eminently readable of all his fictions to date.”

Out of Mind won Bergen the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award at the 2022 Manitoba Book Awards — his second consecutive win of the prize, having nabbed the award the previous year for his short-story collection Here the Dark.

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Friday, May. 19, 2023

What’s up: Kelly Bowen reads, Manito Ahbee celebrates, opera singers mansplain

AV Kitching, Ben Sigurdson, Alan Small, Ben Waldman, Eva Wasney, Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Preview

What’s up: Kelly Bowen reads, Manito Ahbee celebrates, opera singers mansplain

AV Kitching, Ben Sigurdson, Alan Small, Ben Waldman, Eva Wasney, Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Kelly Bowen launches new historical fictionMcNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park location

Wednesday, May 24, 7 p.m.

Free admission

Bestselling Winnipeg romance and historical-fiction novelist Kelly Bowen returns with a wartime novel based on the true story of a Resistance agent holed up in a crumbling castle, and her great-granddaughter, who uncovers her stunning story decades later.

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Wednesday, May. 24, 2023

Leith Ross’s learning curve

Alan Small 5 minute read Preview

Leith Ross’s learning curve

Alan Small 5 minute read Thursday, May. 18, 2023

Winnipeg didn’t need a second chance to make a first impression on Leith Ross.

The indie-pop singer originally from Ottawa, whose debut album To Learn comes out Friday, met Joey Landreth of the Bros. Landreth and the Birthday Cake record label while attending Humber College in Toronto.

Ross came to Winnipeg in 2020 to record songs that were part of a college project that would become an EP, Motherwell.

“I love this city a lot. I think it is very underrated,” Ross says. “A lot of my core people are here, so it feels very homey.”

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Thursday, May. 18, 2023

Loving your chosen family — of robots

Ben Sigurdson 6 minute read Preview

Loving your chosen family — of robots

Ben Sigurdson 6 minute read Tuesday, May. 16, 2023

TJ Klune might be the first author whose book was born in a vacuum.

The idea for the American author’s new science-fiction/fantasy novel, In the Lives of Puppets, came to him after he bought himself a Roomba.

“Humans are humans, and so I did what a lot of humans do and anthropomorphized it, put googly eyes on it,” Klune, 40, explains by phone from his home in Virginia. “When I first got it, it was going around and mapping the house when it got stuck in a corner. It made the saddest beeping sound.

“Right when it made that sound, I had this huge explosion in my head — the idea of this book.”

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Tuesday, May. 16, 2023

Play explores fallout from graduate wanting same-sex date at celebration

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Preview

Play explores fallout from graduate wanting same-sex date at celebration

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Monday, May. 15, 2023

Megan Fry’s Grade 12 grad story is pretty standard: her cousin did her makeup, she did her own hair, and after slipping on a dress she found on sale for only $50, she met up to take pictures with a platonic friend she brought along as her date.

Ho-hum.

“I went to grad with a guy, and it was so easy because that’s what everyone expected to happen,” says Fry, 24, an alumna of Kelvin High School and a rising musical theatre professional in Winnipeg. Even though they weren’t romantically involved, nobody batted an eye when they posed arm-in-arm or exchanged corsages.

“There’s a lot of privilege in that,” adds Fry, who appeared in Winnipeg Studio Theatre’s recent production of Fame.

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Monday, May. 15, 2023

Queen of Country Pop delivers royally good show in first concert in Winnipeg since 2018

Alan Small 4 minute read Preview

Queen of Country Pop delivers royally good show in first concert in Winnipeg since 2018

Alan Small 4 minute read Monday, May. 15, 2023

When you’re the Queen of Country Pop, a regal entrance befitting a monarch is required.

That’s what Shania Twain received Sunday night at Canada Life Centre, her first concert in Winnipeg since 2018, when she also performed on Mother’s Day.

Instead of appearing on the large stage at one end of the hockey arena, Twain was revealed among the audience members on the floor of the venue, standing on a mini-stage about two metres long.

Her escorts pushed her carriage between two sections while she sang Waking Up Dreaming, giving lucky fans in the middle of the floor seats an enviable glimpse of the Timmins, Ont.-born performer.

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Monday, May. 15, 2023

Struggle for Métis rights was in Goulet’s blood

Alex Judge 5 minute read Preview

Struggle for Métis rights was in Goulet’s blood

Alex Judge 5 minute read Saturday, May. 13, 2023

As hosts of the One Great History podcast, Sabrina Janke and Alex Judge love exploring Winnipeg’s past. With Winnipeg’s sesquicentennial approaching, the two have produced a 16-episode podcast series that explores the city’s colourful history.

The series is presented through the lens of 15 historical figures, focusing on critical events surrounding their lives and their impact on Winnipeg. Elzéar Goulet is the focus of the third instalment. The series will conclude Nov. 9, the day when Winnipeg became a city 150 years ago. Summaries from each podcast will be republished in the Free Press. The podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and through the One Great History website — onegreathistory.wordpress.com

The drive to fight for Métis rights was in Elzéar Goulet’s bones. His maternal grandfather, John Siveright, had fought in the Battle of Seven Oaks. His father had been part of a campaign to ensure hunting and trading rights in the 1840s. So when there were whispers the Hudson’s Bay Company was preparing to sell the whole of Red River — without consultation — to the newly formed country of Canada, it would surprise no one that Goulet quickly aligned himself with Louis Riel and the French Métis resistance. A hardy man who had spent the previous 10 years as a mail carrier trekking three times a week from Pembina to Red River, Goulet became second-in-command of the Métis militia.

Though a less prominent figure than Riel, Goulet was there throughout the Red River Resistance: when they patrolled for surveyors, when they built la barrière to keep out the new lieutenant governor, when they seized Fort Garry, and when they arrested a group of Canadians attempting to overthrow Riel. Witnesses say he was called “Captain” within the walls of the fort. Perhaps most significantly, Goulet was there when Thomas Scott, a brash young Irish Protestant who had vowed to kill Riel, was condemned to death. A member of the court martial that had passed the sentence, Goulet also escorted Scott to his execution by firing squad. According to some rumours, he even aided in the secretive disposal of Scott’s body through the ice of the frigid Red River.

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Saturday, May. 13, 2023

Unrealistic image of the picture-perfect mom nurtures self-doubt, shame

Jen Zoratti 9 minute read Preview

Unrealistic image of the picture-perfect mom nurtures self-doubt, shame

Jen Zoratti 9 minute read Saturday, May. 13, 2023

In the weeks leading up to the release date of her debut book, Sara Petersen was offering to write “F--- Mother’s Day” in the signed copies of Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture.

It’s a fitting cri de coeur. After all, like Mother’s Day, momfluencer culture is a construction designed to sell you a sun-dappled ideal of motherhood.

The New Hampshire-based writer and mother of three is the author of a popular newsletter about the myth of the ideal mother called In Pursuit of Clean Countertops, which often offers close reads of momfluencers — those linen-clad mamas (always mamas) who have turned mothering into a perfectly curated public performance on Instagram, who dress their cherub-cheeked “littles” (always littles) in matching oatmeal-coloured onesies, and who sell products, yes, but also values and belief systems.

Before there were momfluencers, there were the so-called “mommy bloggers” — including the pioneering Heather Armstrong, a.k.a Dooce, who died by suicide this week at age 47 — who cracked open the conversation about motherhood by getting real and raw. Blogging back then could also be lucrative; moms were eager to see their realities reflected back to them in a way they hadn’t been before.

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Saturday, May. 13, 2023

Roll out the flower carpet with Dianthus

Colleen Zacharias 7 minute read Preview

Roll out the flower carpet with Dianthus

Colleen Zacharias 7 minute read Saturday, May. 13, 2023

In the last 10 years, tremendous breeding innovation has produced several new varieties of Dianthus, a low-growing plant distinguished by fragrant flowers and grassy, blue-green foliage. Commonly known as pinks, the genus Dianthus has been in cultivation since the 17th century. Today there is a resurgence of interest in dianthus cultivars, spurred in part by a breakthrough development in 2022. After 12 years of negotiations, regulations about bringing in unrooted dianthus cuttings from outside North America — Europe, especially, where the dianthus market is booming — have been finally lifted.

The number of new dianthus series and varieties is skyrocketing. What are some of the opportunities offered by the diversity of new dianthus plants? Perennial varieties offer first-year flowering as well as dependable overwintering. In addition to unparalleled bloom periods that start in May and carry through to August or even September, this ultimate border plant resists deer and attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. Dianthus is also excellent in pots. There are annual varieties, too, to choose from, including versatile new varieties which can be grown in hanging baskets or indoors as a compact, flowering houseplant. If you are looking for an imaginative gift for Mother’s Day, dianthus may be just what you are looking for.

Owen Vanstone oversees an important plant trial program for the Prairies at Vanstone Nurseries in Portage la Prairie. A vast range of plants are evaluated for their performance including winter hardiness. The dianthus trial has produced some exciting surprises, said Vanstone in a recent telephone conversation. When Rockin Red Dianthus barbatus (also known as Sweet William) was first introduced to the market, it was classified as hardy to Zone 5.

“We had it in our annual program and then moved it into our perennial program,” said Vanstone. “After a three-year trial, there’s been 100 per cent success on Rockin Red, Rockin Rose, and Rockin Pink Magic.” A recent addition to the series, Rockin Purple, has not been assessed yet, but the series is now rated as hardy to Zone 3. Each of the cultivars feature lacy flowers that bloom in clusters from spring to fall. Their long bloom time and upright growth habit make them an ideal choice for the front of the border. They grow to a height of 50 cm (19 inches) and can be used as cut flowers. Dianthus typically does best in full sun, but the Rockin series can also be grown in part sun. Good drainage is essential.

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Saturday, May. 13, 2023

Métis Superstar Designs creates one-of-a-kind ribbon skirts to reflect Indigenous pride and resilience

David Sanderson 7 minute read Preview

Métis Superstar Designs creates one-of-a-kind ribbon skirts to reflect Indigenous pride and resilience

David Sanderson 7 minute read Friday, May. 12, 2023

SELKIRK — Marlena Muir knew it was customary for women to wear a ribbon skirt to sweat lodge ceremonies, when she attended her first sweat at age 18, but, lacking one of her own, she arrived sporting a grey tank top and black maxi-skirt, instead.

Ahead of entering the lodge, Muir was pulled aside by a friend who whispered, “here, put this on,” as she handed over a patterned garment adorned with strips of brightly coloured silk.

“Slipping into it, I felt so… included. I’d never worn a ribbon skirt before, and it made me feel like I was being seen as an Indigenous woman, in a way I’d never experienced before,” Muir says, noting she also received her spirit name, Osâwi-Pinêsiw Iskwew (Yellow Thunderbird Woman), that day.

Close to a decade later, Muir, 27, is the proud owner of Métis Superstar Designs, a home-based venture that turns out contemporary versions of ribbon skirts, an article of clothing oft-described as being a symbol of identity and survival for Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people. Online reviews for her handiwork are glowing; her funky, functional pieces have been called, “beautiful,” “gorgeous” and, in the case of one done with pumpkin-orange jacquard fabric, “dedli.” (We think they mean “deadly.”)

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Friday, May. 12, 2023

Surprisingly little drama and unexpected upsides when flying pets to their new forever homes

Eva Wasney 7 minute read Preview

Surprisingly little drama and unexpected upsides when flying pets to their new forever homes

Eva Wasney 7 minute read Thursday, May. 11, 2023

Looking for instant popularity? Craving adoration from strangers? Try walking through an airport with a puppy in tow.

Fellow travellers will pause their journeys to marvel, children will be mesmerized and security personnel will wave you through the metal detector while joking that said puppy definitely needs to be confiscated.

If you’re lucky, on-shift restaurant servers will sit down at your table to trade stories about their own pets and wager guesses on pedigree — “She’s gotta be part Labrador; she looks just like my so-and-so.”

I was indeed so lucky on a recent trip to Toronto.

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Thursday, May. 11, 2023

Ariel Posen meets Tom Jones

Alan Small 3 minute read Preview

Ariel Posen meets Tom Jones

Alan Small 3 minute read Thursday, May. 11, 2023

It’s not unusual to find Ariel Posen performing his songs on YouTube, or showing off some of his sophisticated six-string licks for online guitar magazines.

But it was unexpected to see a Facebook video posted by the Winnipeg singer-songwriter in which he shares a stage with Tom Jones — ahem, that would be Sir Tom Jones — and adding some slick guitar fills while the Welsh great performed his classic It’s Not Unusual, May 7 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

“Been having a lovely time out on the road with Tom Jones and crew,” Posen posted alongside the crowd-shot video, which can be viewed here.

Posen has a busy summer ahead, performing solo in the United Kingdom and continental Europe before returning to North America for a four-month tour, which includes a Sept. 29 concert at the Park Theatre.

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Thursday, May. 11, 2023

Decoding the clouds of childhood depression

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Preview

Decoding the clouds of childhood depression

Jen Zoratti 4 minute read Thursday, May. 11, 2023

Abigail is a little girl who has a dark cloud. Sometimes it’s big. Sometimes it’s not a cloud at all, but a ball of worries, or a swirl of fog, or a long shadow. Sometimes, it takes away her appetite.

We meet Abigail in Dark Cloud, the latest picture book from Winnipeg children’s author Anna Lazowski. Published via Kids Can Press and illustrated by U.K.-based artist Penny Neville-Lee, Dark Cloud is a sensitive examination of depression in children.

The book was inspired by something that happened to Lazowski’s daughter a few years ago, when she was prescribed an allergy medication. The new prescription dovetailed with some other big life changes — including moving to a new school and starting French immersion — so Lazowski initially chalked up her daughter’s behavioural changes to the adjustment period. But then, things began to spiral. “We watched our normally very happy, outgoing kid kind of just disappear,” Lazowski says.

One of the side effects of the allergy medication was depression. Lazowski took her daughter off the medication and got her the support she needed — which included looking at books. Lazowski began thinking about what role picture books can play in facilitating age-appropriate discussions about a tough subject.

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Thursday, May. 11, 2023

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