Manitoba’s removal of PST from some groceries doesn’t amount to much

Government officials predict the July 1 removal of the seven per cent PST from more grocery items will save Manitoba families about $100 per year — a few bucks here, a few there.

Mahler ruminates on life, loss and music in beautifully bleak historical fiction The Last Movement

Robert Seethaler’s The Last Movement is a work of fiction about real-life composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, who was born in Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic) in 1860 and died in Vienna in 1911. Mahler’s symphonies are sometimes said to be the culmination of the Romantic movement in music and of the Austro-German symphonic form itself.

The Vienna-born Seethaler has written eight novels — his book A Whole Life, translated from German to English by Charlotte Colllins (who also translated The Last Movement) was a finalist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize. He currently lives in Berlin, where he also works as an actor.

Having independent knowledge of Mahler’s life and work is not necessary to understand The Last Movement, but would be helpful in grasping the full significance of events recounted, or in looking below the surface of the text.

The book’s title refers not to one of Mahler’s symphonies, but to the final trip he takes by steamship from New York back to Vienna, where he will shortly die at age 50. Seethaler’s slim novel is a meditation on mortality, and is also a rather bleak look at Mahler’s life.

Shakespeare in the Ruins’ As You Like It its most pleasurable production in a while

One likes to imagine the title of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It signalled some capitulation on the part of the Bard, to keep the pastoral comedy extra light.

What’s up: Brian Goldman, Stephanie Ballard, WUFF, Pride, MayWorks book launch

Dr. Brian Goldman book launchMcNally Robinson Booksellers, 1120 Grant Ave.Tuesday, 7 p.m.Free admissionFifteen years after writing The Night Shift: Real Life in the Heart of the E.R., his account of working overnight in the emergency room (ER) at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Brian Goldman is back with a chronicle of what the medical landscape is like today.

Goldman is a bestselling author, ER doctor and host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art. His new book The Casino Shift: Stories from an ER on the Edge, published in February, goes hour by hour through the shorter overnight shifts (the “casino shifts” of the book’s title), detailing the types of situations faced by ER doctors and patients. He also sums up the advances in technology that have helped patients, as well as the increasing complexity of patient cases.

McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location will host Goldman on Tuesday at 7 p.m. for the launch of The Casino Shift, where he’ll be joined in conversation by Winnipeg doctor, educator and bestselling author Dr. Jillian Horton (We Are All Perfectly Fine). The event, co-presented by the Alan Klass Health Humanities program at the UM Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, is free to attend and will also be available on McNally Robinson’s YouTube page.

— Ben Sigurdson

Winnipeg artist’s House on Fire chronicles fallout of grandmother’s MK Ultra experience

In the late 1950s, Velma Orlikow sought treatment for postpartum depression at the Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal.

Later, it would be discovered that she was unknowingly enrolled in the secret CIA research program now known as MK Ultra, where she was the victim of brainwashing experiments at the hands of Dr. Ewen Cameron. She was injected with LSD and forced to listen to Cameron’s voice on tape for hours.

In the 1980s, Orlikow and eight other victims sued the CIA, which settled out of court.

Winnipeg visual artist Sarah Anne Johnson, Orlikow’s granddaughter, explores this difficult family history through her long-running series of work House on Fire, which is on view now at Plug In ICA.

Forks business brings dirty soda — trendy, sweet, cream-topped concoctions — to customers

Not in the mood to sip on a dirty martini? Well now you can chug a dirty soda instead.

Little things to make June joyous

In this monthly feature, the Free Press collects some small actions that can have big results.

What feathered creatures signify for the health of the herd

Usually, Winnipeg snowbirds are known for going no further south than Florida.

But one migratory bird, the lesser yellowlegs, can go all the way to the southern tip of South America from Alaska and back, with midway stops in the prairies.

Most yellowlegs, like “Cholao 2,” don’t go quite that far.

That’s the name given to a specimen tracked as travelling from Cali, Colombia, to near North Battleford, Sask., and which will likely summer in the subarctic or Arctic.

Local fatboy challenge gives customers 30 minutes to devour behemoth burger

It’s just noon on what’s turning out to be the hottest day of the year and Curtis Kalmakoff, 40, takes a swig from the bottle of water next to him before taking his 11th bite of the world’s largest — and likely most expensive — fatboy burger.

Weighing as much as a three-month-old child, the burger comprises a seven-pound meat patty topped with: 10 slices of Bothwell cheddar cheese, half a pound of chopped white onions, one pound of tomatoes and half a pound of Elman’s sliced dill pickles, all smothered in 1½ pounds of chili and sandwiched between two made-to-order buns from Food Fare measuring 38 centimetres wide and approximately five centimetres tall.

As Kalmakoff wraps his lips around the 12½-pound beast in the outdoor seating area of St. James Burger & Chip Co., owner Kevin Ramberran and restaurant manager Les Bartle cheer him on.

Ramberran is the mastermind behind today’s contest.

Museum diorama detailing marshland, rye farm decommissioned owing to pest infestation

What was designed as a triumph of taxidermy has instead become a buffet for pests.

Manitoba Museum has been forced to decommission the Delta Marsh and Rye Farm two-part diorama in the Parklands Gallery after discovering the extent of the devastation wrought by mice, clothes moths and beetle larvae. The open-air exhibition, completed in 2003, represents the province’s most important wetlands and the challenges faced by early farmers, including Ukrainian immigrants in the 1920s.

“Pests are a major issue,” says Amelia Fay, the museum’s director of research, collections and exhibitions. “All museums have pests and use discreet pest-management systems, but this specific diorama was particularly vulnerable because of how authentically it was constructed, using real plant materials and organic elements that various types of critters like to consume.”

Pests can enter the museum when the doors open; clothes moths drift in with foot traffic, mice can get in through tiny gaps and dermestid beetles can hitch a ride with visitors or via tiny cracks, laying eggs in areas close to food sources for future larvae.

Gallery sees new location as blank canvas, celebrating with auction, exhibition

It’s the end of an era for Mayberry Fine Art, but partner and gallery director Shaun Mayberry prefers to think of it as a new beginning.

After spending 23 years of its more than 50-year existence at 212 McDermot Ave., the family business will be moving to its new — and much larger — location at 661 Wall St. next month.

“It’s bittersweet. We made our home in the Exchange,” he says. “We bought the building 24 years ago and it was a big move for us and our family. We moved out of St. Boniface into the downtown, a conscientious choice to be a part of the downtown Winnipeg arts community. The building has certainly served us well and has become a major part of our identity.”

But Mayberry Fine Art has outgrown the space. The Exchange District building wasn’t designed to be a gallery space; it was an office building that the Mayberry family constantly adapted to meet the needs of an evolving business.

Downtown Winnipeg church invites married couples to repledge their love

A Winnipeg church is celebrating 100 years of weddings by inviting married couples of all beliefs to reaffirm their commitment at a “mass vow renewal” service on June 20.

Summer Movie Guide 2026: Here’s what’s coming to theaters and streaming from May to August

This summer at the movies, the Minions are filmmakers, the Mandalorian is working for the good guys, Matt Damon tries to find his way home (again), Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland are everywhere and no one remembers Peter Parker.

Made-in-Manitoba action flick Normal tips its hat to neo-westerns

British director Ben Wheatley has always been adventurous in his penchant for traversing genre boundaries, including hardcore horror (The Kill List), the big-budget monster movie (The Meg 2), the cerebral art film (High-Rise), and his own invention, the acid-trip period piece (A Field in England).

Shot-in-Manitoba films ready to screen, stream

This has been a big year for film and TV shot in Winnipeg, with fare such as the comedic gangster film Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice topping the streaming charts when it debuted in March on Hulu/Disney+, with more than 300 million views worldwide.

Smaller indie films, such as Johnny Ma’s The Mother and the Bear, and James McLellan and Alexandre (Sasha) Trudeau’s dramatic feature Hair of the Bear also got long-awaited screen time in the first quarter of the year, as did Rhayne Vermette’s experimental feature Levers.

After the Bob Odenkirk thriller Normal becomes available Tuesday, expect more locally shot fare to come to cinemas, or your TV screen, in the months ahead.