Volume 63, Number 28

Published June 18, 2009

  • Re: The Uniter’s annual Urban Issue

    “No Parking” and “Parking” are digital prints of the City of Winnipeg’s downtown core.

  • Eight glasses a day

    With the arrival of summer, dehydration takes center stage as an often-neglected health hazard. Spending long days outside and taking in the sunshine is best punctuated with regularly consuming plenty of fluids over the course of the day.

  • Fashion Streeter

    Can you carry my drink, I have everything else, I can tie my tie all by myself.  -The National
  • Unicorns would kill and then mount you if given the chance

    Hi. I’m J. Williamez. Like me, I’m sure you’ve all noticed that there’s been a lot of talk lately in the media and in popular culture about unicorns. This week, in Good and Evil I’d like to dispel some of the most common myths about unicorns, while at the same time, sharing some interesting and little known facts about these majestic yet tragically misunderstood creatures.

  • Protecting your skin from the sun

    As we get closer to summer, the importance of wearing sunscreen is drilled into our heads. So why all the fuss?

  • The fashion forward never forget…

    Spring and summer fashion this year brings an eclectic mix of old and new when it comes to sunglasses. From the bright, vibrant colours to the more classic muted styles, this season’s trends offer something for your own individual tastes.

  • A home invasion most civilized

    Who would have thought an idea developed in order to thwart the McCarthy era’s blacklisting of artists declared to have communist leanings would emerge as one of Winnipeg’s latest forays into the arts?

  • Stitching without the bitching

    It’s an afternoon in early June and Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA) on Main Street is packed with winter attire – unseasonable even for this year’s cold and rainy spring.

  • Harper’s confusing Senate policies

    In the role of Opposition, political parties are often committed to fundamental reform of government. For instance, consider the NDP/Green Party position on electoral reform, the Reform Party position on Senate reform or, looking further back, the Progressive Conservative position on the evils of political patronage. However, when the Opposition party becomes federal government, reform is trumped by political necessity.

  • Overqualified

    Dear Mr. Comeau,
    Thank you for sending me a copy of your book, Overqualified, for review. I am happy to send you this reply and say that it has found a permanent home in my collection of books that have changed the way I look at and think about the world around me. Not many books are in that collection, you know – like seven or eight – so you better cherish that.

  • Holding court from Winnipeg’s cultural city hall

    One year after moving out of the Exchange District, Aqua Books on Garry Street still bears signs of the Chinese restaurant it once was. A glass partition with Chinese symbols on it separates what used to be a sitting area from the rest of the store. The miss-matched stains on the wood walls show where more Chinese decorations used to be.

  • Feeling great Just As I Am

    When the idea for the Just As I Am (JAIA) project came to Rodney Braun, he was unsure of the response he would receive – asking complete strangers to make peace with their naked bodies in front of a camera is a daunting feat.

  • Opening up the box

    Plug In ICA’s current exhibition, Pandora’s Box, includes 10 female artists whose work centres around the body, sexuality and femininity. In a variety of media and tones which range from playful, to ironic, to darkly humorous, to serious, the works question mythical and stereotypical representations of women.

  • Weird, and damn proud of it, too

    There’s probably little one can say to convince some people to see certain films. I’d love to think I could persuade everyone who reads this that Tokyo! is a wonderful picture that deserves your patronage.

  • Mothers&Daughters

    I have to confess that I initially rolled my eyes at the premise of Carl Bessai’s Mothers&Daughters.

  • A summer blockbuster worth your hard-earned cash

    It’s summer blockbuster season and with each new release measuring cinematic success becomes more and more difficult. But Away We Go, the latest from Revolutionary Road director Sam Mendes, does not disappoint.

  • Jumping through hoops pays off

    With a surname that begins with one of the last letters in the alphabet, Curtis Wiebe’s friends and family were expecting his to be one of the last names called in May at the University of Manitoba’s convocation for Fine Arts students.

  • Folk Fest preview

    The Dust Poets put a unique and quirky twist on traditional folk music. Not every band can say a cowboy poetry reading in Brandon, Man. brought them together, but the Dust Poets can.

  • Visual vagary and performance art

    Where can you go to glare at enlarged eyeballs rotating in the trees? Or make a request at a living jukebox manned by two gentlemen, who will play you a happy, sad or random tune, depending on your mood, if you honk a horn? You don’t have to plunge into a rabbit hole. You just have to go to Folk Fest and visit their annual Prairie Outdoor Exhibition.

  • Build it and they will come

    The first time Mario De Negri camped out in the Winnipeg Folk Festival campground, he was overwhelmed.

  • Back to its roots

    Amidst the spectacle of soaring surpluses, Tamara Kater, the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s new executive director, has promised a return to what made Folk Fest one of the top three in North America.

  • Not as old as the name implies

    Think jazz and you think of four or five guys on stage in a smoky club, taking turns improvising solos over a 12-bar blues progression. You don’t think of Winnipeg-based one-man band Ricardo Lopez-Aguilar, who, during a typical live show, is armed only with his voice, a guitar, a laptop named Moses and maybe a drummer.

  • Jazz Fest offers diverse line-up

    Organizers are hoping a preview show will help kick this year’s Jazz Fest off with a bang, and believe the festival’s diversity will bring out more concert-goers.

  • She dreamed a dream that became a nightmare

    What would you do if the world fell in love with you for doing what you dream? And then what if those same people suddenly turned against you, how would you react?

  • Falling down doesn’t have to equal failure

    F is a letter that is not often found in classrooms today, and soon it won’t be found at all if our educational systems continue to degrade their standards.

  • Lost Winnipeg

    Since the incorporation of the City of Winnipeg in 1873, the city’s wealthy neighbourhoods have developed in a south-westerly direction, away from Point Douglas, where in the 1870s and ‘80s the young and scrappy assortment of Ontario Protestants who would form the city’s “commercial elite” had lived. Moving to Broadway at the close of the 19th century, they had by 1911 crossed Assiniboine River to Roslyn Road in what is today called Osborne Village.

  • Wesmen bring fresh blood to the table

    The University of Winnipeg Wesmen volleyball and basketball teams are looking forward to next season with a burst of fresh talent to all four teams. A total of 21 new fresh faces will be seen on the court and in the practice rooms during the 2009-10 season.

  • U of W gets funding boost from the feds

    Manitoba universities and colleges recently received a funding boost from the federal government amounting to $65.5 million, and the University of Winnipeg hasn’t been left out.

  • Beneficial to the ‘burbs, but what about the rest of Winnipeg?

    The proposed plan to widen Kenaston Boulevard has some nearby residents worried about their kids’ fate, but the city has done little to address their concerns about this issue, and many others.

  • Rapid transit finally on the forecast

    Winnipeg’s finally set to begin construction on 3.6 kilometre rapid transit line this summer as talks that began in the ‘70s finally get green light.

  • Park improvements draw record numbers

    Manitoba provincial parks are saying thank-you to Manitobans by waiving their entrance fees for 2009/10.

  • Smoke and mirrors, or tangible targets?

    The provincial government’s recently unveiled poverty reduction strategy focuses on providing housing rather than shelter, but some are wondering if drafting press releases is all the action we’re going to see.