Thin Air director closes book on job

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After 23 years at the helm of Thin Air, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, director Charlene Diehl is stepping away to begin the next chapter in her life.

Diehl has been at the helm of what is now Plume Winnipeg, the organization that oversees Thin Air, since 2003, and will see out her role as director until the end of December.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions today. The moon is in Virgo.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Be patient with others this morning because it’s easy to be irritable or fly off the handle. (There is no benefit for you in doing this.) Fortunately, as this day unfolds, relations with others, particularly co-workers, medical helpers and issues related to your pet will be warm and supportive. Complete turnaround.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Two-hander playing game of clones

Even though the play premièred in 2002, starring Daniel Craig and the late Michael Gambon, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s version of the cloning thriller A Number is an original copy.

That’s by Caryl Churchill’s design. Aside from upholding the interlacing dialogue between a father (Victor Ertmanis) and his son (Rodrigo Beilfuss), the Obie-winning playwright leaves the rest up to interpretation. Though each successive production shares the same script, Churchill’s complete eschewal of stage direction and design notes allows for individuated artistic mutations: no two snowflakes are alike.

“All she tells us is, ‘Here are the characters,’ their ages and that the whole play takes place in the father’s home,” says Beilfuss, who, as the artistic director of Shakespeare in the Ruins, is accustomed to more clearly delineated instructions. “But that’s it — we get to come up with everything else. Could they be drinking in the scene? Does the father use a cane? Could one of the sons be wearing a baseball cap?

“Basically, we’re creating this play, our own version of it, our own world.”

What’s up

Neilfest

Times Change(d), 234 Main St.

Friday, 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, 3 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Tickets: $23 at eventbrite.ca

Newfoundland artist’s fictional hockey league takes on toxic masculinity, homophobia in the sport

The St. John’s Sissies. The Nain Nancys. The Come By Chance Flamers.

These are just some of the teams in the Queer Newfoundland Hockey League, the fictional conference at the heart of a multimedia solo exhibition of the same name by Canadian artist Lucas Morneau, which comes to Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg today.

Morneau crocheted and rug-hooked the brightly coloured, vintage-inspired jerseys — complete with logos — for all 14 of the QNHL’s teams, which are all named for pejoratives used against LGBTTQ+ communities in an act of reclamation.

It’s a strictly Newfoundland and Labrador league because Morneau, who uses they/them pronouns, grew up in Corner Brook (repped here by the Corner Brook Queens). But also, Newfoundland just has a lot of funny town names (see: Dildo, whose team in the QNHL is the Dykes, or Leading Tickles, whose team is the Lesbos).

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Avoid shopping or important decisions from 5 p.m. until 6 p.m. After that, the moon moves from Leo into Virgo.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

You’re eager to explore new ideas. One great option will be to look into the past for information you want because Mercury retrograde will assist you. You might learn from history. Likewise, you might be interested in making travel plans. If so, choose places you’ve been before.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Feline companion beguiling, insightful

Most of the interaction in German writers J.M. Gutsch and Maxim Leo’s Frankie is between Frankie, a cat, and Richard Gold, who is grieving the death of his wife and is about to hang himself when Frankie turns up injured on his doorstep. They need each other, and become each other’s purpose in life.

As Gold soon discovers, Frankie can talk. Once Gold gets over his shock, they proceed on to many adventures.

Frankie didn’t like any of the names people gave him until old Mrs. Berkowitz adopted him. She was a great fan of Frank Sinatra, so she called the stray Frank. That name met with his approval, and one of the crooner’s well-known songs pretty much describes Frankie’s lifestyle: “I’ve lived a life that’s full/I travelled each and every highway/And more, much more than this/I did it my way.”

When talking with people, Frankie speaks “Humanish,” as opposed to the “Cattish” he uses in dealing with other animals. The advantage of “Cattish” is that it’s a universal language for cats — so, for example, a cat from Germany can talk with a cat from Sweden and no translation is required.

Smith’s quasi-satirical gen Z characters navigate pitfalls of work, sex and alienation

Self Care, Toronto writer Russell Smith’s first novel in 15 years, is bound to make some readers bristle.

In it, the 62-year-old author of How Insensitive and Girl Crazy takes a quasi-satirical look at gen Z, portraying it as an aggrieved generation overdiagnosed with and overmedicated for mental illness, having lots of sex but taking little joy in it.

Of course, it’s a writer’s prerogative to put himself in the shoes of characters who are nothing like himself (though Smith has not historically done so), but when choosing to satirize the complicated lives and unique loneliness of a generation so far removed from his own, he opens himself up to accusations of, at best, a kind of “old man shakes fists at clouds” obliviousness or, at worst, the snide condescension of privilege.

These fears are not entirely misplaced. However, Smith often accurately and anthropologically puts his finger directly on the throbbing purple bruise of modern discontent, disaffection and alienation.

Nail salon owner offers keen observations of human behaviour in Thammavongsa’s debut novel

Souvankhan Thammavongsa won the 2020 Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award for her debut short-story collection, How to Pronounce Knife, which was preceded by four collections of poetry. Her debut novel, Pick a Colour, has also landed on the shortlist for the 2025 Giller Prize, which will be awarded Nov. 17.

Pick A Colour is a slim novel that takes place over the course of a single day in a single location — a nail and beauty salon in an unnamed city. It is told from the first-person perspective of a single person, Ning, the salon’s owner. Interestingly, though the back cover blurb suggests that Ning is an immigrant, this is never explicitly stated in the novel or in the author’s introduction. We’re not told where Ning was born or where her family is from; she is proficient in both English and another unnamed language.

Every woman who works in the salon has a nametag identifying them as Susan. The clients don’t notice, and when they call and ask to book an appointment with Susan, she’s always available.

This business decision defines Ning: she is practical and unsentimental, able to turn other peoples’ misconceptions and stereotypes into a benefit. She can also be autocratic: her staff must look the same, and when one employee arrives with her hair two inches longer than everyone else’s, Ning grabs scissors and cuts it.