What’s up: Georgia Toews book launch, Beach Boys, Felix, wearable art, puzzle derby

Toews returns for sophomore novel launch

• McNally Robinson Booksellers, 1120 Grant Ave.
• Tonight, 7 p.m.
• Free

Spring book-launch season is heating up, and next to visit McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location is Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based novelist and film/TV writer Georgia Toews, who launches her new novel, Nobody Asked For This, tonight at 7 p.m.

Toews’ latest is the followup to her 2023 debut novel, Hey, Good Luck Out There, which chronicled a woman’s time in a rehab facility and how she copes in the aftermath.

In Nobody Asked For This, readers follow Virginia, a 23-year-old comedian in Toronto navigating dysfunctional friendships, grief and relationships gone wrong.

Toews will read from her new novel, and will be joined in conversation by Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti before signing copies of the book.

McNally Robinson will also be streaming the event on its YouTube channel.

— Ben Sigurdson

The Beach Boys

• Canada Life Centre
• Saturday, 8 p.m.
• Tickets $65-$199 at Ticketmaster

In 1961, three teenage California brothers — Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson — along with their cousin Mike Love and school chum Al Jardine formed a band that would end up changing music.

Whether as sunny surf-rock harmonists (1962’s debut Surfin’ Safari) or fearless pop experimentalists (1966’s Pet Sounds, roundly regarded as one of the best albums of all time), the Beach Boys’ legacy and influence is long and far-reaching.

And the band is still going.

More than 60 years on, Love is still keeping the good vibrations alive as the Beach Boys — now fronted by Love and composed of longtime member Bruce Johnston, musical director Brian Eichenberger, as well as Christian Love, Tim Bonhomme, Jon Bolton, Keith Hubacher, Randy Leago and John Wedemeyer — brings its Endless Summer Gold tour to Canada Life Centre on Saturday.

— Jen Zoratti

Felix film screening

• Park Theatre
• Sunday, 1:30 p.m.
• Tickets: $20 at myparktheatre.com

Three years, one month and three days ago: what feels like an eternity is only yesterday in the context of the ongoing history of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. A documentary screening Sunday at the Park Theatre attempts to communicate the broad sweep of war through the experiences of Ukrainian soldier Felix Kurtanych, who was killed in 2022 near Sloviansk, a highly contested city recaptured by Ukraine three months after Russian forces seized it in 2014.

A “historical documentary,” made by civilian friends of the fallen soldier, Felix explores the life and after-life of a posthumous nationalist hero.

Oksana Lazarenko, who moved to Manitoba from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in 2013, is the screening’s organizer. (To learn more about Manitoba’s connection to Lazarenko’s home region, read Melissa Martin’s feature, The Land Remembers, at wfp.to/remembers.)

A systems analyst who with her husband owned and operated a convenience store in Cartwright for five years before moving to Winnipeg, Lazarenko is a founder of the Ukrainian Moms in Winnipeg Facebook group (membership: 3,500 and counting). Lazarenko’s husband is a schoolbus driver and brewery delivery man at Sookram’s, and their daughter is a first-year university student in Winnipeg pursuing a career in psychiatry.

“Everything done by a Ukrainian filmmaker right now — pretty much every movie that comes out — is a celebration for us that the film industry still exists,” says Lazarenko, who adds that revenues from the 110-minute film’s screening will support the Ukrainian war effort and Kurtanych’s volunteer battalion.

— Ben Waldman

Wearable art workshop

• ARTlington Studios, 618 Arlington St.
• Sunday, 1 p.m.
• Registration $135 at Eventbrite

The ocean is your oyster — and your creative prompt — for a hands-on needle felting workshop hosted by local fibre artists Tijen Roshko and Maureen Winnicki Lyons.

Over three hours on Sunday, workshop attendees will be guided through the process of creating a wearable cuff decorated with sculpted wool details inspired by deep sea flora and fauna. All tools, supplies and materials are included in the registration fee.

Roshko is an interior design professor at the University of Manitoba and the creator of Kolye TJN, a local fashion house specializing in intricate wool accessories.

Winnicki Lyons is a former ceramics artist who now creates multimedia fibre art and hosts workshops out of her Wool Mountain studio in the ARTlington building. In May, she’s leading an introductory class on tapestry weaving.

Sunday’s workshop is the culmination of interLOCK, an exhibition of work by Roshko and Winnicki Lyons at the St. Norbert Arts Centre (100 Rue des Ruines du Monastere), which closes tomorrow.

— Eva Wasney

The Great Dalnavert Puzzle Derby

• Dalnavert Museum and Visitors Centre, 61 Carlton St.
• Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
• Tickets: $35-$80 at friendsofdalnavert.ca

Did you know speed puzzling is a thing?

The relaxing pastime has been given a competitive makeover, opening up the once sedate game to scores of new players who have taken to tables, furiously working against the clock to fit irregularly shaped sections snugly together to form a perfect picture — and win prizes.

So pick up your piecing pace and join fellow puzzle lovers for a competitive day of team, duo or solo solving during allocated time slots.

Prices vary according to contestant configuration — $80 for a team of four, $50 for a pair and $35 for solo rounds.

Those who enjoy a calmer puzzling vibe are welcome to watch, take part in the puzzle swap or try their hand at puzzle chess.

— AV Kitching