Tune in to The Trivia Show this Sunday, 9am to noon. I'll be sitting in for Ken Connors with my pal, Dan Laxer!
Happy Pride! Montreal's scaled-back Pride Festival wraps up on Sunday. On Friday at 10pm on Facebook, catch stars from the first-ever Canada's Drag Race (Juice Boxx, Kiara, Lemon, Rita Baga and more!) in a special online show with host Brooke Lynn Hytes. And Sunday at 7pm, the festival closes out with American Idol and Queen frontman Adam Lambert, who will be preceded by 2020 Polaris nominee rapper Backxwash. The schedule is rounded out with apéro hours and panel discussions on various issues.
Craving mango on a stick, smoked meat on a terrasse, peanut butter noodles or Toms shoes? One of my favourite times of the year is when the Main closes to cars from Sherbrooke to Mont-Royal, creating a giant pedestrian walkway complete with some of the best food, bargain basement sales and quirky street performances. This year, the street closes from now until August 23, with distancing and hygiene measures in place. The organizers of the St Laurent Street Festival are hoping it will help out local businesses.
The Mural Festival, which highlights public art with walking tours and live music, usually accompanies the closure of St Laurent; Mural returns a bit later in the season for a scaled-back edition. Check in on new works going up along the Main, including Canadian artist Denial, and a mural themed around diversity and inclusion by Burnt Toast. Venturing outside the Plateau, artist Patrick Forchild will be putting up an homage to healthcare workers, destined for the Jewish General Hospital in Cote-des-Neiges. And guided walking tours are back!
The Planetarium has a new photo exhibit that shows the planet in all its wild and natural beauty. Origins features captivating images of earth by Olivier Grunewald, blown up so you can see all the glorious details. You can check it out in person, or online! A virtual visit is available here. You also have the option to check it out in virtual reality. And if the Perseid meteor shower captured your imagination, the Planetarium has several long-running immersive shows about space.
Also now available online: The Canadian War Museum has this week launched a new exhibit about a hidden chapter of or history. Canada at War Against Japan, 1941-1945 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, which closed when Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. This new show looks at the war and how it impacted Canadians at home and overseas. Learn about the racism towards Japanese-Canadians, including their forced internment on Canadian soil, and Canada's oft-forgotten participation in the Battle of Hong Kong. Check it out here.
A delicious dinner at a scrumptious price: 10 Old Montreal restaurants are taking part in the summer edition of Happening Gourmand. Choose a brunch table d'hôte option at $17 or the dinner option at $25 at restaurants like Maggie Oakes, Méchant Boeuf, Taverne Gaspar, BEVO, Brasserie 701 and more. (The dinner option is available until 7:30pm.) You can also stay in and order via Doordash. Until August 30.
Montreal's italian Week continues. Take in a cooking class in person at Ateliers & Saveurs or gather the kids for a story, with teacher Marian Ghita reading a children's story online, Saturday at 10am.
The Comedy Nest says safety is no laughing matter, with socially distanced seating and smaller audiences. On Friday and Saturday, it's a 'Festival Faves' lineup, with Heidi Foss, Sylvain Laroque, Franco Taddeo, David Pryde and more.
Bar de Courcelle hosts Episode 5 of The Epic Outdoor Open Mic Show, Sunday 5 to 10pm at Sir George Étienne Cartier Square in St Henri.
Hot girl summer? How about A Summer of Beethoven! On Fridays, the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal starts streaming parts of the great composer's eight symphonies, as recorded at Bourgie Hall. It costs $15, and you can stream it for 48 hours starting at 2pm.
The Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur has been presenting recordings of original dance works themed around solitude every Sunday. This weekend, catch street dancer and choreographer Crazy Smooth, with a score by Marc Hyland performed by Simon Aldrich.
In An American Pickle, Canadian Seth Rogen plays two men: an immigrant to New York City and his descendant, Ben. Hard-working, g-d-fearing Herschel Greenbaum leaves his shtetl for a new life in America, but in 1919, he falls into a vat of pickles, emerging perfectly preserved 100 years later - only to start to meddle in Ben's humdrum life.The old world meets new satire is getting good reviews for Rogen. Catch An American Pickle on Crave starting this weekend.
Sleeper Hollywood star Josh Hartnett playing Canadian investigative reporter Victor Malarek in new, real-life thriller Suspect Number One (also titled Most Wanted in some places). Malarek delved deep into a coverup that landed a Quebecer in a Thai jail after a drug deal gone bad. Look for a Malarek cameo, and comedian Jim Gaffigan as Glen Picker. Now available in theatres or video on demand.
If you are itching to get out of the house, the Botanical Gardens and the Planetariuam are open, with kids 17 and under getting in for free until the end of August. Visit the greenhouse collections and check the blooms of the week. (It's strongly recommended to get your timed tickets online.)
And at the Old Port, paddle boat rentals, the zipline and the pirate ship have been available for the past few weeks. Now they are joined by SOS Labyrinthe, with 2 kilometres of winding paths to get lost in. (New this year: a disco zone!)
If you were jazzed about the third and final Mars rover launch this past Thursday, visit the Montreal Science Centre, which reopened last week. They have a show on now called The Journey to Space. Look for the Apollo mission space helmet, and a glove used by Neil Armstrong himself while training for his moon mission.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has a new show: Paris in the Days of Post-Impressionism: Signac and the Indépendants includes 500 paintings and works from a private collection. Escape from the everyday with lush, colourful works by Money, Seurat, Pissarro and Degas, to name just a few of the artists. And a new public art piece inspired by the Signac show is now available for viewing. Sailboats, created by Collectif Escargo, uses linear flower gardens and shimmering paint to evoke the seascape. See it on Du Musée Avenue. And take a cheap, family-friendly walking tour of the Museum's 30-item sculpture garden. Reserve your spot here. They last an hour and take place on Saturdays, 10:30am and 12:30pm, until September 27.
The McCord Museum has a retrospective of the work of cartoonist Serge Chapleau, a talented counterpart to Aislin in franco circles.
The Satosphere dome has extended SatFest, a series of immersive digital shorts, with a showing on Friday at 6pm and 7:30pm (extended until August 31). And the Domesicle series continues its weekly DJ night, with Blues Skies Turn Black taking the helm this week, plugging in DJs like BRAIDS, le vaisseau d'or and Awwful. Attend in person, 9pm to 2am, or stream on Zoom. or you can enjoy at home or at the theatre. The SAT has also reopened its delicious Labo Culinaire, if you are peckish.