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A Drawing a Day Until Christmas: One of the city’s perfectly lovely annual traditions is seeing what visual artist and sassy curator Dana Holst comes up with in her latest series of homey, familiar monochrome oil on paper paintings. They show up every morning at 10 a.m. through Christmas on Instagram, showcasing whatever living thing she’s decided to immortalize.

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This year’s subjects have included flamingos, a squirrel, a number of dogs and horses and what looks passingly like Adam Driver in a Speedo — the perfect gift for mother! Set your wind-up alarm and maybe you can walk home with one of these oddball visual curios.

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Details: 10 a.m. daily through Dec. 25 at @thedanaholst https://www.instagram.com/thedanaholst/?hl=en on Instagram, no charge to gander

Mürky Waters: Calgary swing dance and headbanger band headlines an awesome set of pre-Christmas holiday cheer with a lineup including Not Gerbils, The Leaky Shack Travelling Road Show and Edmonton favourites Business Shark. Bonus: Mürky Waters and Not Gerbils are also playing the by-the-door stage at Black Dog Freehouse (10425 82 Ave.) at 4 p.m. Saturday, so find your simplest path and follow it into the frothy fray!

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Details: 9:30 p.m. Friday at Blakbar (10762 82 Ave.), $13 door

Monster (2023): This harrowing yet human tone piece out of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters, Broker) is very well worth the ticket. When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is behind her son’s troubles, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on.

But as the story unfolds through the eyes of the mother, the teacher and the child, the Rashomon-like truth emerges. What’s fun about this one is you never know exactly what sort of movie you’re watching until the end. Japanese with subtitles, 125 minutes.

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Details: 6:45 p.m. Friday, 9:30 pm. Sunday at Metro (8712 109 St.), $14

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