Events: October 2009 Archives

              

This car embedded through a house on Leona Drive marks the starting point of an inspired art installation exhibition: "The Leona Drive Project," a landmark coalescence of more than twenty Canadian artists alongside students and developers, which opened on October 22 and closes tonight.

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THEATRE: What would a Halloween weekend be without the Canadian premiere of The Toxic Avenger Musical? New Jersey vat-of-radioactive-waste survivor the Toxic Avenger battles for both the heart of his blind librarian love-interest and the environment while expressing himself through the magic of live rock ballads. The only thing missing might be a GTA context—the debate's open as to Toronto's New Jersey equivalent. The Music Hall (147 Danforth Avenue), Saturday 9 p.m., Sunday 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., $15–$69.

You know the old saying: laughter is the best philanthropy. Earlier this month, the Stephen Lewis Foundation, in an effort to further fund its community-driven education and action programs in AIDS-ravaged Africa, launched the A Dare to Remember program—individuals take on dares (no wiener truths) and get cash sponsorship for seeing it through. Local actor and comedian Pat Thornton was recently challenged to participate, and came up with an idea that was, in hindsight, possibly on the overachiever's side of dares. "I was walking by a canvasser on the street and he recognized me because he was an editor on a show I was on. He said I would be great for their Dare to Remember program, so I talked to some friends and came up with the idea of doing stand-up comedy for twenty-four hours. I don't know why I said twenty-four hours...I think people would have been impressed if I said six."

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Creative Place and Spaces is an occasional conference (it was held once in 2003, once in 2005, and is being held again right now) that brings together an assortment of thinkers to discuss how creativity can help shape and improve our cities. In case you couldn't manage to make it out yourself, we thought we'd give you a bit of a play-by-play.

MUSIC: Acquired in 1929 by then Governor General Vincent Massey, the magnificent Hart House viols make up a collection of six late sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century instruments widely considered not only to be valuable cultural and historic relics, but objects of great beauty. Tonight and tomorrow, you can experience these instruments as they were meant to be—played by extraordinary musicians. The incomparable Montreal-based viola da gamba ensemble, Les Voix humaines, returns to the Toronto Consort series to perform on these rare instruments. Together, the musicians and viols will bring to life Henry Purcell's genius and inspirational Fantasias, written as a young man of twenty in 1680. This concert marks the first time all six viols have been played together in public in more than thirty years and promises to be a magical experience. Trinity St. Paul’s Centre (427 Bloor Street West), 8 p.m., $19–$46 (tickets available online or by calling 416-964-6337).

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CITIES: Artscape, MaRS, the Martin Prosperity Institute, and the City of Toronto have collaborated to create the Creative Places + Spaces conference (on today and tomorrow)—apropos, since this year’s theme is all about the power of creative collaboration. The conference begins this morning with two very exciting keynote speeches: Richard Florida discussing the collaborative city and the global shifts that are shaping future economies, and Sir Ken Robinson presenting ways of making collaboration a habit to ensure successful innovation. The two will then sit down together for a panel discussion. The day closes with an hour-long schmooze session reception. The Carlu (444 Yonge Street, 7th floor); 9 a.m.–6:30 p.m.; $350 (full day package), $150 (student full package), $95 ("Brown Bag" pass—balcony only).

Toronto's undead community is set to rise up for the second time in less than seven days.

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PERFORMANCE: The Repo! Shadow Cats are back for their tenth shadow cast performance of Repo! The Genetic Opera, a Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Blade Runner rock opera. If you're unfamiliar with the Shadow Cats and their shadow cast performances, the show will feature a live recreation and unique interpretation of the film, while it is being projected on a screen behind the Cats. In addition to blood, boobs, and off-beat humour, tonight's Halloween-themed performance will feature the Repo characters in costume. Audience members are also encouraged to attend in costume for a chance to win prizes. Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), 9:30–11:30 p.m., $10.

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DANCE: In keeping with the gory theme of the week leading up to Halloween, The Chimera Project presents the return of Blood as part of the Harbourfront Centre's Next Steps Series. Choreographed by Malgorzata Nowacka (who is also the founder of The Chimera Project), Blood explores urban mythology using some of the company's typical style, fusing ballet with urban dance influences and improvisation. Enwave Theatre, Harbourfront Centre (231 Queen's Quay West), 8 p.m., $20–30.

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ART: Andrea Stajan-Ferkul creates beautiful mixed-media paintings that are sleek and sexy on the surface and refined and evocative once you get to know them better. Many of the gowns she features on the canvas are also fit for the runway, which is appropriate given that one of her illustrations was used in the promotional material for Toronto Fashion Week shows at Nathan Phillips Square last week. Today, Stajan-Ferkul will open her solo show at the Art Square Gallery called "A Room With A View." The opening reception will be this Thursday at 6 p.m. Art Square Gallery (334 Dundas Street West), 5 p.m., FREE.

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UNDEAD: Just when we thought it was safe to walk the streets again, hordes of zombies rise from the dead for the 2009 Toronto Zombie Walk. Would-be corpses do the zombie shuffle from the pit of Trinity-Bellwoods park, east along Dundas, through Kensington Market, and up through the bowels of the Annex to Bloor and Bathurst streets. The Bloor Cinema hosts an accompanying "Cinema of the Dead" double bill (Zombie and Night of the Comet) following the brains-seeking mob's arrival, while Sneaky Dee’s hosts the Official Toronto Zombie Walk After Party, starring The Rock Ons. Trinity-Bellwoods Park, Saturday 3 p.m., FREE; Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West), Saturday 7 p.m., $16 (zombies) or $20 (living).

Melanie Doane wants to teach us all a lesson in ambidexterity. And she's not the only one.

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ANIMATION: To mark World Animation Day on October 28, the NFB kicks off a week of free activities that celebrate the ever-changing, ever-intriguing world of animation. Get Animated! will offer screenings and workshops, like the Animation Lounge, where you can mingle with animators, browse through displays, and discover more about the industry and local studios. The first screening at tonight's opening highlights the 2008 grads from Sheridan College—whose animation program has produced some seriously talented and successful artists in the field for more than thirty years. Later on, catch some brand new NFB animation releases, including Cordell Barker's Runaway and The Spine by Chris Landreth (who won Best Short Animation at the 2005 Oscars for his amazing film about a well-loved Montrealer, Ryan). Both pieces were official selections at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. NFB Mediatheque (150 John Street), 5–10 p.m. (go online for various show times, etc.), FREE.

Today's Events

ART: The country’s largest art exposition Art Toronto fills the Metro Convention Centre this weekend, celebrating its tenth anniversary with a focus on the contemporary Canadian art scene, a flagship project called "Heartland." The massive international art fair opens tonight with a big fundraising preview to benefit the Art Gallery of Ontario. The rest of the riffraff get to experience the more than five thousand works of art beginning tomorrow (through October 26). Don’t miss the Gladstone’s off-site upArt contemporary Art Fair, reached from the Convention Centre via York University’s unconventional Performance Bus. Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building Exhibit Halls A and B (255 Front Street West), 6:30 p.m., $190 (AGO Benefit); Public Opening: Friday 12 p.m., $18.

Today's Events

TALK: Urban cyclists will rejoice in what Roger Geller, the bicycle coordinator with the City of Portland, Oregon, has to say about bikeway design, bicycle parking, cyclist mentality, and shifting gears to make cities more cycling-friendly. A bunch of local organizations—the Toronto Cyclists Union, the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation, the Clean Air Partnership, and the U.S. Consulate General in Toronto—are teaming up to present “Livable Streets: Rethinking Urban Transportation.” Having learned what has been successful in Portland over the past two decades, earning a bike-friendly reputation, and boasting the highest rate of bicycle commuting to work of any major American city, Geller will talk about the roles that political leadership and citizen advocacy play in influencing change with the goal of getting people out of their motor vehicles and using alternative means of transportation such as public transit, biking, and walking. Centre for Social Innovation (215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 120), 6–7:30 p.m., FREE (pre-register online).

FILM: The 2009 Air Canada enRoute Student Film Festival is a festival run by Air Canada's enRoute magazine that sees selected short films screened on all Air Canada flights from July to December. Tonight, they are holding a free screening of the best of the fest (four of which are by Toronto filmmakers) at the Scotiabank Theatre. See tales of procrastinating film students (The Creative Process by Jeffrey Royiwski), misunderstood flies (A Freshwater Plague by Jake Chirico), a fateful storm in the countryside (A Season to Whither by LeighAnn Maynard), being depressed in Montreal (Synthétiseur by Sarah Fortin), a lovesick computer animation (Intermedium by Alain Huynh), and one woman's struggle with Alzheimer's (Princess Margaret Blvd. by Kazik Radwanski and Daniel Montgomery) without ever having to step on a plane. The films are nominated for Best Short Film, Achievement in Animation, Achievement in Direction, and Achievement in Cinematography. The judges, including director Deepa Mehta, actor Remy Girard, actress Lisa Ray, director Michael McGowan, and BravoFACT's Judy Gladstone will be at the screening, and an awards ceremony at the Drake Hotel will follow (for invited guests only). Scotiabank Theatre, Cinema 13 (259 Richmond Street West), 7 p.m., FREE.

The Mill is definitely one of the most exciting things happening right now in Toronto theatre. It's a series of four plays written by four of the best young playwrights around these parts (Hannah Moscovitch, Matthew MacFadzean, Damien Atkins, and Tara Beagan), each centred on an historic Ontario mill. And while that might sound at first like typical Canadian theatre fodder, there is more than one twist: MacFadzean's play (Now We Are Brody), the first in the cycle, is set in 1854; Moscovitch's (The Huron Bride) is set twenty years prior; Beagan's (The Woods), another three hundred years prior; and Atkins's (Ash) is actually set in our own future. Plus, there's lots of ghosts and gore.

ENVIRONMENT: The CitiesAlive! 2009 International Green Roof Infrastructure Congress starts today, shining a big, green spotlight on sustainable and eco-friendly city development. Over the next three days, expert talks and workshops will cover various techniques for converting city areas to green areas (such as green walls and rain gardens), as well as policies developed in other cities that can help create green infrastructure around the world. The big draw for today is the opening reception at City Hall, which will include a preview tour of their new green roof (above), and a "hello" from Mayor Miller. Sheraton Centre Toronto Downtown (123 Queen Street West), 8:30 a.m.–8 p.m., $5–269.

KIDS: British author David Benedictus and illustrator Mark Burgess have imagined the continued tales of Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin in a brand new Pooh estate–sanctioned book Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. To celebrate, a number of Toronto book publishers and book lovers—including Small Print, Penguin Books, Type Books, and Torontoist—are having a Winnie-The-Pooh Homecoming Party. A. A. Milne–channelling author David Benedictus will read an excerpt of his new book via satellite from the UK, while local kiddie-entertainment celebrities read additional stories at the party. Don Kerr & The Heffalumps perform their Hundred Acre Wood inspirations. And what would a Winnie-the-Pooh party be without a little pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey? Kids can take part in making a giant "Welcome Home" card, too. Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West); Sunday 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. (two shows); $10 adults, $8 kids.

Saying something like, "Hey, it's been a ridiculous year for cycling in Toronto" sounds like a bit of a cheap lead-in, but it's true. This year, already dubious for widespread Obamamania, then equally widespread Obamaphobia, and peppered each month with one tragic, horrifying aviation disaster after another, has sucked pretty hard for local cyclists. From losing one of its own at Bay and Bloor to being told, laughably, that a carbon footprint somehow rivalling that of the city's motorists is cause enough for a bike tax, Toronto's cycling community has a few too many reasons to shake its collective head.

"It basically started as a way to hopefully get free CDs." In what seems like a dream to those of us yet to turn our internet noise into an escape from day jobs and a licence to sleep in, Dan Wolovick has, in a few short years, turned his reviews-based music blog Two Way Monologues into a full-time job. "I became inspired [to put on live shows] by a friend from a band who challenged me for never doing anything [besides] criticizing bands in reviews, and I've never looked back."

Book season is well and firmly upon us. Like the changing colours of the leaves and the rediscovery of the scarves in the back of your closet, the sudden surge of literary prizes and the annual return of the International Festival of Authors signal that autumn is decidedly here. And it makes sense, really: what better way to combat the chill than with a pile of books that keep you safely indoors?

PHOTOGRAPHY: In 2005, Torontonians Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward started up the GuluWalk, a month-long night commute to raise awareness for northern Uganda's "night commuters"—as many as forty thousand children who walked from their rural villages into the town of Gulu and other urban centres to sleep in relative safety and avoid abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Inspired by their actions, photographer Andrea Smith went to Uganda in 2007 to document the plight of these children, living in displaced persons camps. Her latest exhibit of two dozen stunning photographs, "Understanding Gulu: A look at life within the camps," opens tonight in partnership with GuluWalk. Smith will be joined by founder Bradbury and member of Toronto's Acholi Diaspora, Charles Olango, for a discussion about the conflict and rehabilitation efforts in the region. All proceeds go to GuluWalk, and every ten-dollar donation gets you a raffle ticket for a photo shoot valued at five hundred dollars. Gallery DK (1332 Queen Street West), 7–10 p.m., $10 suggested donation.

It was only a matter of time before someone did a clown show about the financial crisis. We always had the feeling the recession was actually the set-up for a really good joke, and SPENT, the new play created through the joint efforts of TheatreRUN, Why Not Theatre, and Theatre Smith-Gilmour, promises to deliver the punchline. It sounds like a good idea: the show is created and performed by Ravi Jain and Adam Paolozza, two of our favourite young theatre artists, with the assistance of Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour, two accomplished old hands at physical theatre. Yet somehow, even though this is a subject we would all surely love to be able to laugh about, SPENT doesn't quite give us the giggles we were looking for.

WORDS: The winner of the 2009 Toronto Book Awards will be announced this evening by David Miller at the Toronto Reference Library awards gala. For a good overview of each of the five competing books, have a look at the City of Toronto’s Book Awards pages. The fifteen-thousand-dollar award is granted each year to the book with the most literary or artistic merit that best reflects Toronto. The five finalists were announced in a ceremony last week at the newly renovated Bloor/Gladstone library. Toronto Reference Library, Bram and Bluma Appel Salon (789 Yonge Street), 6 p.m., FREE.

FILM: Torontonians love a good film fest. We also love a good film fest showcasing global aboriginal filmmakers and media artists. That’s why the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival is celebrating its decennial anniversary. The festival, which begins today and runs through Sunday, will feature more than 125 works created by Indigenous peoples, including film, video, radio, and new media that address both traditional and contemporary themes. To kick off the festival, an opening ceremony will take place at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto (1 p.m.) with a prayer and musical performances. Tonight’s opening gala (7 p.m.) at the Bloor Cinema will feature two Canadian films: Reel Injun, a documentary that deconstructs Hollywood images and stereotypes surrounding Native peoples, and Tungijuq, a short film starring singer Tanya Taqaq that celebrates the Inuit hunting tradition. Various locations and times; workshops and panels FREE, regular screenings $7, opening- and closing-night screenings $12 ($10 for students and seniors), festival pass $100 ($60 for students and seniors).

Continuing the merry trend of importing whatever's been a hit on Broadway or the West End from the past several years, CanStage kicked off its current season with Tom Stoppard's latest effort: Rock'n'Roll. In this show, a decades-spanning epic, Stoppard tells the story of a Cambridge University family who become involved with a visiting scholar from the former Czechoslovakia. It opens shortly after the Prague Spring of 1968 and finishes up at a Rolling Stones concert just after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The history of communism in Czechoslovakia is interwoven with the history of rock'n'roll music, as well as Czech scholar Jan's interest in civil disobedience (and Czech rock band the Plastic People of the Universe), Marxist Cambridge professor Max's family life, and the mental decline of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. If you think that sounds like rather a lot of things to be jammed into a single play, you are absolutely right. In fact, it's far too many.

THEATRE: Theodore Bikel is a veteran of the stage, screen, and recording studio. He's been nominated for an Academy Award (for his role in The Defiant Ones) and two Tony Awards, performed with Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, and is a founder of the Newport Folk Festival. With this outstanding list of accomplishments behind him, tonight he returns to the stage in Toronto for a preview performance of his one-man show, Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, which he both wrote and is starring in. Sholom Aleichem was a Yiddish author in the late 1800s whose short story about Tevye the milkman inspired the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre (189 Yonge Street), 8 p.m., $40–$75.

FAMILY: If you’re spending some quality time with the kids this long weekend, head down to Harbourfront Centre for HarbourKIDS: Respect. This three-day festival is geared towards children ages five to twelve and will feature activities themed around the idea of respect. The roster for this weekend’s festival includes musical entertainment by ex-Moxy Früvous member Mike Ford and the Canadian indie band Rock Plaza Central who recently collaborated with a Grade 3 class at a Toronto Island school, along with theatrical performances by Morro and Jasp (who will not be addressing issues related to puberty), arts and crafts, and interactive workshops. Harbourfront Centre (235 Queens Quay West), Saturday, Sunday, and Monday 11 a.m.–5 p.m., FREE.

ART: New York–based artist Tim Okamura and Calgary graffiti artist TheKidBelo (David Brunning) explore the broadly interpreted concepts of "Love, Strength & Soul" in their second joint exhibit, which features several collaborative canvases as well as individual works. Okamura's gritty realism and detailed inner-city subjects slam up against TheKidBelo's bold, precise letterforms to create a vibrant collection. Often spawned from observations of life on the streets of New York, Okamura's work combines almost-academic figure painting with collage, spraypaint, and mixed media. TheKidBelo's distinct graffiti style plays with the relationship between linguist, colourist, and draftsman, and favours darker connotations of such easily tossed aside words as "love." Together, their contrasting styles carve a striking emotional landscape from urban iconography and imagery. Show & Tell Gallery (1161 Dundas Street West), 7–11 p.m., FREE.

It’s true that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is wicked. Yes, God of War III will rock. And, most likely, Heavy Rain is a strong GOTY contender. But if you’re the type who knows enough about games to know what the hell the previous three sentences mean, you also know that you can find all this out (and more) on the myriad Toronto-based gaming sites out there as they release their coverage of the Sony Playstation Preview Event over the next few days. Indeed, as much as some of us here love playing with our joysticks (quiet, you), it really all comes down to what Tuesday’s shindig had to do with Toronto. After all, this is Torontoist, not Today in Gameplay.

While most people cheered the announcement of Brendan Healy as new artistic director of Buddies, NOW pointed out (albeit a tad awkwardly) that this meant seminal queer Canadian writer/director Brad Fraser didn't get the job. These days, he seems to be more popular with Factory Theatre, where his newish play, True Love Lies, has just received its Canadian premiere and opened their fortieth anniversary season. And Fraser isn't the only one returning to Factory: he's bringing David, a regular character in his work often considered the author's own alter ego, along for the ride. In this show, David returns to Toronto and to the life of erstwhile lover, Kane, who has since switched back to hetero and now lives with his interior-design partner/wife Carolyn, and their two teenage children, Madison and Royce. When Madison tries to get a job at David's restaurant, it sets into motion a string of events that leads to old family secrets being unearthed, new ones being buried, and a big, sexy mess where a family used to be.

Hot off the heels of another summer hit movie and likely Oscar-worthy role in Julie & Julia, Meryl Streep visited Toronto for an informal conversation chat with Globe and Mail journalist Johanna Schneller in the Royal Ontario Museum at a special event entitled "An Evening with Meryl Streep." The evening is part of the series The Question of Celebrity, a lineup of public programming surrounding the museum’s newest exhibition, "Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008."

PHOTOGRAPHY: This summer the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre offered a seven-week documentary photography program to Regent Park youth, during which the more than fifty participating kids ventured out into their community with cameras. The resulting insider portrait of Regent Park can be seen at *Hotshot Gallery’s "FOCUS: Regent Park Through the Lens of Our Youth" exhibit (on until October 12). At the exhibit launch tonight, the gallery will also screen the work of those youth who took part in the summer Video Program. Torontoist photographer Nick Kozak ran a few of the summer workshops and facilitates at the centre. *Hotshot Gallery (181 Augusta Avenue), 6 p.m., FREE.

ART: Some of Canada’s most noteworthy visual arts graduates are being celebrated at the seventh annual BMO 1st Art! Exhibition launch tonight. The show, which runs through November 1, will feature photography by the national winner Alex Kisilevich, who is a recent graduate of OCAD, along with pieces from a dozen regional winners who hail from across the country. Kisilevich’s haunting photograph was selected from among more than two hundred high-calibre entries, all of which were nominated by deans and instructors from Canadian visual arts programs. Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (952 Queen Street West), 11 a.m.–6 p.m., FREE.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America, is branching out into the world of photojournalism today with the opening of World Press Photo 09. This exhibition will display the best photographs chosen from the World Press Photo Foundation’s annual worldwide photojournalism contest. Out of over 90,000 photographs from photographers of over 100 different nationalities, 196 striking images were chosen and will be on display until October 24. Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place (181 Bay Street), 7 a.m.–10 p.m., FREE.

Douglas Coupland could have taken better stock of his surroundings before he spoke. The writer of Generation X and jPod was on stage in the Toronto Reference Library's new event space, the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, for the space's inaugural event on September 23, the first of three planned installments of The Writer's Room, a series of author interviews hosted by the Globe's Ian Brown. The event was styled as a gala opening for the Salon, complete with a cash bar. The public had turned out in droves, drawn by Coupland's celebrity, and also by free admission. But there were career librarians in the room as well, basking in the Reference Library's beautiful new gathering space. And Coupland had to go and poke their collective sore spot.

For some, the works are underwhelming and too few and far between, yet for others, it's one of the few times when Toronto steps outside its dreary box—and that's reason enough to celebrate. You may think it makes modern art accessible to the masses, but perhaps you feel that the installations could be better. Cast a vote, and then head over to last year's poll to see how it compares.

CRAFTS: On October 24, Clay & Paper Theatre's 10th Annual Night of Dread parade will take place at Dufferin Grove Park, drawing inspiration from the various festivals of death and remembrance observed in different cultures around the world (think Mexican Day of The Dead mixed with fire spinners). In preparation for the Night of Dread parade, a series of drop-in workshops will be held at the Dufferin Clubhouse starting today. As a volunteer you'll be helping the Clay & Paper Theatre create the monstrous costumes that you and other revellers can don come October 24. You can use your imagination when creating the creatures that most strike fear into your heart, but just so you know, Stephen Harper has been done before. Dufferin Clubhouse (875 Dufferin Street), 12–8 p.m., FREE.

For the duration of Nuit Blanche, Torontoist hosted Blanche Slate, a concurrent projection onto the south-facing wall of the Art Gallery of Ontario and a liveblog updated right here, below. For the whole entire night, we continually threw Nuit Blanche updates—photos and text, from both our contributors and our readers—to the wall, and into this article.

ART: That “free all-night contemporary art thing” is back for a fourth year of exploration and celebration. Nuit Blanche is happening and it’s going all night long (all night)! Expect to see art in the usual places like galleries and museums, as well as nestled in unexpected establishments and crevices. With 130 projects in three downtown zones, we encourage you to be strategic in planning your itinerary, which is why we prepared one for you. Make sure to swing by the Art Gallery of Ontario, where Torontoist will be hosting Blanche Slate, a communication hub where text updates and photos from contributors and readers will be projected onto an exterior gallery wall. Various locations, Saturday 6:55 p.m.–Sunday sunrise, FREE.

Whatever you think of Nuit Blanche, in Toronto there's really no other nuit like it. The "free all-night contemporary art thing," this year happening from sunset on Saturday, October 3 to sunrise on Sunday, October 4, has earned its fair share of ambivalence over its previous three years—not because the idea itself is not a fantastic one, and not because the event itself isn't intermittently enthralling and exciting and cool, but because people are naturally critical of something that we all deservedly hold to very high standards. If you're willing to brave a disappointment or two, a lot of walking, and (this year) a bit of rain, though, Nuit Blanche remains one of the best ways to experience a different side of Toronto.

FILM: For a second year, the Canadian Sport Film Festival hopes to reach sports fans and film buffs alike with a motley collection of stories about the power of sport to enrich lives and inspire hope and courage. The festival opens with A Woman Among Boys: A Brooklyn Basketball Story, a full-length documentary profiling fearless leader Ruth Lovelace (or "Coach Love"), the only woman coaching boys' high school basketball in Brooklyn, New York. In keeping with the theme, the film will be screened alongside the trailer for First Ink, about Toronto's own Chris Bosh. Other highlights this year include Pink Paddlers, the story of a group of dragon boat–racing breast cancer survivors in Singapore, and the Canadian premiere of More Than Just a Game, about a soccer league started by political prisoners in apartheid-era South Africa. A Woman Among Boys screens tonight at 7 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre; various other showtimes and venues for the rest of the festival; $10 per screening, $8 for students (at the door), $40 for full festival pass.

This year was Busking for Change's second: the event, which sees big-name (and other) musicians playing on city streets collecting donations for War Child ,started last year, and was born a little earlier, after Our Lady Peace's Raine Maida busked for War Child all around downtown for twelve hours back in 2007.

Richard Dawkins came to town this week, and boy were his fans excited. Dawkins, if you are unfamiliar with his work, is an evolutionary biologist and science writer by turns renowned and reviled for his sustained arguments against creationism and against the existence of God. His latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, takes on the task of explaining, in terms accessible to the layperson, just what makes evolution such a compelling explanation of biological diversity.

On Nuit Blanche, Torontoist'll be lucky enough to claim a spot on one of the biggest canvases of all: the Art Gallery of Ontario's walls. And we want to share it with you.