A clean, airy look to Bellwoods Brewery nicely complements its namesake park.

It’s the first week of May and Toronto is in the middle of a string of cool, cloudy days. Mid-afternoon, the Bellwoods Brewery is preparing for that night’s service and the space isn’t ready for photography. Mike Clark, co-owner along with Luke Pestl, suggests we return just before opening. Given the weather, and that it’s a Monday, he expects a slow start. After all, the brewery has only been open for a few weeks, even if it sits on busy Ossington Avenue. After five, the space is unexpectedly packed with a pleasantly mixed crowd: a table of older men and women in fleece zip-ups at a table by the signature garage door wall, a group of suits at another table, and some locals seated upstairs. The shoot is rescheduled.

As summer approaches, grabbing a table at Bellwoods will become even more difficult. The brewery boasts a coveted space in the popular West Queen West neighbourhood with a welcoming and airy interior, matching its namesake, the nearby Trinity Bellwoods Park. “We both have lived near this immediate neighbourhood for the better part of the last ten years. We’re both fans of hanging out in the park,” notes Clark.

Clark says that he and Pestl lucked out with the location, because breweries require spaces with some special features. “It’s really difficult to find a building to pull this off in,” says Clark. “Some of these mechanical garages have the right combination of zoning and physical attributes to host a brewery.”

Bellwoods Brewery’s location was previously a car wash, then an auto body shop. Left-over features like high ceilings, properly reinforced flooring, and large drains made the space “unique” in Clark’s eyes.

An upstairs space overlooks the brewery.

Of course, none of this would matter if the beer wasn’t good. But it is, perhaps in part because Clark and Pestl are wholly invested in what they brew. “We are lucky to brew what we want,” admits Clark. Beers made locally have the benefit of freshness, and Bellwoods offers some particularly distinct flavours, including a bright saison, a porter with notes of dark chocolate, and a dubbel that tastes of fruit and malt.

The variety of beers reflects the increasingly sophisticated palates of Toronto beer drinkers, who have become accustomed to craft brews over the past few years. Clark says he has seen the shift happening and believes beer lovers can look forward to more: “Toronto is lacking, compared to some of the bigger cities in the States, in smaller breweries or brewpubs,” he says.

Bellwoods is working on a retail outlet that will allow them to sell beer by the growler. Some restaurants in the neighbourhood will be selling it by the glass. Even so, Clark says he’s being careful to save enough suds for the brewery itself—and he’ll be even more cautious after they’re done building their patio. “We’re holding back a good amount of our stock until we know how much will be consumed from the patio and in here: we don’t want to run out of our beer,” he said. With patio season approaching, neither do we.

Dear Toronto talked with Wilson in 2009 about the Seen Reading project.

Julie Wilson, author of the new book Seen Reading, is funny, articulate, and self-deprecating. She has a fondness for both witty anecdotes and bathroom humour: an ideal cocktail party guest or, you might think, a good person to sit beside on a long commute. In transit however, Wilson—a self-described literary voyeur—is more likely to be peering over someone’s shoulder and scribbling into her notebook than chatting up a fellow passenger.

Fittingly, Wilson also knows how to throw an interesting party. On Monday, at the book’s launch, she had volunteers go on stage to pretend they were riding the subway—the tallest volunteer got to be a subway pole the others hung on to, while lightly swaying.

What is a literary voyeur? For Wilson, reading in public is a form of exhibitionism; since she watches others reading, her actions make her a voyeur. And while you might think exhibitionism in this context refers to the book covers people show (or try to hide), Wilson is much more interested in the readers themselves, in the potential reactions the next sentence or page elicits from them. “[Y]ou have no idea what emotions may floor you from one sentence to the next, and when they do, I’m there, watching,” she writes in Seen Reading.

If you use the TTC regularly, you may have seen Wilson, over the past five years, spotting someone reading, then making notes about the book, the reader, and how far through it they’ve progressed. She’s been chronicling some of those observations on her blog (also called Seen Reading), wherein she imagines the mindset of the readers she’s watched in spare but potent prose. Her very first entry involved spotting a woman “distressed” while nearing the end of Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness. After the encounter, Wilson rushed to the nearest bookstore to buy the book and began reading it “in anticipation of the final pages, where I would once again meet this reader within the book that moved her so.” And so, a voyeur was born.

Wilson, in the grey coat, reads selections from Seen Reading while pretending to be on the subway. Photo by Jaime Woo/Torontoist.

While the word “voyeur” may have unsavory undertones, it is the perfect choice here. “Observer” or “watcher” (as in “people-watcher”) don’t capture the level of passion Wilson has for literature, the joys of reading, and the bonds between readers, nor the dynamics of her experiences, which take place just on the edge of private space created around a person when she reads in public. Wilson understands this private space, and then cleverly inverts it in her writing. Reading a book need not be about hiding away in plain sight: it can be a way of giving yourself permission to have deep experiences while in public. Wilson’s micro-fiction doesn’t take away from the reader or those experiences—it’s a way of celebrating them.

Wilson, at the launch, mentioned that transience runs through the book as a theme. She offered a few possible explanations: maybe it was that the readers were always in transit; maybe it was that while the commute remained the same, the commuters would always have different faces; or maybe it was something about Wilson herself, some need to connect with people around her that she didn’t know, except to know that they shared a common passion for books.

Perhaps, too, Wilson could sense the shift that would happen as books went virtual. With over 100 pieces of micro-fiction (chosen from over 700 blog entries) she has captured a time when walking down the length of a subway car meant seeing a mosaic of covers rather than the greys and blacks of electronic devices we encounter more often today, and there’s something magical about capturing that image.

No matter its form, though, reading will continue in our city, now fortified by the release of Seen Reading, a beautiful love letter to reading in Toronto.

Sheers and cheekily-updated classics dominated the Zent looks.

Exciting. Not a word often applied to the state of Canadian menswear. It’s not that we lack the talent, but is a question of economics. Staying in business usually means designing for women, and even then it still isn’t easy. When you list some of the best known names in menswear—Philip Sparks, Ezra Constantine, Krane, or Rad Hourani (although we’re cheating on that last one since his lines are unisex)—you’re also pretty much listing all of Canadian menswear.

Last week at Fashion Art Toronto (FAT), two promising lines were shown that’ll give men more choice: Zent by Quebec’s Zent Keymole, and Worth by Toronto’s David C Wigley.

Cleverly blocked sheer tops were a highlight of Zent.

The Zent looks were basic and classic, but tweaked sexier. The best of the tops were light and sheer with artful blocking, playfully giving a glimpse of the body underneath without veering into fetish wear. Pastel tank tops and vintage 1960s-style shorts feel of-the-moment and seem destined to be the de facto uniform for Pride.

Worth brought dark, layered looks with different textures, including gorgeous knitwear.

Contrasting with the airy feel of Zent were Worth’s darker offerings. The front half of the show consisted of layered looks, dramatic capes and shawls made complex with draping and knitwear (with an assist by Dylan Uscher of DylaniumKnits), completed with killer boots. The second half was more ready-to-wear, but still filled with energy: trousers with playful prints, asymmetrical jackets, and a harness-top with fringes. (Okay, the last element isn’t that ready-to-wear, but maybe it should be?)

The best part, however, may have been remixing the Zent and Worth lines in our head for fun: sheer tops layered with grey and black knitwear, paired with upper-thigh length shorts and sinister black boots. It’s easy to picture the more adventurous of Toronto’s dressers pulling these mashed-up looks off with aplomb, and we can only hope the rest of Toronto will slowly inch that way as well.

FAT, now in its seventh year, often showcases an eclectic mix of fashion, with some lines more akin to art on a body than fashion. While there’s always an abundance of ideas, this hasn’t always translated into great fashion: in the past there were shows that lacked editing and came off as amateurish. Sure, designers are free to create as they please, but there was a question of: is this the best that could be up there?

With the steady evolution away from its original identity as Toronto’s alternative fashion week, FAT has shifted to being a celebration of both art (with installations and film) and fashion: together but separate. The development is a good one. Zent and Worth are interesting on their own and, more importantly, could show at Toronto Fashion Week—but they shine within the artistic, less industry-driven nest of FAT. They aren’t the only ones. (The gorgeous corset work of another local designer, Starkers, for example, makes more sense at FAT than Fashion Week, but is fully polished.) It’s nothing but a win for Toronto to have both.

Photos by Jaime Woo/Torontoist.

Walker Court at the AGO's Massive Party.

Last night, the Art Gallery of Ontario threw its massive fundraiser, the Massive Party. In its eighth year, the party took place over three floors of the AGO. The great news is that the event, a sold-out affair, meant lots of people came out in support of the cultural institution and in appreciation of the physical space.

Now, the bad news.

Massive Party was utterly unambitious and, in many places, clumsy. While the night’s theme was “The Future of Art” (vague to begin with), you’d have no way of knowing that based on the event.

The basement floor decorated for Massive Party.

Too much of Walker Court on the main floor was taken up by a glorified photo booth with a few Victorian props, made more difficult to get around by the two bars that flanked it. The basement was, oddly, playground-themed, but slow to fill up—likely because there wasn’t much signage leading to it. There was, at least, an interactive display where attendees could see their tweets on a monitor and see their silhouettes made of bubbles, but the future it wasn’t: this kind of presentation would have seem dated even in the early days of the Nintendo Wii, let alone the more powerful Microsoft Kinect.

More embarrassing was the line-up to get to the sparsely decorated third floor. Actually, there were two line-ups, theme-park style, as there was a bottleneck to get out of Walker Court, before another line-up for the elevator to get to the third floor. Trying to get back to the main floor from the third meant having to shove through the bottleneck, which got more difficult as the night went on.

This, in addition to unmemorable drinks and awful food—at turns imbalanced, too salty, or bland—meant that most of the evening, we were left wondering how this happened. Inside the gorgeous Frank Gehry–designed building, why both the lack of attention and ambition?

Maybe we were expecting too much, and from cursory glances at the crowd, attendees appeared to be enjoying themselves. Yet, when we left, we couldn’t help but feel disappointed. It’s perhaps what happens when promised the future and given something much less shiny.

Pride is like a big ol' hug, Mayor Ford, and who doesn't like hugs? Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/98967716@N00/3720606812/"}mikehutch711{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

I sometimes wonder if our mayor, Rob Ford, is some version of Phil Connors, the Bill Murray character from the early-’90s comedy Groundhog Day. Except, rather than the day playing over again and again, Ford is the one refusing to change, while the world swiftly moves without him. He fought the transit battle this year as if it were still 2011 and lost. He tries to bully everyone, including his allies, as if he still had the 70 per cent approval rating of May last year, rather than the 41 per cent he has now. And, like last year, he will be skipping the Pride Parade for the cottage, since one of Canada’s largest events falls upon Canada Day.

I’m shocked. Really, absolutely shocked.

Queers give Ford the heebie-jeebies. As many others have noted, the man just isn’t comfortable around people who dig others of the same-sex, notwithstanding the fact that most Pride attendees are straight allies, apolitical folk interested in a good party, or Asian families with young children taking pictures. Being stuck on a float surrounded by gays must be a nightmare—I can relate, getting the same feeling when I’m invited to student film showcases or dry weddings. Yet, being an adult, especially when you have a grown-up job like being the mayor, means having to do some things that may inconvenience you (a few hours away from the cottage) but are for the greater good: in this case, representing, in spite of personal beliefs, the City of Toronto’s values of inclusiveness and acceptance.

Now, there’s an easy out for the mayor. Pride celebrations go on for 10 days. Ford can pick any one of those 10 days, drop in, say “hello,” have the media take a few pictures, and then douse himself in Axe shower spray to wash off the trauma. Unlike last year, where people were by turns angry, disappointed, and shocked that Ford would skip the festivities, especially in light of the heartfelt gestures by Brian Burke and Kristyn Wong-Tam to persuade him to attend, this year his refusal to join feels like the start of a running joke. He is Sideshow Bob, stepping on rake after rake until it becomes hilarious. All he has to do is to think carefully and step aside to be free of that smack in the face, but he creates his own pain again and again.

I wish Ford would loosen up and not take himself so seriously. During Pride, there are people dancing joyously in the street, colourful costumes that rival Caribana’s, and a sense that being together is better than being apart. Rob Ford should indulge in throwing a handful of glitter, taking a picture with a drag queen, and getting blitzed—just like the rest of us. Because, in the end, the population of the “rest of us” continues to grow every day and, in the disappointment of realizing just how outdated and humourless our mayor is, it seems worthwhile to remind him that there’s still room for him to join the party.

In a way, I wish he were at least as savvy as Pierce Hawthorne, the character Chevy Chase plays on Community, who is a misanthrope, but pivots his view on gays after seeing this video, realizing how much financial good they were for his company. After all, Ford’s showing up at the Parade provides him more benefits than it does Pride or the queer community—and be clear that those two things, while overlapping, are distinctly separate. The community is fighting its own battles, working to protect its youngest members from bullying, to fortify the right to marry, and to broaden the legal victories to include the trans population. The mayor’s role at Pride is largely ceremonial and his not joining the festivities is applauded only by his base, which continues to crumble.

Sadly for Ford, life isn’t a Harold Ramis movie and time is steadily marching forward. Young people are getting more progressive on their views regarding equality of same-sex issues, even when they consider themselves religious. The organizers at Pride Toronto have become savvier to avoid becoming a political scapegoat for the Ford administration. And when a million people congregate on Church Street to celebrate the queer community’s hard-earned progress, Ford will be at his cottage, stuck in the glories of the first few months of his mayoralty—and on his own in more ways than one.

Philip Sparks in his new store on Foxley Street.

Ossington Avenue between Queen and Dundas Streets, with its upscale restaurants, its hip bars, and its proximity to other Queen West hotspots, makes it a popular—and notorious—area during the weekends. Ossington days, meanwhile, have an entirely different feel. The auto-repair garages and Portuguese bakery provide a charming and inviting juxtaposition to the art galleries and high-end boutiques.

The latest arrival on the Ossington strip is Toronto designer Philip Sparks, whose first-ever shop opened earlier this month on adjacent Foxley Street. For some designers, a shop could be little more than an ode to vanity without much strategic purpose. Not for Sparks: his storefront is the culmination of three years of careful planning, without an apparent false step.

The store contains menswear, womenswear, footwear, and accessories.

Sparks launched his business in 2007, at first with a focus on menswear. His work quickly drew positive notice for its clean, well-crafted looks. Three years ago, Sparks opened up his Queen Street West studio on Saturday afternoons. Customers could chat with the designer, inspect the pieces, and then get purchases properly fitted. “People were coming to us asking for the products that weren’t picked up by the wholesale market,” notes Sparks.

Soon after, Sparks opened a series of pop-up shops around the city, including one at I Miss You, a vintage store on Ossington Avenue. “We were supposed to be on Ossington for a week and we were asked to stay on,” he says. “The experience was so enjoyable, a week turned into three months.”

Sparks is no stranger to the area—he and his husband, NOW Style Editor Andrew Sardone, have lived in the neighbourhood for five years—but the time at I Miss You helped bring about a business insight. “We had always thought of [Ossington] as having heavier nighttime traffic,” he says. “What we didn’t realize was that a lot of that nighttime traffic comes back into the neighbourhood throughout the day.”

Of the returning traffic, Sparks says that much of it consists of tourists from cities like New York and Chicago, looking for shops that aren’t available back home. Sparks’ shop aims to occupy that niche. It allows for a fuller experience of the Philip Sparks brand, sometimes described as “modern nostalgia.” Clean, white walls create a minimal look meant, says Sparks, to “let the clothes and some of the pieces of furniture and fixtures be the things that stand out, as opposed to going all out and trying to have some vintage finish or wallpaper.”

A minimalist approach is used in the store, giving it an air of timelessness.

Not hewing too closely to nostalgia is a smart move, given that nostalgia is sometimes susceptible to trendiness. “I don’t like using the word ‘nostalgia’ too much because I think that makes people think that you want to live in the past or that the past was better,” Sparks says. Rather, “I romanticize some of the ideas from other periods.” He sees himself as someone who builds on what came before, rather than copying it.

Although his store is aimed at premium shoppers, Sparks is realistic about where the current market is at, with its myriad of choice and price points: “People can buy clothes they want anywhere they want to buy them. It’s not something I think that can be forced on anyone,” he says. “Everybody’s going to have their own idea or mentality to it. I just hope that we are providing the product and giving people the experience they want in shopping.”

The clothes follow Sparks' philosophy of building a wardrobe.

Sparks has already done some thinking about his position in the fashion marketplace. He has collaborated with Town Shoes and Danier, where collections of his shoes and bags respectively are sold, giving him a reach far beyond the city. Also, he skipped the fall-winter cycle of Fashion Week to focus on opening the store.

His boldest move may involve a complete rethinking of the Fashion Week ethos: traditionally, designers show a collection six months ahead of time to drum up interest, and to allow time for production. Sparks says he’ll instead show pieces shortly before they arrive in the store. It’s a simple change, but so utterly appropriate for the contemporary fast-fashion marketplace that it’s a little astounding more designers don’t do it. Time will tell how the gamble works, but given Sparks’ track record, it’d be foolish to bet against him.

Photos by Jaime Woo/Torontoist.

David Chau stands in front of the new seating area at Banh Mi Boys.

“Pork belly is really popular,” says David Chau, co-founder of Banh Mi Boys, the well-received Asian fusion sandwich shop just west of Queen and Spadina. The fatty meat can be found in the steamed buns and banh mi (Vietnamese submarines), but Chau says there are requests for it to be placed on the tacos as well, even though it’s not on the menu. (Grilled chicken, pulled pork, and kalbi beef are the listed tacos.) “Pork belly seems like a fashion statement right now.”

Fans of pork belly tacos have been patiently waiting without as Banh Mi Boys has been under renovations for nearly two months. Although the shop only opened in December, Chau says the improvements were necessary: when he and his brother Phil moved into the space, “nothing was the way we needed it to be.” The kitchen was the main priority with a need for proper prep and cooking areas. “We knew any space that we got into wouldn’t be exactly to what we needed or to our taste. [But] if the kitchen was set up properly, I could have lived without doing the visual part of the renovations, that part didn’t matter as much.”

While two months may have been longer than the Chau brothers expected to need for renovation (originally the plan was for only two weeks), they are used to being patient: Banh Mi Boys was an idea five years in the making. Chau believes that timing was key in the shop’s success as in the past, he and his brother “didn’t think Toronto was ready.” His main concern was the price barrier that kept Vietnamese submarines below $2 and “to create a product beyond that price range needed more time.”

First look at the in-progress mural that will greet customers.

The switch flipped for Chau when he began to see higher-end street food in other cities being featured on television. “I knew the timing was close,” he says. So, last year, the planning began for Banh Mi Boys, including the testing of recipes in preparation to open the store.

Chau feels like it was important for Torontonians travelling to other cities to try modern takes on banh mi there because “then they come back and say ‘yeah, a more expensive banh mi would work.’” Timing aside, Chau has a very high regard for Torontonians’ palate: “I think Toronto is accepting to all kinds of food. I’ve eaten every type of food I could out there. Toronto seems to accept food in every way, whether it’s high end or low end or really ‘ethnic’ or a reinvention of a comfort food.”

Set to re-open March 26, patrons will be greeted with a large spray-painted mural and a sleek seating area of red benches and white tables against a wood background. Most importantly for Chau, though, is the new open-concept kitchen: “There was just no reason to have the kitchen in the back. We have nothing to hide: people can see their food being made right there, right then when they order it. When people come in and order a sandwich they will hear sizzling, they will see it, they will smell it.” One new menu item that is sure to take off is the kimchi fries, described by Chau as their “dressed-up take on poutine” featuring kewpie mayo (a popular Japanese mayonnaise), green onions, kimchi, and spicy pulled pork.

Although we’re excited to try the kimchi fries as is, undoubtedly there will be someone just waiting to ask to add pork belly.

Photos by Jaime Woo.

Two looks from Lucian Matis's fall/winter line that unofficially kicked off Toronto Fashion Week. Photos by Jenna Marie Wakani.

Toronto Fashion Week (or World Mastercard Fashion Week, but we’re only saying it once) unofficially kicked off on Monday with a Lucian Matis show, held at the Royal York Hotel. For his fall/winter line, Matis used a combination of crochet, lace, and feathers on a series of black dresses and gowns to evoke moody sophistication. Tarek Al-Azbat, creative director of Nella Bella, told us he found it a “mature collection” and “very exotic.” Kimberly Lyn, a fashion blogger and creator of Soul of My Shoes, piped in to add that she thought the collection “very lady-like.”

Those who have never attended Toronto Fashion Week may find it confusing that many familiar local names are not on the schedule. That’s because it’s not uncommon for many designers to hold independent shows that don’t appear on the official program. Celebrated brand Greta Constantine hosted its at the Arcadian Loft last week. The Lucian Matis show on Monday wasn’t part of the official lineup, either—though they did hold an official show on Tuesday night.

Al-Azbat explained that part of the reason some designers choose to arrange their own venues is that they worry about how their lines will look inside the tents—something he said he does too, for the Nella Bella brand. Sometimes other venues work better. Lucian Matis’s show, held in the Royal York’s upscale ballroom, would have “lost some of its impact” in the tents, Al-Azbat noted.

“What matters is what’s best for your brand,” added Lyn, “what fits your brand and your design, and what experience and impact you are trying to make with your collection.”

Some of the more anticipated shows include well-known names like Sunny Fong’s VAWK (“a mix of Japanese samurai and sci-fi,” says Lyn), Pink Tartan, David Dixon, and Arthur Mendonca. Lyn thinks the Joe Fresh show, to be held tonight, will be good. The brand, she said, “comes up with great fashion that is economical and accessible for everybody.”

Al-Azbat is interested in Line, which is presenting a darker, sinister look in knitware that he finds “exciting and interesting.”

Toronto Fashion Week tends to be a mix of established names and newer talent. Upstarts may prefer the tents, as they provide the advantages of a central location, the efficiency of not having to find and set up a new venue, and potential cost-savings from not having to start from scratch. “I find the tents to be more of an incubator sometimes,” said Juan Carlos Gaona, who previously owned clothing boutique Magnolia. He’s now Sales Director for local designer Philip Sparks.

Existing talent sometimes uses the tents to incubate new lines. While Lucian Matis showed outside of Fashion Week, his more affordable and wearable line, “Matis,” will show in the tents, as will Ezra Constantine, the menswear collection by Greta Constantine. In the past couple of years, new talent hasn’t burst out of the gates the way designers like Matis or Fong did. “Instead,” said Gaona, “we are seeing the older ‘Golden Children’ spawning their new more wearable labels, such as [Fong's] Vawkkin.”

The more accessible lines are a nod to the fact that practicality is a major necessity for appealing to local buyers. “The shows are amazing but they don’t translate into the real Canadian market,” said Gaona, which is why designers are increasingly partnering with retailers like Danier to bring their visions to the public.

“For Canadians, it’s what’s on a mass-consumable level,” noted Lyn. “They know the brands, such as those designers that were on Project Runway Canada.” (Both Lucian Matis and Sunny Fong were in the show.)

“Partnering with bigger brands helps designers financially and makes them more recognizable to consumers,” Lyn added.

As Toronto designers get more ambitious, Fashion Week will have to follow suit. In previous years, the event was plagued with negative or mixed reviews, but our experts say things are changing. One helpful tweak was bringing the show back into the core: it was once at Nathan Phillips Square, before its organizers essentially exiled it to the Exhibition Hall. Now, it’s at David Pecaut Square. “There’s a maturity now in terms of venue and set-up,” said Lyn, adding that the Week is “much more accessible: there are restaurants around [the tents], which is important to people covering Fashion Week from Monday to Friday.”

Accessibility is also important to Al-Azbat. “Accessibility to everybody is key,” he said. “At other Fashion Weeks, [in other cities around the world] everybody is invited, everybody is welcome. We’re not getting more and more exclusive; we’re becoming more and more open—which is something I like seeing.”

The first room of History, Glamour, Magic focuses on Munro's underwear art and Vaseline/Vazaleen party.

Will Munro: History, Glamour, Magic
The Art Gallery of York University (4700 Keele Street, Accolade East Building)
January 11–March 11 (Weekdays 10 a.m.–4 p.m., Sundays noon–5 p.m.)
FREE

Saturday was Toronto activist and artist Will Munro’s birthday. Munro, who died of a brain tumour in May of 2010, would have been 37.

His Vaseline/Vazaleen parties (they ran from 2000 to 2006, first at the El Mocambo and later at Lee’s Palace) were legendary. He was also an artist, and his work often featured fabric reclaimed from found underwear. Also, along with Lynn MacNeil, he revived the Beaver Cafe on West Queen West. Now, the Art Gallery of York University is hosting a posthumous exhibition of his work, entitled History, Glamour, Magic, which opened in January and runs until March 11.

The first section of the exhibition focuses mostly on Munro’s work with found men’s briefs. He started working in the medium while still a student at OCA.

Munro’s work defies expectations by turning briefs from purely functional objects into flags in the air—each different, each with its place in the group. Most designers of mens’ apparel still can’t match the joy and energy of Munro’s custom skivvies. Munro would also take briefs apart and turn them into murals and other expected things. He would, for example, play with the concept of “support” by using underwear as fabric for a stretcher.

After Munro’s death, many retrospectives on his life mentioned his deep knowledge of queer history and theory. That side of his persona seems to have informed the installation in the second room—created in partnership with fashion design Jeremy Laing—where sexuality is presented through a funhouse-like lens.

On the wall hang two jester-like suits with protruding phallic cones and doughnut-like orifices. The centre of the room hosts a peach-toned tent adorned with lace. Inside the tent is a den filled with more phalli and orifices. All of this seems to be a comment on the sometimes-absurd tunnel-vision of indiscriminate sex, encapsulated in the colloquial phrase “a hole, is a hole, is a hole.”

At the same time, with the figures stripped of their gender and made uncomfortably grotesque, there’s a dream-like quality to the room. In such a topsy-turvy environment, where the iconography is neither homosexual nor heterosexual, the viewer is made to look at sex frankly.

In his early 30s, Munro was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, and it was this disease that ultimately ended his life. He continued to work after his diagnosis, and the AGYU devotes an entire room to materials from his final show, Inside The Solar Temple of the Cosmic Leather Daddy. The palette is mostly black, and the imagery is heavy on Egyptian symbols associated with flight. A sex sling evokes rest, comfort, and surrender. Winged leather daddies superimposed on mirrors break up reflections. While the cleverness of Munro’s work remains evident, there’s a weariness that is shocking when juxtaposed with the exuberance found in the other rooms.

Throughout his life, Munro was able to transition comfortably between many roles—artist, party promoter, restaurateur—and this is why he had such an impact on Toronto: he brought about change by bringing together different subcultures and making them feel welcome in their own city. He challenged the status quo, not by shutting it out—a favourite tactic of the counterculture—but by promoting inclusivity.

With his mix of fearlessness and generosity, Munro countered the perception of Toronto as a passive-aggressive and chilly place. His legacy will last for a long time yet, but there’s a sense that the city that had embraced and loved him is still coming to terms with having lost him, so unexpectedly and entirely too soon. History, Glamour, Magic acts as a meaningful part of the mourning process.

All photos by Jaime Woo/Torontoist.

Spunk is a new support group that’s been started by ACT, the AIDS Committee of Toronto, for gay and bisexual men who want to better manage their drug and alcohol use, especially during sex.

In slang, a session of having sex while under the influence of drugs—often, but not limited to, meth—is know as “party n’ play,” shortened to PnP. One problem with PnP is that it leads to “risk-taking behaviour” due to the drug use, says Adam Busch, Gay Youth and Gay Men’s Harm Reduction Coordinator for ACT, who has shepherded the creation of Spunk. Predominantly (but not exclusively) associated with gay culture, PnP had been linked to unsafe sex practices, leading to increased rates of HIV infection and sexually transmitted infections.

The first iteration of the program will be for men 30 and older, with a second run in the spring for men 29 and younger. Busch explains that the age groups have different patterns of use, given that younger men tend to believe “HIV is over and ask ‘is it still relevant?’”—an effect of not having lived through the 1980s, when HIV/AIDS routed the queer community. Now, “there’s not the same fear,” Busch concedes.

Participants of Spunk will be led through six 90-minute sessions with a focus on peer support and motivational interviewing, in a process that will encourage self-directed behavioural change and work through the ambiguity participants may feel about those changes. “We’re not here to tell anyone how to live their lives,” says Busch. Instead, self-awareness and an internal desire for change is key—nobody is setting out to push people into a program they aren’t themselves seeking out. The support group is for those who “don’t feel great about their [drug] use” and are “on the fence about their activities.”

The support group complements other services that ACT provides, such as encouraging safer sex by giving away free packets of condoms and lube. “Getting people to use condoms can be tricky,” says Busch. The attitudinal shift towards HIV/AIDS in part stems from the arrival of medication to help manage the disease and a new wave of pornography that moves away from condom use. People are being influenced by porn culture, he notes, and the “condomless sex [in these films] is changing perceptions.” While Busch adds that this move in perception is “not all bad,” it’s obvious that condomless (also known as bareback) sex requires a certain level of responsibility.

Throughout the interview, Busch, who has worked for four years in community outreach, is careful to frame the obstacles in a way that keeps things free of shame. Given that risky sexual behaviour has been linked by some to low self-esteem, capturing the correct tone is vital for Spunk to be effective: “We’re not judging, and that’s what allows [participants] to come here and allows disclosures.”

Photo by nayrb2.

In just ten days, the two short clips for Shit Girls Say have racked up over seven million views combined and provided an easily-digestible introduction to the Toronto-based Twitter stream they’re based on. Since the release of the first episode last Monday—there will be four in total, reports the Star—the account has picked up on average 30,000 new follows per day, extraordinary given that it started with 55,000 before the clip’s release, and will top 300,000 followers today. That 79-second clip (aided by a killer Juliette Lewis cameo) captured the public’s imagination—or at least lit up on Buzzfeed and Reddit—and was featured internationally in outlets such as Wired, Gizmodo, Guardian, and Bust.

The success of Shit Girls Say probably shouldn’t be a surprise. The most eminently quotable films of the past two decades have been about teenage girls—think Juno, Clueless, Bring It On, Mean Girls, and Heathers—with boiled-down compilations of the best lines easily retrievable on YouTube. The twist with Girls is that the one-liners don’t come from characters on-screen but from people you’ve overheard (the Globe suggests “straight, white, middle-class women in the 20-to-40 age range”) or, more likely, ourselves. Hitchcock once said that a great story was life with all the dull parts cut out: what makes Girls so hypnotic is the sharp precision of writers and creators Kyle Humphrey and Graydon Sheppard in capturing and presenting small-talk—those Hitchcockian dull parts—as the main focus instead. There isn’t a better time for the idea, firmly rooted in the status update era that rewards both instancy and brevity.

Naturally, not everyone has found the web series funny, with many critics suggesting the clips mocked and dismissed women. “Making fun of girls is sooo hilarious,” wrote Bitch Magazine. Or if not making fun, the videos are at least asking “girls to look at themselves as risibly absent-minded, controlling, insecure, boring, shrill and loud, especially in the context of relationships,” notes Lynne Crosbie in the Globe.

The first episode of the Shit Girls Say web series, featuring Juliette Lewis.

Certainly, the creators understand that their work can be a Rorschach test with the viewer or reader’s own experiences projected onto the one-liners. “We know that the funny part to us in the tweets is the complexity of them and the way they can be read, and we respect that. It’s more of an observation,” Humphrey and Sheppard told the Star. “We are really careful about what we tweet,” they said, worried about being sexist or mean-spirited. (It’s not to say the stream isn’t without judgment however. How else to read the use of the iconic image of Sharbat Gula from the National Geographic cover, except to juxtapose the plight of women in developing nations to the excess of the first world?) With comedy about gender, the argument often becomes: is Shit Girls Say sexist or about sexism?

On one hand, the use of drag in the videos is an indication that Humphrey and Sheppard were looking to deepen the Twitter feed. Sheppard, who portrays the lead character, examines gender based on social conventions of gender—how feminine hair, or make-up, or attire should look—rather than biological ones. Without fake breasts and using a speaking voice that potentially could be his own (and why not?), his performance leads to an interesting question: if it weren’t for the title card, why do we know that the lead is female? (Musician Owen Pallett offered a similar thought yesterday on Twitter.) What if we viewed the clip through the frame of a man adopting a new gender role and its complicated coding of language?

Maybe we’re overthinking it, something critics of the drag act would suggest. “Are we laughing because it’s a guy in a wig?” asks Bitch. While Jezebel thought the first clip was funny, the “tired” part was “where guys dress up as women in order to mock them.” When Sheppard reveals drag was used because it “would look funnier and also take some of the edge off,” the complaints ring a little truer. How might this clip have been received if, say, Mindy Kaling had portrayed the lead character? Kaling in her book of essays Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? rails against the idea that enjoying superficial things necessitates stupidity, a presupposition that critics of the clips should heed.

This is certainly the case with the Shit Girls Say Tumblr that was created in response to the clips, which features more substantial quotes, but was originally subtitled “because not all of us are vacuous boring shit heads.” This oppositional nature, the pitting of one segment of females against another, is perhaps the most frustrating result of the clip. (As Tina Fey notes in Bossypants, women shouldn’t be tricked into thinking they are in competition with each other: they’re in competition with everyone.) The subtitle was changed after a much-read piece by writer Emma Woolley surfaced yesterday morning observing: “And while I believe it’s still necessary to remind the world that yes, women are smart, and yes, we talk about lots of different things—I also think it’s wrong to do this at the expense of other women.”

Woolley’s piece led Toronto Standard editor Sarah Nicole Prickett to wonder if an equivalent stream called Shit Boys Say would be as “ridiculous” and “gettable,” adding that she thought it could. Local Twitter users filled up their suggestions of what said stream might look like, mostly with trite lines men use in discussing (or not discussing) romantic relationships, such as “Can we talk about this later?” “I’m not ready for a relationship right now.” and “You think too much.” In how men discuss with one another, the most common suggestion was simply: “Dude.” Could we see a reactionary Tumblr to these lines that would label the men as “shitheads?” Probably not.

In a society where words are still heavily codified—when a person is described as “sweet” or “beautiful” it signals the likely gender—that’s what makes the Shit Girls Say so damaging, according to Woolley and Crosbie. Wrote the former: “Whether you see yourself in it or are simply offended by the stereotypes, what you’re actually reacting to is the fact that being a woman is still a punchline.” (Emphasis Woolley’s.) The lines pulled from context reduce people to something akin to a reality-television contestants—especially the one who announces he or she “is not here to make friends!” with a false sense of autonomy: there’s a horror to realizing you speak off a script you didn’t even know existed. And for many people that script, written by gender norms, is flawlessly executed by Sheppard’s hair-fiddling, wide-eyed, faux-coy character.

Episode three of the web series (with Juliette Lewis returning) comes out on Boxing Day, reports the CBC. The big question is if there is room for a third video, even one that will move “beyond the tweets into more exploration.” Knowingly, Sheppard tells the Star: “We don’t want to over saturate the market. We’re kind of aware that people get sick of things quickly, so we’re just trying to work with these films that we already have.” The viewership of the second clip has matched the popularity of the first, a sign that fatigue hasn’t set in yet.

As more people become curious about their work, Humphrey and Sheppard might want to consider some words of advice from Sarah Silverman, about handling reactions to one’s (attempts at) humour. “It’s so subjective, comedy,” she told the Guardian. “If you don’t find something funny, it can easily be truly offensive, so I usually just say I’m really sorry.”

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains—the very best and very worst people, places, things, and ideas that have had an influence on the city over the past twelve months. From December 12–23, the candidates for Mightiest and Meanest—and new this year, a reader’s write-in option! From December 26–29 you’ll be able to vote for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year, and we’ll reveal the results December 30.

Just a year and a half into its existence, the Toronto Underground Cinema has already become an invaluable part of the city’s cultural landscape, with an eclectic slate of films, live performances, and concerts. Granted, expectations were high when the cinema opened in May 2010, with its prime location on Spadina Avenue just north of Queen Street West, a pedigree that included former Bloor Cinema employees, and a space that was filled with character and history. At the time we hoped the success of the Underground would solidify the position of Toronto’s rep cinemas, marked by the success of the Fox in the east end and the survival of the Revue in Roncesvalles—a sense of promise the Underground has fulfilled.

Since rep cinemas don’t show mainstream new releases, they can’t depend on film studios’ marketing machines to bring in customers. Instead, the keys to survival are building community ties and establishing a unique curatorial voice that speaks to a specific audience—in essence, acting as stewards of film culture. Over the past year, founders Nigel Agnew, Alex Woodside, and Charlie Lawton have done just that by housing the popular Toronto After Dark festival; launching Defending the Indefensible, a new series featuring local film critics debating poorly received films; and becoming the de facto downtown venue for cult or underground screenings, with directors Guillermo Del Toro, Edgar Wright, and Kevin Smith having all stopped in since it opened.

The significance of the Underground can be gleaned by looking back at the very space it now inhabits. Prior to the Toronto Underground Cinema revival, the theatre was known as Golden Classics and, for nearly two decades from 1977 to 1995, ran films from Hong Kong produced by the studio Golden Harvest. During its heyday, Golden Classics was a place where Chinatown residents could gather en masse to watch films that reflected their culture, with actors that looked like them and spoke their language, while snacking on a container of Pocky crackers or dried cuttlefish.

That cinema did not survive the rise of the home video market and the shift of many locals to suburban Chinese communities in Scarborough and Markham; however, its significance as a hub for a minority culture to connect with a part of itself remains. In a similar way, the Underground acts as a congregation space for Toronto’s geeks, where they can take in a free screening of Scott Pilgrim, catch a concert to raise funds for a new independent film, or watch a Simpsons-themed burlesque show. By injecting new energy into our local film scene and exploring the contemporary relevance of a rep theatre, the Toronto Underground Cinema has proved itself a worthy hero for 2011.

CORRECTION: December 22, 2011, 09:22 A.M. This post originally stated that the Toronto Underground Cinema is located on Queen Street West, when it is actually on Spadina Avenue. We regret the error.