Marchers at last year's inaugural SlutWalk. Photo by Nick Kozak/Torontoist.

SCREENING: After the SlutWalk, you might consider going to Rocking Girls & Thundering Women, a fundraising screening of Girls Rock! The Movie, about a U.S.-based camp for young girls learning to shred, drum, and wail (the Toronto version is currently raising funds for its second summer edition). After the screening, there’ll be a performance by the RAW (Raging Asian Women) Taiko Women Drummers—”eight women and 1000 pounds of drums.” The Projection Booth (1035 Gerrard Street East), 6:30 p.m. doors, 7 p.m. show, $10–$20.

RIDE: On the eve of Toronto’s Bike Month 2012, which launches officially on Monday, there’s still the regular edition of Critical Mass, the long-running monthly bike ride/protest to raise awareness of cyclists and their rights on the streets of Toronto. The family-friendly event marshalls riders at the Bloor-Spadina Parkette, before setting off on an unannounced route to maximize visibility on Toronto streets. Start from Spadina Avenue and Bloor Street West, 6:30 p.m., FREE.

MUSIC: The Four Corners concert series is a model of time management when it comes to band programming. You get to check out four great acts in one go; literally, as the bands play their sets simultaneously. Four Corners IV features Absolutely Free, Odonis Odonis, Young Mother, and Town Ship as the quadrophonic musical guests; before the music gets underway, there’s a buffet meet and greet. Steelworkers Hall (25 Cecil Street), doors and food at 9 p.m., bands at 11 p.m., $6.

COMEDY: Vancouver transplants Conor Holler and Craig Anderson have taken a while to find their comedic feet in Toronto, having put their duo Bronx Cheer on hiatus as the two moved to T.O. on different timelines. They’ve reunited and are relaunching with a new monthly cabaret, Adult Contemporary. The inaugeral show features a diverse group of guests: Picnicface‘s Evany Rosen, Laugh Sabbath / Don’t Get Bored of Us And Leave‘s David Dineen-Porter, and musical act Henri Faberge, plus sketch group Tony Ho, who’ll be debuting new sketches every month at AC. Comedy Bar (945 Bloor Street West), 10 p.m., $5.

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com.

Photoist is the first post we publish every weekday morning. In it we feature an image (or two) by a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool, to show off their great work and begin the day with something pretty.

Top and bottom photos of Legoland Berlin by Christian Heindel.

• If you yearn for the simpler days of yore, when all you worried about was whether the wheels would stay on your Lego firetruck, rejoice: Toronto is getting its very own Legoland Discovery Centre.
• Each year the Pug Awards celebrate the best and worst of Toronto’s new architecture, as chosen by you. There’s one week left to vote.
• Toronto’s second annual SlutWalk is tomorrow, and organizers invited the police to take part—this is significant for them because SlutWalk was founded in response to remarks made by a Toronto police officer. Unfortunately, it seems, the cops will not be joining in the march.

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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.

—Minnan-Wong, councillor for Don Valley East (Ward 34) and chair of the City’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, reassuring reporters earlier today that transportation staff are taking the recent spate of instances of concrete chunks falling from the underside of the elevated Gardiner Expressway seriously. “The sky is falling” may have been a poor choice of clichés, but it sure is appropriate under the circumstances.

The proposed development site. Photo by lxdesign, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

The Beach is known for its unique small-town vibe, but a possibly precedent-setting new six-story condo planned for the area has residents fiercely divided over the evolution of their neighbourhood.

The community, the developer, City planning staff, and Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon (Ward 32 Beaches-East-York) have been in heated discussion for the past year over the condo development, which is proposed for 1960-62 Queen Street East, currently a Lick’s. On May 15, the Toronto and East York Community Council voted to allow the rezoning necessary for the project to go ahead, and it’s almost certain that city council will finalize that zoning approval in early June.

Brian Graff, a leading member of Friends of Queen Street, a group which has been actively campaigning for changes to the 1960-62 Queen Street East condo plan, says he isn’t against condo development in the Beach, but that he prefers three- or four-storey buildings that emulate existing development the area.

“Most people…don’t have any problem with the condos that were built under the guidelines in the ’90s, and so that is what people, and myself included, generally want,” said Graff. “Buildings that fit in, that are not modern, that attempt to somehow respond to the context like the old ones did.” Graff added that he believes most Beach residents are opposed to development.

McMahon, who voted in favour of the rezoning at last Tuesday’s community council meeting, insisted that local sentiment is much more nuanced. After all, she said, around 80 per cent of the people buying condos at the controversial development are Beachers looking to downsize. “Every business owner I speak to wants development. You have to progress for the economic viability of this street,” McMahon said. “We have 148 condo [buildings] going up in downtown Toronto, so we need to get ahead ahead of it and have our plan.”

If anything’s certain, it’s that change is hard. Still, major changes to the Beach’s streetscape will likely be limited. Only four sites in the area have been identified as fit for future development, according to a study commissioned by McMahon. Of those, only one appears primed for imminent construction–the site of the former Shell station at Queen and Woodbine (a soil remediation company has purchased the lot).

McMahon is now looking to push forward a study that will engage the community in workshops to design a community wishlist and discuss issues like architectural design and height. Set for completion in November, the study’s findings will have to be balanced against the City’s Official Plan, which supports increased development along avenues, like Queen Street.

While McMahon managed to finagle design concessions from the 1960-62 Queen Street East developer to keep the project more in line with its surroundings (its brick exterior will now extend to the main floor, it will be set back at the third story), Graff still wonders if there aren’t more appropriate places for development in Toronto, such as Eglinton or Lawrence Avenues.

Even so, now that Beach homes often go for a million or more, perhaps it’s time to extend the opportunity to live in the neighbourhood to those who can’t afford such an overwhelming price tag.

By one o’clock in the afternoon on May 22, two entirely opposing groups of spectators had formed in the Distillery District awaiting the arrival of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. One of them lined Trinity Street all the way down to Distillery Lane: camera-toting clumps of people checking watches and straining to see back toward the main gate as broadcast crews took position. Elsewhere, another group—much smaller, but no less intent—had already come together at the south end of the area, across the parking lot from where the government reception was about to begin. They too were there to see the royals, but placards with messages like “Sever the Ties,” and the watchful presence of a riot squad, indicated that their reasons weren’t entirely welcoming.

In its small measure, it was a condensed sampling of the reception Charles and Camilla have encountered throughout their 2012 tour of Canada, from New Brunswick to Toronto and on to Saskatchewan. And for Canadians, it was also a taste of our country’s lamentable priorities.

You really only had to see the procession of His Royal Highness through St. James Town to get the gist of this. One of the highlights of the royal stopover in Toronto was a round trip from the Yonge Street Mission through St. James Town using the peoples’ conveyance: a TTC bus. The way much of the media had been previewing the spectacle, you’d think Prince Charles would be waiting at Parliament and Gerrard for a bus with tokens in hand, ready to ride the Rocket through our streets like a true Torontonian. Instead, escorted by a parade of units from the OPP, the Toronto Police, and the RCMP, an Orion VII Next Generation hybrid-electric TTC bus pulled up, its route signage replaced simply with “HRH: St. James Town.” Traffic slowed to a near-standstill. Meanwhile, police formed a human barricade along the length of the sidewalk.

Once this repurposed, private motorcade got underway, there were very few intersections in a three or four-block radius not under tight control. At Spruce Street and Sackville, a motorcycle-mounted officer from the OPP stopped us with a shriek of his whistle, making way for this cavalcade of the state as it approached. When it rolled through, lights blazing and sirens squawking, the sight was a little unsettling—a small army of police, the executors of state authority, leading a vehicle carrying a representative of the Canadian state itself as if it were a chariot.

What was unsettling was knowing that this chariot belongs to the public, and what the appearance of a public ride privately serving the embodiment of the state says about Canada in 2012. Specifically, it raised questions of who is ultimately serving as figurehead for whom.

Of course, chartering a public TTC bus is something anybody with the coin to afford it can do. But with the Conservatives of Stephen Harper, there’s a very fine line between “chartering” and “commandeering,” and a royal tour like the one we just experienced felt like more than a celebration of the Queen’s 60th year of rule. For Stephen Harper, returning to Canada’s monarchist roots all over again is an integral part of his stealthy re-invention of Canada, something that reached a climax with the near-annihilation of the Liberal Party in May 2011 and continues with the incremental re-calibration of our national culture. Recall the gigantic, 40-yard Canadian flags draped across the playing field at last year’s Grey Cup, cannons booming, with Peter McKay taking a very ham-fisted half time bow for Canada’s military role overseas. Recall the supplanting of Bill Reid’s Haida Gwaii with a depiction of Vimy Ridge on the new twenty-dollar banknote.

Like these, the royal visit to Toronto was a chance to roll out Harper’s idea of Canada as the new normal, from east to west—and with the Queen visiting in 2010, or the royal honeymoon of 2011, Harper has had a chance to do it more than preceding governments. In 2012, however, Charles and Camilla had the dubious honour of visiting a Canada where the monarch, for the first time in a long time, has ceased to be a figurehead—at least for the ruling party.

In a dockside Halifax ceremony last August, McKay announced the return of all things “Royal” to national defence after forty years. In 1968, the government of Lester B. Pearson unified the Canadian military under the singular title of “Canadian Forces,” with the navy as “Maritime Command,” the army as “Land Force Command,” and the air force as “Air Command.” But since August, 2011—a month after portraits of the Queen replaced Quebecois works at Foreign Affairs, and a month before a deadline for all Canadian embassies to prominently display the same—these simplified organizational titles have become history, replaced by the “Royal Canadian Air Force,” the “Royal Canadian Navy,” and the “Canadian Army.”

Even in the media packages distributed to journalists before this week’s royal visit, the federal government’s emphasis on the monarchy as a matter of present-day nationalism, not bygone heritage, was all over the pages. “In Canada,” it read, outlining the objectives surrounding immigration events in Saint John, New Brunswick, “we profess our loyalty to the Sovereign, not to a document (such as a constitution) or an inanimate object (such as a flag) or a geographic entity. Canada is personified by the Sovereign just as the Sovereign is personified by Canada.”

“In return for their allegiance, the Canadian state, personified by our queen, guarantees to protect their rights and freedoms.”

But the role of the monarchy in Harper’s Canada goes beyond ceremonial niceties like swearing allegiance to the Crown. It is part of an aggressive, muscular campaign to force a narrative (back) into the Canadian mainstream, one that exalts Commonwealth heritage over that of Francophone or multicultural society. It presents the pot into which the Harper Conservatives expect new Canadians to melt, and the template for patriotism—along with other jingoistic talking points—that landed Canadians are expected to embrace. When the state rides by in a TTC bus, its escort making as much noise as possible, Canadians are expected to stand there, jaws appropriately agape, and watch it pass.

“Stephen once said to me that a conservative party in any country ought to be a party of patriotism,” Tom Flanagan, a mentor to Stephen Harper and a professor at the University of Calgary, told the Canadian Press. “He is now creating a conservative version of Canadian patriotism.”

For a couple of days this week, that version made the rounds throughout Toronto. To be fair, there were some memorable moments, and some great gestures on the part of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. Charles’s visit to the Digital Media Zone at Ryerson University, now famous for images of the future King spinning vinyl with headphones on, comes to mind. It was also undeniably excellent for such an embodiment of the Canadian state, so presented, to turn out at the Yonge Street Mission to begin with, highlighting his “Seeing is Believing” program, partnering business leaders with at-risk youth. Happily, we can report that the Prince and Duchess seem like stand-up people. Somewhat conflicted, we can also report that very little of the 2012 Royal Tour, for reasons of national context, seemed to have much to do with the royals themselves.

What we’ll remember best, though, is an exchange that happened over the noise of idling police engines and the general din of traffic outside the Yonge Street Mission, when Charles was getting ready to ride the Rocket.

“That’s Prince Charles!” a woman shouted to the driver of a school bus, held up in traffic at the snarled intersection.

“Well, tell him to get out of the street! He’s blocking traffic!”

If you’re a lady of just the right age, there is a good chance you went head over heels for The Cutting Edge. You swooned over D.B. Sweeney, maybe took a few skating lessons, and now must accept full responsibility for the three (!) sequels…and you probably were too young to know or care it was shot round these parts.

See if you can follow on this summary of the complicated plot: There’s this spoiled figure-skating gal trying to get into the Olympics and she needs a partner. Then there’s this hockey playing guy and he can’t play anymore due to an injury. Do they get partnered up? Of course. Do things go poorly at first? Mos def. Do the two somehow eventually develop mutual respect and even (gulp) love? Maybe, maybe. Are there montages set to ’80s music complete with close-up shots of graphic equalizers twinkling and muscles getting pumped? Come on! Is there a last-minute hiccup that gets resolved just in time for the pair to admit their true feelings and win a gold medal? Is any of this actually ruining the movie for you?

So, where were we? Skating, right. Gotta have some ice, eh? Well, this is supposed to be Calgary but…

…the distinctive seats let you know it’s actually Copps Coliseum, in Hamilton, cowboy notwithstanding.

This rink is supposed to be in Chicago but, uh, they don’t have Tim Hortons there. No, this is just Copps again.

Diva Moira Kelly has her own personal practice rink, which is supposed to be in Vermont…

…but it’s actually the rink at Newmarket’s Pickering College. (And it also can be seen in this vintage Kurt Browning Diet Coke ad. Sweet!) Pickering was also briefly seen in Mark Wahlberg’s The Big Hit.

This factory, where Sweeney works before putting on the spurred skates, is also back in Hamilton.

This doctor’s office, where he gets the bad news, was shot in downtown Toronto, on Pearl Street.

In a real coup, they got Jack Layton to play the doctor. No, not really.

But this really is awesome character actor Terry O’Quinn busting a move as Kelly’s rich dad.

As for Toronto itself, this not-actually-American hotel is actually the SkyDome Hotel. (Now it’s the Renaissance, of course.)

The atrium of this hotel, however, belongs what’s now the Hilton Suites in Markham.

Now, when you come across The Cutting Edge on TV and find yourself sucked in for the umpteenth time, you’ll be able to watch it in a whole new way. You’re welcome.

City staff say they need more time to sketch in a casino work on plans for the redevelopment of the Port Lands. The City decided to take another look at the plans for the site that were put together by Waterfront Toronto, and planned to have the new plan ready to present next month. But instead, the plan won’t be ready until the fall. Though City staff say this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation named the Port Lands as one of four spots with casino potential in the GTA. Maybe don’t bet on that.

The parents of a teenager who was killed two years ago after being hit by a TTC bus are suing the TTC and Toronto police for $2 million. They claim the bus was travelling above the speed limit, and police did not do enough to control the crowds of teenagers that had spilled on to Lake Shore Boulevard after police broke up a party at Woodbine Beach.

News alert: Media baron Conrad Black lives in Toronto now, again, and attends a newsish event. Black was seen hobnobbing with press-types at Huffington Post Canada’s one-year anniversary party last night. Also at the party, the Toronto Sun. Also, s’mores. Can you feel the newsiness wafting over you like the smell of hot marshmallows?

The man who used to be in charge of St. Lawrence Market, until the City reassigned him six weeks ago, says he doesn’t know why he was moved out after more than 30 years of service at the Market. Jorge Carvalho told the National Post that he’d like his old job back, and might even take the matter to court. The City says Carvalho was moved to promote depth of knowledge across the organization, to which Carvalho replied, “hahahahahaha.”

And despite the efforts of some protesters at City Hall yesterday, the Schoolhouse shelter will probably close down anyway.

Pieces, a play that's never performed the same way twice, opens tonight. Photo by Fahad Khan.

THEATRE: This new Canadian play focuses on sex and betrayal and the different ways life can be put back together after it’s fallen apart. Pieces, featuring an all-star cast consisting of Rosemary Dunsmore, Ron White, and Allison Price, comes from director Jill Harper and promises to deliver a unique performance each night. Before each show, the script’s sequence is randomly drawn, which means up to 120 variations of the play can be told. Unit 102 (376 Dufferin Street), runs tonight to June 9, 8 p.m., $20–$30.

COMEDY: Be happy, it’s a shorter week! If you still need a laugh to help you get to the weekend, check out the power of funny women at East Side Represents. This night of stand-ups features Sandra Battaglini, Jeanie Calleja, Precious Chong, Fiona Carver, Sarah Carver, Diane Johnstone, and Andrea Murray, along with Tim Burton and Phil Luzi. The Red Sandcastle Theatre (922 Queen Street East), 8 p.m., $10.

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com.

Photoist is the first post we publish every weekday morning. In it we feature an image (or two) by a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool, to show off their great work and begin the day with something pretty.

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