Wizard needs weekend plans, badly. Clever wizards know that the place to be this Friday and Saturday (June 27-28, 12–5 p.m.) is Evolution: 30 Years of Computer Games at InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre (9 Ossington Avenue). 20 PC games are on display and available for play on their original consoles, showing how gaming technology has evolved since 1978. The games and PCs are on loan from the Personal Computer Museum in Brantford, Ontario,... [continue]

BBQ. Beer. Bands. Can you think of a better way to spend a summer afternoon? Six Shooter Records is gearing up for NXNE with their annual NXNE Back Lot BBQ on Saturday, June 14, co-sponsored by XM Satellite Radio, Steamwhistle Brewery, and the girls at Damzels in this Dress. This afternoon of grilling and chilling takes place in the lot behind their store at 1118 Queen Street East (near Pape) and features a stellar... [continue]

The finalists for the 2008 Doug Wright Awards for Canadian cartooning have been announced! There were no major upsets: Montreal-based publishing house Drawn and Quarterly practically swept the nominations, but there are also a considerable number of self-published works on the shortlist. One exciting twist this year was the addition of a new category, The Pigskin Peters Award for works that are "more experimental in nature or lack a traditional narrative structure." The winners... [continue]

If you were wondering why convenience stores seemed strangely barren this weekend, wonder no more: Ontario introduced Power Walls, a province-wide ban on the display of tobacco products. Now those sweet, sweet cancer sticks live behind grey flaps, pushing cigarettes one step further into the realm of contraband. Rita Davies, Toronto's executive director of culture, announced that the Toronto Museum Project is back on the table. The museum, which will be housed in the... [continue]

Things That Everyone Is Secretly Afraid of #237: being shoved onto the subway tracks. And for one unfortunate commuter at College station yesterday, it happened. He's okay, but the suspect is still on the loose. Rob Ford may be guilty of many things, but assaulting his wife isn't one of them, says the Crown. Ford was charged with domestic assault in March after his wife complained to police that he threatened her with death,... [continue]

Hey there, arty partygoers. Where will you be this Thursday, May 22? At the Powerplant's annual fundraiser, Powerball 10: Decadence (231 Queens Quay West), or Gallery TPW's D-List Ball at the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West)? One party is for fashionable media yuppies and their wealthy aunties, the other is for Queen West art scenesters. One is for people who collect art to diversify their investment portfolios, the other is for people whose... [continue]

Last month, we reported that Michael Cera was signed to play the titular character in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but wondered who would be cast as Ramona Flowers, the girl of his dreams. According to Torontoist readers, Ellen Page seemed like the obvious (too obvious?) choice to play Flowers to Cera's Pilgrim, but it was announced yesterday that Mary Elizabeth Winstead will be playing the elusive American delivery girl. Winstead is best known... [continue]

Photo by MarkyBon. The CONTACT Photography Festival: it's back, and it's everywhere. Now in its twelfth year, CONTACT 2008 has over 675 artists at 220 venues from May 1–31, making it the largest photography festival in the world—an entirely believable statistic if the amount of CONTACT shows being touted on Facebook Events is any indicator. This year's theme is Between Memory and History, which explores the complex relationships between photography and the human experience,... [continue]

Start with the caviar and hazelnut foam. Next, try the bacon-stuffed tangerine segment appetizer, and follow with a palate-cleansing sorbet of kiwi and heirloom tomato purée. You'd be a fool to miss the rock lobster meatloaf, which is served atop an oasis of fig and cucumber gelée. Finish with a candied beet root custard and a tassé of chipotle-scented espresso. Bon Appétit! Haute cuisine fans will descend on Isabel Bader Theatre (93 Charles Street... [continue]

On the West bank of the Lower Don River, just South of Queen Street at the Eastern Street bridge, a shrunken cruise ship sits beneath a behemoth buoy. Is it waiting to be rescued, or for you to come aboard and join the party? Who knows. Advertised via fancy insert in The Globe and Mail's Saturday edition a few weeks ago, the 25-foot-long cruise ship is an installation by Québécois art collective BGL and... [continue]

In May 2006, artist/curator Jessica Rose and dancer/choreographer Jenn Goodwin were both working for the city, organizing Toronto's first Nuit Blanche. The pair began going on runs around City Hall on their lunch break to blow off steam. Since then, Rose and Goodwin have organized runs around various art centres around the city as The Movement Movement: a community art project where marathon meets performance. On Monday, April 21 at 8:00 p.m., The Movement... [continue]

TTC strike: not today, but probably Monday. If it happens, Torontoist will let you know. If you were to get your ass kicked by a TTC Special Constable, would you prefer a gun, a taser, or the standard pepper spray? The TTC launches a $100,000 study to find out. The Toronto District School Board is set to make some controversial changes over the next few years. A report released yesterday threatens the closure of... [continue]

From April 19 to June 28, the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) hosts From Hanga to Manga: The Graphic Art of Japanese Storytelling—hanga being the Japanese art of woodblock printing, and manga being your otaku nephew's reason for living, that is. The exhibition features a collection of rare illustrated books, woodblock prints, and comics from the libraries of the TPL Special Collections, the ROM, and Japan Foundation Toronto. In conjunction with the exhibition,... [continue]

A slaughterhouse-bound tractor trailer crashed on the 401 yesterday, setting 50 pigs loose on the highway. It's a funny human interest story, because nobody died, with the exception of a few pigs, and they were on their way to the chop anyway. Everybody wins! Mayor Miller is still in China, avoiding awkward conversations about human rights in Tibet. But Miller's major social faux pas this week? He'll be missing Mayor David Miller's Community Clean-Up... [continue]

Find out what happens when musicians trade guitars for paint brushes this Friday, April 4 at the opening of Whippersnapper Gallery's latest exhibition Colour is the Keyboard. From 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. that night, visitors are invited to view artworks by Buck 65, Justin Peroff (Broken Social Scene), Will Zimmerman (Shout Out Out Out Out), Dallas Wehrle (Constantines), and over a dozen other rockstars in Whippersnapper's second floor studio (587A College Street). We're... [continue]

Now that Spring is officially here, we can retrospectively name Winter 2007–2008 "The Winter of the Pothole." As the snow dunes melt, an ever-growing number of colossal crevices are appearing on the city streets and highways. City crews are working overtime to patch up the damage, but Toronto already spent $1.3 million of its $4 million annual pothole budget by early March. Yikes. So when are they going to deal with that crater in... [continue]

No longer content to simply paint kitschy nature porn, Canadian artist Robert Bateman is tackling performance art. In a two-minute video for environmental group No Tankers, Bateman paints a black wash over Orca Procession to demonstrate the detrimental effect of oil spills. But Bateman was not defacing the original, he was defacing a reference copy valued at around $1,950. The Star reports: "Bateman afterward rushed into the shower with the print to wash the... [continue]

Fans of the French electro scene are having the best week ever. First, DJ duo Justice arrived in Toronto to play a sold-out concert at The Sound Academy on Monday, and now their friend/artistic collaborator So Me is opening an exhibition, Portraits, this Friday, March 21 at Studio Gallery (294 College Street, above the Savannah Room). So Me is Bertrand de Langeron, the man behind Justice's outstanding music videos for "D.A.N.C.E." and "DVNO. He... [continue]

It was announced earlier today that Michael Cera is in final negotiations to play Scott Pilgrim in the film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, the hit comic by ex-Torontonian Bryan Lee O'Malley. Not that anyone should be particularly surprised by the casting choice: Cera is pretty much Hollywood's go-to guy for likable underdog characters nowadays. The first volume of the Scott Pilgrim comics series has been in talks with Universal since 2005,... [continue]

Popular Québécois cartoonist Michel Rabagliati will be making an appearance at the Lillian H. Smith Library (239 College Street) on March 15 at 5:00 p.m. to promote his latest book, Paul Goes Fishing. Rabagliati will participate in a Q&A session with The Beguiling’s Peter Birkemoe and sign books for loyal fans of the Paul series. And it's free! Who is Paul? It is Michel himself, with a smattering of fiction here and there ("5... [continue]