Torontoist » “In April”

CBC Music’s First-Ever Festival Will Be a CanCon Love-In

Chris Dart — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:30:30 +0000

The CBCMusic.ca Festival will feature Sloan, Kathleen Edwards, Of Monsters and Men, and roving appearances by Jian Gomeshi and Matt Galloway.

According to CBC’s Chris Boyce, the goal of this weekend’s CBCMusic.ca Festival is twofold. First and foremost, the CBC wants to celebrate Canadian music. Second, it wants to celebrate CBC Music, the broadcaster’s online music service, which launched a little over a year ago.

The Barber of Seville is Not the Sharpest Shave

Carly Maga — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:30:32 +0000

A reworked version of Beaumarchais' play makes for an uneven production, on now at Soulpepper Theatre.

In 1996, Theatre Columbus premiered playwright Michael O’Brien’s “freely adapted” take on the famous Beaumarchais play The Barber of Seville, which was written in 1775. O’Brien’s version mixed in music from the 1816 opera of the same name by Gioachino Rossini, as well as original tunes by composer John Millard. The adaptation also propelled the story forward a couple centuries, with pop culture references galore. With Theatre Columbus co-founder Leah Cherniak at the helm, the musical ended the season with six Dora Award nominations (it won three) and plenty of critical acclaim.

Seventeen years later, Soulpepper Theatre is remounting this zany reimagination of The Barber of Seville, updated once again by O’Brien, Millard, and Cherniak. But, for some reason—the change in decade, or company, or sense of humour—whatever had made the original so magical, has faded, save for a few key performances.

Hero: Toronto Disaster Relief Committee

Jonathan Goldsbie — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:01:00 +0000

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we’ve either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.

“Take that word ‘homeless’ out, and use the word ‘Jewish.’ Would we be studying whether Jewish people could come down and ask for help, if they were in trouble?” asked the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee’s Beric German in May, when Council’s Executive Committee was fending off a request from Councillor Case Ootes [PDF] and certain business owners to ban panhandling in the city’s (undefined) “designated tourist areas.” German’s comment was initially strategically questionable, as it provided a considerable opportunity for the ban’s supporters to dismiss panhandlers’ defenders as dingbats. But the following afternoon, when a caller to AM640 suggested that homeless people should be strapped to treadmills and put to use generating electricity, we were reminded that German’s comment was depressingly apt.
In a society in which the most vulnerable people are not only marginalized but demonized, groups like the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee are entirely necessary. Perhaps the best activist group in the city, the TDRC advocates for the dignity and survival of the people most at risk of becoming another name on a list. Staunch believers in better living through policy, campaigns such as the One Percent Solution (to restore government spending on housing to mid-1990s levels) emphasize that only the government is capable of meaningfully addressing the national emergencies of poverty and homelessness, and that resolving those problems–or at least making considerable progress towards ameliorating them–is very much doable and simply a question of priorities.
In April, one of the group’s founders, street nurse Cathy Crowe, published Dying for a Home: Homeless Activists Speak Out, a collection of essays calling for an affordable housing strategy, written by some of the people who would benefit from such a thing. Giving a platform to those who need help but who otherwise have to fight to be heard is one of the noblest things one can do in our society, or in any society. Too often these debates exclude the very people around whom they centre, and it becomes too easy to relegate them to passive statistics.
Every month, the TDRC holds a vigil at the Church of the Holy Trinity to remember those in Toronto who have died “as a direct result of homelessness” over the previous thirty days. The fact that this is a monthly ritual should be the first sign that something is very, very wrong with our city, with our province, and with our country, that we are not unable but rather unwilling to deal with the unnatural disaster in our midst.
Photo of the Toronto Homeless Memorial in Trinity Square, maintained by the TDRC and the Church of the Holy Trinity, by photopia /HiMY SYeD.

A Bright Future is Possible With the Power of One

Jenelle DaSilva-Rupchand — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:30:00 +0000

Photo of XOF1 solar-powered car driving on a frozen Lake Simcoe. It is the first solar vehicle in the world to operate in sub-zero temperatures.
This isn’t the Queen’s University Faculty of Engineering building a solar vehicle. This isn’t a multinational corporation like Honda investing the millions it can afford into alternative transportation technology. This is the power of one, in the form of Torontonian Marcelo da Luz; an individual who is building a solar-powered car with a team of volunteers.
da Luz wanted to build a solar car since he watched the 1987 World Solar Challenge. He sold his house, secured loans, got sponsors, and without a background in engineering or mechanics, began the XOF1 (read as “power of one”) solar car project in 1999. Over the last eight years, da Luz has invested about half a million dollars of his personal funds in XOF1—fortunately he has about 63 sponsors donating parts, products, and services. In April 2007, da Luz stopped going to his day job and devoted himself to the project full-time with what is currently a handful of part-time volunteers. He felt that building the solar car deserved to be his first priority.
da Luz hopes that, 1) showing that ordinary people can build a solar vehicle, and 2), breaking the solar car distance world record of 15,500 km will encourage people to consider the power and simplicity of sustainable energy.
“We’re waiting for the government or someone to save the planet for us. It’s not going to happen unless someone does something about it,” he says. da Luz realized he needed to take action.
The XOF1 solar car works similarly to an electric car. The vehicle is topped with an array of solar cells, which absorb sunlight then converts it into electricity. The electricity is stored in batteries, and the batteries power the motor. Instead of plugging the car into an electrical outlet to charge its batteries, da Luz says that it plugs into the sun.
His idea was to set the new world record by driving the solar car across Canada, but those plans were canceled when a solar car driver was killed in an accident on an Ontario road in 2004. Following the tragedy, the Ministry of Transportation panicked and enforced a moratorium on solar cars in the province. The suspension was lifted recently, but a number of strict rules and regulations were put in place, some which da Luz does not agree with, such as placing signs along roads that indicate that an experimental vehicle will be driving on them. He would rather not compromise his standards, so he got the solar car licensed in Barbados without problems instead. Now the XOF1 tour will travel across the U.S., where transportation laws permit.
The team is not yet sure whether they will start driving the solar car from the Seneca College Jane Campus or transport the car to the Canadian-U.S. border and start the tour there. The aim is to leave August 1 and drive 60,000 km through 300 cities, arriving at the final destination of Los Angeles by September 12. All the vehicles in the solar car’s convoy—even the volunteer crew’s RV—are installed with hydrogen fuel injection systems for the purpose of the XOF1 tour. Unfortunately, the HFIs will be taken out once it is completed.
da Luz’s personal message on the XOF1 website reads, “The most sensitive part of the human body is the pocket. It is time for us to desensitize our pockets and invest in our future, [to] look for ways to achieve a clean and sustainable future.” This solar car project is proof that it can be done with the power of one.
UPDATE (August 1): The XOF1 solar car tour is delayed until further notice. In the meantime, they are recruiting a few more people to volunteer to drive the convoy vehicles. Accommodation, food, and gas are covered. Can you say free road trip?! E-mail XOF1 for more information.

Bluma Appel, 1921-2007

Soloman Lam — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:19:48 +0000

Bluma Appel, philanthropist and patron of the arts, died last night in a Toronto hospital from complications of cancer. She was 86.
Her death comes as a sudden blow to the city and to her family; she was diagnosed with lung cancer only two months ago. Appel and her husband celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary last week.
Torontonians knew Appel as a passionate advocate for the arts and particularly for the theatre community, where she had a reputation for championing emerging talent, handing out grants to individual theatre artists and supporting the development of new and commercially risky plays. After she funded much of the renovations at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, its largest performance space was renamed after her.
Jacoba Knaapen, Executive Director of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, remembers Bluma Appel as “a passionate supporter of the independent artist. An entire community has benefited from her tremendous philanthropy, and so many artists were touched by the good fortune of Bluma’s enthusiastic patronage of Canadian arts and culture.”
Bluma Appel also served as a board member of such cultural organizations as Canstage, the Canadian Opera Company, Opera Atelier and the ROM. In April this year, she was named Canadian of the year by the Canadian Club of Toronto. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001.
Aside from her work in the arts, Appel was also a tireless social activist, convincing each major Canadian bank to include a woman on its board of executives. She founded the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) in 1987, at a time when AIDS was a taboo subject from which many corporations distanced themselves.
Along with the passing of Ed Mirvish, it’s been a tough week for Toronto philanthropy. Torontoist imagines that Ed and Bluma are up on a cloud somewhere, waltzing to Noel Coward’s “Dance, Little Lady.”
Photo courtesy of Bruce Zinger for U of T Magazine.

April: No Longer The Cruelest Month

Sharon Harris — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:58:29 +0000

A happy National Poetry Month to you!
Established eight years ago by The League of Canadian Poets, National Poetry Month brings together schools, publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, and poets across the country to celebrate poetry. In April, you might trip over poems in some of the oddest places.
Today, the festivities kicked off over breakfast at Toronto Reference Library’s Beaton Auditorium. With a morning of short readings hosted by The Globe and Mail’s Books Editor Martin Levin, The League announced its 2007 shortlists for the Gerald Lampert Award (best first book) and the Pat Lowther Award (best book by a woman). Congratulations to all the poets.
Gerald Lampert Award Shortlist
a broken mirror, fallen leaf, Yvonne Blomer
In the Lights of a Midnight Plow, David Hickey
Tacoma Narrows, Mitchell Parry
Anatomy of Keys, Steven Price
Wide slumber for lepidopterists, a.rawlings
Every Inadequate Name, Nick Thran
Pat Lowther Award Shortlist
Inventory, Dionne Brand
Liar, Lynn Crosbie
I, Nadja and Other Poems, Susan Elmslie
Types of Canadian Women, K.I. Press
Lemon Hound, Sina Queyras
The Good Bacteria, Sharon Thesen
Stay tuned: tomorrow, the Griffin Poetry Prize 2007 shortlists will be announced at 10 a.m. And while we didn’t offer $50 000 prizes (maybe next year?), Torontoist presents its own Toronto Poetry Contest winners on April 10.
Photos of Andrea Thompson and Martin Levin by Poetography.ca.

Goodbye Terminal 2, Hello Pier F

Jamie Patterson — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:22:00 +0000

At 9:30 PM last night, Pearson Airport’s drab but functional Terminal 2 saw its final departure take off for the United States. In April the process of tearing down the building will begin, first with its concrete crushed to be used as the sub-base for a strip of new tarmac. The closing of Terminal 2 and it’s Mayan temple-like parking garage marks the end of Pearson Airport’s lengthy and expensive Airport Development Plan (or ADP). At 4.5 billion dollars, it is the single most expensive project in Canada’s history and is largely to blame for Toronto’s dubious honour of having the highest airport landing fee in the world. The airport has already recently seen the demolition of the old Terminal 1, the construction of its big and fancy successor, and the installation of the LINK Interterminal Shuttle connecting Terminals 1 and 3.
Of the $4.5 billion, $800 million was used for the construction of the new Pier F at Terminal 1, which will open to the public today for the first time. Pier F will become the new home for flights previously using Terminal 2 until today, and two of its twenty-five gates have been designed to accommodate the upcoming Airbus A380 super jumbo jet. Among its many bells and whistles is the world’s fastest moving walkway and the enormous $1.5 million steel sculpture “Tilted Spheres” by American sculptor Richard Serra.

If you were to ask someone to name the most impressive feature of the old Terminal 2 building, most people would be left scratching their heads or they might point to the parking garage. Originally designed as a cargo terminal, the building really had little to admire. Still the place holds certain sentimental attachments for many people who worked there, or first stepped foot in Canada on that spot. This past Sunday a wake of sorts was held at the airport, and anyone who cared was permitted to walk its long harshly lit hallways one last time. For those of you who are kicking yourselves now for missing it, Spacing has a nice tribute to Terminal 2 in its twilight hours here. It is still unclear if Terminal 3 will now be renamed Terminal 2, or if first time visitors to the Megacity will be left wondering why there is a Terminal 3 if there isn’t a 2.
With this enormous infrastructure investment, The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) hopes to transform Pearson into a major hub, giving international travelers a place to change planes without having to endure the post 9/11 security hassles down south. Should the much talked about fixed rail link to the city ever be built, then Torontonians will no longer have to be ashamed of our inferior airport facilities. Perhaps Toronto will never be a world-class city, but at least we’ve finally got a world-class airport.
Related: Torontoist Remembers Aeroquay One
Photos by neuroticjose on Flickr.