A pack of about 40 middle-aged people, men and women, charge into an alleyway south of Queen Street. They are all—including the men—wearing pink dresses and running shoes. Someone produces a small insulated lunchbox, and inside are a few dozen Dixie cups of pudding. Everybody takes a cup and slurps it down. Whoever made the stuff used Baileys instead of milk. And so what's actually happening is that all these people are on the street, in downtown Toronto, at about 4:00 p.m., and they're doing pudding shots.

Is anyone else disappointed that the dystopian future promised in 1980s films isn’t here? If there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Torontoist, is that en masse, humans are terrible at predicting our future. It’s always so much more mundane than we expect it to be. The perfect example being The Running Man. Instead of [...]

Torontoist Environment Editor Chris Tindal is currently engaged in a federal by-election campaign. This weekly column is an attempt to offer a behind the scenes glimpse into what it’s like to be that mysterious Other: a politician. Running for office is an extremely rewarding experience, but it’s not without sacrifice and set-backs. All of us [...]

A brief stint of Radiohead concert rumours spread like wildfires last week. Ticketmaster had announced that the band would play two shows on May 26 and 27 at the Air Canada Centre, but mentioned neither the date for the tickets to go on sale nor the price of the tickets themselves—the announcement was quickly removed [...]

So, what’s scarier: a zombie infestation or the melting of the polar ice caps? This is an urgent and legitimate question! And later this week, Toronto cineastes can compare and contrast, for just as the After Dark Festival winds down, the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival springs up. Running from October [...]

From October 1–4, the Walk21 conference comes to Toronto. Keynote speaker Dr. David Suzuki will be joined by a host of academics, urban planners, elected officials and activists to discuss urban pedestrian issues. Lectures, discussions and workshops will cover the theme of “putting pedestrians first” in policies and infrastructure in order to make active transportation [...]

If today’s column title gets Rachel Sweet’s Hairspray stuck in your head for the rest of the day, good! Because then we’ll have made our point that the version of Hairspray hitting this weekend isn’t as good as the John Waters original. Though the music not being as good is only part of it. There’s [...]

Similar to how the Oscars end the awards season with a bang, the coming of North By Northeast signals the end of festival/conference season for another year. Running from June 7th to the 10th, with over 450 bands playing NXNE shows between Thursday and Saturday, not to mention the NXNE film festival, we’re already starting [...]

Running from June 1–10, Luminato takes over our fair city, with over 100 events spanning just about everything arts-and-culture-related. As they boast on their website, “Luminato was created to bring Toronto’s best to the world, and the world’s best to Toronto.” A noble goal, and one they seem to have accomplished: Leonard Cohen! Philip Glass! [...]

Now that the weather is heating up, it’s the time of the year when our music tastes start turning towards those short, infectious pop songs that encapsulate the spirit of the season. On his latest release, If We’re Not Talking, Vivek Shraya has created a sexy ode to electropop that’s loaded with catchy choruses that [...]

OMG! This week sees the release of Kickin’ It Old Skool, a Jamie Kennedy vehicle. He plays a breakdancer who awakes from a 20-year coma and something that Jamie Kennedy probably considers hilarity ensues. We here at Torontoist Towers are astounded at the idea that somebody greenlighted a film with Jamie Kennedy in it. Absoultely [...]

Hi, My Name is Chris, and I’m a Politician I have a confession to make. I’m not like you. I’m not a normal, well-intentioned, benefit-of-the-doubt receiving human. Of course, I don’t actually believe that. I phrase it that way because when I was first nominated as a candidate for the last federal election, that’s how [...]