Even with the success of acts like Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, people still tend to view musical comedy with some suspicion, and not without reason. Those high-profile success stories aside, at the club level, musical comedy is too often the province of people who aren’t quite good enough to make it as musicians, but not quite funny enough to make it as comedians.

Two local comics, Robert Keller and Rush Zilla, are out to change that perception with their show, Off Key Comedy, which features a wide variety of acts whose only commonality is that they combine music and comedy in one form or another. The third edition of the monthly show will take place on May 23, at Comedy Bar.

Despite the fact that the last show in Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2012/2013 season is titled Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, Lady Gaga herself takes a secondary role. There are no homages to raw-meat dresses and gold-plated wheelchairs here. Instead, writer and director Alistair Newton uses the House of Gaga as a pathway into the history of the notable performance-art stars that came before her in the pantheon of queer iconography, and how she is and isn’t a construct of all of them put together.

Meet Grindr‘s cover image.

Local writer and video game designer (and former Torontoist contributor) Jaime Woo says he wanted to write a book about Grindr, in part, because everyone he spoke to about it had something to say.

“There hasn’t been a person I’ve talked to, who knows what Grindr is, who doesn’t have an opinion about it,” he says.

Launched in 2009, Grindr is an app that allows gay, bisexual, and bi-curious men to find each other using smartphone GPS technology. Once a user sees a man he likes, he can message him, and the two can make plans to hang out, hook up, or anything in between. According to Woo, the app has roughly 78,000 users in Toronto alone. In his new book, Meet Grindr: How One App Changed the Way We Connect, Woo examines the ways that Grindr has altered gay culture in just a few short years.

“The only thing I can think of [that’s had a similar impact] is Google Maps,” he says. “You don’t see tourists pulling out these giant maps anymore, they’re getting turn-by-turn directions…It gives them a sense of control of their environment, and I think in a way, Grindr pulls in some of the same things…It modernized cruising for the smartphone age.”

Woo says the sexual nature of Grindr prevents it from getting the respect it deserves.

“Culturally, we don’t find things that deal with sex so frankly to be relevant,” he says. “It came out two weeks after Foursquare. It was monetized before Foursquare. I think it has a clearer vision of what it’s trying to be than Foursquare. But yet Foursquare takes this kind of place in locative services that Grindr doesn’t have. I thought it was important to give this app its due.”

A Grindr user himself, Woo says that writing the book taught him a lot about how the app is used. Early in his Grindr career, he was focused on establishing compatibility prior to meeting people. According to Grindr founder Joel Simkhai, whom Woo interviewed, that’s the incorrect approach. On Grindr, you meet first and figure out compatibility later.

“[Simkhai] said that it’s about connecting with someone quickly, meeting them as soon as you can, and leaving that assessment of compatibility and chemistry to the in-person meeting,” Woo says. “That opened things up for me a lot, because you scrutinize people in a different way.”

An illustration from the book.

He adds that while it’s primarily used for hooking up, Grindr has other, off-label uses as well. Twenty per cent of men in a 2012 study were using the app primarily to make friends. Users often log on just to kill time.

“I know of women who go on Grindr and use it just for the eye candy,” he says. “And who can blame them? There are some good-looking guys on there that you can just flip through…It’s so ephemeral and so location-based that it does work as a time-killer, because that set of guys is changing all the time.”

“It’s like a slot machine. It hooks us with this idea of a random payout.”

Grindr isn’t without its downside. The “Douchebags of Grindr” Tumblr is full of profiles of men who state their preferences in terms of race, body type, and perceived masculinity in the ugliest ways possible. Woo says that these problems aren’t exclusive to Grindr, but are issues in the queer community as a whole. The app just throws them into sharper relief.

“You get one picture, and your profile can only be 120 characters,” he says. “That’s not a lot of room to flesh out who you are. I think a lot of men come to Grindr thinking it’s going be some sort of panacea…that it will be an exception to the problems we have in broader queer culture, but because of its reductive nature, it actually exacerbates it.”

Writing Meet Grindr led Woo to a conclusion. Grindr may have changed the way queer men pick up, but it shouldn’t be used in isolation.

“It’s like sugary cereal,” he says. “It’s Cookie Crisp. You can’t have it all on its own, it has to be part of a complete breakfast. If Grindr is the only way you meet men, you’re really missing out on a lot of things that could be quite healthy for you.”

Some places—hi, Japan!—have awesome, eclectic vending machines. Toronto’s are largely of the chips-and-chocolate variety, but there are a few hidden, coin-devouring gems in the city.

The most famous of these is undoubtedly the Biblio-mat, which made headlines shortly after it was introduced at Monkey’s Paw, a secondhand book store, late last year. The custom-built machine distributes a variety of used books, for a toonie a piece. The catch, of course, is that you don’t know what book you’re going to get. But that’s also part of the charm.

Here are a few other distinctive vending machines located in and around Toronto.

(In)dispensible poetry

Photo by Sarah-Marie McMahon

Courtesy of: Toronto Poetry Vendors.

Dispenses: Poetry. As the TPV website explains: “Issues consist of 10 single, hand-folded broadsides by 10 Toronto-based poets,” and are published twice a year. Each turn of the crank gets you one of those broadsides. You can collect them all.

Equipment: Four retrofitted gum machines, three permanently installed and one roaming.

Locations: The first machine, Spearmint (each machine has a name) is at the Tarragon Theatre at 30 Bridgman Avenue. Polar Ice is at TYPE Books at 883 Queen Street West, and Cinnamon is at Ezra’s Pound at 283 Dupont Street. UPDATE: March 15, 2013, 5:00 PM Cinnamon is now located at Saving Gigi at 859 Bloor Street West. Snacks, the roving machine, travels to literary festivals and other events. Go get your verse on.

Found Art

Courtesy of: Art-o-mat.

Dispenses: Small-format art pieces.

Equipment: Retrofitted cigarette vending machines.

Locations: There are more than 100 active machines across North America. Toronto’s is operated by artist Andrew Wang, who exhibits it occasionally.

Sweet Tooth

Dispenses: Cotton candy.

Equipment: A weird, purpose-built rig that automatically picks up a bare stick and covers it with pink, insulation-like candy.

Location: Pacific Mall (4300 Steeles Avenue East) is the source of many delightful things, and sugar-based treats are among them. Inside the building is a cotton-candy vending machine, which dispenses freshly made, fluffy goodness for just $2. More of these, please!

Moneyball

Dispenses: Maybe a vending machine that dispenses baseball cards wasn’t such an unusual idea in the 1990s, but these days it’s a rarity. If you want a nostalgic fix the next time you go to a Jays game at Rogers Centre, pick up a pack of retro cards for a couple of bucks. There are several machines scattered throughout the stadium that sell vintage packs, complete with rock-hard sticks of gum.

Equipment: A standard snack-type vending machine, but with packs of cards inside.

Location: We don’t need to tell you where Rogers Centre is.

Electronics on the Go

Courtesy of: Best Buy

Dispenses: If you’re waiting for a long-haul flight and find yourself lacking entertainment options—or worse, you realize you left your iPhone’s USB cable on your nightstand—you can hit up one of these electronics vending machines at Pearson, which sell items like chargers, headphones, and even tablets.

Equipment: A bulky, purpose-built machine—presumably with very good security features.

Location: Near some gates at Pearson International Airport.

Robarts

Courtesy of: The University of Toronto.

Dispenses: Snack machines are definitely helpful when you’re studying, but sometimes your needs are more prosaic. Luckily (or maybe unluckily, if you’re looking for an excuse to stop working), Robarts Library has vending machines on its first and third floors that sell supplies like pens, highlighters, and notebooks. The two machines are also helpfully stocked with other essential supplies for student life, including Advil, headphones, and condoms.

Equipment: A standard snack-type vending machine, but with school supplies inside.

Location: Robarts Library (130 St. George Street).

LoveCRAFT T.O.

Courtesy of: LoveCRAFT T.O.

Dispenses: Okay, so this machine isn’t up and running yet, but we’re looking forward to it. LoveCRAFT T.O., the Toronto Awesome Foundation’s $1000 grant winner for November, is a travelling vending machine that will sell handmade arts and crafts around the city. We can only assume that Art-o-mat provided some inspiration.

Equipment: A retrofitted cigarette machine.

Location: LoveCRAFT aims to launch at the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West) this summer.

Everyone who loves to read has a favourite place to browse for books. For some it’s the local library branch, for some it’s a second hand store with that old book smell, and for many of us in Toronto, it’s Nicholas Hoare. Located on Front Street right by St. Lawrence Market, it has been one of the cosiest places in Toronto to hang out and read for many years.

On Wednesday, Nicholas Hoare announced that the Toronto shop—the last of the ones that bear his name (Ottawa and Montreal locations closed over the past year) will be closing up for good on April 1.

As in many good bookstores (though not as many as there used to be in Toronto), at Nicholas Hoare you can curl up on a couch for hours undisturbed, walk out with an armful of new discoveries or just make mental note of an art book that is way, way more than you can hope to afford. Most distinctively, Nicholas Hoare is the single best example of the tremendous and increasingly rare service provided by intelligent, imaginative book buyers. A store’s fingerprint is the particular mix of books that go on its shelves, and Nicholas Hoare’s are the most interesting in Toronto.

Like every good bookshop, there are also some quirky details. When you arrive a sign asks you to leave your things at the front cash, at which point whoever is working at the desk will pull out a pair of faded playing cards: one for you as a kind of parcel check ticket, and one that gets clothespinned to your stuff. And though that might sound all too precious, it isn’t—just a homey way to let people explore.

But the lease is up, and the 70-year-old Hoare has decided to mark that occasion “with an orderly run-off, the sale of his trademark fixtures, and a full-time move to his 350-acre estate in Nova Scotia.” He doesn’t intend to slow down, however. Once he’s made the move “Plans include a fledgling vineyard; revamping the garden; and pure book porn: the construction of an 18,000-volume library from scratch.” They also include his book review blog, which Hoare intends to keep updated. The farewell note continues: “On behalf of our entire staff, therefore, a 12-gun salute to our many customers, old and new. It’s been a privilege to serve you; we’re profoundly grateful; and we wish you and your reading well.”

On behalf of a great many readers in Toronto, we wish the same to you.

CORRECTION: Though the first Nicholas Hoare shop opened 42 years ago, it was not the location in Toronto as we first reported. Our apologies for the confusion.

What makes a city? What gives the vibe, the style, the attributes, the character that spring to mind when we speak of Paris, Vancouver, Hong Kong, New York, London? And what role does a mayor play in shaping its direction?

When all is going well, pondering these kinds of questions makes a lazy afternoon on a patio pass more pleasantly, or livens up a few late-night beers. When things are going badly, and it feels like the Sims have just elected Godzilla to come tear up your carefully crafted town, the issues they raise take on a new urgency. In Toronto, 15 years after ‘the old city’ and its inner suburbs were forced into a shotgun marriage, these questions feel more critical than ever.

Edward Keenan’s slim, engaging new book, Some Great Idea, tries to address them, drawing on a mix of personal history and professional observation. It’s a compelling, if perhaps a bit incomplete, account of how we wound up in the Toronto we have today.

The book looks at post-amalgamation Toronto and the three elected leaders that have reigned over its uneasy transformation: Mel Lastman, David Miller, and current mayor (this week, anyway) Rob Ford. Keenan has spent the last fifteen years watching and writing (for Spacing, Eye Weekly, the Grid, and others) as some smouldering discontent in caught fire near the end of David Miller’s second term. Voters throughout the city—and not just in the suburbs—pinned their hopes on Etobicoke’s perpetually ballistic Rob Ford, a mayoral candidate as outcast as themselves, who spoke about their frustrations in terms that they understood, and whose impossible promises nonetheless struck the right note at a time when they felt some privileged groups had benefited at their ever-increasing expense.

Some Great Idea: An Excerpt

There is much that Keenan gets exactly right, and whole sections that should be cut and pasted directly into the councillor’s handbook that Ford has never read. His descriptions of the city’s previous can-do mayors, plus a few shockers who make Ford seem mild in comparison, include some fascinating examples of how far into the future a mayor’s decisions can reach. While a look at the records and achievements of some of the GTA’s mayors just prior to amalgamation might have added some helpful additional context, Keenan’s brief analyses of the merits and drawbacks of both Lastman’s and Miller’s terms in office are fair and forthright, including a good summary of Miller’s failure to strategically engage his detractors and opponents. If Keenan seems overfond of Miller overall, it’s understandable given their shared political leanings and perspectives on city-building. This is balanced, also, by Keenan’s account of making the rounds years ago with second-term city councillor Rob Ford, traveling door-to-door as he spoke to his constituents and helped them with their complaints. It is a generous and insightful profile that contextualizes all of Ford’s most popular talking points, and demonstrates how he connects with those who see themselves as taxpayers more than as citizens.

As one might expect, Some Great Idea tells a story whose ending is yet unwritten and far from certain. It is difficult to chart the course of history, especially local history, as it is unfolding all around you. Ford’s dysfunctional mayoralty, which at one point seemed like it might be truncated, has in fact just passed its halfway mark with no clear sign of stopping. Ford’s recent conflict of interest win, the possibility of a Supreme Court appeal, the soon-to-be-released results of Ford’s compliance audit, and even his intimation that he is aiming to win a second term, all suggest that Keenan’s book is necessarily incomplete and that many more twists and turns are just a few pages away.

Keenan’s theme—that Toronto’s diversity is both its ‘great idea’ and its Achilles’ heel—is compelling and persuasive, but is not fully explored. As befits his suggestion that “cities are just a collection of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves,” Keenan draws liberally from his own personal history, experiences, and milieu to illustrate various moments within the city’s rush and flow. They are evocative, but they position him squarely within the very ‘downtown elite’ that Ford’s election horrified. A more diverse range of perspectives would have been welcome, particularly from those living in the inner suburbs, those who voted for Ford and support him, those who work alongside him on council, and those who toil behind the scenes. Keenan makes a good guess at what motivated voters to turn a blind eye to Ford’s faults and cast their ballots in his favour, but their voices are largely absent from his narrative.

In spite of its few flaws, Some Great Idea is a cogent and illuminating look at a city that has risen to prominence over the last fifteen years, but has struggled to mature at the same time. If, as Keenan suggests, the diversity that is Toronto’s greatest virtue has led to the segmentation, insularity, and mutual alienation that is its greatest weakness, then all sides must build bridges to reach each other. All ears must open, all hands must extend. Our vision of Toronto, and our journey forward, must include us all.

For many years, Ed Keenan has provided some of the most incisive, fair-minded, and well-researched commentary on the state of affairs at Toronto City Hall. In Spacing, Eye Weekly, and now at the Grid, Keenan reliably adds context and writes from a position of empathy. He’s put much of his thinking about post-amalgamation Toronto—its mayors, its animating principles, and its future prospects—in a new book, Some Great Idea, now available in bookshops around Toronto and from its publisher, Coach House Press.

We’ll have a review next week, but if you want a sneak peek at the book itself, Coach House has kindly allowed us to reprint an excerpt from one of our favourite sections—

Besides his work as an Anglican priest, [Henry] Scadding was a writer and historian, and his favourite subject was the history of Toronto. In his capacity as one of our earliest historians, he gave us one of our fondest myths: the one about what Toronto means. When I say myth here, I mean it both in the sense that it’s factually inaccurate and also that it informs our lives and explains how we see ourselves and what we value. A good kind of mythology isn’t so much factual as it is true, and that’s what Scadding gave us. In his 1884 history, Toronto: Past and Present, he ventured that the name of the city came from the Huron word toronton, apparently meaning ‘place of meetings’—a location for different tribes to gather. This is the origin of the name I was taught in grade school, and the one I would have given if you’d asked me while I was working in Scadding’s old house. It’s an impression of Toronto, and an interpretation of its name, that’s been persistent and widely repeated, despite the clarification from subsequent historians that the name of the city almost certainly comes from the Mohawk word tkaronto, meaning, ‘where there are trees standing in the water.’ The vision of those trees standing in the water, picturesque as it may seem, doesn’t say much to us about present-day Toronto. Whereas, even if it is inaccurate as history, the definition of Toronto as a gathering place for various tribes is great as mythology: it’s a definition that seems truer with each passing year.

An update of that founding myth can be found in a factoid that many Torontonians thought true around the turn of the millennium: that the United Nations had declared Toronto the most multicultural city in the world. You would hear that honour cited in speeches by at least three Toronto mayors, trumpeted in the city’s official publicity materials, in federal and provincial reports, in both local newspapers and the foreign press, including the New York Times. Yet, as Ryerson geographer Michael J. Doucet detailed in a 2001 paper, no such declaration had ever been issued. The United Nations compiles no official ranking of the most multicultural places in the world.

But it’s easy to see why the myth took hold: Toronto is certainly among the most ethnically diverse places on earth. (In 2004, after the ‘most multicultural’ claim had been debunked, the United Nations did compile a list of cities with the highest percentage of foreign-born residents; Toronto was second after Miami.) Almost 45 per cent of Toronto’s population was born outside Canada and, as of the 2006 census, 47 per cent of the residents were classified as visible minorities. The visible-minority population is diverse within itself. Just over a third of non-white residents are Asian, about the same number are South Asian, roughly one in six are black, with Arabs, Filipinos and Latin Americans, among others, rounding out the list. The 311 phone line run by the city offers service in 180 languages.

So, UN declaration or no, Toronto’s still an incredibly multicultural place, and fairly harmoniously so, too. It isn’t like we’re a post-racial Shangri-La—foreign-born professionals still have a ridiculously difficult time getting their credentials recognized, for instance, and plenty of racialized residents, Caribbean blacks in particular, still experience a high degree of poverty, crime and profiling by police, among other things. And in Toronto’s city government, only five of the forty-four councillors are from visible-minority populations. But one can note the persistence of such problems and still acknowledge that by global standards, Toronto enjoys racial and ethnic peace. The sort of open opposition and ghettoizing one sees between white and black Americans simply doesn’t occur here; the sort of ethnic nationalism that’s caused recent wars in Africa and Eastern Europe is non-existent; the degree of otherness that characterizes immigrant populations in Japan, say, or that’s led to rioting and violence in France, is unheard of in Toronto. Casual racism, or even ethnic stereotyping, is among the ultimate Toronto taboos, and being from elsewhere is considered to be among the most quintessentially Torontonian qualities one can possess.

A whole line of thinking proudly insists this multicultural identity demonstrates how tolerant and open-minded we are. The whole phenomenon is too often framed, both by those bragging about our virtues and those pointing out our faults, as a social-justice issue, a reflection (or indictment) of our charitable (or uncharitable) nature, a statement on the moral status of our society. It’s a misguided, or at least incomplete, argument. Absolutely and obviously, tolerance and open-mindedness are laudable qualities, and fairness and justice are important reasons to fight prejudice and xenophobia. But, really, evidence of our upstanding character is among the least noteworthy things ethnic diversity contributes to the city.

As a source of civic strength, ethnic diversity, particularly from the new immigrants who comprise about half of Toronto’s population, gives the city a set of ideas and perspectives to build on that draws from the knowledge, history and traditions of virtually every culture in the world. Joseph Conrad, who achieved fame writing in his third language, English (and had some working knowledge of six languages altogether), reportedly said he couldn’t fathom the limited perspective of a unilingual person—his knowledge of different languages allowed him to think different thoughts, in different ways, leading to greater understanding. As a unilingual anglophone, this makes perfect (and lamentable) sense to me.

Different cultural perspectives let you think differently. I’ve heard that a number of times in a number of ways from business people in my career as a reporter. For instance, from Hadi Mahabadi, who heads up the innovation headquarters of Xerox Canada in the GTA. Mahabadi was born in Iran and moved to Canada as a young engineer after the 1979 Revolution. “I was very well-known, and I had offers from Japan, Germany, the Netherlands,” he told me in 2010. “But I knew Canada was a very multicultural place. I knew the social programs were good, how nice Canadians are.” Mahabadi also knew something about innovation—he’s the holder of more than seventy U.S. patents personally, and the staff of eighty-nine researchers he leads at Xerox patents about 140 ideas every year. He told me diversity is a key to innovation. “Innovation is impacted by many factors,” he said, “but one of the key factors is diversity of thought. When you have a diverse group of people brainstorming, you come up with more and better ideas.” This isn’t just a platitude for him, it’s his corporate practice: his research centre employs people from thirty-seven different countries, most of whom were educated in their homelands. After the centre introduced its ‘diversity of thought’ policy to aggressively seek out differences in background for the team in 2004, it saw a 17 per cent yearly increase in the number of patents it produced.

Take that idea out of the corporate realm and apply it to a city. You can see that the density of different backgrounds in Toronto is likewise a resource available to governments and businesses and allows for more and better ideas to take root, for varied experiences and ways of thinking to shape decisions and progress. Our neighbourhoods, too, are shaped by the blending of those different backgrounds. This is evident in the restaurant options available in Toronto, to cite one obvious example: you can take a culinary trip around the world simply by travelling the TTC lines. Kimchee, beurre blanc, wasabi, tabbouleh and chili are all commonplace. Which creates a richer diet for epicureans here, but also sets the stage for innovation: one of Toronto’s most celebrated chefs, Susur Lee (an immigrant from Hong Kong), is renowned for a cuisine that effortlessly merges Asian and European techniques and ingredients to create something new.

In 2008, Ted Corrado, the head chef of C5 restaurant at the Royal Ontario Museum, laid it out, explaining how he blended the traditions he learned at his Italian immigrant mother’s knee with the internationalism of the city he was raised in. “Growing up in Toronto, you can’t help but be exposed to all the different cuisines, all the cultures we have here,” he said. “These are things we take for granted—Chinatown, Little Italy, India Bazaar, Koreatown. There are so many options for us. It’s what we know and personally it’s what I know, and it’s how I relate to food.”

This kind of cultural contribution can seem trivial but has a huge impact on how the city functions and feels. When I worked in restaurants, we were always astounded at the love Torontonians have for sidewalk patios – inevitably there comes a day in February when the sun is shining and customers ask you to set up a patio table for them even though it’s so cold you can still see your breath in the air. Many of our main streets are characterized by people sitting out on the sidewalk eating dinner or having a drink. This is hardly unique to Toronto, but it is a thing that immigrants brought here: the waves of Italians who arrived after the Second World War were harassed by police when they set up to drink coffee and chat on the sidewalk in Little Italy and (back then) the Danforth. Over time, al fresco dining culture became not just an accepted quirk, but a defining feature of Toronto’s streets.

As we talked, Hadi Mahabadi highlighted another way that recent immigrants contributed to his corporate ambitions. In an increasingly global market, he said, employees with experience from around the world bring valuable insight into differing regional needs and preferences, as well as bringing contacts to their home country and knowledge of how to navigate its culture and institutions. It’s true of Xerox’s innovation office, and truer still for Toronto’s business culture. I have heard similar stories over and over again from entrepreneurs. Jeffrey Min, an immigrant from Korea, founded the grocery store chain Galleria in Toronto using contacts back home to open up a supply chain between his native country and his adopted one. In addition to the grocery stores here, he built an empire on a Korean import business and a customer-service management technology that connects consumers here directly with suppliers in Asia. Another example: Toronto clean-tech nanotechnology company Vive Nano was founded in 2005 by Filipino immigrant Jordan Dinglasan. By the time it opened a second office in Toronto in 2010, two thirds of its staff of eighteen were made up of immigrants. The company employed an ‘India strategy,’ since the giant South Asian nation was known to be interested in nanotech environmental solutions. They said they pursued that strategy largely by networking in the South Asian community in Toronto, bringing on board Torontoborn, ethnic Indian consultant Hari Venkatacharya to help out. Soon the company had contracts in the subcontinent, the bedrock for a long-term strategy based on international sales.

If the world is now defined by global communication and trade, Toronto has within it detailed knowledge of virtually every other country on the planet, fluency in virtually every language, and direct familial and cultural ties to every corner of the world. Like some kind of civic Kevin Bacon, we are connected to the rest of the globe through personal contact. What we’re talking about is a cosmopolitan retooling of—and improvement on—the ancient idea of Empire, one based not on conquest and colonization but on immigration and incorporation. It’s the strength of embrace: the sun never sets on the Toronto empire.

One further distinct characteristic of Toronto’s demographic makeup—and a huge asset to our self-definition as a ‘meeting place’—is that the city is overwhelmingly populated by people who have chosen to live here. Only a quarter of Toronto’s adult population was born in Canada to Canadian-born parents, and of those a large number moved here from elsewhere in the country. They say there’s no Catholic like a convert. Toronto’s a city of converts.

Some Great Idea officially launches with a party at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor Street West) on Thursday, January 24, starting at 8:30 p.m. It’s free, and will feature Keenan in conversation with former mayor David Crombie.

A tiny tome of Sherlock Holmes.

“Adventures with Sherlock Holmes”
Toronto Reference Library, first floor (789 Yonge Street)
January 5–March 10

Deerstalker hat. Checked coat. Curved pipe. The ever-faithful Dr. Watson. The world of great fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes is rich and nuanced, and for the next few months it’s one we can explore in more detail thanks to the Toronto Reference Library’s new exhibit on Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

“Adventures with Sherlock Holmes” is an excellent reminder of the Toronto Public Library’s extensive collection of Conan Doyle material. Starting with 150 items purchased in 1969, the collection has grown into one of the world’s largest. Renovations on the fifth floor of the reference library have closed the Arthur Conan Doyle Room since October 2011, temporarily denying the public a chance to enjoy the collection in its Victorian-styled setting. Plans call for the room to reopen later this year with greater accessibility: nstead of inviting guests to study by the fireplace for a limited time three days a week, it will be open during regular library hours.

Stained glass image of 221B Baker Street by Joseph Aigner of Artistic Glass.

While items remain accessible elsewhere in the library, the exhibit provides an opportunity to showcase the extent of the collection, which ranges from a copy of the original 1887 publication of the debut Sherlock Holmes story to themed conference mugs. The first section is devoted to the visual evolution of Holmes, including reproductions of original artwork from the collection including magazine illustrations, dry cleaning ads from southwest Ontario, and animation cels from The Great Mouse Detective. Later sections are dedicated to printed works, items related to The Hound of the Baskervilles, Professor Moriarty, Holmesian homages and parodies, and Conan Doyle’s personal correspondence and notebooks. The exhibit also touches on the author’s interest in spiritualism, including a sample of “spirit writing” from a son killed during World War I.

Among the eye-catching items is a quartet of stained-glass depictions of Holmes at 221B Baker Street, which were donated by a member of the Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection support organization. The pieces are dotted with clues from various Holmes stories, which may encourage viewers to sort out the mysteries. We were also intrigued by a case filled with miniature editions of Holmes stories, the tiniest of which are barely an inch wide and require special magnifying equipment to read the text. Jumping into such a small text feels like the sort of detective work the great sleuth might appreciate.

Photos by Dona Acheson and courtesy of the Toronto Public Library.

CORRECTION: Tuesday, January 8 1:30PM The artist of the above stained-glass piece, Joseph Aigner of Artistic Glass, was previously uncredited. The credit has been added to the image caption above.

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 12 months. From December 10 to 19, we’ll unveil the nominees, grouped by category. Vote for your favourites from each batch, every single day! On December 19 and 20 the winners from each category go head-to-head in the final round of voting, and on December 21, we will reveal your choices for Toronto’s Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

The Beguiling has come a long way since it opened in 1987. From its humble beginnings on Harbord Street, it has grown into a world-renowned source of alternative comics, graphic novels, zines, and artwork.

This year, it celebrated its 25th anniversary with a big bash at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. That’s 25 years of being arguably the best comic shop in Toronto.

The Beguiling has weathered changes over the course of its quarter century of existence. At first, it was considered controversial, because it sold unusual material that no one else would carry. The idea of dealing in non-superhero comics was unheard of. But the shop’s focus on comic-oriented artwork—starring everyday people rather than caped crusaders—honed in on what would quickly become a new niche.

As years passed, the store’s wares began to gain mainstream acceptance. In 1992, it relocated to 601 Markham Street (where it remains to this day), and in 1998 Peter Birkemoe bought the place. He remains The Beguiling’s owner, and its public face. In 2011, he made a business move that epitomizes the current enthusiasm for the comic medium: he opened a second store, catering only to children.

Venturing through the densely packed aisles at the original store, one can find reprints of comics from as far back as the 1930s, as well as freshly minted hardcovers from contemporary artists. If there’s a title that no one else has, Birkemoe either has it, or can track it down. Ask a graphic novel fan in Europe to name a comic shop in North America and they will likely name The Beguiling.

It’s so respected that it has been mentioned in some of the comics it sells. And in days past, when comics ran editorial sections in their back pages, The Beguiling frequently received shout outs directing people to check out the store for more good reads.

The Beguiling, today, is a hub for local graphic artists looking for an outlet to sell their work. The bookshelf next to the front counter overflows with self-published black-and-white comics and zines. Some are made on home printers while others have the crisp edges of a professional press. Some artwork is sold on consignment, so the artist gets the bulk of the proceeds.

Over the years, The Beguiling has hosted hundreds of book launches, artist signings, readings, and other events with big names—like Neil Gaiman and Robert Crumb, to name a few. Some artists owe the store a debt of gratitude for promoting their work when few others would. It’s a special niche that needed to be filled by someone. Hopefully, The Beguiling will continue to do it for another quarter century.

Bloor Hot Docs Cinema   A rare home for first-run documentaries.

Academy of the Impossible Making education accessible, and breaking down barriers.

Sarah Polley   Staying true to an uncompromising path.

G 98.7 Making commercial radio worth listening to again.

Alex Anthopoulos Building the Jays into a team to be reckoned with.

The Toronto Women's Bookstore. Image from Google Streetview.

Earlier this afternoon, Toronto Women’s Bookstore owner Victoria Moreno announced on the shop’s website that the nearly 40-year-old South Annex institution would be shuttering for good on November 30. While the announcement may not have come as a surprise to those who still frequented the red brick building on Harbord often enough to observe its dwindling crowds, it was nevertheless a blow.

The feminist, anti-oppression bookshop and community hub first showed signs of financial hardship in late 2009. At the end of that year, the then-nonprofit bookstore’s board voted to keep the desperately cash-strapped shop open, at the same time pleading with the outside community for help. The store needed $40,000 to stay open for another three months; it didn’t get that money, but it persisted.

Less than a year later, the bookstore closed and—truimphantly—reopened three months later under Moreno’s ownership and with a new for-profit business model, to the relief of its devotees. But Moreno’s adjustments, which included the addition of an in-store cafe, were ultimately unable to pull the struggling business out of its quagmire.

Moreno writes, in her announcement on the store’s website:

The fact is book markets have changed radically in the past few years. Ebooks, fierce online competition and a stagnant economy have all contributed to our business model becoming no longer sustainable. I’m closing the bookstore with the bittersweet knowledge that I did my best. I gave everything I had; physically, emotionally, and financially. I’ve learned a great deal about every aspect of the business and I have no regrets.

Moreno doesn’t have regrets, but other members of the surrounding community might. Now, a single kilometre east of the site where the latest in a high-profile string of sexual assaults was reported just two nights ago, a safe space for women to educate and organize themselves can’t survive because of the market’s indifference.

These days, it seems fair to say that Jian Ghomeshi is a pretty cool dude. Thanks to his time in Moxy Früvous he can definitely put “successful Canadian indie musician” on his resume, and he’s carved out his own place in the new-generation CBC firmament with people like Rich Terfry and (gulp) Strombo.

Respect, people: He is now known around the world for asking actor/director (and musician, apparently) Billy Bob Thornton a question he’d surely never have dared asked Tom Petty.

But his new book, 1982, reminds us that before he established his rep as a first-class interviewer on Q before he busked, and before he sang about how awesome CanLit is, Ghomeshi was just a brown-skinned teenager with “an industrial-sized nose” trying to find his way in the world.

1982 is part repository for random cultural observations and part memoir of a first-generation Canadian growing up in the Toronto suburbs. Not surprisingly, that makes it a bit of a mixed bag. While on the one hand there is something universal about Ghomeshi’s story—what 14-year-old isn’t trying to fit in, find a girlfriend, pick the right hair gel, etc.—it’s the specificity and detail of his experience that make for the book’s best moments.

“It’s real. I was 14 and I wanted to be Bowie,” he said to Torontoist at the end of a day of interviews. “I definitely wanted to tell stories that make me laugh, and be honest, and reflect how pathetic I am.”

Indeed, many a page is given over to his reverence for David Bowie, his attempts to achieve the proper New Wave aesthetic, and his general yearning for coolness. A blue-and-red Adidas bag is a crucial supporting character and (spoiler alert!) its premature demise is clearly a watershed moment for the teenage Jian.

Though he was born in London, England, Ghomeshi spent his formative years in Thornhill, not far from Yonge and Steeles. He attended Thornlea Secondary School, an artsy school that also spawned the likes of By Divine Right and Hayden. (For the record, other awesome things to come out of Thornhill: Hayden Christensen [no relation to Hayden], Milos Raonic, Golden Star Burgers, and Craig Kielburger [again, no relation].)

His parents still live in that same Thornhill house, but the world has changed all around them. What was once a fairly homogenous suburb is now a thriving ethnic enclave. In addition to large Jewish and Russian communities, the Iranian community has also found a home base nearby. Ghomeshi may have once been the only Iranian for miles, but today you can’t throw a rock without hitting a Persian rug shop.

“We were the only ethnic family on the street,” he said. “Today, everybody on the street is the ethnic family. At the time it was very isolating.”

Ghomeshi moderating a Canada Reads panel in 2010. Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ardenstreet/4150999874/"}ardenstreet{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

When he was growing up, Iranians weren’t exactly getting the best press. You don’t have to be a newshound to know that not much has changed, but now that he’s older, Ghomeshi feels better equipped if someone asks him whether he’s Arab and/or a terrorist, and he’s less concerned about fitting in, in general. Given how deep the challenges run for being the child of immigrants, he hopes the increased diversity and tolerance in Toronto make it easier for the current generation.

While he acknowledges that his early insecurity is not something he has totally shed, Ghomeshi thinks he has become more confident in who he is. For one thing, he may still wear skinny jeans and black clothing, but he isn’t trying to look like Bowie anymore. That said, there was a time when, as he puts it, “Music was not just a persona, but an outlet, a unifier.”

In one of the book’s more endearing tales, he recalls the days he spent with a friend, camping outside the rehearsal studio Rush had procured just blocks from their houses. In the end, he managed to meet both Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. (Interestingly, Gary Lee Weinrib and Alex Živojinović were also first-generation Canadians who grew up just on the other side of Steeles, in North York.) Not only did Ghomeshi get autographs, but he managed to get a shoutout from Lee on the 1982 book cover, too.

Eerily apropos given that the book came out just days before Sam Sniderman passed away, 1982 is replete with romantic reminisces of trips down to Sam the Record Man. It was a three-hour time investment for Ghomeshi to head down there to buy an album. He’d rip open the packaging and read the liner notes on the way home.

Of course, Ghomeshi also got to experience Sam’s as an artist. In the early 1990s, the Toronto music scene was taking off. Bands like Barenaked Ladies, The Lowest of the Low, and Moxy Früvous were given prime real estate at the store, right beside the bestseller chart. Sam made sure their humble indie casettes were sold throughout his network of shops.

“It really was a moment,” Ghomeshi says, trying to find quite the right words. He describes Sniderman’s influence as “so profound.”

If you grew up having to, say, put a tape in a Walkman or try to talk to a prospective girlfriend on the phone in the pre-cell, pre-cordless era, you’re bound to crack at least a smile or two at the cultural observations Ghomeshi threads through his narrative. But he admits that, especially since he didn’t want to do a memoir, per se, he was trying to get at something larger about how these drastic technological changes have altered our attitudes towards something as basic as music.

Can music mean as much to the kid who just has to click a button in iTunes as it did to the kid who made that pilgrimage to Sam’s, he wonders? For that matter, does “friend” even mean the same thing to a Facebook user as it did to an uncool kid in the suburbs 30 years ago?

However, not all Ghomeshi’s cultural observations are so challenging. He confesses to a penchant for lists and sprinkles little “top fives” regularly throughout the book. Fans of landscaping might be amused to know the five types of sprinklers in use in Thornhill when he was growing up: stationary, rotary, oscillating, pulsating, and travelling.

The book is at its best when the writing is personal. It would probably cut a bit deeper if Ghomeshi did away with some of the Seinfeldesque musings (e.g. why phones used to have curly cords or how weird it is that the word “Google” didn’t exist in 1982). It’s as if he thought the “teenager-as-outsider” narrative needed to be more entertaining.

Today, as the host of Q, he has established himself as one of the country’s best interviewers. He jokes that he sees himself segueing into a role as a “brown, new millennium Andy Rooney.” Of course, his job has given him a chance to meet a few of his heroes. David Byrne was “amazing” and “everything you’d want him to be,” he says. The Clash’s Mick Jones was drunk, which seems like it would put him in those same categories.

But still out there, somewhere, looms Bowie. Despite having interviewed everyone from Spike Lee, to the Beach Boys, to Deadmau5, to Neil Gaiman, Ghomeshi reverts to fretful, teenage hero worship when it comes to Ziggy Stardust himself.

“I’m kind of freaked out about it. What if he’s a jerk?” he wonders of a potential encounter.

But it definitely wouldn’t be as bad as the run-in with Billy Bob. If he finds himself at a loss, we figure Ghomeshi can always just ask Bowie about his film career, right?

Photo Courtesy of CBC.

Photo by {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/superdubey/3732098477/”}superdubey{/a} from the {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/”}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

Word on the Street
Queen’s Park Circle
September 23, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
FREE

If summer is filled with music, theatre, and food festivals, then the fall clearly belongs to the book lover. Next month is the always-anticipated International Festival of Authors, but first, Torontonians can whet their literary appetites at the 23rd annual Word on the Street festival.

Fifteen tents will feature book sales, magazine subscription deals, readings, and discussions for book fans young and old all day, including some very big names in a wide variety of genres. To name just a few: Giller Prize–winner David Bergen (The Time in Between, The Matter with Morris); money management guru Gail Vaz-Oxlade; environmental advocate David Suzuki; and the prolific author and essayist John Ralston Saul. But here are a few more suggestions on whom to check out at Word on the Street, before you check them out at the library:

Edward Keenan
Vibrant Voices of Ontario Tent, 11:30 a.m.

Ed Keenan isn’t appearing at WOTS to promote a novel or collection of poetry, but rather his new book about our city: Some Great Idea: Good Neighbourhoods, Crazy Politics and the Invention of Toronto. As the lead columnist for The Grid and one of the city’s most insightful City Hall voices, his discussion will definitely be worth stopping in at—if only to hear if there are any updates on his challenge to debate Rob Ford.

Pasha Malla
Great Books Marquee, 12:30 p.m.

Pasha Malla made a triumphant entrance into Canada’s literary scene in 2008 with the acclaimed collection of short stories The Withdrawal Method, winning him the $20,000 Trillium Book Award, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and a spot on the Giller Prize longlist. His first novel, People Park, came out in July, boasting his typical wit and quirky humour about the impact of a visiting magician on a fictional city.

Katrina Onstad
The Remarkable Reads Tent, 12:45 p.m.

You can read Katrina Onstad’s writing in the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, or even in The New York Times Magazine, but her first novel in 2006 How Happy to Be was one of that year’s most celebrated. Her sophomore book, Everybody Has Everything, is definitely worth a look.

Mariko Tamaki
This Is Not The Shakespeare Stage, 1:30 p.m.
The Penguin Pavilion, 4 p.m.

Toronto’s Mariko Tamaki grabbed the literary world’s attention in 2008 with her Governor General’s Award–nominated graphic novel, Skim (illustrated by her cousin Jillian Tamaki), about an outsider at an all-girls Catholic school. She’s back at WOTS with her first young adult novel, (You) Set Me On Fire, about university student Allison, who is covered in burn scars, and her first year in her new all-girls dorm.

Vincent Lam
The Remarkable Reads Tent, 3 p.m.

If you missed Lam at this summer’s Luminato Festival, then be sure to catch his session at WOTS. He first came to acclaim when he won the Giller for the story collection Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures (now an HBO Canada show); now hear him discuss his debut novel, The Headmaster’s Wager, inspired by the Lam family history as Chinese expats in Vietnam.

Anthony Del Col
This Is Not The Shakespeare Stage, 4:45 p.m.

As co-creator of Kill Shakespeare with Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col can not only speak about whether Hamlet, Juliet, and Othello will overcome the evil Lady MacBeth, Iago, and Richard III, but also how the duo is successfully taking their graphic novel across different platforms.

Jian Ghomeshi
Scotiabank Giller Prize Bestsellers Stage, 5 p.m.

You know his voice already as the host of Q on CBC Radio 1. And though he makes a living by asking other famous people about their opinions and projects, Ghomeshi’s first book, the memoir 1982, takes a look at his own past growing up in Thornhill, in the area’s only Iranian family, and how the music he loved formed who he was then, and who he is today.