There are tons of great shows for all you concertgoers this week, including a particularly time-sensitive one tonight. Apparently a sold-out Wrong Bar for Crystal Castles last Thursday was not enough for the electro-punk duo. A last-minute show has been booked at the Wrong Bar tonight (alongside LA’s Health) before they continue on with their extensive North American tour. With no tickets to be purchased in advance, you better drop what you’re doing and immediately......

Snow globes, ice sculptures, and an ice bar...sound like an arctic paradise? Even if you're sick of slipping on the white (and sometimes yellow) stuff, you're still invited to Bloor-Yorkville's IceFest Festival this weekend—and you don't even have to get your feet wet! IceFest ent-ice-s with enough of the cold stuff to carve out a ship—and that's 25,000 pounds! By donating five bucks to the Heart & Stroke Foundation, you buy yourself a pose......

If you're looking for some place to take your special someone dancing, nothing screams Valentine's Day like Andrew W.K. The man who is dedicated to partying hard will be performing his live show and a DJ set at the Sound Academy this Thursday. His set kicks off a weekend that is busier than usual due to the new Family Day long weekend. Every holiday has their own set of unique traditions and clubs are working......

Photo by nevbrown. The last couple years have been tough ones for fans of the Wu. Their last album, 8 Diagrams w,as marked by group infighting and public denunciations of the album by Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. Still, GZA's appearance at the Sound Academy is expected to be a great show. GZA (aka. The Genius) will be performing his classic album Liquid Swords in its entirety. The Friday night show will be as much......

The amount of events this week are bursting at the seams. Keep Toronto Reading is kicking it into full gear this month with various readings across library branches, Lit Lunches, and various One Book events. There are just too many to list here. Visit the KTR calendar to see all event details and plan out your literary excursions. And if you have any kids, you can join Gisèle from TVOKids for various library tours, as......

According to their online mission statement, the Fuck Death Foundation is "an organization dedicated to the elimination of death through the generation and distribution of funds to strategically selected causes and initiatives worldwide." Co-founders and directors Dugald Stewart and Simon Murphy also plan to target "the most ruthlessly indiscriminate killer of all—oldness." Yes, they're serious...we think. Watch their interview on The Hour, or call the toll-free infoline at 1-877-DIE-DON'T, and decide for yourself. Unfortunately, Fuck......

Photo by Sidereal The week is looking very light in anything literary around the city. If anything, you've got your three poems (no longer than three minutes each) in hand and will be heading down to Clinton's to show what you've got at the Art Bar's 9th annual Art Bar Discovery Night. Nancy Bullis will be guest hosting. For everyone else, be sure to help yourself to some free donuts to make up for......

Photo by moonwire from the Torontoist Flickr Pool The English Students' Union at the University of Toronto is hosting The Poetry Massacre tomorrow. Bring and perform your idea of a "bad" poem and ponder questions such as "what makes bad poetry?"; "can one enjoy a poem because of its 'bad-ness'?"; and "how do you perform a poem you despise?" Then if you're feeling kind of poetic yourself, you can start writing some poems for......

Photo by Stig Nygaard. The Art Bar returns tonight with its annual Audience Appreciation Night with readings by the Art Bards, live music, and free poetry chapbooks for all audience members by the Art Bar Team. Also returning for the new year is This Is Not A Reading Series. For the first event of the year, join Carl Wilson and Mark Kingwell for an on-stage discussion where they will be talking about love and......

Photo by Jeremy Farmer from Flickr. It’s an end of an era as the popular indie night Easy Tiger shuts it down on Friday after a 14 month-run. A hipster haven, Easy Tiger is responsible for introducing hundreds of people to the booze can downstairs of College Street Diner that is Tiger Bar. Midland’s finest, Born Ruffians (pictured), will take the stage and the Easy Tiger DJs will spin the tunes. Expect plenty of......

Photo by Larsz Tonight the Art Bar poetry series will host its last event for 2007. Ending the year off with their annual Dead Poets Society night, this year's event will be hosted by David Clink and feature poets Ian Burgham, George Elliot Clarke, Karen Connelly, Barry Dempster, and more. Readers will cover poets such as A. R. Ammons, Margaret Avison, Cheng Sait Chia, Robert Herrick, Irving Layton, Dylan Thomas, and others. Reading series......

Regardless of how you choose to celebrate (or not) the upcoming holiday season, it’s hard not to embrace a spirit of generosity that seems unique to this time of year. Students from the Ontario College of Art & Design’s Think Tank program are hoping that giving mood will be alive and well among restaurant patrons on Thursday, December 6, as they unveil the inaugural Bread Project. A joint project between OCAD’s Think Tank and......

When thrashy experimental punks Quebexico called it a day earlier this year, angry, drunken, often-bearded fans across the country had a good reason to get more angry, more drunk, and grow larger beards. Thankfully, the band's offspring is hitting the same musical highs in the same aggressively DIY manner. TEENANGER, comprised of the 3/4ths of Quebexico that lived in Toronto (Ottawa-based guitarist Davey now plays in the also-awesome Million Dollar Marxists), is a little......

Nicole Stamp's absolutely charming one-woman show BETTER PARTS plays tonight and for tonight only at the brand-new Bread and Circus Theatre Bar in Kensington Market at the corner of Baldwin and Augusta (we hadn't heard of it either!). You might recognize Stamp as the host of totally amazing kid quiz show Reach For The Top, but she's also an accomplished theatre artist who has been working BETTER PARTS for a few years now. The......

Torontoist loves local artists, and we love short films, so naturally we try to support local artists who make short films. This Tuesday, recent York film grad Nick Butler is organizing the Annex Film Party, a fundraising event for his new project, A Thing of the Past. Butler has assembled an impressive lineup of performers, including thespian David Tomlinson, actress-singer Alsion Jutzi, and TVOKids host Nicole Stamp. Stamp is also remembered for her 2005 one-woman......

An overflowing pile of books by paolo_dlk from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. The summer months may have left us a little dehydrated, a little sun burnt, a little flaky, and a little wordless, but after a long break, LitTO is returning to inform you how this fall season will revitalize your sense of word wonder. Yesterday the longlist for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize was officially announced. A record of 108 books were submitted......

Canadian Bar Association demands that Stephen Harper negotiate with the United States to return Omar Khadr to Canada. The country's largest legal organization (and Khadr's own American military lawyer, for that matter) states that Khadr will not get a fair trial in the United States, which is obvious. Also obvious: the likelihood of Harper doing exactly dick about it. Gay Nicaraguan man goes into hiding in Toronto after being denied refugee status. Which is......

"Bookstore on Queen" by Trachsi from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Since August is perennially the quietest literary month, LitTO will take the rest of it off. We look forward to the fall launches, and are planning book reviews, author interviews, contests, and more coverage of lit news. Did you hear? In October, Open Book: Toronto will launch its first annual celebration of new books by Ontario publishers, with events and “special initiatives” geared to......

Michael Winter's next novel, The Architects Are Here, is set for serious serial hype on Facebook. Beginning today, Michael will make forty-seven posts with chapter summaries, commentary, and notes until the book’s publication in September. Each installment will include videos and photos of the people and places that inspired the novel's characters and settings. To access the serial, contact Michael with a friend request via The Wall at Penguin Canada's Facebook page, and you’ll be......

Even though the city has voiced disappointment and considered allowing chain restaurants onto the list, Summerlicious has arrived with all its previous perks and kinks. Starting today and over tomorrow, restaurants participating in Summerlicious will begin taking reservations from Amex holders for the prix fixe menu event held July 6 to 22. Those who are sans Amex will have to wait until June 21 to start calling some of the highly demanded dining destinations.......

Summer: the official season of barbecues, cottages and having a nice cold beer. To honour the finest microbrews in the GTA and Ontario, The Bar Towel is once again asking for the public to vote for the 2007 Golden Tap Awards and have a voice in who should go home with one of the eight coveted awards. The main competition in the GTA categories is the Mill Street Brewery, especially now that they have their......

If last week’s key word on the literary scene was “big,” as in prizes, galas, festivals, sold-out readings, visiting writers, and BookExpo, we get back to normal-ish this week. In fact, we’ve not had such a low-key stretch since March. Fear not. The Scream Literary Festival is adding more information to their website every week. On July 3rd, the festival kicks off with readings by Dennis Lee and Souvankham Thammavongsa, films by Shapour Shahidi, and......

Spring launch season slows this week, but finishes strongly with new poetry collections by national treasures bill bissett and David McFadden. Tomorrow night, help David celebrate his Selected Poems: Why Are You So Sad?, edited and introduced by Stuart Ross. Here’s Stuart, from the intro: "David's poetry, like David, is social. It's interested in people, and in trees, squirrels, dogs, and oceans. It's also social in that it wants to be read, and it......

Sunday night at the Gladstone Art Bar will bring a special treat for all the music-loving craft addicts in Toronto when spins & needles, which has been running in Ottawa since 2005, rolls into town for its second event here. The crafting and DJ night starts at 8 p.m. and costs $8 before 10 p.m. and $10 after. Bring that sewing project that’s been sitting in the back of your closet or raid the......

Inside Out is gearing up for its seventeenth annual celebration of Gay and Lesbian video and film, and they need your help to ensure another successful year. This Sunday, the festival will hold the fourth installment of Bar Bazaar, a fundraiser where you can mingle, nosh on homemade baked goods, listen to music from DJ Winnie and bid on an incredible list of items in a silent auction. Notable donations include a five-class pass from......

Ontario Lottery Corporation recalls over a million scratch lotto cards after a customer complains you can see a winner without scratching. Between this and the retailers-stealing-jackpot-tickets flap a few months ago, it is probably even odds that every Ontario lotto jackpot in the last five years has been won by one guy in Whitby named Fred. Four mature maple trees cut down to make room for a screen from the Islington Golf Club. The......

In case you're not into any CMW bands playing this year like these guys, or you want to avoid the boozing and schmoozing music industry folks (who are desperately clinging to their jobs), you might consider checking out the Pitter Patter Festival running concurrent to CMW. Featuring more than 80 local and non-local bands playing in Toronto, Hamilton and Oshawa, this year's line-up is a competitive, if not superior alternative to Canadian Music Week. Organizer......

"Thriller" is having a moment. Last October, we reported the story of Thrill Toronto’s attempt to set the first Guinness World Record for Largest Thriller Dance (see the video at right) by recreating the choreography from Micheal Jackson's video classic. Then there was the much blogged Thriller Wedding Dance on YouTube, a Bollywood-style version and reports from London and New York of fitness classes that use M.J.'s zombified moves as a 13 minute workout. Now......

This Monday night, January 22, head down to the Gladstone Hotel and join Broken Pencil Magazine founding editor and publisher (and journalist and author) Hal Niedzviecki as he hosts the self-professed “best games night in the city (on a Monday night anyway).” The occasion? Monday night marks the launch of BP’s newest issue, which is, fittingly, the games issue. There will be an assortment of classic board games, games of hide and seek, and, everyone's......

Happy December Torontoist readers! The LCBO will start charging an extra 10- or 20-cent deposit on wine and spirit bottles in February in order to encourage recycling. Bottles can be returned to The Beer Store along with your Red Cap empties. Save up enough of them and those bottles can be recycled right back into your hand, chilled and containing a delicious elixer of satisfaction that you are doing your part for the environment. A......