Photo by Martin Reis. More are in his Guaranteed Bike Lane set. Sometimes the Internet isn't enough to protect Toronto's bike lanes from the drivers that treat the space between the thick white line and the curb as their territory. Last Thursday, members of Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists (ARC)—Rick Conroy (pictured at left; coordinator of the Toronto Cyclists Union), Derek Chadbourne (at right; owner of the Bike Joint, whose birthday the Gardiner ride......

Photo courtesy of Grace Restaurant. Forget Hollywood. Lesle Gibson says she wants to attract “the neighbourhood.” “I just want people who like our food,” the restauranteur says with a smile, as she takes a quick break before the dinner crowd arrives. The Torontonian, who has worked in L.A. for the past three years, and has entertained an impressive array of Hollywood A-Listers, has just opened Grace Restaurant on College Street. It takes the place......

In the fall of 1997, the Metro Toronto Zoo had something of a clearance sale, divesting itself of merchandise branded "Metro Toronto Zoo." On January 1st, the Megacity would be coming, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto would be no more, and the Zoo—to be renamed simply the "Toronto Zoo"—would be prepared for the change. The Metropolitan Toronto Police, however, were not quite as on the ball. Two years later, in 2000, the organization finally......

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......

Strap on your tux or taffeta this Friday, February 1 and head down to WhipperSnapper Gallery (587A College Street) for Let's Get Hitched. The youth art collective throws notoriously awesome shindigs: "Whippersnapper openings are essentially hip house parties," we said in an article about their last exhibit Push It: "Think Pitchfork-approved background music, College kids in tortoise-shell glasses, and red wine in plastic cups." All the cool kids are going, so why aren't you?......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Dear Snappy Answers, I moved here from the U.S. a little while ago. Down there, I would hear these stories about the lax marijuana laws here and the more lax enforcement of those laws. When I got here, I thought I would have an easy time getting my smoke on. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. I’ve posted......

With a title like Push It, could Whippersnapper Gallery's January group show be anything but real good? The exhibit runs from January 10–26 and features 25 emerging artists, all Canadian and all chosen by the Whippersnapper team from an open call for submissions. Works range from Heli Prajapati's tranquil everyday-object photography to primitively emotional mixed media on canvas by Hayden Menzies, plus painting, sculpture, video and more. Whippersnapper won't take commission from works sold during......

What to do if you are alone tomorrow, either because you don't celebrate Christmas, or because there's no one around to celebrate with: Spend your day curled up with the almost-human warmth of your laptop, watching the WPIX Yule Log and listening to "Blue Christmas" (the Bright Eyes version), both on endless loops that resemble depression spirals more and more with each whiskey-and-tears cocktail that passes down your throat, which, come to think of......

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......

Photos courtesy of Light in the Attic Records The landscape of soul music, more than any other genre, has been littered with talented artists with unfulfilled careers spent in obscurity, grinding out appearances in dingy bars in the search for the elusive radio hit. Such was the fate of Jay Douglas, The Mighty Pope and many other pioneers of Toronto’s soul and reggae scene in the 1960s and 1970s. These artists—who are reuniting for......

Do you love the music of Daft Punk? Perhaps you hate it. Whatever your feelings on their music, we all know it's better without Kanye West shouting pointlessly over the top. Er, actually, we meant for that sentence to go: whatever your feelings on their music, you might be interested in seeing Daft Punk’s new film, Electroma, which will be screening at midnight, December 7, at the Royal Theatre (608 College Street) as it......

The Too-Explicit Injustice of Kind Population! is: a) a popular Engrish t-shirt slogan in Tokyo b) a Sufjan Stevens hidden track c) the title of this month's photo blog show at the Whippersnapper Gallery If you guessed "c," many hand claps and cheers! You've just won yourself admission* to the opening reception of this must-see exhibition featuring Toronto's top photo bloggers: Sam Javanrouh, Chris Altorf and Jessica Hayes, Adam Hool, and Rannie Turingan. The......

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......

Eat Me is a regular feature about the nooks and crannies of Toronto's restaurant scene, about the amazing restaurants that are––for some reason––criminally underpatronized. It's pretty easy to find sushi places in this city. From the Bloor Street strip to North York, sushi places range from suspiciously cheap to ridiculously expensive, from having incredibly creative culinary creations to the same old rolls. Quietly tucked on the east edge of Little Italy is Jun Jun Sushi......

You've probably heard by now that Ontarians will be asked to cast a second ballot on election day. That is, unless you're among the 47% of Ontarians who, according to a recent poll, are completely unaware of the upcoming referendum question on whether to replace the existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system with a proposed mixed-member proportional (MMP) system. Whether this is the first you've heard about it—which seems unlikely since Torontoist has mentioned it......

If you've been around U of T for the past month, there's almost no way you've missed the filming for The Incredible Hulk. From having tanks and soldiers marching along College Street to invade the Koffler Centre to shoots––like yesterday's––that saw soldiers firing live ammunition inside Knox College's courtyard, it's been pretty difficult to ignore. The biggest spectacle, though, is apparently yet to come. According to a typo-heavy post on Comic Book Resources, Yonge......

FaceBookCampToronto is a free conference aimed at folks who've been meaning to develop applications for the Facebook platform. Co-organized by Facebook and (this shouldn't be a surprise) some of the same people who have been bringing us the Toronto incarnations of DemoCamp and BarCamp, FaceBookCampToronto is being held at the MaRS "discovery district" (101 College Street), Tuesday night from 6–9:30 p.m. Torontoist isn't terribly convinced by the term "discovery district," but with over 30......

Torontoist finished Book 7 last night, and we're feeling a little down about the Harry Potter saga being over. Sure, everything turned out alright (and Mrs. Weasley said the B-word!) but we can't help feeling like the wizarding world no longer needs our support. Under normal circumstances, we would be binge eating and watching Prisoner of Azkaban on repeat. Thankfully, Toronto will be flooded with Harry Potter fans this weekend, keeping the wizarding spirit......

It's not entirely clear how or when R. Kelly's hip-hop opera "Trapped in the Closet" became a Zeitgeist. Part music video, part soap opera, it—while verging on self-parody throughout—has spawned parodies by everyone from South Park (which used it to make fun of Tom Cruise and John Travolta, among others) to Weird Al (who used it to make fun of fast food. Oh Weird Al!). What is clear is why it's been embraced by seemingly......

Come and join Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market this weekend by celebrating the sun and the recent summer solstice. Join the Guerrilla Gourmet and "Brook the Cook" for a special summer street picnic. Ten dollars buys you a share in their "three course carbon free meal," featuring the season's local organic ingredients all cooked using Brook's amazing "grill," which focuses the sun's rays to heat the cookware (shown above). The picnic begins at 4......

The trash can pictured is not a City-approved waste receptacle. It was an advertising tool for ck IN2U, Calvin Klein’s newest fragrance, and its stay at the corner of Dundas and Victoria Streets long outlasted its welcome. Branded with the catchphrase "what are u in 2?" with no mention of the fragrance itself or of Calvin Klein, eighty faux trash cans were distributed across Montreal and Toronto as part of the ck IN2U teaser......

Toronto rheumatism sufferers, are you ready to receive holy praise on the newest patent cure to hit the streets of our city? This ad follows the formula of many period ads for remedies: an endorsement from a respected figure, extolling the virtues of how the product has helped their family over the years. We can verify the identity of this acid user — Reverend Alexander Gilray (1843-1915) had been minister of the College Street......

Daniel Handler! In Toronto! You may know him better as children’s writer Lemony Snicket of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame, but he has written three books for adults not as Snicket's "Handler," but quite wonderfully as himself. He'll be talking to charming local writer Jason McBride (who Torontoist may have seen in The Annex last week--belated hullo, Jason! If you weren’t Jason, greetings to the gent who is passing himself off as Jason quite......

For over forty years, Toronto’s Coach House Books has consistently offered stellar choices in all things literature. With a catalogue that includes writers such as Anne Michaels, Di Brandt, Steve McCaffery, Michael Ondaatje and bpNichol, one can't go wrong by supporting this local press. This season’s list of new releases continues the tradition of awesomeness. Tonight, Coach House will launch their five spring titles with a party and reading from all five authors. The new......

It's been over a year since local über-activist Dave Meslin took his grass roots political activism to the next level by co-ordinating the City Idol competition. Rather than entering the municipal election himself, Meslin chose to direct his efforts at increasing civic participation in the terminally under-attended municipal elections. Aside from some minor bumps (including having to change the logo, lest he infringe upon the rights of Ryan Seacrest, et al) the effort yielded......

While “citizen journalists” can immediately broadcast breaking news to millions of people through blogs, online communities, free podcasts and webcasts, how do traditional media outlets compete, both from an editorial and business perspective? This Thursday, April 5, the Canadian Journalism Foundation asks (and attempts to answer) the question of journalism’s place in a wired world. Join Mathew Ingram, Business and Technology Columnist for the Globe and Mail; Mark Evans, Operations VP of b5media inc.; Hugh......

Years spent on the Indie Rock scene should be measured in dog years: if a band manages to maintain its original line up for an entire trip around the sun, it should count as seven. Toronto’s Talladega has featured many members over the years, but the original core-duo of Stewart Whitehead (ex-Grace Babies) and Sean Bettam (ex-Chicklet) guides its flight path with endurance. Tonight, with new members Mark Buffone and Dave Cyr, they launch their......

Photo by MonkeyfacedRatfink from Flickr. Toronto has been called a city of neighbourhoods: The Beach, Yorkville, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greektown, The Annex; all have their defining characteristics that make them appealing to locals as well as visitors. And when it comes down to it, most of these areas are well-defined by the intersection of two major streets. College Street is more often celebrated, but Little Italy has got nothing on Corso Italia. If you......

Balfour Books is one of the city's best used book stores. It's bright, well-stocked, and, best of all, it's open until 11 every night. With a good sized fiction section at the back of the store, plus tons of books on art and cultural theory, it's easy to spend an hour or more browsing through the shelves. Torontoist loves to load up on titles here and then head across the street to The Dip to......

Tomorrow, Jaakko van’t Spijker will be in Toronto speaking as part of the University of Toronto School of Architecture, Landscape and Design spring lecture series on Radical Everyday: Adventures in the Landscape of the City. Jaakko van’t Spijker graduated from Delft University of Technology. He, Henk Bultstra and Bert Karel Deuten founded Studio Sputnik in Rotterdam as a research and design practice. In 2003 they published the manifesto Snooze: Immersing Architecture in Mass Culture launching......