Photo by David Spigolon. Just over a decade ago in the basement of a SoHo café, playwright Eve Ensler began performing a series of moving and celebratory monologues dealing with the shame many women have over their physiology and sexuality. Since then, The Vagina Monologues has evolved to legendary fame, so far staged in 120 countries and translated into 45 languages. Ensler's success also inspired her to create V-Day, a non-profit, worldwide movement opposing......

Torontoist is ahead of the game for previewing some of the best music choices this week (Queen West fire benefit, Forest City Lovers' CD release) but Musicologist will give you one more recommendation—just for kicks. When UK’s Field Music announced a (begrudged) break last year, who knew David Brewis would be in Toronto playing a show under a different name and clean ethos so quickly? School of Language and their debut LP Sea From Shore......

Here's a riddle: What walks throughout Canada, weighs more than a Brit, but less than an American, and can help stop global warming? No, it's not Sasquatch. It's not Kyoto. Stumped? We'll give you a hint. It's the average Torontonian's carbon footprint! According to Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit environmental organization, the average Torontonian's carbon footprint sits at 8.6 tonnes per year—more than a fully-grown African elephant! Zerofootprint teamed up with the City of Toronto to......

Photo by sevennine from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. In the 1996 Canadian movie Kissed, a young female mortician discovers the joys of necrophilia. That same year, David Cronenberg made Crash, wherein a group of omnisexual urbanites eroticize car accidents. In Léolo, a 12-year-old boy masturbates with a chunk of liver, later served to his family for dinner. This spring's Young People Fucking is, well, called Young People Fucking. Canadians have traditionally been somewhat blasé......

Gossip no longer, culture vultures. We've finally got confirmation on CanStage's upcoming season. Like it or not, it looks like the rumours are true. As we reported before, the Bluma Appel Theatre's rather commercial lineup is entirely free of any Canadian-written shows, which has some folks in quite a tizzy. And as we suspected, CanStage is getting its CanCon through co-pros at the Berkeley Street Theatre. They're calling it The Berkeley Street Project, and......

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman has caused a furor with his comment that he'd be willing to test-drive an adult diaper to see if being left in soiled diapers for hours on end is really all that bad. Critics say he isn't taking the issue of sub-standard care in nursing homes seriously, which seems a bit harsh, since there can't be too many politicians who'd be willing to spend a day crouched in their own......

Leave it to CanStage to somehow, in the midst of extreme internal upheaval what is maybe their darkest financial hour, be simultaneously running two of their strongest shows by far in recent memory. In fact, Palace of the End (which closes tomorrow night) and The Clean House (which runs until March 8) aren't just good shows for CanStage, they would be amazing shows for anywhere. Hopefully, they can win the audiences they deserve, but......

The coolest movie opening this week is Be Kind Rewind, which is a treasure trove of Things White People Like, as it stars Jack Black and his black friend played by Mos Def, and is directed by Michel Gondry, and has lots of irony, seeing as how it is about a couple of people who erase all the videotapes in their video store and then make their own mocking versions of the movies they......

This Friday night, Allie Hughes has a concert at the El Mocambo. You might not have heard of this homegrown singer-songwriter yet, but maybe you will sometime soon. Hughes has a dynamite voice that she can effortlessly shift from a gentle coo to an operatic cry while she sits at her keyboard, presiding over her rockin' little band. Her songs bridge an adorable gap between sassy and poignant, and the general vibe is along......

Today is a Valentine's Day that Kathleen Wynne will never forget. The Miss G___ Project is encouraging Ontario residents to contact the current Minister of Education today and politely demand that a Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) program be added to the Ontario Secondary School curriculum. The Miss G___ Project for Equity in Education has been fighting for three years for a WGS program in Ontario high schools. Kathleen Wynne called the project "the most......

"The Better Way Gets Better," yesterday's TTC press release proclaimed, teasing the media for today's big announcement of service changes. And, really, it'd be hard to disagree. As anticipated, today at the TTC's Arrow Road Garage, David Miller and Adam Giambrone announced a fleet of changes to the TTC's fleet of bus and streetcar routes, designed to decrease crowding and increase service across the system: 75 bus and the Queen, King, and Carlton streetcar......

A three hour Blackberry outage affected millions of people across North America yesterday, leading to much wailing and handwringing over the temporary unavailability of a technology that didn't even exist ten years ago. Truly we are a nation of whiners. The Toronto Maple Leafs braved the cold to hold an unannounced outdoor skate at Withrow Park yesterday, where they were cheered on by 300 local grade-schoolers. Following the warmup, the kids formed a pickup......

Next Saturday, Toronto Poetry Slam brings you the last slam of the season, with some of the city’s brightest and wordiest battling it out for the last remaining place in the semi finals. Finalists will have a shot at the 2008 Toronto Poetry Slam Team, which competes at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and the US National Poetry Slam (this year to be held in Madison, Wisconsin). This month’s event also features a guest......

The weather continues to suck in Toronto as today promises more snow, sleet, rain and just about every other damn unpleasant thing that can fall out of the sky short of a hail of radioactive meteorites. On the other hand, the central U.S. suffered a rash of tornadoes yesterday that killed at least 27 people, so suck it up and go shovel the walk of the old people down the street. U.S. candidates continue......

Good morning university and college students, and good news: you don't have to go to school today. The University of Toronto updated its website shortly after 9 a.m. this morning to say that "Due to severe weather conditions on Friday, Feb. 1, U of T Missisauga is closed, U of T Scarborough is closed as of 10:00AM, and U of T (St. George) is closed as of 11:00AM. University buildings are closed and classes......

It wasn't long ago that Torontoist was rapping about Five Blank Pages' CD release; Last Blush, their first full-length, was just unleashed onto the white-belt world last October, but this weekend marks a significant change in the band's line-up. Since growing from Noyan Hilmi's solo project to a full-fledged band, the group has consisted of Hilmi, sister Chelen Hilmi, and wife Pinar Ozyetis. The band added bassist Rajiv Thavanathan later on, and has been......

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. Photo by David Urbonas from Flickr. Since the inaugural Yonge & Bloor installment of A City Intersected, Torontoist has made every attempt at......

Want to hear the news that's been making its way around the water cooler at theatres all over town this afternoon? Well, do you remember back in May when we reported that actor/director David Storch would be promoted to Artistic Director of CanStage as a result of a recent regime change? Apparently, as of today, in only the seventh month of his directorship (which officially began on July 1, 2007), Storch has resigned from......

David Miller delivered a balanced budget yesterday, thanks to higher property taxes, some fabulous new tariffs, and a one-time infusion of $150 million from the the provincial government. According to Miller, the property tax increase of 3.75% is in line with his commitment to limit raises to the rate of inflation (1.9% in Toronto last year), evidence that the mayor is either math-illiterate or assumes that everyone else is. Transit expert Richard Soberman will......

It's one of the crapshoots of the daily commute. When you get to your bus stop with no bus or streetcar in sight, should you walk to the next stop and hope the bus catches up or just stay put and wait? According to the New Scientist, Harvard mathematician Scott Kominers has dedicated lighthearted academic study to this very question. His solution? "When both options seem reasonably attractive," he says, you should be lazy......

When the Polaris Prize gala went down last year, the music-loving public was mostly kept out: only musicians, music industry folk, and media were invited. Those who missed the gala missed not only the awarding of the $20,000 prize to Patrick Watson (who needed the cash because of a $16,000 bill his band just got for crashing a rental car), but also a great show, with six of the nominated acts––Watson, The Besnard Lakes,......

Palace of the End, Judith Thompson's most recent play, is not only her most political work, it is also her best. As most auditioning actors in this country have discovered, Thompson's greatest strength has always been her monologues, and in this piece, she uses that strength to its full advantage. In fact, she dispenses with character interaction altogether and breaks her show into three long monologues, each spoken by someone who has been greatly......

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the Oscars this morning. Canada done good. Torontoist fave Sarah Polley landed a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay for Away From Her, based on the Alice Munro story "The Bear Came Over The Mountain." The film, which Polley also directed, was also nominated for Best Actress, Julie Christie. Canuck-fest Juno also scored a bellyful of nominations. The film landed four nominations: Best......

Photo by David Topping. Torontoist has a major crush on missed connections, and this one made our day: West Queen West, Drake/Beacs - m4w last weekend, at the drake. Or maybe it was the beaconsfield. You are very stylish, wearing an outfit from american apparel. it was colourful. i was skinny, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with my favourite band on it, with a vintage sweater over top. we talked for a bit, and......

Ottawa to introduce new fuel economy standards. They will be "at least" as stringent as American fuel economy standards. In response, David Suzuki blew upon a party horn sarcastically and waved a tiny flag, his derision apparent to all and sundry. Bobby Fischer dies at 64. The former world chess champion was famous for beating the Russians, and for being quite possibly fairly insane, which inspired the nifty little film Searching For Bobby Fischer.......

Left to right: TTC market research director Mike Anders, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, irate civil engineering Engineering Science student Ryan Campbell, and Giambrone executive assistant Kevin Beaulieu. "Isn't this just a quasi-communistic redistribution of wealth?" asked a student at the microphone, receiving hearty applause from a good chunk of the audience. He was inquiring about the new U-Pass being proposed by the TTC, which Mayor David Miller, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, and Vice-Chair Joe......

There is a moment near the end of the first act of Maureen Hunter's play Wild Mouth when Oliver Becker, playing the tortured Ukrainian WWI vet Bohdan, grabs Sarah Orenstein as proto-feminist anti-war Englishwoman Anna (pictured, left), douses her in pig's blood, and then rubs the animal's heart all over her face and body. It's a shocking and highly provocative moment, and seems to foreshadow a very dark second act. But that's not quite......

Sections of downtown core shut down for fear of falling debris. David Miller responds by initiating the "Less Wind Now" campaign, encouraging Ottawa to build "a giant wall" around Toronto to serve as a windbreak. Forty year mortages have arrived. Suggested advertising slogan: "Now you can be in your seventies and still not have paid down your house! Federal poll shows Tories back on top by seven points. Apparently, the secret for the Tories'......

Discovered going eastbound towards downtown on an old, very packed, and very hot subway car at 8:30 on a Monday morning: an old route map, sans Sheppard line subway stations; and an old ad advising riders against the gravest of transit crimes––leg extension. In response to a letter from someone pleased that the problem with "feet on seats" has improved, but that the ever-present issue of outstretched limbs remains, the late 1980s ad advises......

In case you were wondering, it's probably not a great idea to be hanging out in the entertainment district at 3:15 a.m. Especially if you're in a luxury SUV. And especially especially if you've got a ponytail. In February of 2006, Toronto police officers arrested Irshad Ahmed and Omar Betty for failure to stop, failure to comply, and obstructing police. Their trial is currently being conducted at Old City Hall, and some interesting evidence......