It seems there is a sort of subtle resentment for pants growing in popular culture. Although Improv Everywhere has been organizing their annual No Pants Subway Ride in New York for seven years, only recently has the tradition really taken hold in cities around the world.
Results tagged “dundaswest”
Today is the first day of the Bali United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will continue until December 14. The purpose of the conference, which is being attended by over 20,000 delegates and observers from 180 countries, is to set out the framework of negotiations for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol when it ends in 2012. There are several events taking place this week in Toronto to mark the occasion. The first...
According to an anonymous tip, there was just (at 3:15 p.m.) a head-on collision between two streetcars at Dundas Street West and Roncesvalles Avenue. Apparently, at least one car is derailed, both cars have extensive damage to them, and there are some minor injuries. Hopefully everyone's okay. We're not quite sure yet how it happened––there's no word yet on any other news site, so if you know something, please e-mail tips@torontoist.com––but contributor Adam Hawkins noted that a head-on collision would be possible at the intersection if the Dundas streetcar heading south was veering left to stay on Dundas West while the King streetcar was coming north on Roncevalles as it merged onto Dundas West. The streetcar tracks cross over in the middle of the intersection.
The corner of Dundas Street West and Indian Grove used to host McBride Cycle, a 21,000 square-foot motorcycle retailer with some ninety-seven years of history behind it. As of last September, however, the store is no more, a death caused in large part by motorcycling companies cancelling agreements with dealerships like McBride's around the country. Beginning in the spring, the building was slowly demolished, and now there is little more at the corner than a bed of rubble, some metal poles, a big garbage bin, and a single line of fence running parallel with Dundas West.
Whether you associate the myriad back alleys that criss-cross Toronto with crime and filth or art and beauty, Graeme Parry's laneway tours are sure to be a treat.
Cinematheque Ontario begins its Pedro Almódovar programme, Almódovar Meets Hollywood’s Golden Age, tomorrow and they’ve been kind enough to give us two pairs of tickets to the opening night, a double feature of Nicholas Ray’s 1954 bizzaro-western Johnny Guitar and Almódovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which pays homage to Johnny Guitar. The screenings begin at 6:30 p.m. at Jackman Hall, the AGO, 317 Dundas West, so if you can make it, to enter all you have to do is answer this simple question before 4 p.m. this Friday:
Going to see all three films in Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher Trilogy, one after another in one night, is one of this Torontoist’s most treasured cinema memories, and although we did it at 2005’s Toronto International Film Festival, anyone who missed that chance can now do it at the Brunswick Theatre (296 Brunswick Avenue) tonight and tomorrow night starting 7 p.m. It’s $10 for one film or $15 for the lot, so obviously you should see all three.
So, this week's most noteworthy film featuring a horrible zombie is obviously Fido, considering it’s Canadian and stuff, but we’ve talked about it more than enough, so in this week’s column we’ll make do with the next best thing—the horrible freaky visage of Cillian Murphy!
Torontoist officially can’t wait for the first home renovation programme to have its interior designer kick open a door to an empty room and scream "This…Is…SPARTAN!" referencing this week’s biggest release, 300. On the topic of 300, we link you to the best review ever featured on the otherwise not-particularly-good Ain’t It Cool News. Neill Cumpston enthuses, "If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say to the cashier, 'I need some extra sauce packets' guess what? You’re getting twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain."
Faithful readers might remember Lisa Pijuan from previous Torontoist stories, and we're sure you'll be pleased to learn she is as inimitable and inexhaustible as ever. RED is still going strong at the Lula Lounge every couple of months or so, and tonight's edition is a special one commemorating Women's Remembrance Day with a talented all-female line-up. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Sistering.
Where there's smoke there's nothing. Really, nothing at all. If you're passing by Dundas West and Keele station tomorrow and see smoke it's just the TTC conducting a drill at the train yards there between 9:30 am and noon. The exercise trains firefighters how to deal with an emergency inside the city's subway tunnels.
The last 10 days have been a great time to be a film nut, but now Christmas comes early for book nerds as over the next few weeks two of the biggest events of the year take place, starting with next Sunday’s Word on the Street, which will be followed by the start of the International Festival of Authors in mid-October.
Night time is the right time when you've got an inch to get up. Dundas West & Bloor. Check out the link for more.
So I had to go buy some lettuce today. A Price Chopper is down the road from where I live, at Dundas West & Runnymede (and its prices! They're ).
The Pugly Awards results were finally announced for this year. They scout out the best and the pugly architecture around the city based on your votes. To qualify, the building must be completed the year prior to the award cycle.
So, did anyone see the article in today’s Eye about the imminent death of the Festival cinemas? A nice article reminding us that it’ll take someone with a good deal more money than business sense to save the Royal (at a cool $2.7 million) but it more timely in reminding us that while our cinemas might be dying, we at least still have the Toronto International Film Festival Group’s Cinematheque Ontario to keep us in going. It might be in the Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas West), admittedly not the most exciting of venues, but it might soon be one of our only choices to see some rarely shown films on the big screen.
Well, it’s interesting to note in this week of HotDocs that our favourite film released this week in theatres is also a documentary – The Devil and Daniel Johnston. We happened to catch it at TIFF2005, and noted “The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a powerful documentary with no easy answers. While fans of his music will enjoy it more than those who have never heard of him, anyone who has ever felt life was pain will find meaning in this movie.” A view that we consider validated by the fact that NOW’s John Harkness spends most of his review complaining that he doesn’t ‘get’ Johnston’s music. Still 4 Ns, though!
won’t-be-down-with-that flick, being shown tonight as part of Cinematheque Ontario’s Canada’s Top Ten programme (8:45pm, Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas West). The showing is preceded at 6:30pm by a fascinating panel – Pop Culture as History/History as Pop Culture, featuring Atom Egoyan (of Canada’s Top Ten film Where the Truth Lies) and Jean-Marc Vallee (of the aforementioned C.R.A.Z.Y), curated by Eye Weekly’s Jason Anderson. Sadly completely sold out, you can arrive early and hope for a rush ticket hope there is a ticket scalper outside, but the film is available, sans panel, at the Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor West) all week long.
Right, Torontoist isn’t going to mess about with today’s Film Friday, because there are more important things to be talking about than what’s on at the multiplex.
Kung Fu Fridays starts again tonight after a hiatus for the Toronto Film Festival, with a blistering October Schedule and a new location. Due to the (recently) traditional Royal Cinema being hired out regularly for festivals and so on this month, tonight the biweekly dose of Kung Fu action is being shown at the Revue Cinema at 400 Roncesvalles Ave (that’s 3 blocks south of Dundas West Station, for anyone unfamiliar with it). And tonight’s dose of Kung Fu action is a big draw for any of the crowd who caught the legendary Sammo Hung in SPL during the Toronto Film Festival – Kung Fu Master, directed by Wong Jing and with martial arts direction from Hung himself (also in a starring role, along with Jet freakin’ Li). The story is naturally going to be a pile of nonsense, but who cares when you can watch some of the legends of Hong Kong cinema kick seven bells out of each other with the raucous Kung Fu Friday audience? If you’ve never been to a show before tonight is the time to start.
Torontoist is in demand on the party circuit, with a full dance card this summer (we even salsa’d on St. Clair last weekend). Tonight, it’s Dundas West’s turn to have a party, and everyone’s invited. Starting at the Side Door restaurant (Dundas & Markham) further west past the Chelsea Room (ground zero for hipsters of a certain vintage) to Mexican kitsch boutique Clandestino (ground zero for Mayan hammock lovers of a certain breed).
Toronto asks, and Torontoist answers. Following our friends in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., Torontoist will take the time to address the every concern of our treasured Torontoist readers. So feel free to direct your every uncertainty to this website for the definitive Toronto answer. For instance, here's a question posed to us by Torontoist reader last never:
Ordering hearts and flowers is SO original. Instead, go directly past that display of long-stemmed roses down to Dundas West for a bit of respite from the romance overload. Tonight from 6pm to 9pm, the block's kicky boutiques are hosting a Valentine's sidewalk shopping night, wih 15%-70% off regular prices.
And finally, according to the son of Il Richlerino, Le Select is on the move, to King from Queen, with little in between. We're worried. What if they decide to retire the bread pulleys? We only go there for the bread pulleys (a bald faced lie, but TOist does appreciate their carbohydrate kitsch. Atkins would shudder at bread's elevated status in the resto!) And how will they transport those age-old art posters, likely affixed to the wall with sort of crumbling scotch tape? We have questions, but no answers. Rather like the Henry Darger doc now playing at the Camera.
The Year that Was: We won't presume to have seen it all, or read it all, or eaten it all. And so, a digested list of good things that happened in and around the GTA and the universe this year. Okay, in and around this year.

Newsstand: November 19, 2009