WORDS: Torontonian artist Steve Driscoll is launching his new book, Steve Driscoll: Conversations, this afternoon at David Mirvish Books. The book showcases the changes and developments in Driscoll's paintings over the last eight years, and the launch will also include an exhibition of the work presented in Driscoll's book. David Mirvish Books (596 Markham Street), 2 p.m., FREE. FUN: Improv Everywhere is hosting the MP3 Experiment in Toronto today. At 2 p.m. in Riverdale......

FESTIVAL: The TrekZac FestiCon, a day-long celebration of Star Trek, returns to The Tranzac today for its second year. The mini-convention kicks off at 1 p.m. with a Steam Whistle Brewing beer tasting, along with performances from Laura Barrett, Mackenzie King (formerly Ontario Power Generation), and Woodhands frontman Dan Werb. At 3 p.m. the “convention” begins and will include a lecture by David Dineen-Porter, a demonstration of Klingon ceremonies and rituals, and a panel......

MUSIC: This morning, come to the Tranzac to celebrate the release of the highly-anticipated first album from Laura Barrett, Victory Garden. At 11:30 a.m., a healthy brunch made by Laura Barrett and Ajay Mehra will be served. At 1:30 p.m., music! There will be a set by Ghost Bees, a solo performance from Woodhands singer Dan Werb, and—of course—a performance by Barrett herself. The party will be framed nicely with animations and artwork brought to......

WORDS: “This Is Not A Reading Series For Tots,” a new monthly literary program for children that we told you about a few weeks ago, is launching today at the Gladstone Hotel. Kids aged two to eight will get to meet the authors of childrens’ books and participate in art activities, sing-a-longs, and puppet shows. Speaking today is Matt Hammill, who will be giving a PowerPoint presentation about his new book, Sir Reginald’s Logbook.......

FESTIVAL: Ladyfest kicks off their highly anticipated music series tonight, as the week-long festival continues. Tonight, come out to the Boat for performances from electronic soul group Lal, alternative crooner Emma McKenna, and experimental pop band Miau Miau. Also starting today is "Ooh-La-La," the female-identifying art exhibit at Beaver Hall Gallery (rescheduled from Sunday), which will run until September 27. The Boat (158 Augusta Avenue), 9 p.m., $5–$10. TRANSIT: This evening, join the TTC......

FESTIVAL: The Manifesto Festival of Music and Art is returning for its second year. The festival runs until Sunday and will feature art exhibitions, a street dance competition, a market devoted to the wares of young entrepreneurs, and musical performances from Rascalz and k-os. Tonight's event is a music showcase at The Mod Club featuring performances by Torontoist fave Shad, and Hey Ocean (722 College Street, 8 p.m., $12). Tomorrow, check out a special......

SPORTS: A community meeting is being held tonight by City Councillor Bill Saundercook to discuss bike lanes running along Annette Street between Runnymede Road and Jane Street. The Toronto Cyclists Union is encouraging "strength in numbers," asking that "everyone who wants Toronto to have a secure, connected bicycle network should attend." James Culnan Catholic School (605 Willard Avenue), 7 p.m., FREE. WORDS: Author Rebecca Rosenblum is speaking tonight at the Gladstone Hotel as This......

FOOD: After their wildly successful inaugural event, Picnic at the Brick Works is back for a second year. For four hours, celebrity chefs are paired with local food producers to create unique culinary creations using sustainable, Ontario-grown foods. The goal of the event is to promote economically-friendly food, for the sake of a sustainable-food future as energy costs continue to skyrocket. This year's celebrity chefs include Jamie Kennedy, Keith Froggett, and Owen Steinberg. Rain or......

FESTIVAL: A two-day tribute to cult film The Big Lebowski is going down this weekend. LollapaDUDEza kicks off tonight with a screening of the film at Rancho Relaxo, and a Lebowski-themed costume contest. Following the screening, there will be a Lebowski trivia competition, as well as karaoke. Your ticket also gets you a free drink at the bar! If you can't make it out this evening, LollapaDUDEza has booked the Bathurst Bowlerama for three......

FESTIVAL: The Scotiabank BuskerFest is back for its ninth year. This year's line-up includes over forty of the world's best buskers from Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. BuskerFest is free with an optional donation to Epilepsy Toronto; since its inception, BuskerFest has raised over half of a million dollars for the organization. Come out to enjoy the circus performers, magic shows, and artistic spectacles, and leave knowing it's all......

FESTIVAL: The Canadian National Exhibition is back and bigger than ever this year. Along with the usual carnival rides, games, and snacks, there will be an outdoor acrobatic and pyrotechnic circus performance, equestrian shows, an escape artist, and the always-popular IAMS SuperDogs Show. Visitors can also get a preview of new state-of-the-art TTC subway cars set to debut in 2010, which will be on display in front of the Direct Energy Centre for the......

The combination of DJs, electronica, and dancing usually renders images of dark, sweaty clubs pulsing with drum 'n' bass into the late hours of the night (or the wee hours of the morning). Sometimes it's hard to put a face to your favorite spin doctors between black lights and dry ice, dimly lit clubs and small DJ booths. But on the west side music scene this weekend, the times, they are a-changin'. This Sunday's......

FESTIVAL: Toronto's annual Taste of the Danforth festival returns tonight and runs until Sunday. Along with the usual smorgasbord of excellent Greek food come expected crowds of over 500,000, and a healthy serving of ambivalence. Danforth Avenue from Broadview Avenue to Jones Avenue, 6 p.m., FREE. INTERNET: Inspired by last year's mass YouTube community gathering in New York, the Ontario Science Centre is holding Canada's first large-scale YouTube meetup. Besides the usual attractions at......

MUSIC: Before their performance tomorrow night at Sneaky Dee's, critically-acclaimed group Colourbook will be playing a show as part of Ryan McLaren's ALL CAPS concert series. Also on the bill are Cobras Cobras Cobras and Brides. Whippersnapper Gallery (587A College Street), 6:30 p.m., $6. DANCE: Join DJ Thundersword at Baby Huey for a night of classic folk rock, indie rock hits, and $3.50 pints of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Perfect for warming up before some serious......

Graffiti, electronica(rt), haircuts, DJs, vogueing ninjas... ah, yet another weekend festival in Toronto. Club beats and street breaks intersect at Queens Quay West this weekend as part of the Harbourfront's World Routes weekly summer festival series. There's a full event listing here, but we've picked and panned out a few points of interest for your pleasure at the pier. Ladytron, Woodhands, Thunderheist, Crystal Castles―it's all here. Normally this kind of thing would set you......

Well, this is it: the last day of this year's Inside Out festival, and consequently, the last day of our extensive coverage. It's been a gay, gay blast, but some of us are about ready for a nap. If you haven't caught any screenings so far, this is your last chance for a whole year, and there are still a few cool things to catch. You'll be happy to know that seminal gay Aussie......

Inside Out film goers who had their hearts set on seeing With Gilbert and George, a documentary about the lives of the European "living sculpture" artists are in for something of a disappointment as the screening has been cancelled. In its place, the festival will be showing Shelter for a second time. If you can stand a complete change of mood, the film really is charming and worth a look. Another screening of interest......

It's closing weekend for Inside Out, but there are still a bunch of interesting films left to see. One of the most exciting screenings today is The Witnesses (pictured), the new film from acclaimed French writer-director André Téchiné, who also made the queer-themed The Wild Reeds. Set in and around Paris in 1984, the film follows a small and rather incestuous group of friends who all become affected by the onset of the AIDS......

It's a pretty quiet day at Inside Out, with only six screenings. Fans of European movies/men might take interest in Italy's Saturn in Opposition, and the artfag must-see of the day is definitely the doc Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff + Robert Mapplethorpe. If you're feeling in the mood for something South American, Argentina's La León (pictured) is the clear choice. Set in a small and remote rural community in......

Inside Out rages on. One of the biggest-name movies of the festival screens tonight: Paul Schrader's The Walker. The film stars Woody Harrelson as a "Walker," a well-to-do gay man who "walks" wealthy women around to society events their husbands are too busy for (interestingly enough, this "profession" also came up in Sunday's Savage Grace). These women include the always-fabulous Lily Tomlin and Lauren Bacall. But things get complicated when Harrelson's character gets drawn......

It's Victoria Day Monday, and what better way to celebrate that old queen's birthday than by watching a bunch of gay movies at Inside Out? Things kick off at noon with a gay daddy doc double-bill at the ROM. We didn't get a chance to check out Fatherhood Dreams, a Canadian film about four gay men who are all fathers in different ways, but we did see Daddy's Love, a film about a Norwegian......

The Inside Out festival continues today with ten different screenings. One of the more high-profile films in the festival is Savage Grace, the new film from Tom Kalin starring Julianne Moore. Kalin is probably best known for is 1992 film Swoon, based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder case. So it should come as no surprise that Savage Grace is based on the real life murder of Barbara Daly Baekeland by her son......

It's Day 3 at the excellently-programmed Inside Out festival. One of the more interesting films to catch this afternoon is It's Still Elementary: The Movie and the Movement (pictured) over at the National Film Board. It's actually a documentary about another documentary, 1996's It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, a groundbreaking film that showed elementary school teachers discussing homosexuality with children. But don't worry if you haven't seen its predecessor: It's Still......

Officially, this is Day Two of the 18th annual Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, but it's the first fully programmed day, with 8 different screenings happening. And things are starting off with a bang! There are so many cool screenings going on today, you're actually spoiled for choice. The big ticket is undoubtedly Shelter (pictured), which has already generated a significant amount of buzz on the prissy, reactionary gay......

Going to see a staged reading is pretty much the theatrical equivalent of watching a live jam band, only in this case the target audience is not inhalant abusers. It’s like a play, but with no movement and featuring an additional character—Mr. or Mrs. Reads The Stage Directions. The HOTscrawlsfestival is a showcase of this often overlooked art form, which puts a focus on the writer and the actors, throwing away such frivolities as......

This fjord is my fjord, this fjord is your fjord, From the valley Thörsmork to the geyser Strokkur, From Lake Lögurinn to Björk's house in Reykjaviík. Iceland was made for you and me. Our favourite Nordic country just got a little closer: Icelandair will launch direct flights between Toronto and Reykjaviík on May 2. To celebrate, Iceland Naturally is hosting a week-long Taste of Iceland festival from March 10–16 to promote modern Viking culture......

The Village of Yorkville Park rang to the sound of chisels and chainsaws on Saturday as ice sculptors took part in the Bloor-Yorkville IceFest Festival Ice Carving Competition. More images after the jump.......

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......

Last week, we were told off a bit in the comments for being "down" on everything. We thought we’d do our best to be really positive this week, and then we realised how lame it is to force it, you know? The great news is we don’t actually have to force it, as this week sees the release of King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters—one of the most entertaining films we’ve seen in......

Photo of the Montreal edition of Mille Femmes from Galerie [sas]'s Picasa album. Consider the first editions of Toronto's two major multidisciplinary arts festivals: Nuit Blanche 2006 was a stunning success, a magical playground that revived the spirit of the blackout and provided a moving conclusion to Let's All Hate Toronto; Luminato 2007 was a mixed bag of highfalutin performances not attended by anyone you know (with the exception of the George F. Walker......