You really have to wonder how performance artist and sexual activist Louise Bak always manages to schedule the very best mix of the Toronto literary scene for her Box Salon series. The successful poet and CIUT "Sex City" host founded the event back in 1998, and a decade later it is still the most entertaining literary night out in Toronto. While many other reading series can be hit or miss, the Box is consistently fresh,......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. In February of this year, a double-disc compilation titled Friends in Bellwoods was released by those who have made......

A few weeks ago Kensington Market's Neu+ral Lounge announced on Stillepost that they were looking for djs and party organizers to take over their Saturday night slot. Organizers of Eat Your Greens, a Britpop, Mod and Soul night, have decided to leave the venue for the El Mocambo, and will be doing so starting February 10. Last weekend Neu+ral announced that the new Saturday night will be called Kensington Station, and will be hosted......

This council is markedly more powerful than any that have sat before it, and citizens should embrace this as an opportunity to redress a number of grievances that have long been insurmountable because of conflicts with other orders of government. Now that the City of Toronto has a charter, we can finally rewrite our rather prudish history with laws more suited to us metropolitan types. By no means a complete list, these are things......

Earlier this week in the concert listings, we briefly told you of the upcoming free shows that the Toronto Public Library were holding. Now that the full details have been released, here's the low-down. To celebrate the recent acquisition of a new local music collection, the Toronto Public Library is throwing two live shows in October. The hope is that this initiative will engage young people into using library services. Judging by the diverse......

As we sat down to write this week's Best of the -ists post, a car blaring "21 Questions'" passed by our house. And that started us thinking about how some of the best -ist posts out there have at their hearts questions, some of which are answered, and some of which are left open. Check out the Best of the -ists from this week, and see if you agree. Londonist answers the questions "How much......

We -ists are an eclectic bunch, but there's a couple of things we all love: famous people, social causes, and wacky local facts. Join us as we starf**k, get virtuous, and learn across the -ist network! Austinist starts us off right by filling the famous person quota by interviewing Lewis Black, covers the social cause with a non-profit car sharing company, and gives us more wacky local facts than we can handle with Austin by......

Break out the earplugs and prepare to get very little sleep over the next few days, as the North by Northeast Music Festival and Conference begins tomorrow. Your wristband ($28.00) gets you into approximately 400 shows at 33 venues, all film screenings from the film festival portion, as well as the closing party Sunday night at the El Mocambo. Bargain! Highlights of the festival include performances at the Phoenix by Television (Fri. June 9th,......

You've read the positive reviews in the weeklies. You've seen him busking on Queen Street. You've read about him on less cool blogs. He's More or Les, and here's his none too in-depth interview on Torontoist: What's the name of your album and when does it come out? Name: The Truth About Rap Comes out: May 31st. at Play De Record, Kops, Slinky Music and other currently undisclosed locations... Why should we buy it? a)......

There's a difference between celebrity-gawking locally (seeing P Diddy buying some clothes at Roots in Yorkville), and local celebrity-gawking (catching Stuart Berman eating a burrito at Bar Burrito). At Torontoist, we'd take the local celebs locally any night of the week. And last Friday - the Tangiers' CD release party at Lee's Palace - happened to be such a night. We first saw Mr Kevin Drew, whom we will not call a Broken Social Scenester,......

This Saturday marks the fifth and final annual Three Gut Records anniversary party. The Guelph-spawned label will cease putting out new records after the release of the new Constantines album Tournament Of Hearts on September 27. To call Three Gut important in the creation of Toronto's vibrant independent music scene as it stands today is a gross understatement. This Exclaim retrospective offers some insight into how a small group of friends, musicians and artists opened......