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, fun and, well, not all that “literary”—Bak curates an evening that keeps testing the boundaries of what literature is, regularly including filmmakers, playwrights, fashion designers, and musicians amongst the regular stock of poets and prose writers.
Results tagged “localmusic”
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.
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.
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 that our new powers should change especially:
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.
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.
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!
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!
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:
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.
retrospective offers some insight into how a small group of friends, musicians and artists opened up doors for great local music to be heard and appreciated all over the world.

Newsstand: November 20, 2009