Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without......

Photo by Qehven from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. If "free contemporary art things" happen to be your thing, then chances are you were one of the 425,000 people wandering around at last year's inaugural Nuit Blanche. And unless you've been living under a rock, you know that this year, it's back this Saturday night—with a vengeance. Boasting 123 museums and over 150 projects, teamed with all night subway on certain routes and txtArt allowing......

The city of Paris has recently been courting tourists from London, England with a new series of ads that look like this: What does a Paris tourism poster have to do with Toronto? Well, the C'est So Paris ads, with their posy compositions, saturated colours and irreverent humour, bears an uncanny resemblance to those T.O. Live With Culture posters from January, only these are actually good. The Parisian ads are witty, attention-grabbing and intelligible—everything the......

Yesterday the AGO revealed its latest summer exhibition, Treasures of the Tsimshian from the Dundas Collection—a first for the public eye in more than a century. Featuring 39 First Nations artifacts deriving from the 18th and 19th centuries—comprised of daily objects varying from ladles, combs and feast bowls to more exquisite pieces such as ceremonial masks, clan helmets and clubs carved from antlers—the Dundas collection is certainly worth a peek (even if there are some......

The Toronto Public Library is the only good thing to have come from amalgamation. One of the worst things to have come from amalgamation, on the other hand, is City Council's insistence that everything that it doesn't do is a result of not being able to afford to do it, and that everything that it does do is a result of not being able to afford not to do it. Last Wednesday morning, June......

The Louvre. Tate Modern. SFMOMA. Guggenheim. What do these places all have in common? They're all top-notch, world-renowned museums, yes. But beyond the most obvious answer, they're also all located in some of the most notoriously expensive cities in the world and they still manage to offer better admission deals than the newly-renovated ROM. The ROM has quietly jacked up the price of its cheap(er than the other) nights. Previously, Friday evenings from 4:30–9:30......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

The CouchSurfing Project has nothing to do with The Beach Boys or crowd surfing on a futon (although that must be fun) and has everything to do with traveling the world by the seat of a couch -- someone else's, that is. CouchSurfing.com is where couch surfers hook up with couch owners for a place to crash for a night or two for free at their travel destination. They can browse though the database......

As part of our ongoing commitment to being the media outlet of choice for all things Emily Haines, Torontoist offers the following web page, which reveals a previously unknown chapter in the career of this popular Canadian musician. The woman in the photo is identified as “Emily Haynes (sic)… a cultured and musically gifted young woman” who was already known as “a talented young vocalist” back in the early 1880’s. It just goes to show......

Shopping and the Santa Claus Parade are all fine and good, but baking over a hearth and drinking apple cider might just be a better way to celebrate the holidays. Most of the City’s museums are open year-round, but they really shine during the holiday season. Giant Edwardian Christmas tree, anyone? Historical cooking and paper chains? Yes please! There are storytelling evenings, baking and centerpiece workshops, children’s Christmas adventures and Scottish New Year’s Eve celebrations.......

Torontoist got tipped off that Governor General Award winning artist Istvan Kantor was arrested today at the AGO's Andy Warhol show for staging a blood-filled performance. The exhibit, which shows a darker side to Warhol, has been up for a month so we think it's about time that Kantor showed up. The performance artist has been banned from several museums including the National Gallery of Canada. A part of us wished we could've been there,......

Toronto photographer Arnaud Maggs grabbed the headlines by being awarded the GG prize for Visual Arts. Maggs is best known for work like his "mugshot" series shown here, but his most recent series is a vivid exploration of colour inspired by 19th century colour guides, colour wheels and more. Torontoist also wants to point out that a few other Torontonians brought home the hardware from Rideau Hall. There's YorkU prof and video artist Vera......

The Toronto Star runs a profile on Rita Davies, Toronto's culture czar (actually the executive director of culture for the city) and touts her work as one of the reasons why Toronto's culture scene isn't just surviving but arguably thriving today. Inspiringly Davies also asks us to compare ourselves to other great cities like San Francisco, Milan and Chicago. Over the last decades Davies has fought for the arts and even created a 10-year......

The Getting Up Festival really got up. On August 13-14, the hip hop music festival brings in Nas, Kanye West, Ciara, Mos Def, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Ludacris, Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz, Keshia Chante, Brooke Valentine, Rascalz, Kardinal Offishal and mo'. Though not entirely clear, the music has something to do with an Atari video game of the same name. The event will be directed by Toronto-bred director, Lil X. The festival will......

Torontoist has liked the work of Alain Paiement since he graced the cover of Canadian Art a few months back. His photos, aerial montages of detailed environments, invite long, Where's-Waldo-style scrutiny. And time's running out on his gallery show at 80 Spadina's Leo Kamen Gallery - the show ends Nov. 13th. Some of Paiement's work is also being shown in Oakville at the Oakville Galleries. Torontoist isn't sure where Oakville is, but it might be......