Photo of d’bi.young.anitafrika and her son, Moon, courtesy of Women’s Press. Last week’s literary listings featured a number of events celebrating one man (Michael Redhill, who is likely exhausted and has since gone back to Narbonne, France) and One Book (Consolation). This week the obvious literary picks are two very talented, very different women. Recent winner of the Toronto Arts Council Foundation Emerging Artist award and one of Canada’s most celebrated young performers, d’bi.young.anitafrika......

National Non-Smoking Week starts January 20—as most New Year's resolutions to quit go up in smoke. It's a shame that the National Non-Smoking Week website sucks. The layout is plain, the links aren't updated frequently, and the only materials up for 2008 are a few fact sheets and posters with this year's theme, "Taking My Life Back From Tobacco." (The artsier French version is better: "Ma nouvelle vie sans tabac" or "My new life......

If you were a child passing through Toronto since the early 1970s, there's a good chance you may have eaten at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Kitschy antique decor, the pots of whipped garlic butter that arrived with the loaf of bread and a family-friendly atmosphere have kept the crowds coming for nearly four decades. The Old Spaghetti Factory opened its first location in Portland, Oregon in 1969, a period when themed sit-down restaurant chains......

Toronto theatre crowds like to think of themselves as pretty brainy; quick to criticize stiff performances and dead box office sales, but if you're of the lowbrow type, then wait no morgue: Evil Dead: The Musical has risen again for another run—or slow walk—at the Diesel Playhouse. When it opened originally in our fair city, the musical (co-directed by Canada's Christopher Bond and Tony Award-winner and Buffy alum Hinton Battle) was expected to be......

Canstage opened its new season at the Bluma Appel with a much-ballyhooed production of Of Mice and Men (scooping Stratford's 2007 season), which resulted in Torontoist's inbox becoming full of e-mails requesting that we audition our dogs for the show (we declined). Things recommenced rather more innocuously at the Berkeley Street Theatre with the world premiere of The Story of My Life, a self-labelled "small musical." The two-hander is all about friendship and death. Or......

In concept, WinterCity has great potential. The city wants us to forget our winter blahs and get out and do stuff--free stuff, tasty stuff, new stuff...the cold-weather version of the summer's Celebrate Toronto Streets Festival. The Winterlicious lineup proves Summerlicious can be equalled in quality, and free entertainment is always a draw. But Toronontist regrets to report, in terms of showcasing our city's "vibrant arts scene" as promised...WinterCity has yet to deliver. My Life,......

For the next few weeks a handful of local personalities will be photographing the city as they know and love it for a project organized by Mayor Miller and his minions. My Life, My City will see everyone from Nelly Furtado to Susur Lee to Ben Mulroney (ugh!) playing amateur photographer, and playing fast and loose with our urban affection. Sayeth the release, "This photography exhibit takes viewers behind the scenes to reveal a typical......