Fresh from their holiday break, the fine folks at This Is Not A Reading Series kick off the Winter/Spring 2007 season with…a film? Well, partly. This evening, join TINARS at the Royal Cinema as they celebrate the launch of Annabelle Gurwitch’s new book, Fired! Tales of The Canned, Canceled, Downsized & Dismissed. As the title would suggest, the book is comprised of tales of getting the axe from a host of contributors, from Bill Maher......

If it weren't for our life as an -ist, we're not sure we'd ever leave our apartment. Fortunately, to fully -ist, one must seek out the new, the fresh, and the unknown. Brand new, or just new to us, that's what we're all about this week. Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. Torontoist does their first post in franglais, gets ready......

Yesterday, while listening to NPR for the obvious reasons, we heard a terrific interview with Ralph Fiennes. Terrific because at the very end of the interview, Leonard Lopate throws a curve at the pointy actor by asking him why he pronounces his name Rayfe. A short pause follows, and then Fiennes cobbles together an answer along the lines of 'that is actually how it was pronounced historically.' Now if we could only ask Chloë Sevigny......

Torontoist had the opportunity to attend an AGO lecture on the late artist Mark Lombardi a month ago that involved no artspeak, and lots of interesting ideas (usually accompanied by wildly gesticulating arms, and far too many bangled bracelets). The show, Mark Lombardi: Global Networks is at the AGO til December 5th, and TORONTOIST thinks its well worth the trek. Lombardi, who conspiracy theorists wil claim was murdered for what his careful drawings unearthed, was......