It's been a strange week for Leaf Nation. On Tuesday, Toronto was embarrassed 7-1 (on home ice, no less) by the Carolina Hurricanes—and by Wednesday, the media was gleefully sounding the death knell for this year's edition of the Maple Leafs. On Wednesday night's edition of Off the Record, the panel spent ten minutes analyzing what was going wrong with the Leafs' year, which by then was exactly four games old. The team had......

"March of the Penguins" by BrynJ. This week's LitTO is chock full of reading events, mainly from the Factory Theatre's national-made-local reading series. In collaboration with several play development centres situated throughout the country, the Factory Theatre's Trans-Canada Edition presents new playwrights and their plays from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, and the Maritimes. All reading events are free and will take place from October 3–6, with varying times. On Wednesday, Penguin Group......

A note to Torontoist readers from an artists' group with some impressive collective activist-power: NO CUTS TO OUR ESSENTIAL SERVICES because it's tough as hell to swim in empty pools On WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 4-6 p.m. we are calling on ALL MEMBERS OF THE ARTS COMMUNITY AND ANYBODY ELSE to convene at NATHAN PHILLIPS SQUARE to make it clear that we will not tolerate cuts to our essential services and that we support the......

So much for preserving Toronto's cultural heritage—it looks like pretty much the entire stock of Sam The Record Man's flagship store is going up for auction. On Wednesday, June 27th at 10:30 a.m., Benaco Sales Ltd. will hold an auction on location inside the flagship, at 347 Yonge Street. Contents include "Outdoor neon records, unique neon signage, Olde English Shoe shine stations, Antique English Pub Bars, Store Fixtures, Marquee Signs, Pos and Security systems,......

On Wednesday night, One Reed Theatre remounted last year's SummerWorks hit Nor the Cavaliers Who Come With Us. (Side salad: this year's SummerWorks line-up gets posted on their website this Sunday - who's excited?) Their run last summer was sold-out, and if opening night's full house was an indication, this looks to be another well-attended run. And with good reason. Nor the Cavaliers Who Come With Us is a collective piece created by the......

Toronto is a convention city. Usually we are unaware of the presence of conventioneers unless one happens to be run down by a swarm of out-of-towners carrying identical bags and wearing freebie t-shirts. But this this week brings hoards of delegates to town for Canada Blooms, Canadian Music Week, and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention. Canada Blooms and CMW are pretty much what you would imagine: A bunch of florists and record......

Let's just get this over with right off the bat -- Arcade Fire have announced their Toronto show dates. Hurrah! They'll be at Massey Hall on May 15 & 16, and tickets go on sale on Feb. 23rd. Predicted time to sell out? 1 minute 49 seconds. If you have no luck with those, the next closest location is Montreal on May 12 & 13. In other big concert news, unless you've been living......

It was the audition tape that has every struggling actor quaking with jealousy. As we revealed on Wednesday, the YouTube bride-from-hell was actually local actress Jodi Behan, who participated in what was later found to be a brilliant viral marketing campaign for Sunsilk hair products orchestrated by Toronto marketing agency Capital C. Our contacts were suspiciously cagey once the cover was blown while the fake wedding party continued to play their parts. We now......

On Wednesday and Thursday nights at 9:00, Toronto media superstar Sook-Yin Lee will be in attendance at the Royal's screenings of John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, the Cannes and TIFF hit (applauded by Eye Weekly's Jason Anderson as "Manhattan with money shots") in which she stars as a New York couples counselor on a quest for her first orgasm. Lee will be participating in a Q&A each night, the questions of which will undoubtedly turn to......

The year is winding down and so is the music, which is kind of nice, actually, because there seem to be a lot of tours already gearing up for 2007. Hopefully Alexisonfire isn't one of them...we have no idea how they can manage to go onstage and scream for 7 solid days (they have a few more shows this week). Insanity. Best bets for this week include Royal Wood tonight at the Cameron House......

The word on the street is that the hottest ticket in town is The American Astronaut, screening tonight at Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex) as part of U of T Cinema Studies Student Union’s Free Friday Film. Screening in 35mm, this black and white sci-fi western rock opera is “the best thing ever” according to Todd Brown from Twitch Film. If you don’t think your hands are suitably insulated to hold the hottest ticket in......

The week starts off with another instalment of Pussy Pen, an evening of readings and performance focusing on women, trans, and queer perspectives. It takes place at Tango and Crews, 508 Church St, beginning at 8pm. Free. Tuesday’s Wildsound script reading series features Face to Face, a TV pilot script written by Christina Ray and Mark De Angelis. The event is moderated by Pamela Sinha. It starts at 7pm at the Stealth Lounge, 22......

Excuse me for the lateness of this week’s listing. I’m still on Nuit Blanche time. And yes, I made it until 7am. This is an absolutely fantastic week for word nerds. And check this – if one of your friends is more into sports, you can bring them to a literary event disguised as a boxing match. For a boxing fan like me, it doesn't get any better. Tomorrow at noon, there’s a special launch......

Our boy reporter called him "arguably the greatest Canadian animator ever" after viewing the Best of Norman McLaren during the Toronto International Film Festival, so you might be interested to see that starting tonight the NFB are celebrating 65 years of animation production with nightly, free of charge events. Tonight at 7pm, a Masterclass with BAFTA-award-winning filmmaker Jonathan Hodgson. On Wednesday at 7pm, "24 Frames Per Second", the Mediatheque’s 2D Animation workshop for adults, using......

Everyone sufficiently recovered from Word on the Street? Over 200,000 people braved the wind and rain and descended upon Queen’s Park for a celebration of books. I have a book hangover, thus the lateness of this week’s listings. Tomorrow night, This Is Not A Reading Series goes Hollywood! Journalist and filmmaker Bruce Yaccato launches Screen Legends, a chronicle of the “Canadian film pioneers who helped build the Hollywood we know today.” Joining Bruce will be......

M. Night Shyamalan sure has painted himself into a corner, when you think about it. When we first heard about Lady in the Water we imagine we reacted the same way everyone else did, buy sighing “I wonder what the twist is.” Eye Weekly’s Adam Nayman has actually given the film some hefty (spoiler free) coverage, with a lovely little article about Shyamalan’s possible credibility implosion with the release of Sports Illustrated writer Michael......

On Wednesday through Sunday, it's time for the Spring One-Of-A-Kind Show and Sale--the gigantic high-calibre craft fair at the National Trade Centre. Though the spring show is not as huge and overwhelming as the pre-christmas winter version, it's guaranteed to be full of all sorts of awesome crafted stuff: pottery and jewlery and clothing and accessories and a myriad of other things you didn't even know you needed. Of course, it's also totally acceptable......

From the moment Fido came onto the market they were perceived as a threat to the large margin, big profit cell phone carriers like Rogers, Bell, and especially Telus. The competition cause by Fido’s entrance into the market drove prices down and service quality up. If you’ve ever dealt with Rogers or Bell before, you already know that’s not their business plan. So when the unlimited local calling City Fido plan was released in Vancouver......