Results tagged “parties”

The usual way for a driver to avoid eggnog-fuelled destruction during the holidays is for them to travel with a designated driver. This is a tried-and-true method of avoiding being the only perp at the station who smells alluringly of nutmeg. If, for whatever reason, it's not a viable option for you (maybe all your friends like the 'nog as much as you do?) Toronto-area entrepreneur John Long has a solution. It involves tow trucks.

The "Night In The Big House @ THE DON JAIL," scheduled for tonight, was to be the rave of the season. But a note posted to the Facebook event page on Thursday morning called it off: "As of 10am on Thursday, June 04, 2009 the Ontario Realty Corporation, an arm of the provincial government and the agency that controls the Old Don Jail has cancelled our event on Friday, June 5, 2009 and ALL other events for the Old Don Jail in the near future."

You say you want a revolution?

On Saturday, the Royal Ontario Museum held PROM, an annual fundraiser thrown by the Young Patrons’ Circle program. In its fourth year, PROM drew eight hundred attendees, including National Post columnist Shinan Govani and the hosts of the After Show on MTV Canada. In total, the event raised over fifty thousand dollars for the museum.

A whole weekend has passed, and the town's still talking about Thursday night. It was a good party. The Governor Gwas there and probably the entire Globe & Mail Style section and a girl dressed up as Pocahontas or something. Hipster cultists huddled around American cigarettes near a window; through it, you could see Quebecois art collective BGL doing their interactive thing. Kiki, who's worked there so long she doesn't need a last name, looked killer in new glasses, almost too big. Kevin Drew looked a little unsteady on the stairs.

Photo of Mayor David Miller by Sarah Marantz/Daily Dose.

Photo by Bytepusher from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

MUSIC: Toronto electro-punk-nintendo-beep-and-bloop duo Crystal Castles are sure to kick ass tonight at CiRCA (copyright infringement issues aside). These guys put on one hell of a show, and their hipness peak is probably approaching fast given that they've gone from performing in Parkdale to rocking the Harbourfront Centre and CiRCA in just eight months. So if you don't want to wait until next year to catch them opening for Kenny Rogers at Casino Niagara, you'd better head downtown this evening. CiRCA Nightclub (126 John Street), 10 p.m., $15.

If the business of getting hitched is less than brisk this spring, wedding planners can blame Alfred Sung. The resounding sentiment among exiting attendees was that L’Oreal Fashion Week’s opening show made them never, ever want to walk down that aisle. Ouch. Must have been all the diamante. (Pretty bouquets tossed by models in the finale were a saving grace, but barely.)

FILM: For the ninth year in a row, the imagineNATIVE film festival will feature videos and films by indigenous artists, alongside exhibitions and workshops voicing stories of survival and identity. You may have noticed their Indian Jane posters around—the festival's annual marketing campaigns cleverly deconstruct Hollywood stereotypes of natives (we've been informed that the awesome scene in Temple of Doom where the guy gets his heart ripped out didn't actually happen...sigh). Various locations, runs October 15–19. Tickets start at $7.

POLITICS: It's Federal Election time! Torontoist will be liveblogging the results this evening, so make sure you've read up on all of our election coverage in advance. Go vote! Seriously! Various locations (find yours here), 9:30 a.m.–9:30 p.m., FREE.

ART: In case you didn't know (but how could you not?), Nuit Blanche returns tonight! Torontoist's guide is here. Various locations, 6:52 p.m.–7 a.m., FREE.

Photos by Hannah Sider.

Overcast skies and underwhelming temperatures have us mourning a premature end to a summer that barely got started. Where are the dog days of August? The humid patio evenings? Like, why are we wearing sweaters to Sweaty's?

They're casual fans, but only because they do everything casually: sip, exhale, shake hips, make unprintable kinds of eye contact. You can tell these girls learned about Sebastien Tellier by falling in love with the Lost in Translation soundtrack, and then remembered the French multi-instrumentalist when Daft Punk (or at least, half of Daft Punk: the one with the overly hyphenated name) got involved, producing the remarkable new full-length, Sexuality.

We don't like to talk negatively here at Torontoist—just not our style, you see—so we'll just mention that Perez Hilton will be in town for the MuchMusic Video Awards and that he'll host a party afterwards called One Night in Toronto, sponsored by CK One. CK One! We were so thrilled that we immediately dusted off the half-used bottle we got in 1996 and misted, darling, misted! After, we totally crossed the border to shop in Buffalo and picked up some items from Perez's clothing line at Hot Topic. Shutter shades and knee-high socks? Super fierce! Finally, Perez has, like, the best taste in music, so we went to check out... what? Simple Plan is playing his party? Screw that. We're gonna sit at home and play with MS Paint all night!

This Saturday, June 14th, as part of Luminat'eau, join those crazy kids and Newmindspace for their annual bubble battle. The event is loosely based on the Dr. Seuss classic The Butter Battle Book, where each warring faction (butter side up and butter side down) brings larger and crazier contraptions to the wall that divides their nations until their mutual destruction is assured.

Luminato is upon us, fair citizens. If you're wondering what to do, what to see, or what's Luminato?, Torontoist is here to play festival guide. We've randomly drawn carefully chosen ten must-not-miss events: one for each day of the city's massive annual "arts and creativity" smorgasbord, which runs from June 6–15. Our staff's picks are after the jump.

The best things in life, everyone knows, aren't free. The best things in life are things other people have to pay for, and you get for free. Like the 1,000 bottles of beer at the latest of Toronto's legendary Vice parties, if you were early or lucky or special enough to get into the Deleon White Gallery on Friday night.

A few months ago, over thirty cities participated in the inaugural International Pillow Fight Day, the first coordinated event by the decentralized network known as "the urban playground movement." The March 22 date, however, left out some of the world's colder cities.

Photo by Stephanie Fysh from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

William Morassutti and the TORO girls at his Brant House (yes, Brant House) launch party. A picture is worth 1000 words, or roughly twice as long as the average article in the new TORO "Magazine."

TYPE's new home on the Danforth. Photo by Val Dodge.

Torontoist had a major hard-on for Toro Magazine during its four-year run as Canada's handsomest glossy. So when the thinking lad's mag shrivelled up back in spring 2007 (proving, sadly, that subscribers and awards mean little without advertisers and government funding), its sudden absence from newsstands left us frustrated and unfulfilled. Investigative reporting, social commentary, witty essays, and tits? We couldn't find all this between the sheets of any other rag in the country.

To those uninitiated to the ways of Next-Gen gaming, the huge lineups outside of the Yonge-Dundas square Future Shop and the Eaton Centre Best Buy could have seemed quite frightening. Are all these young, would-be hooligans planning a gigantic car heist of Gone in 60 Seconds proportions? Why are they eagerly talking about running people over, the Russian mafia, and a new targeting system that they simply can't wait to try out?

Attention, stalkers of local multihyphenate Tyler Clark Burke: either you'll have to figure out how to be in two places at once this weekend, or you'll be flipping a coin.

In 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to visit space in his ship Vostok 1. Flying high above our blue planet, he remarked, "Circling the earth in my orbital spaceship I marvelled at its beauty. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty, not destroy it!"

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com.

With temperatures finally floating above zero, tonight's the tonight to dance and drink away the dregs of winter. And tomorrow morning? Head to the Gladstone Hotel for hangover brunch at noon... then start the party all over again with Shameless Magazine. The glossy for "girls who get it" is fêting the launch of the latest issue at the Gladstone Ballroom from 1—4 p.m. Saturday, March 15, with a something-for-everyone celebration.