Results tagged “people”

This is Jörg Cieslok. He runs Titan Outdoor Canada. He is six and a half feet tall and has a thick German accent. He has a low opinion of "grassroots groups" like residents associations. He regularly calls up Rami to yell at him. He is more responsible for illegal billboards in Toronto than almost any other individual. He claims, under oath, to have lost $1 million due to sign bylaw enforcement. He threatened to sue Rami and is currently suing the City. And last night I learned that he is also an amateur paparazzo.

When we first got a tip from Andrew Hunter that "someone has installed a new type of bike post along Yonge north of Lawrence," we were concerned that it might be the vanguard of the Coordinated Street Furniture onslaught of mass-produced uniformity. When we went down (yes, down) to visit the area, however, we were quite relieved to discover not Kramer-designed brontosaurus ribs but elegant, artfully crafted flourishes of metallic whimsy. Inspired by a similar project in which psychiatric survivors designed bike stands for the curb in front of the Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre (PARC), the Yonge Lawrence Village BIA commissioned two of the artists behind that project, Phil Sarazen and Jack Gibney, to fashion sixteen pieces, each featuring "a different aspect of community living." Studded into each block on both sides of Yonge Street north from Lawrence to Yonge Boulevard, they succeed in being everything that Astral's street furniture is not, and should serve as an inspiration to all neighbourhoods and BIAs as to what is possible when you're willing to invest in your community rather than sell it out.

On April 3rd, Trevor Norris successfully defended his dissertation "Consuming, Schooling and the End of Politics" and was awarded a PhD in Philosophy of Education by the Ontatio Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT).

Is anyone else disappointed that the dystopian future promised in 1980s films isn’t here? If there’s one thing we’ve learned here at Torontoist, is that en masse, humans are terrible at predicting our future. It’s always so much more mundane than we expect it to be. The perfect example being The Running Man.

It's Canadian Music Week and that means there's an unusually large number of hip hop shows going on. KRS-One will be teachin' at The Opera House on Saturday as he continues his Stop the Violence movement. RZA dons his Bobby Digital mask on Sunday at the Phoenix. There's also grimy New York hip-hop (M.O.P. on Friday), French rap (DJ Orgasmic and Cuizinier on Thursday), and a strong showcase of local talent (Friday's Exclaim! event).

A demonstration at City Hall yesterday by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty forced the Speaker to halt proceedings after the protest spilled onto the chamber floor.

Photo by sevennine from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

The coolest movie opening this week is Be Kind Rewind, which is a treasure trove of Things White People Like, as it stars Jack Black and his black friend played by Mos Def, and is directed by Michel Gondry, and has lots of irony, seeing as how it is about a couple of people who erase all the videotapes in their video store and then make their own mocking versions of the movies they erased. In all seriousness, though, it looks pretty funny, so possibly people who are not white will like it as well!

Snow globes, ice sculptures, and an ice bar...sound like an arctic paradise? Even if you're sick of slipping on the white (and sometimes yellow) stuff, you're still invited to Bloor-Yorkville's IceFest Festival this weekend—and you don't even have to get your feet wet!

If only keeping thieves at bay could be that easy.

On Friday night at 10:30, the Toronto Public Space Committee's Art Attack will "descend on the streets to re-imagine bus shelters as sensational structures of snow," converting the two ad-adorned boxes at Queen and Jones into something a little more whimsical.

What kind of people don't like riding their bikes in a Toronto winter? People who have never tried it, that's who. Even as more and more people choose not to get off their bikes when November comes around, many non-cyclists still view winter cycling as unwise, dangerous, or impossible. So as part of its first Bike Winter campaign to raise awareness of cycling as year-round transportation, the City of Toronto is hosting the Coldest Day of the Year Ride on Wednesday January 30, which they say is statistically, uh, the coldest day of the year. Riders will meet at City Hall at noon and filter down University Avenue toward Metro Hall, where hot refreshments will be awaiting the cyclists, sure to be exhausted after their 10-minute ride.

Barack Obama lays down the smack in South Carolina's presidential primary. Obama won by an enormous 28-point margin, prompting Bill Clinton to afterwards comment that this was no big deal because Jesse Jackson, who is a black man, like Barack Obama, won South Carolina when he ran for President, and did he mention that Barack Obama is black just like Jesse Jackson? (Also black: Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and that R&B star that had sex with those underaged girls.)

Sarah Polley is having a kickass month as her debut directorial feature, Away From Her, racks up the accolades. On Sunday, the Los Angeles film critics gave Polley a New Generation Award for up-and-coming directors. Then, on Monday, the New York film critics felt Away From Her was 2007's Best First Film. In addition, earlier this month Polley was named one of the "50 Smartest People in Hollywood" by Entertainment Weekly. She's the youngest...

The Toronto International Film Festival Group announced their top ten Canadian features for 2007 last night, along with (for the first time) their top ten list of Canadian short films. The top ten Canadian features were: L’âge Des Ténèbres (Denys Arcand), Amal (Richie Mehta), Continental, Un Film Sans Fusil (Stéphane Lafleur), Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg), Fugitive Pieces (Jeremy Podeswa) , My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin), A Promise To The Dead: The Exile Journey Of Ariel...

The Hidden Cameras are back home, and we are all better off for it.

Google has always been known for its clean, lightweight, ad-free search page, but Canada's largest provider of broadband internet is under fire today for messing with it. Toronto-based Rogers has begun testing a controversial technique that allows the media empire to insert its own content into another entity's web page, angering net neutrality proponents. According to a tip passed to L.A.-based technology expert Lauren Weinstein, the system being employed is manufactured by the "in-browser...

This just in: Conrad Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for his role in "misappropriating" (which is Rich People for "stealing") millions of dollars from the Hollinger newspaper empire, and for obstructing justice by allowing certain documents, which would have determined whether or not he was guilty of the nine charges he managed to evade (including racketeering), to "disappear." Now, of course the National Post is all over this...

If you haven't been following the Raptors too closely this season, it's possible that you may have missed one of the greatest stories in professional sports at the moment. Jamario Moon is a 27-year-old rookie who had been kicking around just about every minor league on the continent until he finally got his shot with the Raptors this year. And he's tearing things up. Even though he's years older than a number of Raptor veterans,...

Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson has, as he put it to Torontoist in a phone interview earlier today, "seen better days." The Integrated Media OCAD student and his final project for his advanced video class are the direct cause––intended or not––for yesterday's bomb scare at the Royal Ontario Museum, and, a day later, Jonsson is now suspended from OCAD and is wanted for questioning by police. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades pieces (the most famous of...

As the 20th Century dawned, Danforth Avenue was a muddy road that served as the northern boundary for the eastern portions of the city of Toronto. Between 1909, when the city made its first major annexation on the north side of Danforth, and the appearance of today's ads in 1921, the area we now know as "The Danforth" rapidly changed from a semi-isolated mix of farmland, villages and church reserves to a series of...

Remember when you were like fifteen and it was a TOTAL BUMMER that you couldn't buy alcohol, because, you know, you weren't of age yet? And now that you've been legal for what seems like an eternity, and you're older and wiser, with many formative life experiences behind you, you realize that not being able to buy booze at the age of fifteen was probably a good thing, and likely prevented more than a few unsavory situations?

Following the release this year of Neil Young's 1971 Massey Hall concert and a third tribute album comes Chrome Dreams II. Featuring ten new songs and covering a range of musical styles, there is something for all of his fans on this recording. "Where Living With War and Everybody’s Rockin' were albums focused on one subject or style, Chrome Dreams II is more like After The Goldrush or Freedom, with different types of songs...

People queue up for a chance at a condo. The condos at One Bloor Street East range from $300K to $2 million, so remember, kids: lines aren't just for poor people and the Nintendo Wii any more!

During TIFF we said, "if you’re as big a fan of Joy Division as Torontoist is, you’ll quickly come to terms with the fact that Control is simply one man’s interpretation of Deborah Curtis’s book Touching from a Distance, and your overall feelings will (probably) lie on how you feel about that interpretation," and we stand by that even now—despite the gorgeous cinematography, which remains the film’s strongest point, we still like 24 Hour Party People better (even though that’s really about Tony Wilson).

To no one's surprise, yesterday's Ontario election (read our liveblog of the results here) was a big victory for the status quo, with voters giving the Liberals another majority and soundly rejecting Mixed Member Proportional voting. Dalton McGuinty was pleased, having given his acceptance speech the day before the election, while John Tory, having lost bids to become mayor of Toronto and Premier of Ontario, needs only an unsuccessful run at the PM-ship to complete the trifecta of Canadian political failure.

More than a week of protests in Toronto against the violence in Burma culminated last night with the Global March for the People of Burma. The demonstration began at 6:00 p.m. in front of the Chinese consulate on St. George Street before making its way to Queen's Park, where a vigil was led by monks from the city's Buddhist temples. According to the Toronto Star, hundreds heeded the call from Amnesty International and other human rights groups to rally in support of the monks in Burma, many of whom have been detained, murdered, or forced into hiding since the junta's crackdown began late last month.

It begins! Tonight the Toronto International Film Festival opens officially with Jeremy Podeswa’s Fugitive Pieces, so if you want to start soaking up the atmosphere of the festival head down to Roy Thompson Hall before 8 p.m.

If you missed it, yesterday our Toronto International Film Festival preview began with a look at the Gala and Contemporary World Cinema programmes, and if you didn’t know, tickets go on sale tomorrow morning online, at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM and at the TIFFG Box Office at the Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street—so after you’ve read this, you might want to start queuing.