Results tagged “theprogram”

The last time we looked at accessible pedestrian signals (APS), those chirping and cuckooing crossing indicators for the visually-impaired, it was with some surprise at the city's claim that it simply couldn't afford to install APS at more than a handful of intersections each year. Instead of allocating enough money to improve availability of a fairly basic service to visually-impaired residents, the city instead looked for corporate sponsors to pick up some of the considerable slack, resulting in pedestrian signals "funded by IBM" and other organizations dotting the city, a virtual declaration that the city was abdicating its responsibilities.

Palace of the End, Judith Thompson's most recent play, is not only her most political work, it is also her best. As most auditioning actors in this country have discovered, Thompson's greatest strength has always been her monologues, and in this piece, she uses that strength to its full advantage. In fact, she dispenses with character interaction altogether and breaks her show into three long monologues, each spoken by someone who has been greatly affected by the political situation in Iraq from Saddam's rise to power to the present. Interestingly, while Thompson has created the text for the show, she has not created fictional characters. Though they are not credited as such in the program, the following becomes clear: Maev Beaty's "American Soldier" is none other than Abu Ghraib's favourite dishonourable dischargee, Private Lynndie England; Julian Richings' "British Microbiologist and Weapons Inspector" is WMD whistle-blower and Thom Yorke muse David Kelly; Arsinée Khanjian's "Iraqi Mother" is the less notorious Nehrjas al-Saffarh, a woman who was tortured along with her children during Saddam's reign and died in the first Gulf War.

A new free service called Operation Red Nose launches tomorrow that provides volunteer designated drivers to get drunks and their cars home safely. The service already runs in places like Sudbury and Aurora, and now festive partygoers in the Distillery District can try it out this Wednesday, December 12 to Saturday, December 15. The program is fairly flexible since drivers can request service as often as necessary to get from one place to the...

If you're into the idea of kids with bigger, shinier brains and programs that facilitate such things, you might be familiar with Now Hear This!, Toronto's very own not-for-profit literary outreach organization. With a mandate of education through the arts, they do good things like hold Satire and Fake News Writing workshops for kids, complete with handouts from The Onion. Kind of idealistically akin to Dave Eggers' ass-kickingly progressive nonprofit, 826 National.

CityPulse. The New Music. Baby Blue Movies. City Lights. Fashion Television. Speaker's Corner. These programs are among the innovative shows that have aired on CityTV since it officially launched way up the dial 35 years ago this evening.

Poverty is an issue politicians like to debate, pundits cluck their tongues over, and that everyone agrees is kinda crummy, but pretty overwhelming. While debates, discussions and campaigns aren't bad things, they don't always result in a lot of concrete solutions. So what do we do about a complex issue like poverty?

The city of Paris has recently been courting tourists from London, England with a new series of ads that look like this:

The Toronto Public Library is the only good thing to have come from amalgamation. One of the worst things to have come from amalgamation, on the other hand, is City Council's insistence that everything that it doesn't do is a result of not being able to afford to do it, and that everything that it does do is a result of not being able to afford not to do it.

If last week’s key word on the literary scene was “big,” as in prizes, galas, festivals, sold-out readings, visiting writers, and BookExpo, we get back to normal-ish this week. In fact, we’ve not had such a low-key stretch since March.

The elite of the documentary film world gathered this morning at Revival for a press conference announcing the lineup of this year's Hot Docs festival. It's a powerhouse program, which TVO's Rudy Buttingnol attributes to the filmmakers and the growing importance of the medium. "Documentaries are helping change the way people think," says Buttingnol, who will also receive the inaugural Outstanding Industry Achievement Award. "Just look at how governments around the world are now trying to address the problem of the environment...I can't help but think documentaries had something to do with it."

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Canada Council for the Arts, the organization wants us to get involved in their "50 for 50" Arts Challenge. Canadians are invited to meet the challenge by engaging in 50 arts-related activities over the course of the year.

Hey, have you been outside? It's hella cold.

If you’re turned off at the idea of classical music concerts because they seem like an activity for the high society rich, think again. There are plenty of ways to enjoy Toronto’s healthy classical music scene on the cheap or for free.

BikeShare is no more. After six years of award-winning programming and service, the Community Bicycle Network's BikeShare program announced this morning that they will not be reopening next season. Turns out they were unable to secure the funding they needed.

MIT's Media Laboratory is getting a lot of press these days with their One Laptop Per Child research program that hopes to revolutionize the Third World with $100 laptops in schools. While Canada boasts being one of the world's leading wired nations, there are still many underprivileged kids in Toronto who don't have easy access to a computer of their own, further widening the gap of opportunity.

Probably the best thing you can say to any artist is that their work remains relevant and surprising regardless of age. For the most part this is the case with the work of Canadian animator Norman McLaren. Born in Scotland but working for most of his life with the NFB, McLaren was arguably the greatest Canadian animator ever and a natural choice for an NFB retrospective celebrating not only his work but the 65th anniversary of the film board's animation unit.

...and save.

Torontoist should have been tipped off by the glowing reviews from "Larri King," "Dr. Pheel," and "Star Joynes" printed on the inside of the program... But regardless, with an hour to kill, was on the agenda.

First off, two thoughts.

Maogosha Pyjor, coordinator of the CBN's BikeShare program just told Torontoist that their fleet of yellow bikes are being targeted by vandals! "Someone has been going around and puncturing the tires on yellow bikes," she just told us over the phone. At first, east side bike hubs were being targeted but now it seems even isolated yellow bikes are not safe. Around 25 bikes have been taken off the road with damage.

In honour of Jane Jacobs CBC Radio One's Ideas will be re-airing their programs on Dark Age Ahead, her last work.

It’s an interesting and potentially important time for English language Canadian filmmakers, with several Canadian films managing to reach cult hit status, such as It’s All Gone Pete Tong and The Life And Hard Time of Guy Terrifico. With only five percent of movies seen by Canadians made by Canadians (according to the program guide) and the writer of It’s All Gone Pete Tong Michael Dowse expressing a wish for Canadian content quotas for cinemas as well as TV and radio, the 3rd annual Canadian Filmmaker’s Fest, held with the support of he Toronto Film Festival Group's Film Circuit, is timely.

This month's installment of the WSFF's world of shorts program is 'Full Time Job,' a series of films about working to live, living to work, or just going along for the ride. Films include TEMPO, JOB STREET, RIDING SHOTGUN WITH JACK MCCONAHA, TOKYO EXPRESS, HONEY, IRIS, AWAKEN, GLENDA MARY’S GLENDA GLOSS and THE CARPENTER AND HIS CLUMSY WIFE. And the program screens twice, at 6:30pm and 8:30pm, at the NFB.

The above words are those of a friend of a Toronto graffiti artist who was killed on Tuesday, while tagging a train car near Dupont and Christie. Anthony Reinhart writing of the tragedy in the Globe, says Bardia Bryan Zargham, or Alpha, was one of the city's most prolific graffiti artists, one whose tags covered the city and was well known for his ubiquity. The Star quotes a graffiti eradication program officer as saying this is the first time there has been a graffiti-related death in the city since he took over the program in 2000. Perhaps that's why this death is so shocking. Graffiti covers TO in all sorts of hard to reach places, but one rarely thinks about the danger accrued the artist in spending an hour to put the mural there. TOist is saddened by the loss of Alpha and hopes for increased safety amongst our city's urban artists.

An American network television show paid lip service to Canada again yesterday, and this country's media were shouting the news from every rooftop.