On the opening track of Pink Martini's latest album, lead singer China Forbes croons, "Everywhere I go, I see a world designed for you and me"—and every time you spin the record, you hear songs from all over the world. This Saturday, one lone performance at Massey Hall will echo in a mass of different languages, sung in a million more exquisite styles. Says founder and artistic director Thomas M. Lauderdale of the unique......

Photo of Julie Wilson, courtesy of Julie Wilson. Julie Wilson has become a favourite in literary entertainment over the past few years. Since 2006, her popular blog Seen Reading has been keeping Toronto book geeks amused by tracking the city's public reading habits. The concept is both simple and ingenious—Wilson spots a stranger reading, guesses where they are in the book, transcribes the passage onto her blog, and then lets her imagination run wild.......

If you're looking for some place to take your special someone dancing, nothing screams Valentine's Day like Andrew W.K. The man who is dedicated to partying hard will be performing his live show and a DJ set at the Sound Academy this Thursday. His set kicks off a weekend that is busier than usual due to the new Family Day long weekend. Every holiday has their own set of unique traditions and clubs are working......

Calling all local dance floor heroes and heroines! Hearts are ga-gunking to the clocks, which countdown to a night of pure electro-bliss. This Saturday night, Kensington Market’s Teranga (159 Augusta Avenue) will play host to Woodhands, Bocce, Opopo, and Green Go for what will undoubtedly be the sweatiest night of your lives. Too generous? No! With a lineup like Saturday’s, you'll definitely need to bring a second set of clothes. Woodhands is fronted by keytar......

Photo from Monolith Festival. One of Chicago's finest, Kid Sister makes her return to Toronto at Wrongbar this Friday. Ever since landing the cover of Urb's Next 1000 issue, Kid Sister's career has been moving firmly in the fast lane. She landed a Kanye cameo for her debut video Pro Nails and she's already proven that she can rock a Toronto crowd. Kid Sister will be joined by Ottawa's Jokers of the Scene and......

Photo from Plexifilm. For lovers of Detroit techno, the new year keeps on giving. This Saturday, legendary DJ Derrick May hits up Footwork. He will be joined by local favourites Greg Gow, Derrick Ramirez and Gerald Matrix. With his high school friends, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, May became known as one of the Belleville Three. The trio invigorated the 1980s Detroit house music scene and are credited with pioneering techno. May continues to......

The Toronto Star is known for a lot of things, but editorial consistency isn't one of them. This Saturday's paper contained a particularly flagrant example of the ongoing conflict between Star's left and right brains. A six-page section called "Counterfeiting" was dedicated to exposing the evils, perils, and all-around immorality of making, buying, or using any kind of knockoff goods ranging from electronics to clothes. One article warns us sternly that trafficking in counterfeit......

If you can imagine, for a moment, that Queen West has been designated a streetcars-and-pedestrians-only zone, it would not be that much different from the traffic flow in 1907, or this weekend. Join Streets Are For People this Saturday for World Carfree Day. Celebrated in over 1,500 cities around the globe, Toronto's version is custom-tailored to our homegrown oil addiction. This Saturday, there are two related happenings to be aware of. The first is......

Because there really isn’t any way to say no to a group of people dedicated to saving stray kittens and cats, Torontoist would like to encourage everyone to check out the Annex Cat Rescue’s yard sale this Saturday. Founded in 1997, the Annex Cat Rescue began as a small group of volunteers and has developed into a large network of foster homes for kittens and tame strays. This group of dedicated volunteers also coordinates an......

This Saturday and Sunday is the third Toronto Comic Arts Festival, the city's only comics convention where you're unlikely to find cosplayers. Instead, fans call comic books "graphic novels" and story protagonists are often neurotic everymen rather than superheroes. This free event is organized to showcase the talent of Canada's cartoonists, both up-and-coming and well-established, while also welcoming international comics creators to the Great White North. The festival, called "TCAF" to be concise, will......

Torontoist has always had a soft spot for felines, which is why we think you should know about an excellent kitty-benefiting event taking place this weekend. For ten years, the Annex Cat Rescue has been taking good care of stray and feral cats in and around the Annex. Their good work includes finding good homes for stray and injured cats, helping to humanely control the cat population, and monitoring feral cats for illness. The......

This Saturday, July 28, the Toronto Roller Derby League, the largest flat-track derby league in North America, presents "Derby: Dead or Alive" at the George Bell Arena. For a measly $10 bucks advance ($15 at the door) you can bring the whole damn family to watch Smoke City Betties versus Death Track Dolls. See short skirted chickas smash the hell out of each other while shredding the arena on their quad wheeled roller skates.......

This summer, Toronto has offered up a multitude of ways to eat healthy. Between the new farmer’s markets and events such as Tasty Thursdays and today’s Street Treats Fair at Nathan Philips Square, fresh, local, healthy food is available all over the city. But eating healthy is only part of the equation when it comes to your total wellbeing. True, the summer months are usually a lower stress, more casual, care-free time for most people,......

This Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., you can enjoy the inaugural weekend of the Don Valley Brick Works Farmers Market. Many of your favorite vendors from Toronto's other organic farmers markets will be there, including Chocosol, who might just let you ride their bicycle powered chocolate blender. You can also buy your weekly loaf from St. John's Bakery or Alli's bread, and pick up your spring veggies from several local organic......

Shameless, the Toronto-based publication "for girls who get it," has made a name for itself as an inclusive, progressive alternative to mainstream girls’ publications, where the dominant message is one of surface over depth. Staffed by volunteers, Shameless’ mandate is to give voice to a diverse group otherwise characterized as singularly boy and diet-crazy. This Saturday, Shameless will be launching its latest issue and welcoming a new editorial team with a party friendly to all......

Tonight, Puerto Rico-born Robbie Rivera (aka the "Juicy Man") comes to This is London to spin his juicy beats with Manzone & Strong. Otherwise we think Toronto will probably be resting up for the next evening. This Saturday is filled with genuinely difficult choices for the breakbeat-inclined weekend warrior. One on hand, Burning Man favourite FreQ Nasty's Toronto stop at Footwork for Activate Promotions' Think:IN:Breakbeat is going to be the dirtiest, nastiest breakbeats this......

For the last two years, Newmindspace have been planning their first massive park event. For those two years, they have resisted the call of grass, believing that parks are prisons for fun: designated "fun zones", the only public places where people are really allowed to play. For those two years, Newmindspace have waited patiently for the snow to have a massive snowball fight. Any backyard activity multiplied by one hundred can be deliriously fun......

As everyone’s favourite girl-about-town Tyler Clark Burke says, “This is really complicated.” Here goes. That sensation we all know and love as Santa Cruz returns this weekend, with not one, but two (count ‘em two) days of fun and adventure. This Saturday at 10pm at the Gladstone Hotel, TCB will host Eagle Eyes: The Party. There will be DJs, games, and “music to make you dance your head off.” Here’s where things get interesting. Those......

As mentioned previously, this Torontoist knows nothing of sports. Despite this setback, the willingness to learn (and report on) a thing or two is there. This Saturday, The Argos are battling the Tiger-Cats in the 2006 season home opener. This marks the beginning of their journey... no, not to the Golden Fleece, but to the Grey Cup. This is, of course, what The Oracle has told Torontoist. While the kickoff is at 3pm, the......

Come next Tuesday, Toronto will have its first four City Idol winners. Last weekend part-time Grad student and Ministry of the Environment employee Bahar Aminvaziri won the title of City Idol for North York. She's declared that she's running in crowded Ward 26, vacated by Mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield. This Saturday, Scarberians will be picking their own City Idol. The event starts at 6:30pm at the Scarborough Civic Centre. Monday sees the final for......

This Saturday marks the third anniversary of the historic Ontario Court of Appeal verdict on same-sex/equal marriage. The ruling ordered the province to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples in Ontario immediately, as well as paved the way for equal marriage from coast to coast to coast to the American Border. To celebrate, Canadians For Equal Marriage is hosting an anniversary reception with some delicious wedding cake. This is taking place at the Toronto......

Sometimes, on Torontoist’s laziest days, it will drag itself out of bed just long enough to flick on the BBC’s 6 music internet radio service, the BBC’s gift to the world’s fans of British indie music, to listen to the 6 music breakfast show, which for ages was almost always preceded by a Don Letts introduction, (if it wasn’t someone doing a bad impression of David Bowie doing the intro.) Which, to be honest, is......

Restaurants: Coffee Mill TIFF...

This Saturday marks the fifth and final annual Three Gut Records anniversary party. The Guelph-spawned label will cease putting out new records after the release of the new Constantines album Tournament Of Hearts on September 27. To call Three Gut important in the creation of Toronto's vibrant independent music scene as it stands today is a gross understatement. This Exclaim retrospective offers some insight into how a small group of friends, musicians and artists opened......

In some respects, British music has the same pitfalls as the Christian genre; both take from the American charts while adding their own thematic elements. There's a history of U.K. musicians who wish they were American, and similarily there's a glut of Christian musicians who wish they were popular. The most original music coming from Britain today is grime, a mix of American rap and U.K. electronica. And this weekend, grime comes to Toronto with......

It's a certifiable truth that the West has far greater wealth and resources than we can ever hope to, but the realization hit home when we saw that the Gladstone Hotel was hosting a $500 per head event this weekend. The West truly has gone discreetly, charmingly, bourgeoisie on us. Well, perhaps not charmingly. But the Gladstone has slipped itself out of awkward dilapitude and fairly priced housing, and into boho grandeur, and fairly priced......