Results tagged “valentinesday”

Urban Planner: February 14, 2009

CRAFTS: As we mentioned in our Valentine's Day preview post last week, there is lots to see and do today. For a relatively inexpensive but unique shopping experience, there’s the Gladstone’s annual Erotic Arts & Crafts Fair. The event showcases romantic and erotic art in the form of handmade lingerie, jewelry, cards, silk-screened prints, posters, and other memorabilia. Check out their website for a sampling of sale items from last year. Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West), 12–8 p.m., FREE.

Vintage Toronto Ads: Valentine's Day '54

Valentine's Day is nearly upon us, a day of happy lovers and happier chocolate purveyors. Back in 1954, two of the city's larger candy chains filled the newspapers with ads showing off their sweet suggestions. Beyond wolfing down bonbons, what else could sweethearts do that year?

Most holidays are commercial, but Valentine's Day, shamelessly so. It's not statutory. It's not political. It's not religious, unless love is your religion, in which case you probably live in a commune in middle Saskatchewan, and you refuse to go on the internet because it makes you nervous, and oh, my god, how are you reading this? Ahem. Where were we? Right. Valentine's. It's not even really a holiday. All the more reason to celebrate, we say: if ever the economic clime called for a Buy Sweet Nothings Day, it's now. ("Stimulus package" has an erotic frisson to it, no?)

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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.

While some may scoff at modern rituals surrounding Valentine's Day, simple expressions of love and sentimentality held a deeper meaning in Toronto towards the end of World War II. Tucked amidst the newspaper coverage of the Yalta Conference this week in 1945 were stories on how Torontonians expressed their admiration towards each other and loved ones fighting overseas.

Today is a Valentine's Day that Kathleen Wynne will never forget. The Miss G___ Project is encouraging Ontario residents to contact the current Minister of Education today and politely demand that a Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) program be added to the Ontario Secondary School curriculum.

Forget Harlequin––the results from NOW's massive love and sex survey are now out.

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve.

In time for Valentine’s Day, Toronto-based Harlequin has released the results of a national online survey on romance and love. Did you know that most men tell white lies to women to keep them happy? According to the survey:

An ornately set table. A fine bottle of pink sparkling wine. A bouquet of flowers purchased in a hurry on the way home from the office. A filter on the window to simulate a blue moon. Andy Williams crooning "Moon River" or the 101 Strings playing "Light My Fire" in the background. All of the necessary mood-enhancing ingredients for a cozy tête-à-tête on Valentine's Day.

Photo by Arieh Singer from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Any sweetheart worth his or her weight in Godiva's will tell you that all they really want for Valentine's Day is something from the heart, made by hand. Lovely and true. But did said sweetie specify whose heart? Whose hands?

Have you been looking around for the perfect Valentine's Day gift for that special someone? Nothing says "I love you" like tickets to Star Trek: The Music.

To borrow a line from an old Saturday Night Live parody of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne's fashion sense, you may ask yourself "why such a big suit?"

You may remember a recent Torontoist Valentine's Day contest, the prize for which was tickets for two to a Valentine's peformance of The Sheep and the Whale, currently playing at Passe Muraille. So, we'd be rather remiss not to provide any sort of review of the show after the fact. It is perhaps worth pointing out, though, that Torontoist had not seen the play at the time of the contest and had little notion as to its V-Day appropriateness. We certainly hope the winning couples had a great night, but unless you're the kind of person who makes out at Schindler's List, it's understandable if you weren't particularly put in "the mood" by the performance.

rsz_breakup2.jpgWe'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur, the new graffiti king in town, Bill Cosby's adorable dog, and the disturbing tale of a yoga instructor who was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, a dancer from Ohio who stripped to make ends meet.

David Suzuki, Green Avenger and Captain of Awesome, says that Torontonians have the right to know what pollutants are in the air we're breathing. 75% of the industrial pollution in our urban air is not being disclosed to the public! Save us, Suzuki!

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!

All right, time to face reality: Valentine's Day is 2 days away, and you're still single. Dateless. Planless. You got nothin'.

They call them "Hallmark Holidays", manufactured, annual events created largely by companies who stand to profit from the sentimental consumer glut behind spikes in candy sales. Valentine's Day, named after a massacre, is surely one of these days.

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the Gothamist network would like to tell you, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate.

Valentine's Day is less than a week away - are you still stuck for date ideas? Well, Torontoist, along with Theatre Passe Muraille and Random House, are here to help you out. We have five pairs of tickets to give away for the The Sheep and the Whale, the new play at Passe Muraille, for the night of February 14th at 8:00pm.

Often considered one of Toronto's best sex stores, Come As You Are (701 Queen St. W) is throwing a 10th Anniversary Party on Thursday night. The worker owned and operated store will celebrate ten glorious years with prizes, "thank you gifts," a toonie bin, prizes and erotic pastries (we're hoping for breast cookies and penis eclairs).

Newmindspace would like to wish you a very fun 2007 by offering their documentary, "Into a Newmindspace," for free online. The 15-minute film chronicles Queen of Hearts, which saw Queen West covered in thousands of chalk hearts last Valentine's Day, a massive pillow fight in New York City, and a smashing underground party to celebrate the subway's birthday in March.

Torontoist was looking at YouTube last night and found images of a pillow fight in San Francisco. A light bulb went off, Torontoist would like to be the first to propose an inter-city pillow fight challenge. We challenge cities around North America and the world to organize pillow fights on a certain day (SF picked Valentine's Day, Newmindspace did a Toronto pillow fight in November). Winner is the city with the most pillowfighters. If that's the case Toronto better step up, SF had around a 1000 people. Better yet, why not turn it into a monthly thing a la critical mass!

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