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Urban Planner: January 26, 2010
Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to [email protected].
Photo of The Abramson Singers courtesy of Heather Kitching.
MUSIC: Urban Planner has a bit of a soft spot for folk singers, particularly the ones with a knack for ethereal multi-part harmonies. Leah Abramson’s whimsical side project–turned-main-gig is The Abramson Singers, and she and bandmate David Sikula (of Inhabitants) are in town tonight for The Abramson Singers’ album launch. The album, a digital-only release, is full of small-town ballads about truckers, loves lost and won, and even a W. B. Yeats poem set to music. Tonight’s show will also see Antler, Empire Lights, and Lisa Bozikovic perform. Tranzac, Tiki Room (292 Brunswick Avenue), 8 p.m., $5.
WORDS: This afternoon, the Toronto Public Library is hosting the first of three writing workshops for teens (ages 12–19). This poetry writing workshop, “A Kick in the Head: Poems that Break the Rules,” is run by local poet Kevin Connolly, whose book, Revolver, was shortlisted for the 2009 Geffin Poetry Prize. He’ll be showing the class how to play with traditional poetry forms like “sonnets, pantoums, and villanelles,” and hopefully giving some direction to a few angst-addled future Rimbauds. Teens who dig the classes can use the work they’ve done to contribute to Young Voices, TPL’s magazine of teen writing and art. Toronto Public Library, Malvern Branch (30 Sewells Road), 4 p.m., FREE.
SPEAKER SERIES: Experimental art “place” 52 McCaul is putting on a brand-new speaker series called Talk It Out, where leaders from the art and culture community will talk on a topic in a relaxed atmosphere. Tonight’s topic is “What it means to be professional,” and the speakers are illustrator Ben Weeks and artists Patrick Thompson and Juan Carlos Noria (joining the discussion from Barcelona, Spain). Thompson and Noria have both created work in public spaces (some of it on request, some done while dodging the cops), so the issue of graffiti as a legitimate form of art is bound to come up. The series is sponsored by senseslost.com (a Canadian site chronicling graffiti art and artists) and Well and Good, and if you have any questions for the artists you can submit them here. 52 McCaul (52 McCaul Street), 8 p.m., $5 suggested donation.
WORDS: Tonight, the Toronto Reading Series gives you an evening of food for the mind (and the eyes) with their latest gathering of authors, this time to discuss books about food. There will be readings from three different foodie books: Healthy Sin Foods by Dr. Joey Shulman, The G.I. Diet, Revised by Rick Gallop, and Kathryn Borel Jr. and Erik Rutherford from their excerpts in The Edible City: Toronto’s Food from Farm to Fork. With Winterlicious kicking off at the end of this week, these readings (particularly The Edible City) are a perfect way to get into exploring the great tastes this city has to offer. Commensal Restaurant (655 Bay Street), 7 p.m., $5.