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Toronto Life - The Hype

A critical guide to Toronto’s cultural events, TIFF and high society. Plus, local celebrity news. Sign up for Preview newsletter for weekly updates

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The Toronto Kiss Map—funded by the awesome Awesome Foundation—shares stories of the city’s sweet embraces

A screen shot of the Kiss Map (Image: Firefly Creative Writing)

We enjoy a good interactive map, and we suspect you probably do too. So, just for fun, we think you should check out the brand-spanking-new, cheesy-but-still-cool Toronto Kiss Map. The brainchild of Firefly Creative Writing’s Chris Kay Fraser, the Kiss Map tells Toronto’s smooching stories by having users plot their most memorable make-outs on an interactive map, accompanied by a brief (and usually entertaining) summary. Again, just for fun, two of our favourites include: “At Pape and Withrow. Drunken. Sloppy. Delicious” and “At Avenue and St. Clair: I had the hiccups. You cured them.” While currently operating on a Google Maps interface, the Kiss Map will soon have a home of its own at torontokissmap.com, thanks to the appropriately titled Awesome Foundation, which awards monthly grants to people with great ideas—like this one. Finally, Torontonians can be more like Vancouverites (we kid!) and document their public displays of affection in a very public way.

Toronto Kiss Map [Firefly Creative Writing]

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The 10×10 portait exhibit brought 10 queer photographers into the spotlight on Thursday night at The White House

M’lady. (Image: Tara Sameshima)

10×10 is a photography exhibit that swept Toronto Pride on the eve of Canada Day, showcasing the talents of queer photographers David Pike, Joey Bruni, InkedKenny, Patrick Lightheart, Tania Anderson, Paul Buen, John Caffery, Rannie Turingan, G. Elliot Simpson and Tanja-Tiziana. In attendance at The White House (277.5 Augusta Avenue) on Thursday night—and modelling for the hot photographers—were actor and writer Paul Bellini, comedian Richard Ryder, interior designer Tommy Smythe and short fiction writer Shawn Syms, to name a few. Each photographer was given the task of shooting 10 portraits of queer up-and-comers and fixtures, including A.A. Bronson and Nina Arsenault by Pike and Bruce LaBruce by Elliot Simpson, all curated by artist James Fowler. Check out our launch party coverage, with a peek at some of the portraits on display after the jump.

10×10 will be on display at The White House until July 8.

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Two of the National Ballet’s étoiles brillantes to leave the company this spring

Bridgett Zehr and Zdenek Konvalina, a couple onstage and off, in The Nutcracker (Image: Bruce Zinger)

Toronto is set to lose one of its hottest dancer couples. National Ballet of Canada principal dancers Bridgett Zehr and Zdenek Konvalina will be leaving the company to join the English National Ballet in London, the National Post reports. The pair will pirouette off the Four Seasons Centre stage after closing the season next month in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where Zehr will play the Queen of Hearts and Konvalina her rascally Knave.

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Two Canadians still have a shot at #winning Charlie Sheen internship

Charlie Sheen poses with a fan (Image: justaufo)

Finding intern postings on-line is nothing new, but this particular opportunity certainly is: Charlie Sheen’s personal social media intern. Two Canadians are still in the running for the position, which Sheen initially announced on Twitter, stressing that the successful candidate would be #winning and have #tigerblood. Of the 82,000 applicants, apparently only 50 have these Sheen-friendly qualities, and among them are Sepy Bazzazi from Vancouver and Phil Pallen, formerly of Belleville.

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Awesome Foundation’s first grant winner, Stephanie Avery, to play connect the dots with Toronto

A gravy boat around City Hall

Who’s the awesomest of them all? According to the Toronto branch of the Awesome Foundation, it’s Stephanie Avery, who was named the recipient of its first grant last night. A self-described “totally rad” artist, Avery was awarded $1,000 for her Connect the T-Dots pitch, a project that aims to turn aerial satellite views of Toronto into a giant connect-the-dots number puzzle.

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Awesome Foundation Toronto releases its short list of Toronto awesomeness. We cut it from 16 to five

A bat light to call the mayor is just one of 16 ideas to make the final cut

The newly minted Awesome Foundation Toronto (AFT) released its short list of all things awesome, whittling down a list of 250 submissions to an exclusive club of 16 items that are just a little more awesome than the rest (not that the others weren’t awesome; they just weren’t quite awesome enough). It is from this list that the AFT will pick a project to receive $1,000 to be brought to fruition. The winner will be announced this Thursday, February 24, at 8 p.m. at the Drake Hotel.

Well, we think that’s just awesome—but this isn’t the Best Picture Oscar, where everybody and their mother receives a nod. We’ve made the list even a little shorter, selecting the top five projects on our own scale of awesomeness. Our picks, after the jump.

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Paul Haggis speaks out against Scientology in massive New Yorker profile

A protestor stands outside the Toronto location of the Church of Scientology (Image: Joe Howell)

Paul Haggis, the Ontarian writer-director of Million Dollar Baby and Crash (who we’ll always remember as the co-creator of Walker, Texas Ranger), has gone and made himself Scientology’s number one enemy following an article in this week’s New Yorker. Haggis quit the church in 2009 after it supported Proposition 8, the California legislation banning gay marriage, and dished about his exit to the magazine’s Lawrence Wright for a 24,000-word colossus called “The Apostate.”

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Awesome Foundation arrives in Toronto, immediately deemed awesome

A cool $1000, just for being awesome (Image: brian.ch)

It’s great to be awesome, but it’s awesome to be awesome when people throw money at you to help you propagate your own awesomeness. That’s the general idea behind the Awesome Foundation of Arts and Sciences, which recently opened its virtual doors in Toronto. Described by one of the project’s trustees as “a micro-genius grant for flashes of micro-brilliance,” the Awesomeness Foundation gives $1,000 grants for the creation of projects that improve their city, make it more fun, prove a point, solve a problem, or are just fabulously, intangibly awesome. The Foundation claims no ownership over the projects it sponsors: it’s just a cool thousand bucks in exchange for awesomeness—no strings attached.

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Is Canada’s high-low culture war a figment of John Doyle’s imagination?

For the second day in a row, the Globe and Mail‘s television columnist, John Doyle, is boldly claiming there is a culture war going on in Canada that’s taking place on our television screens and in the pages of our books. Today, Doyle rails against the perceived elitism of both the Giller Prize and the Gemini Awards, both of which he claims laud praise on work that satisfies an overeducated few. What people really want, says Doyle, is entertainment for the masses. His evidence? The popularity of Stephen Harper and Rob Ford

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Russell Peters explains how his cars are like boobs

(Image: Shayne Kaye)

Let’s be honest: modesty has never been Russell Peters‘ strong suit. So when the Toronto-born, Brampton-raised comedian talked with the Globe and Mail about his sizable fancy car collection, he didn’t pull any punches.

So what’s in this funnyman’s garage? A 2007 Audi S8, a 2007 Infiniti M45, a 2007 Bentley Continental GTC, a 2010 Range Rover Sport Supercharged, a 1964 Impala convertible, a 2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo, a 2009 Jaguar XFR and a 2010 Lexus LX570.

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Revealed! Easy ways to get Jian Ghomeshi’s abs

Not just a bod for radio (Image: Brenda Lee)

Everyone knows that if you want to work in radio, you have to have a really great body. For all of you would-be hosts puzzling over how to get the sculpted physique that matches the dulcimer tones of the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, puzzle no longer. The 43-year-old host of the daily arts show Q on CBC Radio was kind enough to let the Globe and Mail join him at one of his personal training sessions at Toronto’s Good Life Fitness. The four-photo spread features Ghomeshi medicine-balling his way to a more energetic on-air personality. Accompanying the photos is an article detailing the former Moxy Fruvous rocker’s health habits.

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Six Toronto Halloween costume ideas

Galen Weston Jr., Rob Ford, Suzanne Rogers, Justin Bieber

Still not sure what to be for Halloween this year? Based on last night’s election results, we know that Torontonians are big on cost-cutting, so with that in mind, we offer our suggestions for trick-or-treat wardrobe options almost sure to be found around your house. Six ideas, after the jump.

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Michael J. Fox gets nostalgic about Back to the Future

“Are you saying you built a time machine…out of a DeLorean?” For children of the 1980s, those words spark a glimmer of joy in their Spielberg trilogy–loving hearts. And while we shelved our flux-capacitor fantasies decades ago, we were thrilled to know that the man who uttered that line–our beloved Michael J. Fox–has reunited with fellow Back to the Future star Lea Thompson to reminisce about every 30-year-old’s favourite childhood movie.

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Hot or not? Shirtless men shilling Stayfree pads

Check out the creepy new Old Spice–influenced viral marketing campaign for Stayfree (at left), done by the Toronto ad firm BBDO. Titled “A Date With Stayfree,” the promos feature buff shirtless men doing things women stereotypically find charming—like cleaning, cooking and, of course, making toys for underprivileged kids—before launching into an unnerving pitch about the absorbency of Stayfree. Sure, the guys are hot, but any dude who busted out a display table of pads (“They’re as thin as a butterfly’s wings”) on the first date would send us running.

J&J aims to please with Stayfree hunks [Marketing]

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William Shatner wants you to know he swears in front of children

Wild Bill's at it again (Shatner: Meredith P.)

Maybe a bit bitter about being passed over for a stint as the new governor general, William Shatner is waging war on political correctness. The fun-hating Parents Television Council (PTC), with no mildly racy “Gossip Girl” ads to provoke its outrage over the summer, is redirecting its boycott-urging energy to the title of Shatner’s new CBS sitcom, $#*! My Dad Says—and Bill is having none of it, reports the Sun.

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