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The comprehensive index of every blog post, magazine story and restaurant review that appears on Torontolife.com
We believe it was the great Sheryl Crow who once remarked that L.A. ain’t no country club. In this week’s episode, written by local playwright Brendan Gall (with cameos from Toronto comedians Chris Locke, Rebecca Kohler and Aaron Eves, no less), every character faced the challenge of how to act on their impulses, especially the self-destructive ones. More deets on who did the nasty and with whom after the jump.
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Scaramouche’s Keith Froggett (Image: Renée Suen)
Online restaurant review sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon may have cut into the crowd-sourced territory that Zagat once owned, but the yearly survey still has some clout—and the power to get diners in the door. The 2,266 food-loving Torontonians who voted in this year’s survey were crazy for Keith Froggett, giving fine dining restaurant Scaramouche top honours for food and also placing Scaramouche’s pasta bar in the top 10. But the winners weren’t all about linen tablecloths and tasting menus: The Burger’s Priest, with its epically greasy Vatican City burger, broke the top three for best food, while pan-Asian chain Spring Rolls was voted most popular restaurant (proving that democracy isn’t foolproof).
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The Weekender: Potted Potter, Children’s Story Jam and Hamlet Live
1. HAMLET LIVE
Part post-apocalyptic dystopia (it’s set in 2080, and the set-up name-checks everything from violent solar flares to displaced populations to wartime atrocities), and part Shakespearean classic, this Hamlet adaptation keeps Will’s wording but places the young prince, Claudius, Gertrude and the rest of the gang in a futuristic Denmark. King Hamlet oversees a bloody battle to maintain the country’s borders, only to die at his brother’s hand “at the very height of his glory.” Now his son, the young Hamlet, is out for vengeance. In the interest of accessibility—and achieving as large an audience as possible—the play will be live-streamed online ($5), complete with multiple camera angles and on-air editing. To Feb. 11. $20–$40. The Annex Theatre, 730 Bathurst St., hamletlive.com.
2. EROTIC ARTS AND CRAFTS FAIR (FREE!) Read the rest of this entry »
Sweetly handmade crafts meet X-rated content at this fair, and it’s the only event of its kind in the country. Think saucy prints, bondage-inspired jewellery and maybe even a choose your own adventure–style zine. Be sure to stick around for the after-show: a cabaret (PWYC or $7) and a sure-to-be raucous after-party. Feb. 11. Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W., eroticartsandcrafts.com.
Krisztina Szabó as the Pilgrim and Russell Braun floating above as Jaufré (Image: Michael Cooper)
To say the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Love From Afar has a lot going on would be a bit of an understatement. This particular take on Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s 2000 opera—about a medieval poet who falls in love with a faraway woman he’s never seen—was directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, a Cirque du Soleil alum, and the result is like a less flashy, opera-fied version of the troupe’s Michael Jackson Immortal show. Before the singing even begins, a shimmering sheet of blue silk flies over the audience. Then there are the cartwheeling tumblers, the dazzling video projections, and Russell Braun hanging in a suspended throne that looks like Glinda’s bubble from Wicked. It’s almost enough to distract you from the music.
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ADDRESS: 138 Bedford Road
NEIGHBOURHOOD: The Annex
AGENT: Barry Smith, Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage
PRICE: $4,450,000
THE PLACE: Bringing a little of the 8th Arrondissement to the heart of the Annex, this Parisian-inspired townhome embodies European luxury with inlaid-pattern marble floors, traditional custom millwork, plaster cornice mouldings and fireplaces in nearly every principal room (many of them are even wood-burning).
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The Bachelor is a reality show that gets people talking, so it was only a matter of time before Canada got its very own weekly one-hour look into the world of insane women who vie for the attention of one presumably wealthy and attractive single man. But ladies, while you may check out on the “will do anything for screen time and public lip-locking” front, certain rules and regulations may keep you from being selected to compete. To be eligible, a candidate must be in line with the show’s definition of single—they must not be involved in a committed intimate relationship (those in a committed, intimacy-free relationship are good to go!), in a common-law co-habitation relationship involving physical intimacy (do you live at Melrose Place? Sorry, no Bachelor for you), or in a monogamous dating relationship lasting two months or longer. People who use reality TV as a vehicle for stardom are notoriously honest, hardworking people, so we can’t see anyone doing anything unspeakable, like pretending they’re not married or not shtupping their roommate. This application is absolutely foolproof.
Early reports from city hall suggest Rob Ford and the rest of council are in for a transit-themed slugfest at today’s special council meeting. Karen Stintz, who started the whole brouhaha when she said what everyone already knew about Ford’s grand vision to bury the Eglinton Crosstown, has already made her recommendations. In short, she wants council to reaffirm its support for LRT lines on Finch and Eglinton, convert the Scarborough RT to an LRT line with an extension to the Malvern Town Centre (as funds become available) and establish an expert advisory panel regarding transit on Sheppard Avenue. Meanwhile, Giorgio Mammoliti—and only Giorgio Mammoliti—wants a subway on Finch. Watch the proceedings live here »
(Images: Karen Stintz, Mike Beltzner; Giorgio Mammoliti, Christopher Drost)
Rachel McAdams at the L.A. premiere of The Vow (Image: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment)
Remember when we told you about The Vow? You know, that movie where Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams play a married couple who get into a car accident, then suffer through a painstaking adjustment period where the wife has amnesia and the husband can’t handle it? It premiered in L.A. this week, and we noticed McAdams on the red white carpet sporting new bangs—we think she’s looking fairly elegant, with the exception of her somewhat caked-on makeup (surely her Pomellato and Philip Press jewellery would have been enough of a contrast to her demure Vivienne Westwood dress). How did McAdams fare sartorially at The Vow’s L.A. premiere? Have your say in our poll after the jump.
(Image: Matt Elliott)
Too bad Matt Elliott’s Transit City bingo card doesn’t include a cash prize—because Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy would’ve claimed it before the game even really started. In the pages of the paper this morning, Levy’s recycling of Rob Ford’s tried-and-true talking points scored her an easy B-I-N-G-O along the top row, and council’s special session on the city’s transit plan hadn’t even yet begun. Of course, given the rancorous debate on the issue so far, we’re sure Levy won’t be the only winner today. Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »
Since it was first staged more than four years ago, War Horse has enjoyed the kind of success that’s usually reserved for Disney extravaganzas and jukebox musicals. The show, adapted from a 30-year-old children’s novel by the British author Michael Morpurgo, is about Joey, a spirited, rust-coloured stallion sold to the British cavalry during the First World War, and the valiant quest of his young former owner to retrieve him. After premiering at London’s National Theatre in 2007 and shattering box office records, it quickly moved to the West End and then to Broadway, earning the Tony Award for best play last spring.
On paper, War Horse seems like another formulaic tearjerker—a variation on Black Beauty or Seabiscuit, with some trench warfare thrown in. What sets the show apart is its use of puppets: Joey, like the other horses in the play, is a clunky-looking mechanical contraption made of wooden planks and nylon stretched over a corset-like cane frame. He bears little resemblance to a real animal. The three puppeteers who control him make no effort to conceal their presence. The one in charge of major head movements is not even inside the frame of the horse—he stands next to it in full view of the audience.
But from the moment Joey hobbles onstage as a young foal, stick-legged and unsteady, he’s as alive, and emotionally resonant, as any of his human co-stars.
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Kudos are due on two counts today for Montreal meat mecca Joe Beef. Reason No. 1: the operators of this long-lauded restaurant (David McMillan, Frédéric Morin, Meredith Erickson) have penned a volume—The Art of Living According to Joe Beef—that just took first place in the third annual Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks.
(Image: Jon Sufrin)
Last week, we pointed out that city staff had recommended that patio permit applications for Campagnolo and Woodlot (among others) be denied at the February 14 meeting of the Toronto and East York Community Council, which prompted a helpful commenter to suggest things might not be as grim as they’d initially seemed. We called up a pair of councillors—Trinity-Spadina’s Mike Layton and Davenport’s Ana Bailão—who confirmed that, yes, staff must follow the letter of the bylaw in their reports. In other words, they must recommend that an application be denied for a patio within 25 metres of a residential zone—but that doesn’t stop councillors from approving patios that don’t meet every nitpicky requirement.
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A White Cedar anti-bullying campaign image posted today to Nemat’s Facebook. Coincidence? (Image: Facebook)
Since when did the Canada Reads book competition turn into a Hunger Games–style death match? In yesterday’s debate, colourful Quebec lawyer Anne-France Goldwater accused Prisoner of Tehran author Marina Nemat of telling “a story that’s not true, and you can tell it’s not true when you read it.” (That goes a long way to explaining Nemat’s angry Facebook outburst yesterday.) But Nemat wasn’t the only one to get a Goldwater smackdown; the TV personality also called author Carmen Aguirre “a bloody terrorist,” adding, “How we let her into Canada, I don’t understand.” In response, Nemat again took to Facebook, this time to ask for a public apology from Goldwater (and to post a photo and link about bullying. Coincidence?). While she waits for that apology, Nemat can take some solace in today’s elimination of John Vaillant’s The Tiger—the book Goldwater was defending. Karma (and fuming writers) will get you every time.
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