What's Happening

The Bloor Cinema on Bloor just east of Bathurst is one of the screening sites for the Filmi South Asian Film Festival. Tonight at 9:30 pm is the North American premiere of When Kiran Met Karen.
And Sex And The City screens at various times Saturday through Tuesday... excuse for a night out?

Brooklyn band Oneida plays Lee's Palace Friday at 7:30 pm. Tickets are only $8.50.

The Art Bar Poetry series at Clinton's features a special theme night on Tuesday: Poetry & Blues.
"Hostess Cynthia Gould leads an eclectic lineup of poets & musicians in an exploration of the bluesy side of poetry and the poetic essence of blues lyrics."
As always, things get underway at 8 pm and voluntary donations are appreciated.

It's India Weekend at the ROM featuring films and dance performances, including one that "is a unique and refreshing new take on the much-loved sport of cricket. It pushes the boundaries of contemporary bharatanatyam in an exciting display of dance, sport and popular culture."
Sounds intriguing!

And, last but not least, there's the Friends of Christie Pits neighbourhood celebration on Sunday from 4 to 6 pm that I already BLOGged about.

Whatever you do, enjoy it!
Vanessa

What's Happening

Attention gardeners: St. Alban's is holding its Annual Plant and Garage Sale this Saturday. You can donate garage sale items until Friday. Contact the club for more info.

Irish traditional music is on tap at the Tranzac as the weekend is devoted to the annual Chris Langan series of performances and workshops. The weekend "gives you the opportunity to learn or polish your skills on uilleann pipes, tin whistle, fiddle, flute,button accordion as wellas dance and song."

A variety of additional acts are on the schedule, too, including a Mariposa Folk Festival preview Sunday evening.

We BLOGged about how to join the VIVA Youth Singers awhile ago and now their concert is happening this weekend. Blue Green Hills of Earth takes place Saturday, May 24th at 7 pm at the Trinity St. Paul's Centre on Bloor, near Spadina. The concert features "a newly commissioned work by Toronto composer Alice Ho and poetry composed by children of VIVA! Youth Singers." Check the website for more details.

Lee's Palace on Bloor just east of Spadina has a full slate of music acts scheduled, including the intriguingly named Dark Meat With Quiet Hooves on Monday.

The Toronto Hispano-American Film Festival continues at the Bloor Cinema until the end of the weekend. Other screenings include the Brazilian import The Year My Parents Went On Vacation on various dates, a smattering of Woody Allen movies and a fundraiser for the Toronto Cyclists Union on Thursday, May 29th.
The latter will feature two screenings of Pee Wee's Big Adventure (at 7 and 9:30 pm) supported by a live cast including Sook Yin Lee and members of bands including The Apostles of Hustle, Broken Social Scene and The Hidden Cameras.
Tickets are $14 and are available at Grassroots Bloor, 408 Bloor St West, Toronto Women's Bookstore, 73 Harbord St., and the Bloor Cinema box office.

The Art Bar Poetry Series, housed at Clinton's, features Carmine Starnino, George Elliott Clarke and Kevin Fortnum this Tuesday at 8 pm. It's free, but donations are appreciated.

ROMwalks take a stroll around the Royal Ontario Museum and its neighbours on Wednesday. Meet in front of the ROM at 6 p.m. The guided series of tours are free.

Sonia Rodriguez, Principal Dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, gives a special reading of Cinderella and donates a pair of her ballet shoes to the Bata Shoe Museum. Things get underway Saturday at 2 p.m.

Whatever you do, enjoy it!
Vanessa

What's Happening

The Annex Tree Tour set for Saturday starting at 2 pm is part of Toronto Tree Tours. The two-hour outing is free, but you need to register.
Things get underway at the northwest corner of College & Spadina, where you meet up with the guide, arborist Todd Irvine. Highlights of the tour include:
* an ancient white oak—thought to be one of the largest in the city—growing just steps away from one of Toronto’s busiest streets.
* wandering down back alleys to discover hidden giants, including a 70-foot-tall bur oak.
* venturing into the past as you gaze down a tree-lined boulevard onto St. Stephen’s in the Field, a 150-year-old Victorian Gothic style church that was once surrounded by gardens and grasslands.
Members of the Harbord Village Residents Association and The Annex Residents Association will be there to share stories about helping the forest canopy in their neighbourhoods.

Monday, May 12th is Varsity Day at the Bloor Cinema. If you show your U of T student card, admission is $3. The slate is Caramel at 4:30 pm, Up The Yangtze at 7 pm and The Band's Visit at 9 pm.

Liverpool-based indie rockers Clinic play Lee's Palace Sunday at 8 pm. Tickets are only $15.

It's the last weekend to catch MyType:Type Inspired Posters at Keep Six Contemporary art gallery at 938 Bathurst Street.

If you need a laugh head to Clinton's on Tuesday for The Artbardy Har Har, part of the Art Bar Poetry series. It's billed as an evening of comedic poetry. Free, but donations appreciated.

Clinton's is also the site for Catch23 Improv comedy and the next one has a twist... here's the mysterious invitation:
Catch23 and the case of the mysterious crime! on Monday, May 12 at 9 pm.
Can you figure it out before it does?
What: Convention
Host: catch23

There'll be a Heart & Craft Outdoor Eco Artisan Market on Saturday from noon to 6 pm at 61A Bellevue Avenue. It features 16 exhibitors showing clothing, jewellery, cosmetics and more.

The Palmerston Library hosts Korean-Canadian author and Registered Nurse Gemma Baik Tuesday, May 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. She will talk about her life's work in Korea and Canada, as well as discuss prenatal care. The talk will be in both Korean and English and marks Asian Heritage Month.

On the same day, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink, is joined by Uof T philosophy professor and author Mark Kingwell for Well, Well: An Evening Of Dialogue On Social Change. The benefit event for Massey College and The Canadian Journalism Foundation starts at 7:30 pm at Convocation Hall. Tickets are $25 & $10.

Bloor Street Gospel Chorus performs the concert We've Got Joy! Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Bloor Street United, 300 Bloor St. West. Tickets are $12 at the door, $10 in advance and $7 for students. Call 416.477.9310 for more information.

Shaun Evans plays The Central on Markham Street on Wednesday and The River Pilots, which features one of our neighbours, plays its monthly gig on Thursday, May 15th.

Whatever you do, enjoy it!
Vanessa

What's Happening

It's Environment Month and one way to Think Global, Act Local is to join the Saturday morning spring cleanup of Ecology Park. Located on Madison Avenue, just north of Bloor, the park is an initiative of the Annex Residents' Association. More details are on their website.

Lee's Palace has a packed lineup, including State Radio from Massachusetts Friday at 9 pm ($15), Destroyer, a/k/a Dan Bejar of The New Pornographers Saturday at 9 pm ($13.50) and Tuesday at 8 pm The Aggrolites play "dirty reggae" ($13.50).

The Bloor Cinema is one of the hosts of the Hot Docs documentary film festival this week. The lineup includes Shot In Bombay, about shooting films in Bollywood, The Rise and Fall of the Grumpy Burger and 1984 documentary Shut The Fuck Up that "cleverly takes on the mass media's focus on gossip, spectacle and celebrity instead of content in its treatment of art and artists."

Charlotte Cornfield plays The Central Sunday at 8 pm. Tickets are only $7.

Doug Valleau, Sharon Harris and Tara-Michelle Ziniuk read at Clinton's Tuesday as part of The Art Bar Poetry Series. It's free, but donations are appreciated.

And there's always 1001 Friday Nights Of Storytelling at Innis College Cafe, 2 Sussex Street. It runs from 8 to 10:30 pm and cost is a suggested donation of $5.

Whatever you do, enjoy it!
Vanessa

What's Happening

On Wednesday, the Bloor Cinema will screen the results of a Film Racing event that requires people to create a film in 24 hours.

Among other events in a busy schedule, The Tranzac Club hosts Jamzac, an Open Acoustic Jam in the Southern Cross Lounge Saturday at 3 pm.

This April marks the tenth annual poetry month and the Spadina Road Library branch will feature poet Desi Di Nardo on Thursday, April 17 from 1 to 2 pm.

Stars On Spadina takes place at the MilesNadalJCC on Tuesday. Produced and hosted by Richard Ouzounian, the show features a slew of performers, a live auction and a post-show dessert reception. Tickets are $180 and proceeds go toward arts and culture programming at the JCC.

The Central in Mirvish Village features The Ben Hammond Four ($7) this evening and The Weathermaking Challenge ($10) on Saturday.

Whatever you do, enjoy it!
Vanessa

What's Happening

This one doesn't happen until Thursday, March 27th, but I'm telling you now so that you can make time in your schedule. The Annex Residents' Assocation holds its Annual General Meeting at 7:30 pm at the Friends House on Lowther. Gary Wright, Toronto's acting chief planner, will be speaking.

The ROM is "all about" Charles Darwin and his theories these days, so it's only natural that they would select (sorry!) the movie Inherit The Wind for a screening and lecture. The 1960 Stanley Kramer movie is about the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, the real-life case of a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution.
The ROM screening takes place Tuesday at 7 pm and the evening is introduced by film lecturer Anthony Harrison, while Toronto lawyer Michael Weissenborn will discuss the legal aspects of the original trial. Tickets are $18/$15.

Tomorrow night at the Tranzac Club Mysterion the Mind Reader & Santini "The World's Most Extreme Escapist" take to the stage in the main hall at 8 pm for Mysterion: An evening of EXTREME sideshow and escape never before seen anywhere in North America." It's billed as being like SAW or Hostel LIVE on stage. Rock band The Sevenate also is due to perform. Tickets ($17- $20 ) are available at Darkside on Queen, or at the door.

The MilesNadalJCC at Bloor and Spadina holds its annual Purim Carnival this Sunday from 11 am to 2 pm. It's $7 per family to get in, there's cheap food for sale and you should wear a costume.

Dundas, Ontario's Caribou perform tonight and tomorrow night at Lee's Palace. Tickets are $15.

The Art Bar Poetry Series, which takes place at Clinton's, features Toronto's poet laureate, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, on the 25th. It starts at 8 pm and admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted. Jeff Latosik and Ariel Platt also will read.

The Randolph Academy is mounting Anton In Show Business next Tuesday through Saturday at the Bathurst Street Theatre, which is housed in a former church on Bathurst, south of Bloor. Performances are at 8 pm and tickets are $22.

Of course, it's Easter weekend and the niblets are off school both Friday and Monday. If you'd like to celebrate with a parade, you'll have to leave the 'hood. You can choose either the frivolity of the Beaches Easter parade, or the solemnity of the St. Francis of Assisi Church's Good Friday Procession. The latter starts at 3 pm and follows a route south of our area. It's quite a massive undertaking, as this article outlines, and as these pictures illustrate.
The Beaches Easter parade runs from 2 to about 4 pm along Queen Street East from Fallingbrook Road to Woodbine Avenue. This parade is heavy on the bunny costumes/free chocolates aspects of celebrating Easter. There's even the third annual Dog Day Parade, with prizes for the best-dressed dogs.

Whatever you do, enjoy it!
Vanessa

Things To Do

The Wanted play at The Tranzac Saturday at 6 pm, just one act in a very full roster.

On Wednesday the 5th at 6:30 and 9:15 pm The Bloor Cinema screens Autism: The Musical, which follows five autistic children as they work together to create and perform a live musical. Director Tricia Regan will be on hand for a Q & A session.

Fans of Molly Johnson can catch her one-hour set tomorrow night at the ROM for free. It starts at 7 pm and is in honour of Black History Month.

Toronto Consort, which is housed in Trinity St. Paul's on Bloor, west of Spadina, features Toward the Centre: Music for a Medieval Labyrinth Feb 29 & March 1. And I quote:
"The medieval labyrinth, found in many of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe, is a compelling symbol of the journey to the centre (and back again), of the perils and the path of life, and of beauty.
In the Middle Ages pilgrims visiting the labyrinth danced in this sacred space and the Toronto Consort has researched this ancient custom to present a stunning program of music for the labyrinth: lively medieval dance-songs, sophisticated renaissance polyphony by Josquin Desprez, with a special new creation featuring members of Sampradaya Dance Creations.
This concert is part of the Sacred Spaces, Sacred Circles Arts Festival, a celebration of music and architecture in the Spring of 2008."

Bluegrass Goes Pink is a Foggy Hogtown Boys Fundraiser for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer. The boys perform at The Brunswick House on Saturday from 3:30 to 7:30 pm. The $5 suggested cover will go to WEBC team Putting our Breast Foot Forward. It's listed as suitable for all ages.

Tuesday at Clinton's you can catch Robert Boates, John Allemang and Bill Howell reading their works as part of the Art Bar Poetry series. Things get underway at 8 pm and it's free, but donations are appreciated.

On Tuesday, as part of Crime Writers of Canada Readings at Casa Loma, Lyn Hamilton and Rick Blechta will read, starting at 7:30 p.m.
Admission $12 and pre-registration is required: contact operations@casaloma.org for more information.

Cheers,
Vanessa