“What do you want to talk about?” asked Kevin Smith at the beginning of a recent roundtable. “We can talk about the making of it, we can talk about me selling out.” Smith is referring to his switch to a major Hollywood studio (Warner Bros.) for his new film Cop Out. “I had a huge…

Entering the month of eternally frostbitten fingers, I suggest fun. Located at 587 College, a few steps above Strange Love, Whippersnapper Gallery has just that in store. This tiny gem offers up-and-coming artists a professional space to showcase their work through an established Toronto artist collective. Not only is Whippersnapper a gallery; it also functions…

If you’re looking for a departure from the beaten path of mushy cards and banal boxes of chocolate, the Sex and Violence Cartoon Festival may just fit your Valentine’s Day bill. The festival is the brain child of self-styled film buff Reg Hartt, who lit upon the idea as “a fun, off-the-wall thing to do…

Wavelength has been a staple of Toronto’s independent music scene for over 10 years now. This weekend they are celebrating their 500th event with a five-night anniversary extravaganza, bringing together some of Toronto’s best bands for what will, no doubt, be an unwieldy amount of merrymaking. Founder, Jonny Dovercourt, expressed his pleasure and surprise at…

Someone should have told Robert Crumb that it’s okay to use poetic license when adapting a text from one medium to another. His release of The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb late last year is the result of an aborted attempt to satirize the Bible and turns out to be, as he claims,…

On February 8, singer/songwriter Laura Barrett will join forces with Indie Pop group, The Magnetic Fields, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. In 2005, the classically trained pianist bought an african thumb piano--also known as a kalimba--on a whim and has subsequently made a striking imprint on Toronto Indie music. Since then, she has released a…

You may have been ecstatic to hear that Dow will be compensating Bhopa 12 billion dollars for their 1984 chemical catastrophe. Or that HUD would reopen public housing facilities that had been closed since Hurricane Katrina.

I am having flashbacks to Girl Guides at Craft Week’s Knitting Workshop on Monday, as I hold up my knitting needles, trying and failing to mimic instructor Day Milman’s exaggerated gestures. She insists that it just looks complicated. I can feel the ghost of my atrocious wool uniform scratching my leg, along with a good…

The Dinosaur Jr. reunion began as a brief flirtation with the Amherst slackers’ former glory, but with two new albums and some extensive touring under their belts, it seems like Dino Jr. are back, at least for now. This past Thursday, J Mascis brought the reinvigorated power trio to the Phoenix, for a performance that…

U of T's Department of Art's fourth annual graduate symposium took place last Thursday and Friday. Out of Sight: Looking Beyond Seeing was an interdisciplinary symposium addressing the non-visual senses as a means for understanding in the arts. The conference provided an opportunity to explore those senses usually ignored in the appreciation and experience of…

Of the Blue Colour of the Sky - OK GO By Gord Brown OK Go is, so the story goes, named after a phrase that a teacher of a couple of the lads in the band used to start their art class. Maybe it’s my cynical nature, but I wonder if a story this good…

U of T graduate Sandra Laronde’s pioneering vision continues to impact both local and international communities. As founder and Artistic Director of Red Sky - a Toronto-based theatre, dance, and music company - Laronde’s work conveys the culture and artistic expression of indigenous peoples on a global scale. As it celebrates ten years of groundbreaking…