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Andrei Tarkovsky’s photos, Augusten Burroughs’s boyfriend, and Daniel Pink’s work habits: Bookishness for May 27, 2013
The Economist asks… How does copyright work in space? Tarkovsky’s mysteries The polaroids of Andrei Tarkovsky. Hyperlocal Wayne Chan’s Epicycles of Time won the public vote in the Canada Writes Hyperlocal contest. The grand prize winner will be announced this week. Being Daniel Pink Lifehacker asks Daniel Pink how he works. “Language Police 1, Gay…
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Love Letters to a City: Lindsay Zier-Vogel’s Epistolary Project
A woman in her late 20s is walking down Queen Street and stops in front of a bicycle. She opens her bag and pulls out an airmail envelope. There is a hole punctured on the side with a piece of string attached, the woman crouches and ties the string to the handle. The next morning…
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Stars, Sistahz, Ed Keenan, and Thomas King: T.O. Events for May 23-June 6, 2013
The largest event of its kind, the CONTACT Photography Festival brings together local and international artists at over 175 venues across Toronto. This year’s theme, Field of Vision, focuses on how photography affects imagination and our apprehension of the everyday. May 1-31. Various Venues. Free. Just like its name, rock.paper.sistahz is a dynamic, multifaceted festival…
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Futuristic species love irony too: A review of Marie Chouinard’s “The Golden Mean (Live)”
Reviewed in this essay: The Golden Mean (Live), Compagnie Marie Chouinard, which ran May 8 – May 12, 2013 at Canadian Stage Canadian Stage recently welcomed Compagnie Marie Chouinard’s The Golden Mean (Live), a repertory piece first mounted at the 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. This was the first presentation of a major Marie Chouinard work in Toronto…
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Last weeks to make CONTACT 2013: A few crucial final events
Victoria Day long weekend may be over, but we can still enjoy two more weeks of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Throughout your commute across Toronto over the last few weeks, you may have noticed unusual sights such as the gallery of photos replacing ads along the platform of St. Patrick Station and new visuals lining the…
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China behind the headlines: Lou Ye and the vitality of Chinese independent cinema
Canadians are daily inundated with news reports concerning the “rise of China,” as visions of that country’s latest economic mega-project flood our television screens. Universities and governments have flocked to China, both literally and figuratively, producing mountains of discourse concerning the new “global superpower” and how Canada should interact with it. Yet how can an…
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The brief literary history of a cocktail: The Gin and Tonic
Like the Mint Julep, the Gin and Tonic is of unusual provenance. Similarly born out of a unique historical conjuncture of East and West, the seemingly timeless combination of gin, lime, sugar, and tonic water came into being almost by pure chance, at the intersections of colonialism, modern medicine and, well, boredom. The now famous drink was invented by…
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Forging Connections at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival
The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (2013) was not your average convention. People weren’t dressed in carefully considered costumes or walking around in character stockpiling freebies indiscriminately. Set in the Toronto Reference Library over the second weekend of May, the intimate space lent itself to discovery and spontaneous conversation more than sweaty-palmed, star struck fervor. TCAF opened…
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Choosing genres, missing art, and Wes Anderson presents the Bible: Bookishness for May 13, 2013
What to expect when you’re expecting a book “I waited until my first book was published to learn the genre, and when Oprah announced “It’s literary fiction!” just seconds after my pub date, I was overcome with joy. When we found out that I’d written a second book, however, we decided to find out ourselves…
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Punishing Wealth: The Great Gatsby’s Critics in 2013
Why is the opulence of The Great Gatsby so controversial? Thanks to Baz Luhrmann’s production, the book has a new set of critics with a common refrain: Gatsby-esque affluence is bad news. “Did anyone actually read The Great Gatsby?” asks Zachary M. Seward in Quartz, citing the perennial popularity of Gatsby-themed parties before complaining that…
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Record Store Review: Kops Records
Founded in 1976 with a focus on soul music and mod subculture, Kops Records (229 Queen St. West) is Toronto’s oldest independent record store. It’s known for housing the largest selection of seven inch 45s in Canada and for an abiding dedication to musical roots. According to General Manager Patrick Grant, “[Kops] specializes in unveiling…
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Borderless Cinema: Edward Yang’s YiYi
Inaugurating “Borderless Cinema,” our new series profiling lesser-known gems of world cinema, this essay reviews “YiYi”, written and directed by Edward Yang. Starring Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, and Issei Ogata. Running time 173 minutes. Available on DVD via Criterion Collection. Edward Yang’s Yi Yi (A One and a Two) is the final work of one…