You there! Stop that! Photo by ronnie.yip from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

• "We appear to have put ourselves at the mercy of every interest group, ethnic group and splinter group." Jan Wong, writing in Toronto Life, says that she likes street festivals just fine; she just likes not being mildly inconvenienced while driving more.
• On a related note, preserve your sanity and don't read this Joe Warmington column in the Sun about GO Transit's new bus-only Don Valley Parkway lanes. Seriously. Don't.
• At least Bixi's got five hundred members signed up—that's half the number they need by November 30 to launch the bike-sharing program here.
• And one new Torontonian took to Reddit to ask about proper streetcar etiquette, and got sixty-two comments on everything from how to use transfers to how to not get hit by cars while getting on or off the streetcar.

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"Now that we have locations in Ontario and Quebec," said Smolkin, "we'll have regional championships." He envisions these regional contests culminating in a world championship showdown at BMO Field, similar to the one that took place there earlier this summer, where the winner ate thirteen pounds of poutine. Plans are still tentative.

Smolkin said of his expansion plans that he's currently eying locations on Bloor Street, near Spadina Avenue, and that he hopes to open Smoke's outlets nationwide in the near future. Asked if he could provide an estimate of the nutritional profile of the fifteen pounds of poutine that Czerwinski was about to consume, he wasn't sure. "I can guarantee you there is fat and calories in it," he said.

Czerwinski, a muscular guy (a bodybuilder, in fact—and also a recovered anorexic) whose last eating triumph involved polishing off a seventy-two-ounce steak in world record time on field during a CFL game, ate the first five pounds of poutine relatively quickly, while Dean Blundell and Todd Shapiro did their morning DJ thing. The spectacle wasn't really made for radio, so there were webcams rolling. Czerwinski's girlfriend stood by supportively, in a t-shirt that had the phrase "My boyfriend ate my homework" silkscreened on its back.

After downing nearly ten pounds using his bare hands (standard practice in any competitive poutine eating situation), Czerwinski began to slow down. He mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes and gravy that he didn't think he'd be able to make it through the final five, and Blundell and Shapiro suggested that their designated studio lackey, whom they call Meatus, might enjoy eating some of the leftover spuds with no hands, and with his shirt off—which Meatus did, because acquiescing to fun suggestions like those is his job.

Afterward, Czerwinski said he felt fine. "Especially when I do this for a good cause, then I feel a lot better afterwards."

Photos by Christopher Drost/Torontoist.

First came the rumour that there would be no opener, which turned out to be true. This, in turn, led to whisperings of the band playing some epic, two and a half hour set. Which begat all kinds of unconfirmed reports that there would be two sets, with the band playing their classic 1993 album Houdini in its entirety, followed by some other stuff. Then people started saying that frontman Buzz "King Buzzo" Osborne was actually just two dwarfs in a costume. (Okay, we started that last one.)

In any event, none of these stories held much water. Regardless, The Melvins cooked up a solid set of riff-laden, slow-tempo stoner rock at the Opera House. Here’s what it looked like from where we stood.

7:25 PM: Biking by the Opera House, people are already lined up outside for tickets, the line bending south down Lewis Street. Kitty-corner from the venue, neighbourhood greasy spoon Dangerous Dan’s is already teeming with kids whose pilled Mastodon and Misfits tees also mark them as Melvins fans.

9:50 PM: The Melvins take the stage ten minutes early, to the theme from The Great Escape.

9:53 PM: The band kicks things off with "The Water Glass," the opener from And The Bride Screamed Murder. While the song’s first half is convincingly raucous, the latter half, with its "Rock me, rock me, rock me, rock steady!" still sounds an awful lot like something you’d expect to hear on one of those Jock Jams comps. It works live, though, in a Gary-Glitter-after-six-bong-loads kind of way.

10:01 PM: As evinced by their t-shirts (Helmet, TOOL, Black Flag, Soundgarden) the audience is fairly eclectic, which, given The Melvins’ near–thirty year history of melding hardcore punk, doom metal, and grunge, is hardly surprising.

10:08 PM: The drummer from local hardcore/punk outfit Bastard Child Death Cult is right off the rails: fist-pumping with a king can of Coor's Light in each hand. Beer spilling everywhere. Granted, it is a fist-pump-with-a-king-can-in-each-hand kind of show.

10:15 PM: Band picks up speed with a cover of "Pinhead" by The Ramones. There’s probably nothing more fun to yell surrounded by other beer-soaked idiots at a show than "Gabba Gabba Hey!"

The view from the first few rows of Wednesday night's Melvins concert.

10:19 PM: First crowd surfer spotted.

10:26 PM: Okay, Opera House, listen up. What’s the deal with the washroom attendant? There are few things more alienating when you’re taking a piss in the basement bathroom of some venue then being assailed by a guy with soap and paper towels as soon as you’re done. And then the expectation of tipping? Yes, it’s lousy work being a washroom attendant. But as full-grown adults, most of us have become comfortable with performing basic tasks such as turning on a faucet, applying soap, and drying our hands off with a paper towel. Maybe if this guy was offering straight-razor shaves or something. But otherwise it’s absurd. You’re not some four-star steak restaurant or gentleman’s lounge, Opera House. You’re a rundown, albeit fairly comfortable, concert venue. You’re across the street from Jilly’s, for heaven’s sake. What are you trying to prove?

10:32 PM: Sightline is impaired substantially. This is a function of a) arriving late and b) taking a bathroom break. Luckily, Buzzo’s grey Brillo-pad mop is visible from anywhere in the room. Also, he’s wearing his trademark turtleneck or a neck warmer or zipped-up track jacket or whatever it is. It must be awfully hot. Though he probably knows what he’s doing by this point.

10:45 PM: Two women near the back of the room are comparing their breasts. Sure.

10:57 PM: This is also the first Melvins show in Toronto since they folded Big Business drummer and bassist Coady Willis and Jared Warren into the band. This means two drummers. In theory, two drummers seems like one too many drummers (calling to mind some indulgent, airy Allman Brothers jamming or something), but here it works. It makes everything louder, for one, with the bass driving well into the back of the room. Willis and Dale Crover sync up in interesting ways. Willis is left-handed, and when he and Crover play in time it results in a weird fun-house mirror effect.

11:02 PM: Loud bands are the best. The Pixies may have been on to something with that whole LOUD-quiet-LOUD formula. But loud-LOUDER-loud works just as well.

11:08 PM: After six minutes of lethal, heavy-as-hell jamming, Crover and Willis stand on their drum thrones, breaking into a chorus of Merle Haggard’s 1969 country anthem "Okie From Muskogee," which The Melvins covered on their 2000 album The Crybaby. It’s an appropriate closer, considering that 2000 was the last time The Melvins graced a Toronto stage. And given the smell of stale beer and pot smoke lingering in the venue, lyrics like "We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee/ We don’t take no trips on LSD" seem doubly-satirical.

11:15 PM: So that’s it. The band leaves the stage. No encore. Some people still believe that they’ll be back on for another set, but the roadies dismantling the gear on stage suggests otherwise. It was an awesome set, to be sure. But given all the loose talk of some nine-hour Melvins marathon, a lot of people in audience can’t help but feel a little cheated.

Photos by D.A. Cooper/Torontoist.

The Toronto International Film Festival—this year's edition of which begins next Thursday—means many things to many people. For Mina Mikhail and Ryan Ming, it's become a software engineering challenge.

"I've been going to the Film Festival for over ten years, now, and every year I buy a ten-pass to the Film Festival, which is just ten tickets," says Mikhail over Skype from London, where he and Ming, both Toronto natives, are currently doing web development for a social networking and movie streaming service for film buffs. "Sometimes I want to bring people with me, so I need to know how to pick like five or six screenings out of something like eight hundred."

"I've seen year after year, it's a really labour-intensive job, and there's no tool to do it."

It was a problem of overabundant data. Almost anyone else would have grudgingly dealt with it by hand, but Mikhail and Ming are computer engineers, and their approach was different. They started coding in 2008, and their creation was ready for use shortly before TIFF 2009: they called it tiffr.

The program is a TIFF-specific scheduling tool. Users sign up for an account on tiffr.com, and then they can create an interactive online calendar of all the TIFF screenings they're planning on seeing for the duration of the festival, from a database of TIFF scheduling information compiled by Mikhail and Ming. The abstruse process of figuring out conflicts between screening times and keeping track of one's "must see" list becomes, suddenly, relatively easy. Mikhail estimates that the site currently has about five hundred users. The pair have ideas for new features that they say they'll implement in coming years, time permitting.

"We built it so we could use it ourselves, too. That was always my main goal, to just have a system so I could use it," says Ming.

"Exactly. We would use it and we would save ourselves a bunch of time. But in reality it just cost us a bunch of time," says Mikhail, and they both laugh. They estimate that bringing tiffr to its current state of completion (it's still a prototype) took them about four months of "fairly consistent" work.

There are 339 films playing at TIFF this year. In 2008, there were 336. Each one screens several times throughout the Festival for general audiences, and several times again for press and industry delegates. (Though tiffr currently does not work with press and industry screenings, that functionality is under development.)

There is an official TIFF scheduling tool called myTIFFList; it's available on the official Festival website, but its calender functionality is limited in comparison to tiffr's. TIFF also offers an official Blackberry app (Blackberry being one of the Festival's major sponsors).

Completely unaffiliated with TIFF, Mikhail and Ming made tiffr, they say, as a "labour of love," and as a calling card to help them find work. They say they approached TIFF in an attempt to work out a more formal partnership, or at least to get access to film scheduling data in raw form (currently, they get TIFF film schedules by skimming them from the TIFF site with custom-designed software, which is a difficult and unreliable way to get data), but were rebuffed. Last year, festival staff asked Mikhail, who volunteers for TIFF as an event photographer, not to hand out flyers for tiffr at TIFF box offices, in order to avoid the appearance of such a partnership. He complied, after his second warning.

The pair haven't made any money off their creation to date. But there has been some payoff: developing tiffr helped them land those sweet, film-related jobs in London. And, in any case, they consider their creation to be a philanthropic effort.

Says Mikhail: "Now that we've got it working, and we know that it does have value, we're just trying to inform as many people as possible about the fact that we can save some time and maybe not lose hair making it to the film festival."

Cabbies who execute U-turns with no warning. Drivers who refuse wait two seconds at a pedestrian crossing. Hotshots who think nothing of showing off their ultra-cool set of wheels by shifting into warp drive without any care about anyone else sharing the road. Car owners who ignore the existence of turn signals. Cyclists riding on the sidewalk who hurl obscenities at pedestrians minding their own business.

It can be a jungle on Toronto’s roads thanks to reckless drivers of all stripes, but this isn’t news to anyone who’s lived here for a while. The types of vehicles some of our citizens probably shouldn’t be operating matters little, as crazy drivers in Toronto were a problem even before the automobile arrived. We recently unearthed an editorial from the nineteenth century which proves that there has always been a risk of being mowed down by anyone in a hurry, even at eight miles an hour.

Under the title "Reckless Driving," the lead editorial in the May 5, 1881 edition of the Toronto Evening News traces the history of crazy drivers back to Greek mythology:

That son of the immortals who was cast out of Olympus through his reckless management of the celestial chariot was served quite right. The pity is that he did not alight upon some other planet than ours, which seems to have been selected by the aristocracy of mythology as a fit receptacle for all the rubbish they had to dispose of. The bad example set by him has only been too closely followed, and the result is that the old, the infirm, and unwary are liable to be knocked down and run over in our street upon any time/day which woos the furious driver to his pleasant pastime.

Is the cop on the right watching for speeders? King Street at Yonge Street, looking east. Toronto, c. 1875. Wikimedia Commons.

The editorial writer then presents scenarios that make one wonder if pedestrian accident/fatality statistics were as high as those seen in the city earlier this year:

The little girl on her way to school is not an imposing personage, but she has, or ought to have, a right to go to school without being frightened out of her wits at every street crossing. When THE EVENING NEWS takes its walks abroad these bright May mornings having, like Gilpin’s wife, "a frugal mind although on pleasure bent," it often observes that the little ones on their way to school are perplexed and bewildered by the furious manner in which various vehicles are driven down upon them. School going children are not the only victims. Old men and women, the halt, the lame and the blind, are sometimes knocked down and run over as though they were mere bundles of old rags. By what right does a coachman, or cabman, or a butcher’s boy do this sort of thing? If THE EVENING NEWS is not misinformed there is a city ordinance against furious driving, but furious drivers seem not to care for the city ordinance. It is, we understand, the duty of the police to see that the limit of eight miles per hour is not exceeded by any vehicle with a horse at one end of the rains [sic] and a fool at the other end. The limit is not limited enough, and ought to be circumscribed, but is exceeded every day in the week without fear and without penalty.

Unfortunately for the police, the radar gun had yet to be invented. We imagine that unless a constable was already mounted, chasing after the speeders would have been next to impossible. The solution? Drop the speed limit.

The police have failed to perform their whole duty in this respect. It is true that it is difficult for a constable to tell whether a horse is being driven at the rate of more than eight miles an hour or not, but there are flagrant cases which not even a constable can mistake. Eight miles an hour is altogether too fast for our more crowded thoroughfares. If our constables cannot tell when that pace is being exceeded, and when people are being placed in danger of their lives, perhaps a reporter of THE EVENING NEWS, stop-watch in hand, can. Anyhow, this reckless driving must be checked.

In the novel Elizabeth Street, Laurie Fabiano traces her family’s journey from early twentieth-century Scilla, Italy, to modern-day New York City. While the prose is choppy and the book design amateur (it is published by Amazon Encore, a confusing Amazon-driven publishing house), the story of Fabiano’s great-grandmother Giovanna and the family’s many trials is even more astounding for being based on a true story. Giovanna is a pillar of strength as she faces tragedy after tragedy and still manages to build a life for herself and her family in the New World.

MORE AT BOOKS.TORONTOIST.COM >

It's going to be a fantastic Thursday! Here's what to ponder: the TDSB's stadium-style party, Toronto is a speed trap, and your auto insurance coverage now covers less.

Yesterday afternoon, the Toronto District School Board held a pre-semester rally at the Air Canada Centre to really get jazzed for the new school year. The pricetag? $127,000. With the Ripley-esque title "Believe It: Our Time Is Now," the event was originally planned as an all-day affair that would have set the TDSB back $345,000, but a public backlash lead to the scaling back of the event. TDSB education director Chris Spence, always the picture of modesty, was apparently introduced as "the architect of the vision of hope." Who says rhetoric doesn't buy textbooks?

If the mind-numbing gridlock of our fine city's streets at rush hour doesn't curb your pedal-to-the-metal tendencies, perhaps this tidbit will: Toronto has been named the Ontario city with the most speed traps by the National Motorist Association in their annual list of "Worst North American Speed Trap Cities." Apparently there have been some 250 to 260 individual speed trap locations reported over the past few years—more than Los Angeles and New York combined.

If a city speckled with speed traps won't convince you to park the car and hop on two-wheeled or public transportation, maybe a drop in the coverage your auto insurance provides might do the trick. Changes to Ontario's auto insurance came into effect yesterday, and critics say that the province will now be providing less coverage for the same premiums. The biggest change is a 50% cut to medical and rehabilitation benefits, and there is also a 10% drop in income replacement coverage. Insurance reps say the changes actually benefit the consumer because we now have the choice to pay extra for the coverage we would have previously received automatically—it's not cruelly forced upon us. See how they twist it?

Perpetually hot-under-the-collar Toronto Star columnist Joe Fiorito is hot under the proverbial (and most likely literal) collar, and this time, it's about Rob Ford. Apparently Fiorito received an email from Ford headquarters with the subject line "Dear Joe Fiorito 'Al Gosling is Dead.'" Al Gosling was an eighty-two-year-old Torontonian who died of an infection acquired while living in a homeless shelter. He had been evicted from his low income housing only a few weeks earlier. A follow-up email from Fiorito yielded a response with an identical subject line to the first. This isn't the first time Ford's camp has screwed up an email form letter, and chances are it won't be the last.

Speaking of the temperature under Joe Fiorito's collar—it is hot out! Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson said it best, when on Wednesday he announced: "If you’re sitting in an air-conditioned office all day, it feels like you’ve been punched in the stomach when you go outside." Indeed. Enjoy the stomach-punching warmth while it lasts—cooler weather is on the way for the long weekend.

Ignite Toronto gives local speakers five minutes and twenty slides to communicate their new ideas, be they revolutionary, frivolous, or somehow a combination of both. Photo by James Kachan.

Today in Toronto: a global garden opens, fashion and poetry intertwine, new ideas are given five minutes apiece, and a comedic prodigal son returns.

GARDEN: Tonight, community food centre The Stop will be opening its metaphorical doors to the neighbourhood for its new Global Roots Garden. Consisting of seven demonstration gardens producing fruits, herbs, and vegetables from some of the city's major ethnic communities, the project aims to spread awareness of the diversity of planting options available to urban gardeners. Open house visitors will not only be able to tour the garden but also enjoy snacks prepared from harvested ingredients. Barn 5 at Wychwood Barns (601 Christie Street), 5:30 p.m., FREE.

WORDS & FASHION: Literature for Life's second installation of Poetic Fashion aims to continue the mission of showcasing the talent of youth from underserved neighbourhoods. Hosted by Juno nominee Kim Davis and Raptors TV's Akil Augustine, the event will showcase spoken word artists and performers wearing fashion from some of Toronto's hottest new designers. Run for youth by youth, the Poetic Fashion project is dedicated to promoting the talent found in Toronto's at-risk communities.St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (27 Front Street East), 7 p.m., $26.

IDEAS: Ignite is a global initiative to share ideas from freethinkers, problem solvers, and other various sharp minds that fall under the curious umbrella of "geek culture." Staged in numerous cities worldwide, the Toronto chapter has put on three successful events to date. Given five minutes on stage and twenty slides set to auto-rotate every fifteen seconds, speakers can talk about any ideas that they desire. Advance tickets are sold out, but early birds may be able to snag some at the door. Drake Hotel (1150 Queen Street West), 8 p.m., $20.

COMEDY: Comedian, actor, and filmmaker Levi MacDougall is making a brief return to his homeland to nab second billing at Friends & Levi MacDougall. The familiar face from such shows as Hotbox and The Jon Dore Show—and of course, a series of pretty popular Rogers commercials—will be performing one night only with guests Katie Crown, David Dineen-Porter, and musician Bob Wiseman. Head on down to the Comedy Bar to get your ribs tickled before MacDougall returns to his new home of sunny L.A. Comedy Bar (945 Bloor Street West), 10 p.m., $5.

The winning entries in Toronto Elections' poster designing contest. Left: Shaikh Faraz Safdar (winner); top right: Chantal Stepa (second place); bottom right: Pallavi Thampi (third place).

• As you may have heard, Toronto is holding an election this fall. In order to mobilize voters in general, and young voters in particular, the City held a poster designing contest. The winning entries were announced this afternoon, and they are pretty full of the warm-and-fuzzy. Congrats to Shaikh Faraz Safdar, a seventeen-year-old from Lester B. Pearson Collegiate, on securing the top spot. (And everyone: go vote!)
• Ryerson is establishing a Centre for Urban Energy, which will be "devoted to the discovery and commercialization of innovative, practical solutions to urban energy issues." As fast as possible guys, k? With all the electioneering going on, we need someone to come up with some actual ideas.
• You read Torontoist, right? Of course you do. And you maybe have opinions on this here magnificent online publication? Good! Tell us what they are by filling out our readership survey. (If mouthing off isn't enough incentive, there is also this: $100 will go to one randomly selected survey-taker.)

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Gerhard Weidelich was born in 1932 to a German family in Romania. He was seven when they were taken back to Germany, and thirteen when the Second World War ended and Gerhard, his mother, and four brothers were sent to Siberia as Russian prisoners. His mother being too old and the brothers too sick to work, they were released a year later and shipped back to Germany; one of his brothers died in the hospital soon after. In 1949 Gerhard was reunited with his father, who had been separately interred as a prisoner of war in Russia, and the family moved to the south of Germany to seek better employment. With a family of his own, Gerhard immigrated to Toronto in 1956, started work in construction, and witnessed the growth of a city.

“Compared to now [Toronto] was like a little village,” Gerhard remembers. “Eglinton Avenue was, so to speak, the perimeter. The 401 was north of Toronto, and it ended at Bayview. On Wilson Avenue and Keele there was still a post office with a wooden rail for the horses to tie on.”

Gerhard connected with a German congregation through a church on Broadview Avenue, and as he saw the parish expand so too did he see himself, and the other Germans who had immigrated to Toronto, grow and move on from their past.

“I'm very grateful for Canada, and that we were given the opportunity to come here and start fresh.”

Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.

In this edition of Declassified: three wise men, sexy burrito eaters, and a cat meets its untimely demise.

We can't help but wonder if, instead of trying to sell us barely identifiable religious statues, this ad is actually setting out to make us reconsider the company we keep under the clever guise of holiday kitsch. Very tricky, indeed.

Dear hipsters on Harbord: stop picking on cartoon Bill Murray. Yours in enforcement, Torontoist. (Thanks to reader Rachel Lissner for the discovery!)

The besotted young lad who wrote this is probably an ex-high school wrestler, as he used the word "singlet" to describe an article of clothing most would call a leotard. We wish him the best of luck on his quest to getting pinned (get it?!).

WE DIDN'T REALIZE BURITO BOYZZZ HAS HALIBUT BURRITOS BUT NOW WE ARE SOO THERE!!!!!

Remember that kid in grade two who always had a red Kool-Aid moustache and a runny nose? Behold: his future.

This is just sad.

With less than two months to go, Joe Pantalone is fading on the left, centre-right candidates Smitherman, Thomson, and Rossi are all fishing in the same vote pool, and opinion polls put Rob Ford closer than ever to blustering himself into the mayor's office. This turn of events perplexes the twittering classes in their lavender pantsuits, who gather in stuccoed salons to peer through bejeweled monocles at iPads bearing the grim news, and weep in the remembering of a young flaxen-haired promise called David Miller. Still, in late August of 2003, Miller himself trailed a distant fourth in the polls behind Barbara Hall, John Nunziata, and John Tory—and we all know how that turned out. Here's how we see it right now.

Rob Ford

Electograph Score: 8/10 (+2)

The enigma that is Rob Ford continues to lead the pack, in spite of recent legal revelations and the fact that he's doing more gaffing than a six-armed tuna fisherman. Not only are his controversial comments about everything from bike lanes to refugees not hurting him, it seems likely that the media attention he's getting is working in his favour. More troubling than a decade-old DUI is that the pride of Etobicoke has yet to present any real solutions for the key issues facing the city, and may not even understand what they are. His platform essentially involves getting half of city council to fire itself, then using the savings to cut taxes and hire a bunch of cops, a stratagem so impractical and mathematically unsound that it could be discredited by a chimpanzee with a slide rule. Still, Ford's carefully crafted persona as a straight-shooting cost-cutter who stands up for the little guy resonates with a lot of people who vote, and that's why we've got him out in front.

Joe Pantalone

Electograph Score: 2.5/10 (-.5)

Poor Joe Pantalone—even with a high profile if unsurprising endorsement from NDP leader Jack Layton, he can't seem to get ahead. In spite of being a seasoned city councillor who's been in the public eye for decades, he's now frequently—although not always—polling behind newbie candidate Sarah Thomson. Part of his problem is that rightly or wrongly he's associated in the public mind with an alleged culture of waste and bad management at city hall that's constantly being referenced by the other candidates. However, the same Ipsos-Reid poll that gave Ford a big lead also indicated that David Miller could still win handily if the election were held now, implying that it's not just Joe's left-wing politics hurting him but something more Pantalone-specific He's also soft-spoken and polite in an election year where rage is all the rage, so maybe it's just that no one can hear him over the ruckus.

Rocco Rossi

Electograph Score: 2.5/10 (+.5)

Electograph is holding steady on Rocco Rossi in spite of lousy showings in the polls lately. He came in with little name recognition, and was side-swiped when Rob Ford scooped many of the right-leaning voters that Rossi had been courting. Lately, he's been working to raise his profile through relentless use of social media and online ads (in fact there's an excellent chance he's smirking at you from the left side of your screen as you read this), and by turning up all shiny-headed and glad-handed at every festival, parade, and convenience store opening in the city. Even so, he doesn't get much mainstream media affection, unlike front-runner Ford whose every utterance eventually leads to an explanatory press conference. However, Rossi isn't giving up—this week Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella joined his team as an adviser, and Rossi secured some much-needed press when he proposed voter recalls for non-performing politicos. Rossi is smart and has money burning a hole in his pocket, and if voters start paying more attention as we get down to the wire, he could still have a shot.

George Smitherman

Electograph Score: 6/10 (unchanged)

George Smitherman continues to lose ground to the Ford juggernaut, and his campaign team is concerned enough that of late they're investing as much effort into lambasting Rob Ford as they are into promoting their own candidate. Dozens of Smitherman's old chums from the provincial Liberals have banded together to put together a brochure endorsing him (think "We Are the World" without the music or the star power), although it's unclear whether this will be helpful, what with the eHealth skeleton long out of the closet and doing the Macarena around the living room. Polls and common sense suggest Smitherman is more popular among residents of Toronto, while Ford's staunchest support comes from the riding-mower crowd in the inner suburbs, so it may come down to who gets out the vote most effectively.

Sarah Thomson

Electograph Score: 2.5/10 (+1.5)

We give Sarah Thomson the biggest bump of the big five, as she continues to evolve from token female to legitimate contender. She's been consistent in her positions, even potentially unpopular ones like imposing road tolls to cover the cost of transit improvements, and is surprisingly interested in green issues for a self-described "business" candidate. Thomson also has celebrated non-candidate John Tory's sons George and John Jr. working on her campaign, and in addition to whatever political savvy the Tory spawn bring to the table, Thomson may benefit from a perceived endorsement by their father. She remains a dark horse in this race, but a lot can happen in two months.

Candidates' illustrations by Brian McLachlan/Torontoist. Electograph design by Marc Lostracco/Torontoist.

Overheard during a TIFF pre-festival screening. Two film writers are comparing notes about war movies they've seen recently.

Film Writer: If I see one more returned soldier standing in a supermarket contemplating all the food choices and feeling the profound banality of life, I'm gonna kill myself.

Reader Brenda Dougall Merriman asks:

What are those mysterious stone slabs scattered flush with the grass in St. James Park? In 'handwritten' script, they appear to be extracts from someone's letters. Who sent these messages and why are we ignoring them?

Torontoist answers:

Avert your eyes! Look away! Ignoring these messages is exactly what we're supposed to do. At least, that is, according to Gilbert Boyer, the sculptor who created and donated them (along with Mr. and Mrs. Louis L. Odette) to the Toronto Sculpture Garden.

Everyone knows outdoor public art is intended for public viewing, but in this case, Boyer claims, he created this installation and then partially buried it so that the public wouldn't notice it.

Confused? Once you're aware of the theme Boyer was going for, it'll make sense. Sort of.

Among other things, Boyer states here that the installation, titled I looked for Sarah everywhere, is "a simple story of absence and the dramatic weight of...absence looming in public spaces which would otherwise seem innocent and blank."

Or, more simply (and prosaically): I looked for Sarah everywhere is about life in a bustling city and not noticing the people who are all around us. One in particular is a woman named Sarah. She is somewhere in Toronto. Each of the six granite slabs, unobtrusively embedded on the grounds of St. James Park, contains handwritten and illustrated clues as to her whereabouts.

First installed in the Toronto Sculpture Garden in 1992, I looked for Sarah everywhere was moved across King Street in 2001 and given a permanent home in the northwest portion of St. James Park. At the side of the pathway bisecting the park in a northwesterly direction (toward Adelaide Street), there is a stone inscription giving the name of the installation, the artist, and little else.

It may be counter-intuitive given the artist's stated intentions, but if you enjoy solving mysteries it’s worth taking a closer look at I looked for Sarah everywhere. Arranged in a circular formation and inconspicuously embedded in the earth approximately twenty paces from one another, the six tablets are engraved with script—sentence fragments and partial phrases— that appears to be bits of handwritten letters, or perhaps pages torn from a diary:

Then I took the streetcar, the 504

occurred to me that I might find

with her or maybe I’d see someone

eating an apple pie

half-brother Blythe

Prospect or around there

estaurant on Davenport−

There are also images engraved on the tablets, including a drawing outlining the provincial boundaries of Ontario and Manitoba, a basic map of downtown Toronto, the seating plan of a streetcar, the entrance of a Toronto public library (possibly the Riverdale branch), a rudimentary drawing of the pathways at Allan Gardens, and a diagram of a furnished apartment, which may or may not be Sarah's, whose identity remains firmly enigmatic.

If in fact you do find Sarah, after the two of you have a chance to chat you may wish to visit the grounds of the Bathurst Jewish Community Centre. Here you’ll find a second example of Gilbert Boyer’s landscape art.

Photos by Ryan Walker/Torontoist

Those interested in getting their sci-fi/horror/gaming/superhero freak on came out in higher numbers than expected last weekend for HobbyStar Marketing’s showcase pop culture convention, Fan Expo Canada. Although he did not offer any refunds, the sports and entertainment marketing company’s CEO Aman Gupta issued an apology on behalf of the Fan Expo team [PDF] for its mismanagement of the event, which outpaced the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s fire and safety limitations, causing huge lines, flared tempers, and great delays for those getting in and out of the building.

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In Toronto, there are few reasons for the style set to travel north of Bloor: family, friends or, in my case, Magnolia Boutique. As a precursor to tonight’s BASCH by Brandon Spring 2010 presentation at 99 Sudbury, designer Brandon Dwyer teamed up with shop owner Juan Carlos for a sneak peak at the collection last week.

A cult haven for well-to-do Forest Hill-iates, Magnolia has been around since November 2008. Juan Carlos’s background in fashion design (he was an aspiring designer two lives ago) fueled his passion to get great work noticed. "Instead of being part of the designers that compete with each other, I wanted to help showcase local talent alongside international brands, so my customers would realize that fashion is not just European or American style," Carlos explains.

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Dimitri the Lover. Creep, sure. Leaver of awful voicemail messages, that too. Film star, unfortunately. Villain, undoubtedly. But kingmaker?

"Only one procedure can effectively cleanse a chronic infestation from an enclosed cavity," writes Dimitri the Lover, making a metaphor out of City Hall in a not-even-close-to-civic email to his followers on Tuesday night. That procedure, Dimitri writes, is "A DOUCHE! Ladies and gentlemen …ROB FORD is that DOUCHE!"

Don't even get him started on Sarah Thomson.

Dimitri's real name is James Sears. A former doctor, Sears lost his license after sexual assault allegations; years earlier, a military psychiatrist determined there was "something seriously wrong" with him. Now, he's Toronto most visible and most despised pickup artist: when he's not trawling for women himself, he hosts meetings of the "Toronto Real Men" ("North America's Only Legitimate Seduction Lair") and offers "seduction" courses to men that cost thousands of dollars.

One of the "Ten Commandments For Women" on Sears' website (go, if you must) is "I accept that my man is a murderer and rapist, and I will not provoke him." One of his "Remarkable Facts" is that "There is no theory of natural selection ... just women DIMITRI allows to go unfucked." It's fair to say that, as far as women go, he's not much of a fan. And indeed, in Tuesday's email, Sears devotes less time to endorsing Ford than to ripping apart fellow mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson, who Sears accuses of not tipping at a café that he says they both frequent. Thomson is, Sears writes, "the embodiment of PURE EVIL."

Joe Pantalone, meanwhile, is a "BIG SOCIALIST"; George Smitherman is a "career politician"; and Rocci Rossi is "extremely dangerous."

The full text of Dimitri the Lover's mayoral missive is below. Little of what Sears says—from claims of corruption at City Hall to those about Thomson—can be corroborated, of course, and while Rob Ford's fans might appreciate the endorsement, they might not be such a fan of the metaphor.

That engagement ring Dimitri mentions at the foot of the email, by the way, is not made of diamonds, but rubies and a sapphire. Diamonds, Dimitri tweeted, would be "unethical."

During the installation of his Art and Film exhibition that opens today at the Art Gallery Of Ontario, Julian Schnabel had an idea. He wanted to include a quotation from the journals of French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix that begins "art is so big that a whole lifetime is required to master the organization of it…"

It’s a fitting piece of poetic thought for the show, which traces a line through Schnabel’s creative practice that brings together works from "1975 until two weeks ago," according to the artist. This line also plots a course through his body of work that connects pieces created at intersections of art and film.

The exhibition’s curator, David Moos, describes these points of intersection as sometimes quite clear and transparent, but adds that, other times, you are presented with paintings that offer more "fractal, prismatic attachments to the notion of film and the overlap of the two." It’s then up to the viewer to come to an understanding of how they related through "content, form, or pictorial reality."

The artist with Untitled (Self-Portrait).

Schnabel puts the curatorial process in more pragmatic terms, describing the criteria for including pieces in the show as: "what paintings did I make that had to do with films that I was thinking about?" With works like Accattone and Shoeshine (for Vittorio de Sica), painted and named for films (1961 and 1946, respectively) that were stirring his thoughts, the cross-over is clear.

Intersections, cross-overs, and linkages aside, entering the exhibition is an almost incredulous experience. For anyone familiar with Schnabel’s work only through reproductions, this will be the moment you realize you had no idea how big his works really are. Their scale is stunning, and it disorients your traditional interaction with a painting. It’s more like being next to an edifice, and verges on humbling.

Painting for Malik Joyeux and Bernardo Bertolucci (VI), left, and Painting for Malik Joyeux and Bernardo Bertolucci (V), right. Both featuring surfers, Schnabel states that an image of the ocean is an image of freedom.

Schnabel arrived on the New York art scene in the early 1980s with his well-known plate paintings, using smashed ceramics as a canvas for large-scale painted works. He embarked on a decades-long career that has fallen very much into the "go big or go home" school of thought. The emotive power of his works owes much to scale, but also to the fact that he is a narrative builder, a storyteller. When a visitor to the exhibition's preview questioned Schnabel on Andy Warhol’s inner monologue when he painted his 1982 portrait of the famous pop artist, Schnabel replied "I hope you can see that answer in the painting."

This is why the title of the show sits somewhat strangely. Schnabel is a highly narrative artist who works in a variety of media—sometimes paint and sometimes film. His filmography has garnered him as much, if not more, notoriety than his paintings. It may just be verbal parsing, but to relegate film to some realm outside of art seems an oddly definitive distinction for an exhibition about how an artist’s paintings, photographs, and sculptural works are intertwined with films.

This is, however, certainly only an aside when considering this monumental installation of rather transcendent artworks. It’s an art experience that reminds you of the importance of a life lived large—that all things are fleeting and mysterious and rare, and that we can or cannot pursue life’s paths with all we’ve got. It’s a reminder that it's possible and valuable to go big.

Julian Schnabel: Art and Film opens to the public today, and runs until January 2, 2011.

Photos by Michael Chrisman/Torontoist.

Wednesday, September 1—why isn't this a holiday? Weather remains hot, hot, hot, Moscoe leaves council, and there's a new bee in town.

Climate change is working out just dandy in Toronto! The third day of temperatures above thirty-two degrees means that we're not just hot and sweaty anymore, we're enjoying an official, government-sanctioned heat wave. In fact, yesterday's high of 33.6 degrees broke a record set way back in 1973. Keep your new fall outfits handy though, things are expected to cool down considerably for the long weekend.

City councillor Howard Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence) has announced that he won't be running for re-election in October. Former TTC chair Moscoe has been a fixture at City Hall for thirty-one years, and is known for his outspokenness and quotability. The Globe reports that Moscoe will throw himself a 71st birthday party before his departure but it will be self-funded, so presumably he'll avoid the fate of Kyle Rae who spent taxpayer bucks on his own farewell and had Rob Ford come down on him like a ton of, well, Rob Ford.

Mayoral candidates, who must be getting heartily sick of each other by now, got together last night to debate environmental issues. Key takeaways were that Rossi and Pantalone know nature because they're Italian and that all the candidates are in favour of the environment, except Rob Ford who'd like to see it be cheaper.

Toronto has been selected to host the first gay tourism conference, where travel industry experts and conference aficionados will gather to discuss how to better market the Great Gay North. Canada is already an attractive destination for gay, lesbian, and transgendered travellers, with same-sex marriage legal since 2005 and the Toronto Pride festival one of the largest in the world, but the conference will look to cash in further on the estimated seventy-billion-dollar market.

A York University researcher has discovered a new species of bee that calls downtown Toronto home. Biologist Jason Gibbs says it looks pretty much like other bees of its type (called "sweat bees" because they're attracted to perspiration) but its DNA is different. That's the great thing about being a bee researcher—you can walk out the front door in Toronto and discover a new species. That would never happen if you were researching gorillas.

The estimated cost of the revitalization of the Fort York museum in time for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 has been bumped up from $18.9 million to $23 million. Still, the $4 million overage is a bargain compared to the actual War of 1812, which is estimated to have cost around $1.2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Labour workers win this round at the Old City Hall. Photo courtesy the Toronto & York Region Labour Council.

In today's all-free edition of Urban Planner: learn why nine-to-five is a blessing, how Impressionism differs from Romanticism, the signs of ovarian cancer, and what all those film critics are raving about.

WALK: George Brown College, the Toronto & York Region Labour Council, and CUPE Local 79 want you to get moving—a slow walk will do—at their launch of "Toronto Labour History Walking Tours." Learn the battles of labourers (including the win of a mere nine-hour day, yikes) in one of three distinct eras: 19th Century Toronto begins hogtown’s working history, Early 20th Century Toronto explores the city’s industrial growth, and Post-War Toronto carries us from WWII to right now. Launching from George Brown College and concluding at St. Lawrence Hall, speakers include map co-authors Maureen Hynes and David Kidd, Toronto & York Region Labour President John Cartwright, historian Craig Heron, and more. Foyer at George Brown College (200 King Street East), 10 a.m., FREE.

ART: Two hundred institutions worldwide, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, are participating in Ask a Curator Day—a live "event" (it’s on Twitter, natch) where twitterers can ask their most pressing art questions: what’s Dada and how do I get one? Is Mona Lisa really a man? What’s the difference between avant-garde and art nouveau? And what makes that modernist red line so damn special? Fire away to the general hashtag #askacurator or right to the AGO, where Michelle Jacques, associate curator of contemporary art, and Sophie Hackett, assistant curator of photography, finally explain how romanticism differs from realism. Also ask your general curating questions or about the AGO itself or whether Frank Gehry is a one-trick pony. Get artistic already. www.twitter.com, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. (Jacques) and 3–4 p.m. (Hackett), FREE.

CHARITY/SIGNING: To kick off Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, everyone’s favourite bargain paradise, more commonly called Winners, is hosting Olympic Silver Medalist Elizabeth Manley at College Park. Since losing her mother to the disease, Manley has become a national spokesperson for Winners Walk of Hope, bringing awareness of signs and symptoms, as well as some much-needed publicity to Canada’s most fatal gynecologic cancer. Get out there and show your support for the 17,500 Canadian ladies who need it. Winners College Park (444 Yonge Street), 12–2 p.m., FREE.

FILM: Final curtain call, folks: Summer Movie Nights, the Entertainment District in partnership with TIFF’s free Wednesday flicks, wrap up another summer with tonight’s screening of Casablanca. You know, love affair with Ingrid Bergman plus Humphrey Bogart, beautiful friendships, and playing it again, Sam. What? Haven’t seen it? Well, miss tonight and you’ll regret it. Maybe not today or tomorrow (when it’ll play if it rains out tonight), but soon and for the rest of your life. Metro Square (King & John streets), 9 p.m., FREE.

—Howard Moscoe, in 2003. The long-time Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence councillor confirmed today that he will not be running for re-election. The Globe has more.

Flying over Mississauga. Photo by LexnGer from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

• What if suburbs, not cities, were the models the world should follow? Joel Kotkin argues as much in the new edition of Foreign Policy. Read it while watching that new Arcade Fire video.
• If you thought that a City of Toronto ad "to promote the city's Solid Waste Management Services Division campaign to raise awareness of its service of free pick-up and recycling of electronics" would be boring, prepare to be pleasantly surprised. [via Mondoville, who hates it]
• And good news for those who've been waiting for a real, actually good mayoral debate: The Agenda will be hosting one on September 7.

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You know what? Just give in to this. Hawksley Workman's latest album Milk is packed tight with shimmering synths and glossy guitars, its electro-pop sheen not so much a contrast to its garage-rock predecessor, Meat, as its unlikely, though intended, companion. It's striking at first listen and is as playful and uninhibited as Workman has ever sounded.

Throughout his now decade-plus career, he's verged at times on virtuoso and here and there on quirky irritant, and on Milk, Workman finds the elusive (even unimaginable) balance between the two. Teeming with his trademark sinfulness (the title itself is a euphemism for female sexuality), the speak-sing rapping on songs like "Who Do They Kiss?" (streaming above) and blatant rhyming scheme of "Warhol's Portrait of Gretzky" await your cringe, but you'll be disarmed by his obvious dual self-awareness/don't-give-a-fuck-ness. Hiding underneath the cheap blips of "Some People," where Workman is doing his best Buck 65, is a dense warble of bass-driven intensity, building into a chorus that's as rich as anything on the album, and the cameo from Shad on the bridge turns into a bonafide deep-album gem just before the over-the-top, if not skilfully crafted, auto-tuned radio-jams at the end.

The sparkle will undoubtedly fade, but let yourself be surprised by Workman as he shines here; Milk is as bold as its creator, making a statement to the breadth of Workman's character and artistic ability.

The 1967 edition of the Canadian National Exhibition was not going to be an easy one to market to the public. How could it compete with the once-in-a-lifetime hoopla surrounding the year’s main celebration of Canada’s centennial, Expo 67? Would a trio of entertainers with Canadian roots help?

While the CNE rolled on with its traditional attractions in 1967, City officials who visited Montreal realized changes needed to be made for future editions of the CNE to make it feel less dowdy. Controller Fred Beavis proposed that beer and liquor sales should be allowed, while Mayor William Dennison pondered loosening restrictions that prevented the fair from opening on Sundays. In an editorial, the Star noted that these would be minor changes compared to what it felt the Ex really needed: a major freshening up and the creation of a greater sense of awe and wonder like that experienced at Expo 67 to bring it into the modern age.

It has settled into a rut, with no substantial change for generations. The visitor who goes through the gates each year knows in advance pretty much what he will see. There will be the same dull, unchanging buildings; the same masses of goods for sale—making some pavilions look like second-rate department stores; the same miles of booths with junky merchandise and dubious gambling games; the same bellowing pitchmen. There are, of course, better things than this at the "Ex" every year—but they are smothered in a sea of shoddy carnival gimmicks. This sort of thing may have been good enough 60 years ago, and indeed the CNE has a certain nostalgic charm for many people because it is so old-fashioned. But the CNE has no future as a big city country fair. That is not the way to attract younger people—especially when so many of them have seen "Expo" and know what a fair can be.

The paper recommended that older buildings be gradually replaced by modern structures that could be easily modified for different purposes, that the fair promote national artistic competitions, and do away with the "junk booths and ‘gyp’ shows" (conversely, a Globe and Mail editorial stated that, in a year where Charles DeGaulle gave fuel to separatist sentiments during his visit to Expo, "we should be thankful, in this shattering season, for something familiar and temperate").

Source: The Globe and Mail, August 14, 1967.

For the 1967 Grandstand spectacular, fair officials brought in three expats as headliners: Bonanza patriarch Lorne Greene, daytime variety show host Art Linkletter, and easy listening music maestro Percy Faith. This did not sit well with Globe and Mail columnist Dennis Braithwaite, who hoped any future reforms to the fair would eliminate "spurious Canadianism" as represented by importing talent that was more popular at the time south of the border. Braithwaite didn’t blame Grandstand programmer Jack Arthur, who had brought many popular performers from elsewhere in previous years despite being urged to use homegrown talent.

Greene, the one-time "voice of doom" for CBC, was recruited to help pitch the fair in a spot that is among the films placed onto YouTube by the CNE Archives.

Globe and Mail reviewer Blaik Kirby found Greene one of the highlights of a disjointed evening at the Grandstand. Despite one too many jokes about Bonanza, Greene proved to be "a first-class singer and an adept, relaxed comedian" who electrified the audience when he arrived onstage atop a white charger. As for the other headliners, Kirby felt Faith was engaging in his understated conducting of the CNE orchestra (even if the material was overly schmaltzy), while Linkletter was criticized for spewing "the worst of daytime audience participation TV fare onto the CNE stage." To Kirby, the biggest mistake of the show was allowing the RCMP Musical Ride to be its finale, as the horses were kept too far away from the audience and showcased at too late an hour (after 11 p.m.).

Despite a sluggish start, attendance increased by 31,000 over 1966 to help break the three million visit mark for only the third time in the fair’s history.

Additional material from the July 31, 1967, August 14, 1967, August 21, 1967, September 5, 1967 editions of the Globe and Mail, and the August 2, 1967 edition of the Toronto Star.

The map of Toronto, above—created by research associates at Richard Florida's Martin Prosperity Institute, or MPI, and released last week as part of a series of mayoral election–themed research briefs—depicts a city divided not by political affiliation (as the electoral colour scheme indicates), but by occupation and access to public transit. The report's authors are suggesting that, to bridge this divide, Toronto should pursue a more expedient transit expansion strategy, involving bus rapid transit.

The red regions on the map are parts of the city where service sector jobs—which the MPI defines as jobs where people "are paid to perform routine work directly for, or on behalf of, clients"—predominate. The blue regions are areas where the majority of jobs available are so-called "creative class" jobs—Florida's term for any type of work where a person is paid primarily for thinking or problem-solving.

The researchers who compiled the data (graduate students working for MPI, and not Florida himself) were struck by how tightly clustered Toronto's creative jobs are, and by how closely those jobs hew, geographically, to subway lines. They say this indicates that Toronto's subway network doesn't benefit all types of workers equally.

"When you look at our map, and you look at who is best served by something like the subway system, it's the people in the creative occupations, which tend to make more [money]," said Patrick Adler, the report's lead researcher and a graduate student in geography at the University of Toronto. "If you're a creative class worker, you're probably more likely than any other kind of worker to drive to work, but if you choose to take the subway it really works out well for you." Service and working-class employees, meanwhile, are less likely to have easy access to speedy rail transit at their places of work, because their jobs are more evenly distributed across the city.

Addressing inequalities in transit access is a major policy goal for all of this year's mayoral contenders, each of whom advocates either light rail or subway expansion, or some combination of the two. Adler and his team, upon studying their data, have proposed a different solution: bus rapid transit, or BRT—which is when road infrastructure and bus scheduling are altered in any of a number of ways to give buses priority over car traffic. Usually, it entails giving certain bus routes their own separate, dedicated lanes.

"Our recommendation about rapid bus systems was a very pragmatic one. We understood that the planning horizon for even light rail is so long, and there are so many variables," said Adler, alluding to the political travails of Transit City.

BRT is currently scarce in Toronto. There's a dedicated busway between Downsview Station and York University. Another BRT route is under consideration for along Kingston Road and Danforth Avenue between Victoria Park Avenue and Eglinton Avenue East, in Scarborough. York Region, Mississauga, and Brampton are all in the process of implementing BRT systems.

"We were trying to think of something that could be implemented even with the City's current resources," said Adler.

Adler and two other MPI research associates used census data as the basis for their work, and so all the individual segments that make up the map are census tracts. Their research brief contains additional policy recommendations.

"We weren't expecting such a strong pattern. And I don't think this pattern would exist every other place," said Adler.

"And it's really kind of cool."

We've all been there, or know someone who has: overeducated and underemployed, a grown-up child is forced to return to his or her parents' home until something better comes along. In One Bird's Choice, memoirist Iain Reid returns to live with his eccentric parents, where he scores a part-time job at a radio station in his home town. To make matters worse, his parents own a hobby farm and Iain is expected to help out. The result is an entertaining and heartwarming exploration of family, growing up, and learning that you really can go home again.

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Marben, the basement club on Wellington Street, recently hosted a photo shoot for Rethink Breast Cancer’s upcoming Boobyball benefit.

Nothing out of the ordinary there, you might think. Except that this shoot’s theme was Studio 54, that iconic playground of the ascendant, the turbulent, and the spiraling-out, where fame and the pursuit of indulgence mingled on a disco-infused dancefloor and drifted through lounges populated by Birkin, Halston, and Minnelli alongside scores of young hopefuls.

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So, are there bedbugs camping out for TIFF at the Scotiabank Theatre? According to owners Cineplex Entertainment, who conducted a "thorough investigation overnight" on Monday, no.

At 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday, the company issued this statement, passed to Torontoist by Global News:

Late yesterday afternoon, Cineplex contracted the services of Abell Pest Control Inc., (Abell), who are experts in their field, to investigate a claim made by a theatre guest that they had been bitten by bed bugs and believed it had occurred while they were watching a movie at our Scotiabank Theatre Toronto. After a thorough investigation overnight, which involved a specially trained sniffing dog and a secondary visual inspection, Abell has confirmed that there were no bed bugs located within the Scotiabank Theatre.

"At Cineplex, the safety and security of our guests and staff are our number one concern which is why we took this claim very seriously and acted immediately," said Pat Marshall, Vice President Communications and Investor Relations. "Recent media coverage related to two New York City theatres has caused a flurry of media calls and guest enquiries and unfortunately has lead many people to jump to erroneous conclusions. However, we took the matter seriously and fully investigated it."

Cineplex is committed to providing the best out of home entertainment experience possible for our guests and their safety and security is our number one priority.

On Monday afternoon, a rumour started circulating on Twitter, to the effect that someone—nobody was saying who—had left the Scotiabank Theatre with bedbug bites. For the multi-screen theatre, the timing couldn't be worse: the Scotiabank is one of the venues for the Toronto International Film Festival, which begins next Thursday.

The rumour originated with James Rocchi, a film writer for MSN Movies, who covers the Toronto International Film Festival. His initial tweet was scant on details ("Bad, Bad news from Toronto re: #TIFF10: Torontonian Friend got, yes, bedbugs at the Scotiabank -- aka where all press screenings are. ..."), but he elaborated for us in an email:

After a morning including, amusingly, a phone interview with [TIFF co-director] Cameron Bailey, a dear Toronto friend of mine told me at about noon Pacific they had gotten bedbug bites at the Scotiabank Theatre—where the majority of TIFF press screenings are scheduled to take place. These bites were on their back, bottom, and legs—in other words, all points-of-contact with a theater seat—after seeing Scott Pilgrim in theater 14. I shared this information—as I trust this person implicitly—via Twitter, sponsoring a rippling wave of nauseated replies.

The first attempt to allay the fears of moviegoers came within an hour of Rocchi's initial bedbug tweet, when Bailey took it upon himself to step out in front of the issue using his Twitter. He wrote: "Before bedbugs becomes today's meme: we're on it, we're talking to Cineplex & are planning for an itch-free #TIFF10."

Rocchi stressed that he was impressed by the speed of TIFF's response to the report. "As I've no desire to spend ten days in the Scotiabank in an Andromeda Strain–style suit, I'm heartened to know that TIFF is aware and on the case," he wrote.

Attempts to reach Rocchi's bedbug-bitten friend directly have not been successful.

Cineplex Entertainment, who own the Scotiabank Theatre, have acknowledged Rocchi's anonymous friend's complaint; it reached them yesterday evening. But they're saying little, so far, about the extent of the problem—nor can they confirm yet that there is one.

"Cineplex Entertainment is fully investigating a report received late today from a guest who believes they were bitten by bed bugs at our Scotiabank Theatre Toronto," wrote Pat Marshall, Vice President of Communications for Cineplex. "The safety and security of our guests and staff are our number one concern and we will investigate this situation immediately and take any steps necessary to address it." [UPDATE, 11:01 AM: After completing their "thorough investigation overnight," Cineplex Entertainment has issued a statement saying that there are no bedbugs at the Scotiabank Theatre.]

When we know more, we'll update this story accordingly.

Today: bed bugs take in a movie, candidates take part in a debate, and the law takes its time with a G20 arrestee.

Apparently bed bugs are now film buffs. A moviegoer tweeted about getting bitten at the Scotiabank Theatre and told the Star about bites on her "thighs, bum and back." Cineplex, which runs the Richmond Street theatre, said it hasn’t had any complaints. All of this is, of course, bad timing, considering TIFF is days away. The festival’s co-director tweeted that they’re on the case to make sure the theatre is "itch-free" before September 9. Is nowhere safe? [UPDATE, 8:59 AM: And here's Torontoist's report about the potential bedbug situation.]

The man who was arrested near the G20 zone with a crossbow in his car way back when is still in jail. Gary McCullough, who security is aware actually didn’t have anything to with the summit, has mental health issues and is one of the last still being detained. The Crown says McCullough is a threat to the public, but his side says it’s a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time…with the wrong possession. When not in jail, he lives a hermit-esque life in cottage country, in a self-constructed cabin.

Rocco Rossi is still hoping for an upset in the upcoming mayoral election. Yesterday, Rossi’s campaign unveiled its plan to push for recall resignation, which would allow politicians to be fired mid-term. There’s been a media hubbub, Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella endorsed Rossi, and he’s switched his campaign manager, but polls have not been kind, placing him with about 5% support.

And speaking of the election, the mayoral candidates were on hand at St. Lawrence Hall to debate historical sites last night. Rossi was there, and so was one of the lesser-knowns, Rocco Achampong. Side note—what are the chances of two Rocco’s in the same race? Anyway, Achampong argued that heritage gets lost in the shuffle in the larger culture file and isn’t made a priority. The others said stuff, too, but we hear from them all the time.

Those crazy kids are at it again. Two teenagers have been charged after a highway chase in a stolen Hummer resulted in said vehicle plowing into three OPP cruisers. But it didn’t end there—police called off the chase for safety reasons, and later caught up with the delinquents in a restaurant near the mall parking lot where they left the car. Burlington police were called Saturday afternoon, after the Hummer was reported stolen in the Niagara Region.

Scissor Sisters bring glam to the Sound Academy tonight. Image courtesy of Collective Concerts.

Tonight, a vintage clothing swap, screenings of The Italian Job and its remake, Giles Blunt launches his latest northern detective novel, and the Scissor Sisters bring glitter and glam to Toronto.

CLOTHES: The sweltering days of summer have given way to a crisp breeze in the air and chances are that, in anticipation of autumn, you're in the market for a new fall wardrobe. If you're looking to get rid of some of your old duds and pick up some new ones, there will be a clothing swap and vintage trading post tonight at the Holy Oak Cafe. If you bring your vintage clothes (pre-1990s and in good condition), the proprietors of Bloordale vintage retailer Tomorrow Never Knows will give them a once-over and you'll have the option to either trade them for another vintage item they've brought, trade them for store credit, or put them on consignment. Holy Oak Cafe (1241 Bloor Street West), 6–9 p.m., FREE.

FILM: The Italian Job, released in 1969 and starring Michael Caine as mobster Charlie Croker, is an iconic snapshot of the swinging sixties in London, an edge-of-your-seat caper flick, and a dream for classic car lovers. But its real notoriety comes from its (literal) cliffhanger ending. In fact, the ending caused so much frustration that a couple of years ago, in anticipation of the movie's fortieth anniversary, the Royal Society of Chemistry held a contest to find the best resolution. Tonight, whip up your own perfect ending at Yonge-Dundas Square, which will be screening both the original British film and its 2003 American remake, starring Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron. Yonge-Dundas Square; original starts at 6:30 p.m., remake starts at 9 p.m.; FREE.

WORDS: Northern Ontario doesn't seem like the most obvious setting for a series of hard-boiled crime thrillers, but author Giles Blunt has somehow made it work, setting his popular John Cardinal mystery books in the town of Algonquin Bay, a thinly veiled stand-in for North Bay. His latest book, Crime Machine, follows Cardinal who, while struggling with the death of his wife, tries to solve the murders of two decapitated Russians found in a nearby lake. The novel has its launch tonight, where Blunt will be interviewed by humourist Linwood Barclay. Dora Keogh Irish Pub (141 Danforth Avenue), 7 p.m., FREE.

MUSIC: Fans of the Scissor Sisters have Disneyland to thank for the band. It was on the teacups ride that guitarist Babydaddy and singer Jake Shears first connected with cabaret hostess Ana Matronic. The three of them, along with guitarist Del Marquis and drummer Randy Real, make up the glam-meets-electroclash outfit, which took its name from a lesbian sex act. Their glittery, theatrical sound is juxtaposed with lyrics addressing issues affecting the LGBT community, and the band, who will perform tonight, is known for its elaborate, high-energy performances—at some shows, Shears has even stripped down onstage. Tonight's show is all-ages, so chances are slim, but concert-goers can always hope! Sound Academy (11 Polson Street), doors 8 p.m., $35.

Detail of the alleged Michael Cera film recommendation list. The full-size version is here.

• "My cousin, Harvey, randomly ran into Michael Cera at a London coffeeshoppe. Cera and Harvey hit it off and ended up having a 2 hour conversation over lunch. Cera wrote a list of stuff Harvey should see." A quite-possibly-real peek inside Michael Cera's Toy Story 3–loving, Amazon.com-recommending brain. [via Buzzfeed]
• Cognitive dissonance alert! Rob Ford campaigned at Pedestrian Sunday. "Rob Ford has become a rock star!" notes the caption of one of the photos uploaded by his campaign team. [via Justin Stayshyn]
• And a spray-painted swastika on the back of a Little Italy garage earns a nearly thousand-word OpenFile article.

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The thirty-fifth annual Toronto International Film Festival rolls its red carpets into town next Thursday. For film lovers, it’s the highlight of the year, and a strong case for living in Toronto in the first place. There’s plenty of exciting stuff at TIFF this year, and Torontoist will be on top of it all. But for now, it’s still business as usual at Toronto’s movie houses, including some free NFB action, a stomach-churning horror flick, and the double-bill to squash all double-bills.

The Underground (186 Spadina Avenue)

When the trailer for Tom Six’s The Human Centipede oozed onto the internet last year, its intimations of ass-to-mouth nastiness caused a minor viral sensation. For those (blissfully, perhaps) unaware, The Human Centipede is a horror film about a psychotic German surgeon who dreams of stitching live human subjects together via their digestive tracts. When three wayward tourists show up at his door, he’s provided with the opportunity to suture together his mutant triptych. The doctor proceeds to train his creature as if it were a dog, beating it when it doesn’t obey, and watches gleefully as victims swallow, re-digest, and re-swallow each other’s feces. Gross, right? Yeah, it is. But it’s also one of those weird, perverse things you really want to see. It’s sort of like gawking at a highway car crash. Well sickos, The Underground continues its limited engagement of The Human Centipede this week, where the film screens at 9:30 p.m. nightly until Friday. So go and see it, and then race home and take six showers, you disturbed perverts. See you there.

The Bloor (506 Bloor Street West)

If you were to make a list of the best American films of the 1980s and Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop wasn’t on the top of that list, then that list would be a lie. (Okay, Blue Velvet is a worthy contender, too.) Besides being one of the best sci-fi action movies ever made, Verhoeven’s first English-language film addresses, however tacitly, everything from Reagan-era private sector boosterism to media saturation and the relationship between mind and body. It was a "smart" goofy action movie, well before films like The Dark Knight got all self-serious about their inherent goofiness, evacuating a lot of the fun in the process. (Its vision of a near-future Detroit as apocalyptic wasteland also wound up being cannily prescient.)

After further cementing his Hollywood cachet with Total Recall (1990) and Basic Instinct (1992), and then all but squandering it with Showgirls (1995), Verhoeven returned to high concept sci-fi satire in 1997 with Starship Troopers. Adapting Robert A. Heinlein’s proto-fascist pulp novel as a sly parody of militarism and state propaganda mechanisms, Starship Troopers pits a futuristic human arm (led by Casper Van Dien’s Johnny Rico) against an intergalactic insectoid army. Like RoboCop, Troopers is as clever as it is entertaining, with plenty of spilled blood and other icky splatter to boot. As a gift to everyone who loves awesome things, The Bloor is hosting a double-bill of Robocop and Starship Troopers, starting at 7 p.m. on Monday. Unless you hate robots, exploding insect aliens, and fun, you should probably go.

NFB Mediatheque (150 John Street)

Ever since An Inconvenient Truth guilted everyone into not leaving their lights on when they leave the house or running their taps constantly, enviro-docs have proven to have not only a dedicated audience, but some serious box office potential. As the concerns become lost in a wash of big-budget sensationalism and global apocalyptic prophesy, it’s nice to see a film that examines environmental concerns at a micro level. Such is the case with Glynis Whiting’s Worst Case Scenario, which looks at the tension between a small community in Clearwater, Alberta opposed to Shell Canada’s proposed sour gas well. In focusing on local, specific, ground-level concerns, Whiting’s doc draws attention to a particular problem in Canada, while also suggesting the myriad of similar situations that exist across the globe. Worst Case Scenario plays at the NFB Mediatheque at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, as part of their Green Screens series.

The Revue (400 Roncesvalles Avenue)

“Who is Salt?” It’s one of those great riddles: like the sound of one hand clapping or a tree falling in the forest with nobody around to hear it. It’s the question that hung over summer 2010, and the one that may well come to define a generation. Because really, who is Salt? Can anyone really know Salt? And isn’t it in Salt’s innately fluid nature to skirt definition? To change as soon as we come close to understanding who exactly Salt is? Yes. But what we do know about Salt is this: she’s some sort of super-spy who may or may not be a KGB agent and goes to explosive lengths to avoid capture. We also know that Salt is played by Angelina Jolie and is the star of a movie, also incidentally called Salt. We also know that Salt (the movie) is set for a limited second-run engagement at The Revue on Roncesvalles, starting at 7 p.m. on Friday. But we don’t know much more than that. If you really want to know who Salt is, you’ll have to see it for yourself.

Photos by Eugen Sakhnenko/Torontoist.

Overheard by reader Julian Solis outside Union Station this weekend, as Fan Expo went down at the nearby Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Ecstatic gamer: ...Felicia Day: her favourite video game is my favourite video game!

First hint: there's 10 provinces and three territories.

Check out our overview of Canada's provinces and territories and you just might discover something you didn't know and maybe even be inspired to start planning your next vacation.

How's Your Canadian Geography? originally appeared on About.com Canada Travel on Saturday, August 28th, 2010 at 21:55:56.

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