Results tagged “brokenpencil”

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of people who were way cooler than Torontoist came out to the Gladstone Hotel to see the 175 independent publishers, artists, and writers at Canzine, Canada’s largest zine fair and festival of alternative culture. The day-long event was organized by Broken Pencil, the quarterly magazine dedicated to all things underground culture and the independent arts.

A few nerdy dudes, two couches in an otherwise barren basement, and a video camera. With MuchMusic turned over to Leah Miller's minions and whomever wins the all-pervasive VJ Search 2.0, this simple format stands as a striking alternative to the glamorous folk with the obnoxiously loud in-studio audience on Queen West. But with the launch of AUXtv, with an impressive 285,000 viewers in its first week, the channel's new late-night spot—Talk Show Night at Juicebox Manor—may look more like the future of cool music programming for the coveted 18–34 set.

Urban Planner is Torontoist's daily guide to what's on in Toronto, published every morning. If you have an event you'd like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you've got any—to events@torontoist.com.

It’s a surreal experience—interviewing a guy about an online “lifecasting” experiment and unwittingly becoming a part of it. But if there’s one lesson we can take away from the hour we spent with Hal Niedzviecki and his surveillance equipment (in his home, no less), it’s this: we should probably get used to it. That is, we should—and you should—probably get used to being watched.

STREET PARTY: The last Pedestrian Sunday of the year invites us to honour our ancestors as we approach All Hallows Eve. Streets Are For People adds to their usual great Sunday market fun with some special holiday treats. Live music, messages to the dead, and a costume contest (registration between 2–3 p.m., runway contest at 5 p.m.) lead up to the sundown Halloween parade to the Underworld. Kensington Market, 1–7 p.m., FREE.

Hey you with the hat and the self-screened t-shirt, whatchoo up to, say, this Sunday? Wouldn't happen to be Broken Pencil's Canzine would it?

You really have to wonder how performance artist and sexual activist Louise Bak always manages to schedule the very best mix of the Toronto literary scene for her Box Salon series. The successful poet and CIUT "Sex City" host founded the event back in 1998, and a decade later it is still the most entertaining literary night out in Toronto. While many other reading series can be hit or miss, the Box is consistently fresh, fun and, well, not all that “literary”—Bak curates an evening that keeps testing the boundaries of what literature is, regularly including filmmakers, playwrights, fashion designers, and musicians amongst the regular stock of poets and prose writers.

The short story is an unfortunate middle child. Not romanticized like poetry, nor widely read like novels, the short story finds refuge in literary journals, the New Yorker, and writing contests. In fact, the Toronto Star, Broken Pencil, and Eye Weekly all have contests ready for your masterpiece. First, stalwart Toronto Star has its annual short story contest. The top prize includes $5,000 and tuition to the Humber School for Writers for Creative Writing....

On Sunday afternoon, over 150 independent publishers, writers, artists and bloggers from across the continent will pack Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel for Canzine, Canada’s largest celebration of small press publishing and alternative culture.

Hanging out in the city with Torontoist's Summer Reads.

Toronto’s DIY fashionistas, independent designers, eclectic personalities and thrift store scavengers get a chance to flaunt the city’s indie fashion credentials this Wednesday at the Cadillac Lounge.

You still have a few hours left, but Torontoist's Poetry Contest closes tonight! At the beginning of the new year, Torontoist launched a poetry contest to encourage the penning of new poems about our fair city. After judges Carly Beath, Stephen Cain, and Jay MillAr deliberate, we'll announce the winner plus five honourable mentions on April 10.

This Monday night, January 22, head down to the Gladstone Hotel and join Broken Pencil Magazine founding editor and publisher (and journalist and author) Hal Niedzviecki as he hosts the self-professed “best games night in the city (on a Monday night anyway).”

Emily Schultz, author of Joyland, former editor of Broken Pencil and This Magazine is looking for your pledges. No, this is not a PBS style pledge drive where you get a special gift when you show your support.

The Diamond Cherry Reading Series – run by local poets and small-press publishers Devon Gallant and Julie Cameron Gray – kicks-off the week with performances by audio poet Hilary Peach (Poems Only Dogs Can Hear) and singer/songwriter/poet Nik Beat. The series takes place each month at the Zemra Lounge – 778 St. Clair West – and starts at 8pm. It’s free, too, so you have no excuse not to go.

That's the question that Broken Pencil asks in its latest issue, which they're launching tonight, 7pm at the Toronto Free Gallery.

Time to get out that cloning machine you've been keeping around. If the Halloween and IFOA festivities weren't enough to keep you swamped there's the Small Press Book Fair and if that's not enough for you there's Canzine at the Gladstone 1:00 pm, on Sunday. It's also the unofficial launch of the newly re-designed Broken Pencil. This year's theme, Burlesque. Indie Kids Gone Wild anyone? There'll be over 150 zines, readings, Darren O'Donnell and fifth birthday celebrations for No Media Kings

Love it or hate it, LOLA, the 'free' visual arts mag that went belly up a couple of years back, was a boon for Toronto's visual arts scene. It got people talking, writing and going to see art. And unlike other publications (ahem, Canadian Art) didn't have to deal with institutional history, a national/international mandate, or pander to senior artists/board members/advertisers/etc. LOLA could stay local, stay fresh and stay true to its readership of local artists and art lovers.