Results tagged “calgary”

Looking back, it's hard to imagine there was a time when Steven Seagal ruled the box office. Come to think of it, it was a bit baffling then too. The man's Wikipedia page makes him look like something of a Renaissance man (a singer-songwriter, no less!), but before he got all puffy and lame, the black belt "actor" was king. A man for his age. A man big on movie titles with three words.

Wouldn't you rather live in Calgary? Poor Toronto lost out to the Albertan energy kings in a new gauge of city livability released today. According to a report from the Toronto Board of Trade, Toronto shares fourth-most-prosperous place with Boston, London, and New York, while Calgary sits alone at the top. While T.O. was a K.O. in its ranking for livability, its economy was given a sub-par letter grade "C"; and though Toronto took home the gold in "labour attractiveness" for its high immigrant population, it came in dead last for disposable income growth. In an article in the Globe today, board chairman Paul Massara said that "while the Toronto region is doing well, it is not doing as well as it ought to." The report compared twenty-one cities and metropolitan areas using social and economic indicators to determine both the quality of life and financial well-being of its citizens.

The Toronto of 2020 will be a different, but recognizable place. Between now and 2020, immigration will have made the world’s most multicultural city even more diverse, new building projects will have altered the city’s landscape, and Transit City will have broken down many of the city’s spatial barriers.

Today's ad features your stereotypical 1950s architectural professional: trenchcoat, tie, hat (preferably a fedora), and a fistful of building plans. The building this dapper construction supervisor is depicted next to would quickly become one of St. Clair Avenue's architectural landmarks.

Selected quotes from "Toronto's Type and Tile Heritage" by Edward Keenan, from the November 14th issue of Eye Weekly:

The Falconer report on violence in Toronto schools talks of a "culture of fear," saying that many students bring weapons to school, and many crimes go unreported. Some of the basic recommendations to fix things include more social workers and after-school basketball, fewer suspensions, more diverse teaching staff, and gun-sniffing springer spaniels to roam the halls.

Last week, Toronto-based advertising agency TAXI announced 15 Below, a new project to coincide with TAXI's fifteenth anniversary that would see the company create, manufacture, and distribute 3,000 coats for homeless people across North America. Designed by TAXI's executive creative director Steve Mykolyn and designer Lida Baday (pictured), the waterproof, windproof, and plentily-pocketed coat serves as a lightweight jacket during not-too-cold weather, can fold into a backpack during decent weather, and—when you fill the pockets up with newspaper—converts into a super-warm jacket that was tested (in a meat locker, no less!) to be effective up to -29° celsius.

Once upon a time, we would hear the word "dodgeball" and be swept back to a simpler time, when colours were flourescent, New Kids on the Block were popular and dodgeball was little more than an excuse to work up an adolescent sweat. It certainly wasn't a sport. Redass was a sport; dodgeball was really just a way of scoring easy marks in gym class.

There were 4 more murders in Toronto on the weekend, meaning we only need 11 more to tie the all-time record of 89 set back in 1991. A spokesman for City Hall said that sure, the numbers look bad now, but crime would drop once all the thugs had killed each other.

77-year-old fortune teller Sophie Evon was arrested in Calgary this week for conning—excuse us, allegedly conning—a Seattle woman out of $220,000 in 1999. Evon was arrested while working in Toronto last year, but fled to Calgary just before she was to be extradited.

LitTO Summer Reading Pick: check out Prose Karen from Neitzsche’s Brolly.

Photos of trey anthony, Dawn Whitwell, and Gein Fence courtesy of Get Your Lit Out.

I love the smell of police raid in the morning. Toronto Vice arrested 60 people in the Jane and Finch area this morning in a raid called Project Kryptic. They seized "30 kilos of cocaine, hash oil and marijuana with an estimated street value of $1 million" from the Driftwood Crips. That's actually pretty badass.

Late last week, the CRTC ordered CTVglobemedia to sell off the five Citytv properties it acquired in its purchase of CHUM Ltd., because CTV already operates over-the-air stations in those markets (Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg). This morning it was announced that Rogers Media would be purchasing those stations for $375 million, because it's apparently not a problem for them to have more than one over-the-air station in a given market.

If headliner Christian Bök can’t do it, no poet can. Christian is the author of two outstanding poetry collections from Coach House Books: the 'pataphysical encyclopedia, Crystallography, and the best-selling Griffin award-winning Eunoia, which employs only one vowel in each of its five chapters. From Chapter E (for Rene Crevel):

respect her if we get it. In other news, Jim Cuddy won the Juno for best adult alternative album, which means he did the best job of taking actual alternative music, dropping it to quarter-speed and setting it to acoustic guitar.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Canada Council for the Arts, the organization wants us to get involved in their "50 for 50" Arts Challenge. Canadians are invited to meet the challenge by engaging in 50 arts-related activities over the course of the year.

Last night at the launch of SCENE, Cineplex and Scotiabank's new reward point program, most buzz overheard by Torontoist was about the marquee outside. What was once The Paramount is now the Scotiabank Theatre.

police chief. Except for the corruption scandals and the racial profiling and the homophobia."

A couple of Sunday night events to kick-off or end your week, depending on how you see it. Gypsy Eyes, who is all over the place this week, hosts Last Call Poets at the Cadillac Lounge – 1296 Queen W. – tonight at 8pm. Admission is $7.

How many of you have given up your seat on the TTC lately? What about holding a door open for a stranger with bags of groceries? Or given directions to a stranger? Well some of us must have because Reader's Digest recently tapped us as the third most polite city in the world (ok, it was actually just 35 cities). New York took the top prize and those orderly Swiss bankers in Zurich took second but third place is a pretty great honour.

In other cities (if you count Calgary as a city), communities actively protest these predatory practices. Here, it's just another chance to get Optimum points.

Toronto is the next Dubai like Maurizio Bevilacqua is the next Prime Minister. But this little artist's rendition of the imagined amalgamation of the Toronto and Dubai skylines was cute enough to post.

Reports of a student flashing a handgun forced a shutdown of three east end schools yesterday afternoon. The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun. This was the second incident at Victoria Park Collegiate in the last month. Three students were arrested.

John Lorinc's new book, the New City comes at a very strange time. It's hard to contend with the fact that demographically Canada has become a nation of cities. Almost 80% of us live in urban areas and the robustness of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and all of the smaller cities in this country are the real reason why the Liberal government was able to get the eight straight budget surpluses they kept rattling on about.

Things are going great for previous Torontoist interview subject Howard Akler. His debut novel the City Man has been getting rave reviews and was recently nominated in the first-time authors category for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize (Caribbean and Canada Region). Akler joins a list which includes long-time poet and writer, but first-time novelist George Elliot Clarke and Calgary author Jacqueline Honnet. The winner of the regional prize goes on to compete against other fine books from the Commonwealth.

more so than prematurely balding, nerdy-waiter Ryan Malcolm (ew) of Season One and Kalan Porter, who is the Canadian >Clay Aiken. So, we heartily agree with the judges that Melissa is the best Idol ever. Dear Melissa, may you prosper!