Results tagged “mystery”

For the past eight years, the Ontario College of Art and Design has been asking potential art buyers to put pretense aside and trust their gut in support of the school. “Whodunit?,” OCAD’s signature annual fundraiser, is a mystery art sale in which the name of the artist remains a secret until after you purchase the piece. It’s a refreshing concept in a creative marketplace so often dogged by an atmosphere of manufactured buzz and the dreaded art star.

Well, this'll probably force a slight change of plans. As you can see, what once was full now is empty: there's distinctly less garbage in the bin outside of Osler Playground today than there was yesterday, and that's because—surprise!—the City is actively directing non-union employees to empty garbage bins from inside some parks.

        

In two months, an unassuming house on Pape Avenue, north of Danforth, has captivated the city's (okay, mostly our) imagination. Photographer Rob Cruickshank first spotted a mysterious set of signs on February 16—one of them read, in part, "Blow up this house / you will get land / kill the witness of / 1949 of Changdu / & 1950 of Maurtisus." Chengdu is a Chinese city that became Communist at the tail end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 (the Beijing Olympics website says that was the year it was "liberated"); Mauritius is an island off the coast of Africa with a history of Chinese immigration, immigration that dropped off drastically once China restricted policies after its civil war ended—which might begin to explain the house being (as the sign beside it said) the "first black house on Pape."

It's an interesting experiment: ditch twenty wallets around town—filled with cards, personal information, sentimental items, and a bit of money—and see how many come back intact. That's what the Star did, with impressive results: fifteen have been returned so far, with the paper in the midst of tracking down the people who've called to say they found two others. (There's even a pretty heartwarming Google Map featuring each location's story.) But the funny part? One of the Star's drop locations was "the public reception area of The Globe and Mail." And while the wallet did make its way back to the Star, it "was missing the cash," and "a Globe spokesperson said last night the person who picked up the wallet found no money in it 'and we have it on video surveillance.'" Mystery!

In case you still weren't convinced as to who exactly was behind the mysterious "Ned" stencils illegally spray-painted onto sidewalks around the city last month, allow us—in the wake of the unspectacular opening of the Design Exchange and archiTEXT's "What Has Architecture Done For You Lately?" exhibit—to summarize all of the available evidence, some of it old, some of it new.

Pape Avenue's most intriguing poet (or non-poet, as the case may be) is back at it, recently adding the above cardboard sign to his collection of handwritten glory.

For a week now, someone's been pretending to be Rosie DiManno on Twitter. With tweets like "i'm having a other joss stone moment. What streak should I put in my luscious mane next? coitus interruptus male member pink?"; her latest, "is looking to hire an intern to help consolidate the venom drenched hate mail her columns keep receiving"; and our favourite, "@petermansbridge next time try not to cut such a wide swath with your penis" (cf. this, and note that Mansbridge's Twitter account was also fake), it was always pretty obvious that twitter.com/RosieDiManno was not, in fact, Rosie DiManno. But last night Star co-worker and legitimately excellent writer Antonia Zerbisias stepped in to confirm the account's fakery. Still, we had no idea: DiManno and Zerbisias are actually friends? This truly is opposite world.

Several questions come to mind upon reading the above poem found taped to the window of an east-end home. First, what happened between the author and his wife to solicit this rage-filled verse? Second, are "water skin" and "green head" meant to be insults? And lastly, what do donuts and a family of pigeons have to do with anything?

Here's a good question: what are two prominent local companies devoted to design and architecture—the Design Exchange and archiTEXT—doing stenciling teaser ads on Toronto's sidewalks? The stencils are simple, vague, and identical: they say "ON APRIL 15TH, NED IS COMING," with a cross below the text, all in pink. And they're everywhere: outside of subway stations, and at intersections throughout downtown, like Augusta and Nassau, Queen and Spadina, and Bay and Bloor. The lattermost intersection is where reader John Matheson snagged the above photo and sent it to tips@torontoist.com late last week, with an e-mail that read: "On my way to work this morning I noticed pink plus signs/crosses spray painted outside some ttc stations downtown. I've heard they are all over the city. Do you know what they mean?"

Many are up in arms over the anonymous, dramatic posters about Laila being plastered on hydro poles and mailboxes, even in neighbourhoods far away from the actual restaurant on Bloor Street West. Each and every one reads:

LAILA'S KILLS

Continue reading "Laila, Darling, Won't You Ease My Worried Mind?"

According to the Post, the Ontario Fire Marshall has declared that the cause of the massive February Queen West fire will remain a mystery. "[Fire investigations manager Chris] Williams" told the paper that "a team of 10 investigators, including forensic specialists and engineers, pored over piles of charred physical evidence, but there was simply too much damage, leaving them with no choice but to label the cause 'undetermined.'" It's bad news for the former property owners, but great news for those who enjoy wildly speculating about the fire's cause. (Did you know that if you re-arrange the letters in "Queen Street West Fire" you get "Queen St Fire=Teers"? Or that "Home Depot" backwards is almost "Top Demon"? Someone should really investigate that.)

Leslie Feist is back. She's playing shows in London on October 31 and here in Toronto on November 1 (at Massey Hall) and 3 (at the ACC). Yesterday, she was host of a surprise "songwriters circle featuring members of her touring band (Afie Jurvanen, Jay Baird, Vancouver songwriter-cum-guitar tech Bob Kemmis), her opening act (Hayden, along with his touring guitarist Wayne Petti of Cuff the Duke) and old friends (Doug Paisley)" at the Rivoli, according to Eye. We're pretty sure that we took the southbound Dufferin bus with her to Queen West late Monday night. And we're also pretty sure that Feist fans might want to be on high alert for a secret show that just might be happening this evening.

There's controversy brewing around CBC's Hockey Night in Canada Anthem Challenge, and it doesn't even involve "Hockey Scores"!

       

We first encountered this sassy hearse on Brunswick in early July. Tom62 spotted it parked in front of the ROM around the same time. More recently, a Spanish tourist found it in front of him in traffic on King Street. And then this past Tuesday we again saw it, parked on Kensington Avenue.

God works in mysterious ways. Rather than manifesting Himself and, say, ending world hunger, killing the devil, or giving us all the ability to fly, He has taken a significantly more Dennis the Menace-y route to salvation, blasting the Virgin Mary into a tree in a backyard near Danforth Avenue and Birchmount Road.

So we're, uh, pretty sure that Bell's behind those mystery "er" ads after all.

The latest ubiquitous mystery ad is "er." Though it has various configurations—billboards, (illegal) signs, and subway station placards—it always takes the same rough form: two blue letters in the same typeface, and some lone blue shape on the edge of an otherwise white canvas. It's no Obay as far as provocativeness goes, but it's nonetheless drumming up more than its fair share of interest.

Getting free stuff is always nice. Getting ridiculous free stuff that has no actual purpose to everyday Canadians is sometimes nicer. On July 23, the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts will be opening its doors and giving away a whole bunch of random useless junk. That is probably the only time you will see a multination corporation like Sony and the words “giving away” in the same sentence, so relish it while you can, even if it’s not really Sony doing the giving.

Speculation has been swirling in Toronto's literary community over the authorship of The Calling, a new recent crime fiction novel, penned by a prominent and highly-regarded writer under the alter-ego of Inger Ash Wolfe. First, Maclean's guessed the author was Jane Urquhart, who denied the rumour. Then, citing as evidence a handful of anonymous leaflets distributed to publishers, The Star pointed the finger at Michael Redhill, one of Torontoist's favourite authors. He coyly side-stepped the question without firmly denying it. Finally, Quill & Quire suggested Linda Spalding as a candidate, but she too rebuffed the notion. Pseudonyms are common enough in crime fiction—from Franklin W. Dixon to John Ross MacDonald—but the real identity usually emerges eventually. In this case, the publisher denies that they'll ever reveal the secret. Is the secret a mystery-wrapped publicity stunt to generate pre-release buzz, or a genuine attempt to identify the book as a first-in-genre launch instead of a first-time-author? Either way, now that the book's in stores, is it worth the hype?

Phase Two of the much-blogged Obay campaign is hitting the streets, having been "unveiled" in a press conference at Centennial College this morning. Linda Franklin, President & CEO of Colleges Ontario—the advocate for the province's 24 colleges of applied arts and technology—was there to divulge details of the "top secret" campaign. Shocker: it has to do with parental mind control.

Says Charles DH Crosbie, who submitted the photo at right to our Flickr pool:

Yes, this is how the slice came: a used and soiled "Convenience Size" bottle of Vaseline moisturizer, as found in a Pizza Pizza, bagged slice of pizza; purchased in-store at 8:30PM (EST) 23 February 2008, Yonge St near Bloor St (Toronto, Canada).

Since fake pharmaceutical ads for a drug called "Obay" starting appearing across Ontario (and elsewhere) last week, everyone from street artist Frank Shepard Fairey (aka OBEY) to Scientologists to comedian Maggie Cassella has been fingered as the culprit behind them.

At first we assumed it was Scientology. After all, who else has the money to produce and purchase space for such glossy anti-pharmaceutical ads, which have been popping up all over transit shelters and buses in Ontario and Montreal? Google wasn't much help, and their Blog Search just pointed us to other people as perplexed as we were. And poor spellers with domination fantasies.

Photo by Jeremy Farmer from Flickr.

Most of the bronze plaques bolted to the city's historically designated sites and monuments commemorate some virtually forgotten piece of minor Toronto history—but take a stroll along Queen Street West and some familiar round medallions might particularly pique your interest. The strange plaques were part of the grand Gestures installation by the 640 480 Video Collective, which aimed to memorialize inconsequential events captured on video at ten spots around the city. Each marker was...

Starting your art collection? Start small. At OCAD's sixth annual Whodunit? Mystery Art Sale on Saturday, you'll have over 800 pieces to choose from—all 5½" x 7½", all $75.00. Buy your favourite, then turn it over to reveal the name of artist. Depending on your luck and sleuthing skill, you could end up with a big-name bargain: in addition to the usual Canadian artists and OCAD alumni, faculty and students, this year's special contributors...

Dr. David Evans is an Associate Curator in the ROM's Vertebrate Paleontology department. Upon assuming the job in May, he was assigned the task of finding a flagship sauropod specimen to display in the museum's upcoming exhibit (opening December 15) within the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Little did Evans know that he didn't have far to look. While on a scouting trip to Wyoming, the bone buff came across an article by noted sauropod expert...

A few weeks ago, we wondered about the presence of electricity meters placed randomly around the city, measuring power consumption for, well, something or other. We'd grown so perplexed by these meters that we felt compelled to ask Toronto Hydro for more information.

Torontoist firmly believes in the old adage that one can never have too many photographs of pumpkins. Whether they are ornately carved, falling from a 32nd floor window or baked into a luscious pie, we are always on the prowl at this time of the year for interesting shots of glorious gourds.