Where were you in '82? For Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC's hit radio show Q, it was Thornhill. In his funny, often self-deprecating memoir 1982, Ghomeshi recalls his experience as a teen of Iranian descent growing up in white suburbia, his […]
South Korean rapper Psy's music video Gangnam Style went viral last August with now over 7 million hits on YouTube. It has spawned hundreds of parodies and tributes and has brought Korean pop culture galloping (literally) front and center to a Western audience. Of course, this is old news to the legions of North American […]
'God created the cat so that mankind may know the pleasure of caressing the tiger' Fernand Mery In recent news, a young man lept into the tiger's pen at the Bronx zoo, home to Bashuta, a 400 lb Siberian tiger. He approached the great cat and began to tenderly stroke it. As he was rushed […]
The current fascination with TLC's Here Comes Honey Boo Boo proves that children, real or imagined, can become projections of adult fear and loathing. For many, cheerful little Alana appears to be responsible for the impending fall of Western Civilization. If this seems a tad unfair, and you would like to meet some truly terrifying […]
Our Fall program "Women on the Edge" delivers blows: hits to the heart, to the soul (and to the head) with heroines that are complicated, desperate, fiercely intelligent – and trapped. The Film Club meets on Mondays once a month in the North York Central Library auditorium. Films start at 6 pm followed by an […]
Nora Ephron died last night in New York at the age of 71 from complications arising from leukemia. One of the great American humourists of the 20th century, Ms. Ephron was an accomplished screenwriter, director, novelist, journalist , playwright, essayist, producer and blogger with a remarkable list of credits over many decades. The quintessential New […]
Millions of cats roam the Internet, from legendary kitties like Ceiling Cat, Keyboard Cat, and the touchingly rotund Maru to the captioned "kittehs" in I Can Haz Cheeseburger. In less than a decade, net cats have multiplied exponentially – with no sign of letting up. Chances are, you have at least one cat right now in […]
Christopher Hitchens, British author and essayist, died last night of complications related to cancer. A fierce intellectual and polemicist, Hitchens was no stranger to controversy. Indeed, his impressive body of work has both engaged and enraged his many readers over the years – and his passing has resulted in an outpouring of editorials reflecting […]
Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy are Jacqueline Kennedy's candid interviews with Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a few months after her husband's assassination on November 22, 1963. Sealed at her request, the tapes were recently released by her daughter, Caroline, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of JFK's presidency. Listen to excerpts of Jackie's […]
Drood by Dan Simmons imagines literary giant, Charles Dickens and his protégé, Wilkie Collins, locked in a murderous game of cat and mouse over a shared obession with a mysterious, ghoulish figure named Drood (the fictionalized inspiration for Dickens real-life unfinished novel, The Mystery of […]