Magic Books, Walrus TV, and Naked Lunching
Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked over the week. Here are some things to think about as weekend begins.
• If your New Year's resolutions include striving towards a smaller carbon footprint, you should turn off Netflix and check The Walrus' new television network, to include original, home-grown, high-definition documentaries. Plus, there's a loophole for everybody who vowed to watch less TV in 2012: The content is also available online!
• Glory Hole Donuts has just opened near Dufferin and The Gardiner, starting what we hope to be a trend in local foodstuffs of sexing up (while simultaneously making completely unsexy) our favourite baked goods.
• The ever-diligent folks at NPR took time out of stories about Jewish, lesbian, immigrant mechanics to apply their journalistic chops to the age-old question: Does Toronto really like Drake as much as Drake says Toronto likes Drake?
• For the more visually minded, the latest update of Torontoist's Reel Toronto reveals the shooting locations of Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch, in order to expedite the mapping of your monthly Cronenberg pilgrimage. For our significantly younger readers, check out the inexplicable inclusion of a Toronto postcard in Lilo & Stitch, which features a Hawaii where apparently the available souvenirs are for cities 7500 kilometres away.
• Mohawk advertising students helped create a delightful stop-motion short film, The Joy Of Books, in Toronto's Type Books, adding a literary twist to a Toy Story-type tale of what your favourite novels are up to after hours.
• Remember back when Transit City was a distant, hopeful dream rather than another phrase to feel bitterly nostalgic about? Our City Lives has spoken to a handful of Toronto media-types and produced a well-researched video about saving the TTC. Unfortunately, since contributors are generally less well-known than, say, Margaret Atwood, we don't hold a lot of hope that The Brother's Ford will be particularly swayed.
• And, finally, since we are literally incapable of going a week without insisting you care about the Occupy movement, check out the new digs at Nathan Phillips Square where the notoriously unfocused protestors have developed a sort of unity against—surprise, surprise—Rob Ford's budget proposal. Say what you will, but the man's certainly proving to be an expert at bringing people together.
