We’re trying something new this week with our events listing and presenting a more curated edition, highlighting the events we think are particularly intriguing or cool – and we’d welcome your input. If you have a weird or particularly enticing indie event that you’d like to pass on, please drop a line to Alison at [email protected].
SACKVILLE, NEW BRUNSWICK
Saturday August 4, noon – 5pm, Sappyfest Zine Fair, Royal Canadian Legion, 15 Lorne Street, free
The best wee music festival in Canada also boasts a growing zine fair, so if you’re looking for a break from music and Melon Head beer (drool) swing on over to the Legion for a bit. Upstairs, you can check out a variety of exhibitors, including Invisible Publishing, Divorce Records, Montreal’s Ghost Pine Zine and the lovely folks from Halifax’s Anchor Archive Zine Library (check out this update on their home base at the Roberts Street Social Centre.) If you can’t make the zine fair, there are other singularly lovely opportunities for you to check out and participate in art. The Dispensary is a new addition this year – it’s a countertop vending machine that spits out a tiny book made by one of a dozen contributors for the cost of a measly toonie. And it wouldn’t be Sappyfest without the inclusion of City Mail, the inner-city mail delivery project that recently inspired a conversation in our Sharpener section. For seven years, Sappy has remained the best thing about summer, and we couldn’t be happier that their inspired smorgasbord of indie music, art, creativity and community has continued to thrive.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Vancouver’s The Fictionals aim to give you a multifaceted comedy experience – yes, they do the usual standup and sketch comedy, but they also bring improv, theatre, music and even burlesque into the mix. The Pop-Up Comedy Jam is another example of their inventiveness and part of a growing trend of young comedy troupes seeking to branch out and add a little more to the standard show. Audience members make suggestions and the performers “jam” on the idea, improv-style. The group will also perform a “mixed bag” of improv favorites from past shows. The group includes Graham Myers, Margret Nyfors, Graeme Duffy, Jen Pielak
Beth Garner, Chip Ellis, and birthday boy Daniel Chai.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC
This intriguing art exhibition is co-presented by the visual arts webzine ratsdeville at the Usine 106u art space and features the work of 32 artists in a variety of mediums. It is the description of the event itself, though, which has us truly piqued, promising “hallucinogenic paintings, pop-art silkscreens, disquieting kinetic sculptures, erotic etchings, original drawings, trash plush toys, surrealist jewelry and other fascinating curiosities.” You had me at trash plush toys.
TORONTO, ONTARIO
Join Dragnet Magazine and Echolocation – the literary journal for U of T English grad students for a night of readings, drinking and dancing. Readers include Andy Verboom, Jamila Allidina, Ben Ladouceur, and Andrew F. Sullivan. The readings will start at 8PM and will be followed by DJ Devan Boomen. Of particular interest is Verboom, who won Echolocation’s 2012 poetry contest and whose poem “Olber’s Paradox” was recently printed on broadsheet on Japanese paper by one of U of T’s master printers. It’s a fascinating way to see how a single poem can be shared and presented outside of a chapbook. You can see more about this process here.