THEATRE | Tales from the Flipside Festival
Each year, the Carlos Bulosan Theatre's Tales from the Flipside Festival celebrates the dramatic talent of Canada's sizeable Filipino community with performances and workshops that reflect the Filipino-Canadian experience. This year the fest presents a four-night run of Islands, a collection of scenes from new works by some of the city's up-and-coming Filipino playwrights. The show opens tonight and the festival continues this weekend with free Saturday workshops on poetry, advocacy, and the history of Filipino fashion.
Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Ave., $15, Thursday - Saturday 7 pm, Sunday 1:30 pm

BOOKS AND LIT | Damage Control
Globe and Mail advice columnist David Eddie is so prone to faux-pas that he's dubbed himself the Sultan of Shame. Such a social misstepper may seem like an odd figure to take advice from on how to correct your own gaffes, but then again, who has more experience at pulling his foot from his mouth than Eddie? His Damage Control column is hugely popular for its direct, gruff manner, making Eddie a sort of bad-ass Anne Landers. He's turned the column into a book whose full, disarmingly reassuring title is Damage Control: How To Tiptoe Away from the Smoking Wreckage of Your Latest Screw-Up with a Minimum of Harm to your Reputation. The book launches tonight with a party at the Steelworkers' Hall featuring a limited amount of free booze and some super secret surprise guests.
United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil St., Free, 6 pm

THEATRE | Circus Cabaret Road Show
Sideshow entertainment is not for the faint of heart. Acts typically involve performers finding new ways to pierce themselves or swallow sharp objects. But if you like a dash of daring in your evening fare, the Samovar Vodka Room should be your destination tonight. That's where Circus Entertainment is presenting a bill of classed-up circus entertainment in which sideshow performers Sia Synn, Misty Fye, and Devin Upham will do some shocking and ill-advised things to their bodies, while the Dollhouse Dancers will be doing an act that is hopefully a little easy on the eyes. Hosted by Miss Punkrockcupcake herself, the Edge 102.1's Loriann.
Samovar Vodka Room, 51A Winchester St., Free, 8 pm

MUSIC | Snailhouse and Evening Hymns
Toronto-based indie label Out of This Spark is only three years old, but a glance at its roster of artists shows how influential the imprint has been. The label gave Timber Timbre their start and have also released records by artists beloved to the Toronto music scene as Friends in Bellewoods, Forest City Lovers and the D'Urbervilles. Their latest find is Evening Hymns, a project by Orono native Jonas Bonetta that evokes the solitude of rural Ontario. Bonetta and co. open for underground sensation Snailhouse in a show presented by Out of This Spark tonight.
Tranzac, 292 Brunswick Ave., $10, 8 pm

BOOKS AND LIT | Joyce Wieland's Writings and Drawings
Despite a relatively small output of works, Canadian artist and filmmaker Joyce Wieland had a lasting impact. Her work has helped shape the urban landscape of downtown Toronto, particularly the Eaton Centre's famous Flightstop project which she completed with her then-husband Michael Snow, and she created new techniques in filmmaking that have been described as feminizing the medium. Wieland died much too young at the age of 67 in 1998, but a new book by the Porcupine Quill press documents her early sketches and drawings, providing insight into the formative years of one of Canada's most innovative artists. A book launch at Ben McNally Books celebrates the new publication as well as Wieland's life tonight.
Ben McNally Books, 366 Bay St., Free, 5 pm

MUSIC | Hudson Mohawke at Wrongbar
Fresh off his first ever performance at the legendary SXSW festival in Austin, Scottish DJ Hudson Mohawke comes to Wrongbar to wow the Queen St. crowd. Hud Mo had only a few informal releases a couple of years ago, but they were impressive enough to catch the attention of tastemaking indie label Warp Records, who quickly signed the youngster and released his debut full-length Butter last year. Drawing on the sounds of 80s R n' B, Mohawke's sound has been compared to early Prince and the Glasgow native is becoming known in clubs around the world. Guaranteed to be better than a certain 1991 Bruce Willis film.
Wrongbar, 1279 Queen St. W., $12.50 advance, 10 pm

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Photo: "Going Nowhere Fast" by SnapHappyExpat, member of the blogTO Flickr Pool.