Sherwin Tjia knows how to keep himself busy. In between his day job as a medical illustrator, this Scarborough-born artist (who has since relocated to Montreal) coordinates events across Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa with a twist. If you haven't attended Sherwin's Slowdance Night, Cardboard Fort Party, Crowd Karaoke or Strip Spelling Bee, be forewarned these events will force you to see your city in a very surprising way. Usually dressed in drag, Tjia hosts with great humor and confidence, with the intent to take event-goers out of their comfort zone.

In addition to his event planning career, Tjia has published both poetry (2005's The World Is A Heartbreaker) and graphic novels. 2009's The Hipless Boy chronicled a hapless protagonist making his way through Montreal's art scene with extreme tenderness. This week, he'll convince the scholastic to strip down to their skivvies at Buddies in Bad Times for another edition of his Strip Spelling Bee, and launch his new book You Are A Cat!, a choose-your-own adventure style narrative from the point of view of a feline.

I talked to Sherwin over email about his book launch, why he'd love to host a speed dating event for the suicidal, and the differences between Montreal and Toronto.

The focaccia is delicious. It's a simple square made of roasted organic potatoes and garlic, but there's something special about the crunchy crust. It simply tastes better than any other focaccia I've had; it's so rustic, sweet and savory. And it's all thanks to the 10-minutes it spent roasting inside the Dufferin Grove community bake oven.

Paul Collier, age 45, got his start in the reptile business at age 7. His first lizard was a tiny anole, a breed that he now calls a starter lizard that he trained to climb onto his desk lamp at night. At age 10, Collier bought a boa constrictor with his paper route money.

"I lied to my mother and told her it was a brown mud snake I found on the Humber River so she'd let me keep it," said Collier. "And it started growing and growing, and when she had company over one day, I actually told them I had a boa constrictor. I remember her turning to me, shocked, with her mouth hanging wide open. But she had already liked the snake. I made sure she liked it before I divulged."

There's a new wine bar and intimate lounge at Bathurst and Dupont, an area notoriously absent of a bar scene. With its expensive wine list and underground DJ booth, it just might be the Annex's first bar for the upwardly mobile.

Read my review of The Grape in the bars section.

On Monday evening, the Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Public Library played host to Jeffrey Eugenides, an influential Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist making his first appearance to Toronto. Connected to the hysterical realism movement of writers like his Brown University classmate Rick Moody, friend Jonathan Franzen and the late David Foster Wallace, Eugenides is known for his 1993 book The Virgin Suicides (later adapted into a film by Sofia Coppola) and 2002's Middlesex, which won him a Pulitzer and a place in Oprah's Book Club.

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, strangers gather at No One Writes To The Colonel to sing Squeeze's "Tempted." They look over their sheet music, split into high, middle and low key registers and sing their hearts out, turning the forgotten 80s song into a robust execution of love. They are Choir! Choir! Choir! and they have strength in numbers. Last week, 110 people came to choir practice for the chance to take on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."