The Bloor Cinema has been a cultural institution and an Annex icon for decades. Many, many decades. Built in 1905 as a vaudeville theatre called The Madison, it has seen days as a 1940's movie palace, a 1960's grindhouse, and a 1970's porn theatre (that incarnation was put out of business by the low prices of a neighbouring adult theatre, the Metro.) The Bloor, as it's known today, now stands as one of Canada's largest independent cinemas.

To celebrate the theatre's centennial in 2005, Peter Kuplowsky and I made a documentary about its storied past. The Bloor premiered to a full house on the building's 100th anniversary and includes interviews with current and former staff members as well as an up close look at architectural drawings, posters and photos of the building from the past and present.

The 17th annual Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival unfurls tonight with the film Clara at 7pm. It's being presented at the new home of Workman Arts, 651 Dufferin Street (the former Equity Showcase Theatre).

The festival is unique in that it doesn't focus on any one type of film (short, documentary, feature) or a cultural group (like 'The Jewish Film Festival', 'Reel Asian', etc); the only strand that ties the films together is that all the stories deal with mental health and addiction in one way or another. Following every film there is a lively panel discussion featuring filmmakers and mental health professionals, during which they discuss the issues and behaviour the film has portrayed and brought to the surface.

Another intriguing thing about the festival is that many of the screenings will be hosted inside the Centre For Addiction And Mental Health (CAMH) on Queen West instead of at a typical movie theatre.

What does it take to become a success in Toronto? Maybe you have to be tall, skinny and covered in neon blue? It certainly works for the CN Tower. So John O of Diamond Rings is giving it a whirl as well.

Born and bred in Oshawa, John's day job is the lead singer of the indie-rock group 'The D'urbervilles.' But his solo project, Diamond Rings, began getting a lot of attention at the end of August when John released a vibrant music video for his first single, 'All Yr Songs'.

Watching Brides, a Toronto sextet lead by the enigmatic Elliott Steven Jones, is always an exciting/transcendent/confounding experience. They played a set at Pop Montreal this Thursday.

The structure of their songs is interesting. They're usually about five minutes in length, feature sparse, inaudible lyrics by Guelph, Ontario's Mr. Jones, and change melody and tempo every few bars. It's kind of like listening to parts of many songs instead of just one. Like a 'best of' clip show of other songs that don't exist. It works however, because all the clips sound great.

Charles Spearin, member of Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think, released an infamous concept album named 'The Happiness Project' in February of this year. The idea was brilliant in its simplicity; he interviewed people in his neighbourhood in Toronto about what their definition of 'happy' is. He took the recorded conversations and wrote music to accompany their answers.

Of course releasing a lauded album like that, on major indie label Arts & Crafts no less, begs the question...how do you tour the record?

Daniel Karasik, 22 years old. Casa Loma.

Two of Daniel Karasik's plays are being produced this autumn. One of them is coming up at the Tarragon Theatre in early October while the other production is in November...in Potsdam, Germany.

Daniel was born and raised in Vaughan, which, according to its official civic tagline, is 'The City Above Toronto'.