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'.

'The Zoo Story', Edward Albee's 1959 masterpiece, is set on a park bench in a bustling city. I've seen it a number of times over the years...but never on an actual bench in an actual park. That is, until last Friday.

Red One Theatre's free, traveling production of the play is wrapping up this weekend with performances at De Grassi Street Park tonight and at the south end of Glen Stewart Park on Friday and Saturday at 7pm.

Sadly, yes -- Pages Books on Queen Street West, a Toronto institution since 1979, has closed its doors forever.

But, of course, when one door closes another opens. Rachael Glassman, the owner's daughter (and former Pages employee) is currently producing a documentary about the venerable independent bookstore.

With all of our focus on how it closed, the story of how it opened in 1979 is just as interesting.