ART | C Magazine Benefit Auction
I've never been to an auction, but I imagine it's about the classiest thing a young gentleman can do. Spending money with a flick of your wrist while you adjust your monocle and reassure your latest trophy wife that there will be plenty left over for that tiara she's had her eye on... what could be finer? Admittedly, tonight's benefit for Canadian arts quarterly C Magazine may not be exactly so highbrow, but you will get to hold one of those neat little bidding paddles. Over 60 small works from both established and emerging artists will be on the block, with all proceeds going towards the publication of the C Magazine, which has devoted itself to examining contemporary sculpture, painting and film from a Canadian perspective for 25 years. Ticket price will get you light food, drinks, a betting paddle, and a year's subscription to C.
Red Bull 381 Projects, 381 Queen St. West, $50 door, $40 advance, Doors 5:30 pm, Auction 7:30 pm

MUSIC | Inti-Illimani and Francesca Gagnon - A Concert for Chile
Inti-Illimani have been Chile's ambassadors of music for over 30 years. Outspoken critics of the repressive Pinochet regime during the 1980s, the group was forced into exile for fifteen years but went on to play around the world with the likes of Pete Seeger and Sting. Experts in both traditional and nueva cancion (new song) genres, tonight they are joined by Cirque de Soleil vocalist Francesca Gagnon to raise money for the city of Lota, which was one of the regions hardest hit by the recent massive 8.8 magnitude Chilean earthquake.
Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 190 Princes' Blvd., $40 - $50, 8 pm

BOOKS AND LIT | This is Not a Reading Series: Tom Jokinen in Conversation with James Grainger
The subject of death has always made great fodder for literature. Lurking behind the pages of most of history's greatest works-from James Joyce to Philip Roth-is humankind's obsession with our own demise. In his new book Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker in Training CBC broadcaster and humourist Tom Jokinen takes a literal approach, examining what happens in that brief period of time between a person's death and their sudden appearance at their funeral as a well-dressed corpse or a $2000 bag of ashes. These are the kind of details that we're mostly content to remain ignorant of, but Jokinen was so obsessed with the workings of the "death industry" that he actually quit his job and took a position as an apprentice undertaker to answer such questions as what colour lipstick looks best on a dead man? Did that bag of ashes really used to be your beloved relative? Is this really the way we want to say our goodbyes?
Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W., $5, 7 pm

DESIGN | Design Reaktor Berlin
Berlin has long been at the forefront of European art and design, and even the stifling Communist regime couldn't stop the city from being a prolific producer of film, theatre, music and visual art throughout the twentieth century. The city has recently embarked on an interdisciplinary project with the imposing title Design Reaktor Berlin, which merges business interests with aesthetic design, craftmaking and industrial production with the goal of reshaping the commercial and artistic landscape of the city. German-Canadian cultural attaches at the Goethe-Institut have invited industrial design experts and cultural critics Axel Kufus and Marc Piesbergen to OCAD tonight to shed some light on the project, hopefully by using some of those ridiculously long German words. Mind the Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung on your way there!
OCAD Auditorium, 100 McCaul St., Free, 7 pm

BOOKS AND LIT | eh List: David Rotenberg
David Rotenberg has an impressive resume. Born in Toronto, he's directed plays on Broadway as well as across Canada, in South Africa, the United States and China, and taught at Princeton and Penn State. In 1994, he directed the first ever Canadian play staged in China and his acting students include Rachel McAdams, Scott Speedman and David Hirsch. His latest successful endeavor is the Zhong Fong mystery series, five novels set in Shanghai that have climbed the bestsellers lists. A national figure with truly global influence, Rotenberg appears at the Runnymede Library tonight as part of TPL's eh List Author Series.
Runnymede Public Library, 2178 Bloor St. West, Free, 7 pm

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