In the below video (already at close to 10,000 views), Sexy Dragon strips down to his socks and undies and busts a move in various, very public places (such as Fairview Mall, Eaton Centre, TTC, Pacific Mall, ROM, U of T, and Younge & Dundas) -- much to the blushing reactions/glares/cheers/jeers of passersby and to the chagrin of security officers who sometimes feel compelled to rain on the parade.

"Some people simply have a blanket view of some cultures," explains Sexy Dragon, the brave dancer in the video. He came to Canada from China 12 years ago, and aims to challenge the way people think.

When asked about the reactions he's received, Sexy Dragon explains that "people in this city walk around without smiling." Wanting to change that, he aims to "entertain people with physical comedy in everyday life situations."

And how do security staff respond when he gallivants around and breaks into shirtless and pantless dance? "We're doing this on private property in some locations. Some don't care, and other do," he tells me. At Pacific Mall, for example (known for its tight security), he and his crew have been caught, identified, and banned for five years.

In the next video in the series, he plans to tackle another cross-cultural stereotype by dressing up as a banana ("yellow on the outside and white on the inside") and hitting the streets. Stay tuned for it to appear on the Sexy Dragon website.

Out for Papers was recently released by indie unsigned rapper Al Viz, who's lived in the North York 'hood his whole life. Viz shot a video for his Bathurst-Steeles rap in October 2009, uploading it to YouTube the same week he released his online mixtape - "The Well-Made Bars Mixtape" - via his MySpace page.

For anyone who frequented the Russian-Israeli region of Toronto, they'll spot some familiar sites in the vid, such as Rockford Public School, G. Ross Lord Park and Bathurst Street just south of Steeles. Too bad the vid, directed by Newtonbook S.S. grad Ed Wong, spent too much time on the rapper in his various settings instead of showing us more iconic images of the streets.

In an interview, the 29-year-old Viz says B&S deserves its rap props. "There are some talented people in this area, but they're under the radar. I just wanted to come out with something that's authentic, that people can relate to."

The track reminds us about the immigrants who flooded the area a few decades ago. Immigrants come here for a better life, Viz says, but sometimes they move away and forget about their roots. Out for Papers is not just an ode to this North York nook, but also a peek into the larger issue of Eastern European immigration to the GTA.

For more North York-flavoured raps from Viz, check out his new tune, A Russian Girl. It's a smartly written track, outlining a Russian woman's struggle coming to Canada.

Whether the region knows it or not, Bathurst and Steeles finally has a hip-hop ambassador.

Writing by David Silverberg

Intrigued, if not feeling a little melancholy, I caught up with Justin to ask him more about the video, his inspiration for it and what took so long to share it with the world.

What inspired you to create this video?

The concept came to me while meditating with friends at a Buddhist meditation center in the west end. The inspiration for this rendition of the song came from my first high school love. When we broke up she snuck the lyrics to this song in to my locker and I realized just how sad of a song it actually is.

How long did it take you to shoot/edit the video?

It took 5 days of shooting and sunburns, and then a couple of years of editing on and off as I was sorting out how to obtain rights to actually show the video and working on other video projects. Part procrastination and part frustration with pulling it together.

How did you select the people who appeared in the video?

People were selected at random off the street. It took 5 days of me and whatever friend I could sweet talk into coming with me that day wandering around town with signs that said "Want to be in a music video?" We would take whoever came up to us or who we could start random conversations with. It was a really interesting process for me, hearing all of the stories from the people in the video for why they picked who they did and what they meant to them. Some of the stories were really heart breaking, like the old man who dedicated the video to his wife who had passed after a prolonged painful illness, and the guy who had a tattoo of his lost love on the back of his neck. All of the people in the video are real and none of it was arranged ahead of time.

What do you do for work/fun?

I work as a web designer by day, but I am really an aspiring director/editor, actor, artist, writer. I've also studied Astrology for over 10 years and hold a BA in Philosophy. My heart is really in the arts, but being an artist doesn't always pay so well and I got sick of waiting tables, so, I make with the webby-geeky for bucks. But I do hope to shoot features some day.

Is that you on vocals?

That is me singing and playing guitar. This is a cover version I recorded for an album I released at the end of 2005 called "In The Morning I Woke Up". After the album was complete I gave myself the ambitious project of creating a music video for every one of the songs on the album. I made a couple of videos with a director/now friend I found off Craigslist, and attempted to direct a bunch of others myself. Some of the footage didn't turn out, and some were just crap, all in all I ended up with four videos I really liked and you can see them all on my website or YouTube.

I'm currently in pre-production to start another album and hoping to direct more videos or even a long form feature concept for the whole album. I think the best way to approach any creative project is with as much ambition as you can muster. Then if you fall short, you'll probably still end up with something pretty great.

While Toronto has been amused and abused in all types of music and media, it seems that its hip hop culture is particularly proud of their domain. Or perhaps this can better be understood as a sort of hip hop convention whereby rappers mythologize their stomping grounds in order to boost their own image? In case you haven't already seen the first video I mentioned, the song is a remix of a hit song by Young Jeezy featuring Kanye West entitled, "I Put On (For My City)."

Either way, the sound of Ron D's "Toronto" and the style of the video perfectly reflect the "golden era" of hip hop from the early 90's that Ron D undoubtedly grew up with. I could be wrong, but the drum beat in this song sounds like it was sampled from Naughty by Nature's 1991 mega-anthem, "O.P.P." Things I enjoy from the video: the sample of the subway chime, the references to all of Toronto's past and present hip hop greats, and the "1 Love Toronto" T-shirts. See if you can catch them all...

Well, not really. But War Child Canada sure knows how to get my attention. The Toronto-based charity continues to be ahead of the curve when it comes to using the web, local artists and other unconventional tactics to raise awareness about the plight of child soldiers in Darfur, The Congo and Sierra Leone.

Their latest buzz-worthy campaign just launched last week and is a clever spin on the sort of charitable giving many of us take part in this time of year. While boxes and fundraising events almost litter the city asking for canned goods to be donated to the Daily Bread Food Bank, War Child has created a fictional scenario showing concerned citizens donating knives, targets and other supplies to help child soldiers continue to do battle in war-torn regions.

There's much more at helpchildsoldiers.com where apparently additional videos will be posted soon.

I don't have much to say about this one except watch it! Thanks to James for sending us the link.

Earlier this year, Toronto's City and Colour teamed with Gord Downie to release Sleeping Sickness - the second single off of C&C's sophomore album. Not only is it a great song, but they created an amazing interactive video to go with it. Essentially, the viewer is given an omniscient perspective looking down into a neighbourhood of decapitated houses. Using simple keyboard and mouse commands, the viewer can scan over different houses zooming in and out to find Green and Downie (among others) stricken with, shall I say, sleeping sickness.

What I like best about the video is its intersection between a seemingly virtual world - reminiscent of The Sims or Second Life - and that of a live-action video. It's fun to fly above the different happenings and sit in amazement at how they constructively stitched all the shots together.

The video was directed by Montreal-based, Vincent Morisset, and produced by Toronto's Spy Films. Here's a link to the interactive version where you can also watch the "making of" video and see photos from the shoot. Above is the TV version.

Have some videos with a Toronto twist you want me to write about on this site? Just send your suggestions to jake [at] blogto [dotcom] or add a comment below.

Well as of this very moment, it has been watched 2,565,263 times. What about this one?

It has been watched 2,874,420 times. These videos, and many more like them were created by Corey Vidal, a 21 year old amateur dancer and official YouTube partner who hails from Hamilton, ON. The first video features Corey lip-syncing the four different acapella parts of a song entitled, "Star Wars." The song was originally created as a tribute to John Williams by Utah-based comedy group, Moosebutter, and given to Corey in order to produce what you see here. The second video was created to satisfy one of the numerous requests he gets from his estimated 15-20,000 visits a day. So what's so special about Corey?

Well, since posting his first video in 2006, Corey has risen to become one of the most-watched people on the most-watched website on the planet. He has garnered a number of YouTube "honors" including:

- #3 Most Subscribed (All Time) - Gurus - Canada
- #19 Most Subscribed (All Time) - Partners - Canada
- #57 Most Viewed (This Month)

What began as a hobby creating simple dance instruction videos has since turned into a profitable, dare I say, 'business' for Mr. Vidal. He is a member of the coveted YouTube Partnership Program whereby Google Inc. (owner of YouTube) shares ad revenue with users who create uber-popular original content for the site. And with these two videos Vidal has managed to hit YouTube gold not only once, but twice (if not many more times with the 86 other videos he's currently posted).

While YouTube partners have to sign a 12-page non-disclosure agreement swearing that they won't reveal how much they actually earn, Vidal says that it's enough to "do YouTube 'for a living'... and spend the money however I see fit." (http://dance.aexian.com/). The first video in this post was featured on YouTube Canada (Nov. 3, 2008) and YouTube Worldwide (Nov. 6, 2008) and has since spawned all kinds of media attention and spoofs. It was even featured on starwars.com!

And lastly, before this Star Wars mayhem was even a glimmer in his eye, Vidal was also the host of the 888 YouTube Gathering which took place here in Toronto on August 8, 2008. The gathering was produced by Vidal with the help of YouTube and brought together some of the site's biggest 'cewebrities.'

Want to see more? Here are some of Corey's links:

YouTube
Website

I wonder how much money I've made for Vidal in the process of researching this posting? "Kiss a wookie, kick a droid! Fly the falcon through an asteroid!"

Have some videos with a Toronto twist you want me to write about on this site? Just send your suggestions to jake [at] blogto [dotcom] or add a comment below.

Warning: Nudity and silly sex talk.

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The fabulous Ryan C and I took a camera backstage to get the scoop from some of the hottest celebrity look-a-likes including Paris Hilton (Joy-Marie Mitchell), Celine Dion (Laura Landauer), Austin Powers (Bob Shea), as well as some predictions and impromptu cookie-making advice from FoodTV's Anna Olson.

The other videos varied from cops breaking up a fight, to the surreal adaptation of a colourful TTC rapper, to a pitifully sick rider, and then my personal favourite, the Bohemian Rhapsody sing-along. While some were amusing, the others displayed some disturbing similarities.

The most disturbing commonality in many of these and other bystander videos filmed on the TTC is the inaction of those recording the footage, also known as the bystander effect. In some of the videos, the subjects are labeled as drunk or crazy by the other riders, thus negating their willingness to help. For example, the 'crazy woman on subway' video made my stomach lurch; is it a hyper-sensitive rider struggling with a history of abuse? Or is it an assertive rider who was fondled by a man on the subway and let him know he couldn't get away with it? Why didn't anybody just ask if she was alright and what happened?

Furthermore, the concerns raised from this TTC YouTube trend mirrors the questions that arose regarding the TTC's controversial step to install security cameras to reduce crime and make the TTC safer. But I'm not so convinced and Privacy International isn't either. As PI shows, research taken from the implementation of the UK transit cameras has shown that while the cameras may assist in reducing low-level opportunistic crimes, the level of actual arrests was negligible. When concerns regarding privacy arose, Giambrone stated that the cameras would only be used by the police for review, and wouldn't be watched live. This only brought up more questions about the reasoning behind installing cameras for crime prevention if they would only be used after the fact. While we're still waiting to see what becomes of these new cameras, maybe these and other YouTube videos can act as 'moron' security in the meantime.

On a final note about the 'Best Of' list, am I the only one who found the screaming child video, which was labeled as 'endearing' as the most annoying?

The video is two minutes long and can also be found, obviously, on YouTube.

I had hoped to talk to the globetrotting architect about the fake bomb but he hadn't heard the news. Said Libeskind "There are a lot of bombs around the world. You can't follow all of them." So instead we settled on the media's reaction to his work, what he would change about the design, and the state of architecture in Toronto. All of this and more in my brief (2 minute) video interview with him below:

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It's only been a few months since Miss Cora's Kitchen opened in Kensington Market but it didn't take long for locals to discover the amazing scents of freshly baked goodness emanating from the oven. Owner and head chef Cora DeVries learned a lot of what she knows from her mother and one of the recipes that's been passed down from one generation to the next is her butter tarts. Hot out of the oven, they're tough to beat.

To learn the secret behind this once-guarded family recipe, I took my video camera behind the counter and into the kitchen where Cora showed me how to make the perfect butter tart. Watch the video below to learn how to make them yourself:

Keep reading for the full recipe and instructions.

Ingredients

For the pastry, you'll need:

* 2.25 cups flour
* Half a cup of cold vegetable shortening, cut into half inch pieces
* Half a cup of cold butter, cut into half inch pieces
* 1 tsp salt
* One third of a cup of cold water

Preparation

Place flour, shortening, butter and salt in a food processor. Pulse until mixture resembles course crumbs. Add cold water. Count 30 seconds and then pulse until dough begins to clump together. Empty bowl of food processor onto floured table, divide in 2, and wrap with plastic wrap. Chill at least one hour or overnight in the fridge.

Ingredients

For the filling you'll need:

* Half a cup of melted butter
* One cup of brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 2 tbsp. cream or milk

Preparation

Mix together.

To assemble tarts, roll out the dough on floured board. Cut dough into circles to fit regular sized muffin tins. Grease tins, and then ease dough into the muffin tin.

Add either raisins or pecans (4 or 5 per tart). Add a few tablespoons of the filling to top the raisins/pecans. Tarts should be two thirds full when they go into the oven.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Check for browned pastry. Depending on your oven - bake for 2-5 min. longer if necessary. When ready, the crust should be slightly browned and the filling should be hot and bubbling. Cool and remove from muffin pans.

A big thanks to Cora Devries for sharing this delicious recipe. Try making them at home but don't forget to go to Miss Cora's Kitchen to sample the real deal!