1. Telling jokes in cold places
“It’s time to get my ass kicked by a Canadian winter,” comedian Demetri Martin says of his aptly titled tour, Telling Jokes in Cold Places. His first official tour of Canada includes a stop in Toronto tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. If his sweeping locks and nonchalant attitude aren’t enough to convince you to see the show, he’s also a very accomplished poet, creating a 224-word palindrome poem.
2. Ahoy, matey!
If you, like us, have spent snowmageddon daydreaming about scrapping your mittens and hightailing it to a beach, you might find a getaway vessel at the Toronto International Boat Show this weekend. With the world’s largest indoor lake and Duma, the water skiing, boat-driving pup making waves, summer doesn’t seem so far away. Tonight will kick off the special preview, and the event runs until Jan. 22 at the Direct Energy Centre.
3. Brew Year’s Day
The Brewery Market’s mantra this weekend will be this: the stronger the alcohol, the warmer you’ll be. That’s fine by us. Check out Brew Year’s Day, an event that will bring together beers from Great Lakes Brewery and Cheshire Valley, with names like Apocalypse Later, Dude Where’s My Czar? and A Waste of Men, ordering the brews will be almost as fun as drinking them.
4. Spice up your life
For those of us who really really really wanna zig-a-zig ahh, Sporty, Posh, Baby, Scary and Ginger will be at El Mocambo Saturday night — kind of. Wannabe, a Spice Girls tribute band, will be cranking out classics from ‘90s albums Spice and Spiceworld. Needless to say, we’ll be tapping into our inner adolescent, decked out in red feather boas and Adidas tear away pants.
5. The other Gretzky
If you’re not into ‘90s pop cover bands, how about something a bit more rock ‘n’ roll? Dwayne Gretzky, “everyone’s favourite cover super-band loosely named after a hockey legend,” will be performing Saturday night at the Horseshoe Tavern. The band members are always changing, and in the past have included members of Arkells and Flash Lightnin’. It’s almost impossible not to sing along to their cover of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity.”