NATIONAL POST ARTS

Dave Chappelle is headlining Funny Or Die’s Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Tour: natpo.st/1bO67uo

But it’s not coming to Canada! As consolation, here’s a photo of the time Dave Chappelle met Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (just last year!).

‘I thought he was a doctor’: John Malkovich helps save blood-soaked man’s life on a Toronto street
On the final day of a cross-Canada train trip, Ohio’s Marilyn Walpole was walking down King St. East with fellow travellers, when, behind her, she heard a slight moan and turned around to see her 77-year-old husband awash in his own blood.

“There was blood everywhere on the sidewalk; his face was full of blood, his clothes were soaked in blood … and he was moaning,” said Ms. Walpole, speaking from her home in Defiance, Ohio.

Within moments, a bystander had thrown down his cigarette, rushed into the blood-soaked scene and administered the emergency First Aid that may have saved Mr. Walpole’s life. Only later would the couple discover that the bystander was Academy Award-nominated actor John Malkovich.

“He really knew what he was doing; that’s why I thought he was a doctor,” said Ms. Walpole. “He had no qualms about getting blood all over him; that would be a real concern for some people.” (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Galit Rodan)

Robert Fulford: Jazz, on the record

One evening in the early 1950s Jack Teagarden took a few moments between sets at the Colonial Tavern in Toronto and tried to explain the troubles besetting his jazz band.

When he explained what went wrong, almost the first word he used was “barbecue.” The new, post-war Los Angeles had become a series of distantly related suburbs. People entertained at home, mostly. They were happy to barbecue. They didn’t need jazz bands, or downtown clubs.

That’s the sort of accident that changes the history of an art form, though it’s hard to understand what it means while it’s happening.

Marc Myers, who writes for the Wall Street Journal and blogs at JazzWax.com, shrewdly 
explains this process in his new book, Why Jazz Happened (University of California Press). He describes how events ranging from city planning to inventions in sound technology altered the nature of jazz during three decades beginning in 1942. In those 30 years jazz changed from an accompaniment to dancing and drinking to a concert-based performance art directed at careful, even scholarly listeners. Myers can give at least half a dozen reasons why this happened, beginning with the suburbs. READ MORE: natpo.st/140BYqF

The Toronto Poster Project: Pictograms
Artist Sarah Lazarovic continues her artful series about the city with a local spin on wrapping paper. Each pictogram is representative of a place, person or thing that symbolizes this city. Try your hand at deciphering the icons, and learn your score at the bottom of the poster. Then print the page out for use as it’s intended.

Concert Review: Neil Young and Crazy Town come home to Toronto

It’s been nearly five decades since Neil Young left Canada to seek his fame and fortune in California. But the 67-year-old journeyman made it plain Monday, when he dusted off his saddle bag of songs for the latest time at the Air Canada Centre, that he has not lost track of his home and native land, including opening up the show with rendition of O Canada.

About two songs in, just before he broke into the new track Born in Ontario off his latest album, Psychedelic Pill, Young spoke to the crowd for the first time:

“Home, sweet home,” he said. “Watch out for falling glass.”

Read the full review here: natpo.st/XZHicl

With more than 47 million digital singles sold, two platinum certifications and 11 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Top 100, it’s hard to question the commercial savvy of the pop juggernaut known simply as Rihanna. But how does that savvy translate to a well-curated series of concerts — the 777 tour — that are as much hype as they are spectacle? Find out here: natpo.st/XMvutK

Introducing the Toronto Poster Project!

This weekend, we launched a continuing series in which artist Sarah Lazarovic reminds us why we should celebrate our city. “We live in such an incredible, rapidly evolving metropolis, it deserves to be posterized,” Lazarovic explains. Our monthly placards will aim to enlighten and inspire. From geography to taco-ography, we’ll explore T.O. visually, frequently inviting your collaboration. Save them, hang them, love them, use them. Click here for full size: http://natpo.st/PNq5Ax