Culture

Patrick Stewart is well known for playing Captain Jean Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and its spin-off Star Trek: Picard, as well as playing Professor X in the X-Men series of films, but he is also a well known Shakespearean actor. While most of the world is in isolation due to the Covid-19 virus and looking for ways to keep themselves entertained, Stewart has decided to give them another things to look forward to. He’s set to post a new reading of a Shakespeare sonnet every day until the pandemic crisis is over.

Let’s face it, being stuck at home isn’t exactly a lot of fun. Sometimes you run out of books to read or movies to watch, and you want something a little different. Thankfully we live in a time where the internet can help us out with that. From virtual tours of museums and galleries, to live concerts and plays, there are plenty of things you can do from home that you wouldn’t have been able to do even a few short years ago. Here are some of our favourites. 

A good book will stay with you once it’s done. You’ll think about it over and over, and want to talk to others about it. A truly classic book won’t fade either, and in many cases you’ll want to pick it up soon after you’ve finished it. Here are some novels that fit that mold, which everyone should read at least once in their lives.

From sports, to concerts, U.S. political rallies and even film releases, events all across the globe are being cancelled or postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and now the most celebrated music festival in the US has confirmed that it will not be taking place next month. Officials for Coachella released a statement yesterday that the annual event will be moving from April to October in attempts to curtail the virus outbreak.

Tate Britain is preparing an exhibit of Aubrey Beardsley’s work, who is considered by many to be the enfant terrible of 1890s London. As part of the exhibit, which will showcase nearly 250 drawings by the artist, is the artist’s only attempt at oil painting. As you would come to expect from Beardsley’s work, the piece is rather odd, and in this case in more ways that one.

There comes a time every year when you take a look at the concert listings to see who might be coming to your city. Sometimes you want to catch a purely nostalgic act, or sometimes it’s the latest big star, but typically every year has some act that you wouldn’t mind plunking down a little of your hard earned money to see. Here are some of the big names that will be touring this year.

Dan Brown is well known as the author of The Da Vinci Code series of books. The hero of those novels is Robert Langdon, who uses a series of skills to solve ancient mysteries. The novels have been a huge hit over the years, but for the moment Brown is moving away from the series to focus on a new project that uses a different set of skills. This fall he’s set to release a children’s picture book, that will be accompanied by a classical music album. 

Thanks to Parasite making history this year at the Oscars, the spotlight on Korean films and other works of art is stronger than ever. The most recent of these is the new novel by best-selling Korean author and screenwriter Seo Mi-ae called The Only Child.

If you heaven’t heard of Shawn Leonard before, you are in for a treat. He’s a Nova Scotia-based Mi’kmaq medium who has traveled the countryside talking to people and helping them find closure with their deceased loved ones, and now he’s starring in a new 13-part TV series on APTN where he takes a journey throughout Atlantic Canada to connect more people to their loved ones in the spirit world.

If you are looking for ideas of things to do this upcoming long weekend, one thing you may want to consider is the Canadian International Autoshow at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre that starts this Friday the 14th of February and runs until the 23rd. You’ll find plenty of things of interest for the whole family, and the cost of admission won’t break the bank. 

Starting in May, Toronto will be home to a monumental Van Gogh Exhibition. The immersive, digital art experience will be making it’s world premiere in the city as it takes over 600,000 cubic feet in the heart of downtown.

Be prepared to get a dose of Pop Culture in 2021. The AGO has announced that a major exhibition of the works of Andy Warhol will begin in March of that year, and it will reconsider “the personal, social and political backdrop that influenced Warhol’s groundbreaking art.” 

Imagine hopping next door one day to deliver a package of used clothing to your neighbours, only to find one of them brutally murdered and her teenage, disabled daughter missing. That’s the premise of the new novel by Emily Elgar, Grace Is Gone, and it’s a page-turner that will keep your imagination running from start to finish.

Tomorrow is not only just a new day, and a new year, but a new decade as well. 2020 has been talked about for a long time now, with dreams of flying cars and space trips, and while many of those things won’t be happening in the New Year, there are still plenty of cool things to look forward to. Here are some of our favourites.

J.T. Ellison has taken us here before. The New York Times and USA Today best-selling author knows how to draw readers in, and hold them tight as she weaves her dark, psychological tale. Her latest thriller, Good Girls Lie is more of what you’d expect from one of her novels and yet different enough that you can’t see everything is coming.