BY: ROB HOFFMAN In 2003, Mike Brodie, aged 18, left home to hop freight trains across the USA. Freight train hopping – a form of travel that is equal parts illegal and romantic – is thought of by most to be…
The Toronto condo boom that killed community
by RYAN BOLTON I was in a CBC documentary about condos last fall. A film crew followed my lady and me around asking questions about condo life for some eight hours. They filmed us in our local dog park with…
Uniformity is not our friend: The Centre for Social Innovation
BY: ATLAS The chairs in the basement lounge of the Centre for Social Innovation’s Annex location don’t match. Not a single couch in the rustic, exposed-brick space looks like its neighbour, nor do any of the worn wooden tables share…
The performers of Dundas Square: The life of a contact-juggler
BY: JACKIE HONG PHOTOS BY: LISA MACINTOSH Jordan Kells performs in Dundas Square most days during the summer, but his act is quicker to drop jaws than, say, Toronto Batman or Spiderman. The 24-year-old’s act is a form of contact…
A day in the life of a gay Toronto street kid
BY: GARY SEWARD It’s a humid summer night and the street is littered with the day’s newspapers, Starbucks cups, trash and all things discarded. The gleams from the streetlight strike the damp concrete creating an amber glow in the dusk.…
An open letter to introverts and extroverts: Can you be both?
BY: KESTREL French writer Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote “Hell is other people”, and he was fucking right. The truth is that human beings can be awful to one another. There are prisons where people have to eat each other to…
Teams tow hospital beds to win Golden Bedpan in the Danforth Dash Bed Race
By JACKIE HONG Twenty teams are gathered behind the starting line. The rules are simple: there are ten squads; there are two teams per squad. At the sound of the horn, they’re going to make a 200 ft.-dash down closed-off…
These dangerous playgrounds turn kids into fearless adventure seekers (Video)
BY: LUC RINALDI At the end of your street, imagine there’s an old, vacant lot, wrapped by a rickety wooden fence. A pile of tires sits on the shore of the murky stream that cuts through the space, littered with…
How to Hitchhike: 10 must know tricks for hitchhiking across the Country
By: TED BARNABY Hitchhiking is a great way to travel cheap. It’s also a one-way street to unforeseen and unabridged adventure. Sometimes half the fun is figuring things out as you go along, but there are definitely a number of…
My first time at a sex club and I brought my girlfriend
The Victorian mansion towered above us as nervousness bubbled and churned within my stomach. The sounds of schoolgirls’ giggles and splashing water filtered over a tall wooden fence and I began to think that maybe I should have made…
The ultimate defense against date rape fits inside your pocket
BY: VANESSA NIGRO One of my earliest memories is of my cautious mother warning me of what perils may ensue if I kept refusing to wear my helmet when riding my bike. A few years later I was warned of…
You might lose your creative job to a robot sooner than you think
Drawing upon the warnings of past industrial alarmists like Karl Marx or Ned Ludd, CGP Grey warns of the imposing threat of technology. History has shown us that technology often does not embrace the past, but rather overwrites it. Mechanical…
Arkells’ High Noon gets me just as hot as classic photos of Grace Kelly
“High Noon” is a moment of decision defining a situation’s outcome. Serving as the midday meeting time for epic showdowns in Western films of generations past, High Noon is also the title of a ’50s Western film starring Gary…
These 4 offices will make you want to go to work
BY: ATLAS We’ve all heard about the Google offices. Slides in splashes of primary colours weave their way through the building, mini-golf courses wait on every mezzanine, and there’s a pinball machine or arcade game within eye’s view at all…
16-year-old inventor proves banana peels could be the future of plastic
BY: LAURA ROJAS So it turns out a girl named Elif Bilgin, a 16-year-old junior at Koç High School in Istanbul, Turkey, submitted a project to the 2013 Google Science Fair that won her the “Science in Action Award.” She…
Alex Martel started Amnesia Rockfest when he was only 17. This year, 200,000 punk fans flooded his hometown
By JACKIE HONG Alex Martel is living the dream. The 28-year-old native of Montebello, Quebec (population 978), founded Amnesia Rockfest, a two-day punk, metal, and alternative festival that goes down in his hometown every summer, when he was just 17…
I spent the afternoon naked in public and there was nothing weird about it (NSFW)
BY: Alex Brown/ Photos: Connor Brian “Hi, I have an interview at 3.” “All right.” “I suppose I should get naked?” “That would be appreciated.” The young woman I was talking to was named Nikki, the manager of Bare Oaks Family…
30% of food in the USA goes to waste – Fill stomachs, not landfills
BY: PILGRIM I used to know a girl who would occasionally go dumpster diving for the mass quantities of bread and baked goods that get thrown away behind supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants. Sometimes, when she was in the dumpster, the…
Is “selfie” just a short form for self-conscious?
She hates walking past reflective shop windows. Her nose hangs crooked as if sculpted by an artist with a sense of humor. Her eyes are too close together and her straw hair matches the ashen tint of her hollowed face.…
Toronto From Above: Trespassing on the city’s rooftops (photos)
By JACKIE HONG I’m close to broke, crave adrenaline rushes and killer views. My salvation this summer? Climbing stuff and taking photos. It’s free, a great workout, and rewards me with a unique vantage of a city I thought I’d…