Latest news with #TorontotheBetter
Hamilton Spectator
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Looking for better love: I'm a 71-year-old widower hoping to fall desperately in love one last time
Better Love — part of the Star's Toronto the Better project — is a yearlong personal ad series that connects Torontonians looking for love, and offers an alternative to our swiping habit. Singles pen honest, vulnerable descriptions of what and who they're looking for, in a throwback to (photo-free) personal ads of yore. These essays will appear regularly in the Star, and interested parties can reply to an email address — betterlove@ — to connect. I'm retired after a successful career as a lawyer, corporate executive and educator. I was born and raised in Toronto but have lived and travelled elsewhere, including, when I was younger, Europe for two months on five dollars a day, and a few years later on an around-the-world five-month journey. I have both a pan-Canadian and a global perspective. I also loved playing tennis for 50 years, downhill skiing for 30 years and volleyball for 20 years. Although I was raised Jewish, I do not ascribe to any formal religion; I consider myself a spiritual person with a true moral compass and a strong interest in giving back. I am 71 years young and pursue a variety of interests with energy and enthusiasm, including performing in a rock and pop choir; volunteering as a tutor for new Canadians in English, math, and computer skills; and taking courses on a variety of subjects that pique my interest and fulfil my goal of being a lifelong learner. Joining a rock and pop choir indicates my risk-taking (as the last time I was in a choir was when I was nine), along with a love of music and performing. Film is an abiding passion, and I am a member of both TIFF and Hot Docs, and have volunteered for both over the last three festivals. Being single as well as retired allows me to do all the things I like to do. If necessary, I am prepared to modify at least some of that to be with someone I love. I married later in life, at age 46. We had 20 wonderful years together, travelling the world, writing books together, laughing, and loving each other. Sadly, she was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and passed in 2020. It was a struggle to come to terms with her passing. I began to date again late in 2022 and enjoyed a five-month relationship with a woman in 2023 that came to an amicable conclusion. It has become clear to me that I miss the fun, excitement, warmth, shared experiences, love, and intimacy of a committed relationship, and yearn to find that again. I seek a woman who is intellectually curious. She must also be adventurous: not risk-seeking, but primed to check out what the world has to offer, both at home and abroad. She must have a sense of humour and be able to laugh. Finally, I seek a romantic, someone who wants to hold hands in public and behave lovingly in private. Politically I am a bit left of centre and proudly Canadian, which might be a problem for those right of centre. I do not own or use a smart phone which may seem strange to most. Since I started dating again in 2022, it has only been through friends as I have no interest in using social media for that (or almost anything else). I guess my circle of friends is not wide enough to have met likely candidates. I have been a reader of the Toronto Star for 60 years — I started young — so I feel a commonality with people who read it. I miss the love of intimacy I once had, and I felt this ad was a way to find a wider range of women with whom I could share love and all the other aspects of togetherness. I have only fallen deeply and hopelessly in love a few times in my life and want to have the thrill of that experience once more — and, hopefully, for the rest of our lives. Want to get in touch with Irv? Email betterlove@ to request a connection. (Note: Responses are not guaranteed.)
Toronto Star
26-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Toronto Star
Looking for better love: I'm a 71-year-old widower hoping to fall desperately in love one last time
Better Love Better Love — part of the Star's Toronto the Better project — is a yearlong personal ad series that connects Torontonians looking for love, and offers an alternative to our swiping habit. Singles pen honest, vulnerable descriptions of what and who they're looking for, in a throwback to (photo-free) personal ads of yore. These essays will appear regularly in the Star, and interested parties can reply to an email address — betterlove@ — to connect. I'm retired after a successful career as a lawyer, corporate executive and educator. I was born and raised in Toronto but have lived and travelled elsewhere, including, when I was younger, Europe for two months on five dollars a day, and a few years later on an around-the-world five-month journey. I have both a pan-Canadian and a global perspective. I also loved playing tennis for 50 years, downhill skiing for 30 years and volleyball for 20 years. Although I was raised Jewish, I do not ascribe to any formal religion; I consider myself a spiritual person with a true moral compass and a strong interest in giving back.
Toronto Star
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
Looking for better love: I'm a curious, adventurous drummer who is ready to start a family with the right woman
Better Love Better Love — part of the Star's Toronto the Better project — is a yearlong personal ad series that connects Torontonians looking for love, and offers an alternative to our swiping habit. Singles pen honest, vulnerable descriptions of what and who they're looking for, in a throwback to (photo-free) personal ads of yore. These essays will appear regularly in the Star, and interested parties can reply to an email address — betterlove@ — to connect. About me I've played drums in bands since high school and toured around North America in my 20s. These days, I enjoy life in the city and spend most weekends checking out shows that are a bit off-the-beaten path. I'm also branching out into composing music for short films. I stay active with skateboarding and yoga, and have recently taken up playing chess, just to see if I can get good at it. I like to explore obscure corners of the city, and generally blend in wherever I go. Sometimes, I feel like I'm too weird for the normies and too normie for some weirdos. I value a blend of creative personality and logic, since I'm that way myself. I've lived in a few different cities and only have a couple more continents to visit before crossing all seven off the list. I'm happy to explore and learn about anything and everything, wherever I am. I think this constant curiosity carries over well into relationships. I believe there is beauty everywhere and an open mind often leads to exciting discoveries, with travel or with people. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW I've got a good sense of humour, along with a goofy, adventurous side. I'm compassionate and conscientious: I try to do the right thing, and be generous. I tend to think deeply about everything. My dating history I've been selectively dating with long-term intent over the past five years. I've never been married, but I've been in a couple relationships that lasted about a year. I've used my time being single to make peace with myself and my life. I don't have any kids, and I'm ready for a family. What I'm looking for in a relationship There's nothing cuter than seeing an old couple that's still sweet to each other after all their years together. That's something to aspire to. I also visited my cousin overseas recently and met her husband for the first time. They were such a good team, supporting each other taking care of their young kids together. I really admired that. There is a lot of doom and gloom in the world these days, and a lot of people are hesitant to start a family because of this — justifiably so! I see it another way: starting a family is the most important thing I can see myself doing to create the future I wish to see. So many people have sacrificed so much to bring us to where we are today. I want to see how much further we can take it, at least in a cosmic spiritual sense, even though, physically, we all die. We are all the living descendants of survivors of plagues and wars, and I'm excited to see how we will continue to persevere. My ideal partner is honest, self-aware, and co-operative — willing to work things through. It feels kind of weird to say, but 'quiet' is also a quality that I think would work well for me. I do sometimes bounce off the walls and get downright silly, but most of the time I am a pretty quiet, low-key person., Someone loud with high energy as a baseline would wear me out pretty quickly. That said, I'd also love someone creative, with a great sense of style. Deal-breakers include poor hygiene, or being immature, uncommunicative or combative. They shouldn't be dishonest with themselves or others, or unable to confront difficult matters. Toronto the Better Looking for better love: I'm a divorced pilot who hates dating apps. I like to talk and, most importantly, I like to listen Why I'm doing it this way I yearn for the foundation of having a home and a person to return to. There is a lot of truth in the saying, 'If you want to go fast, go alone. if you want to go far, go together.' This is an exciting opportunity to cast a wider net for a true partner in life. So, want to go farther … together? Connect Want to get in touch with Tony? Email betterlove@ to request a connection. (Note: Responses are not guaranteed.)
Toronto Star
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
What in the world are silent reading clubs, and why are they cropping up all over Toronto?
Toronto the Better Toronto the Better is an ambitious, optimistic and constructive series exploring how we can improve the quality of life in this city, both collectively and individually. One night a month, an unusual phenomenon takes place in the back corner of the Bampot tea house on Harbord Street. As spectacles go, it's notably quiet: A group of people, scattered around tables, bow their heads over books. The titles they're absorbed in — a plastic-covered library hardback of 'Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials' by Marion Gibson; 'The Paradise Problem' by Christina Lauren on Kindle; a well-thumbed paperback of Madeline Miller's 'The Song of Achilles' — are as diverse as the readers. This is a meeting of the Curious Company Reading Club, started by friends Lawvin Hadisi and Marilyn Kehl. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'Marilyn and I really bonded over reading. We were reading the same books, or if we weren't (we were) saying, 'You need to read this book,'' Hadisi, who works in health care marketing, told the Star. 'We were constantly messaging each other.' One day last spring they had a brainstorm: What if they read together, rather than alone beside partners who didn't understand why they couldn't put that book down? And what if they did it in public, inviting others to join? 'Reading has been seen as an isolating hobby that you would do on your own,' Hadasi said. 'Our reading club and others are reinventing that. Reading in the presence of other people is just as fun as other hobbies. We have a social aspect as well, so you're getting the best of both worlds.' Their first meeting was on a Thursday evening last June at Trinity Bellwoods Park. Nearly a year later, it's become a regular monthly event where time is split between reading and chatting. Some attendees are dedicated bookworms plowing through multiple books a week; others are looking to get their reading mojo back after hitting a slump. 'We've had some people who purely want to focus on reading; some people want to engage. We're just fostering a meetup, and there's no right or wrong answer to the approach,' Kehl said. 'The whole point of it is to build a bit of community.' 'Reading in the presence of other people is just as fun as other hobbies,' said Lawvin Hadisi, co-founder of the Curious Company Reading Club. Courtesy of Curious Company Literature as a communal activity has usually taken the form of a book club, where members read the same book and then get together to talk about it. A new wave of reading clubs — or clubs about books that are not book clubs — are offering the city's bibliophiles a different way to share their love. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW For Malcolm Duncan, founding Actual Book Club in 2023 was an act of resistance against social media's obsession with books as esthetic objects. 'I thought it would be a good idea to get ahead of the inevitable commodification. I wanted to create a space for people who read, without the financial obligation associated with this type of resurgence, or the social pressure of traditional book clubs,' said Duncan, a 30-year-old urban planner. 'Actual Book Club takes a meta perspective — rethinking what a book club is and what it can be.' Practically speaking, that encompasses a meeting at Parkdale's Osprey Cafe once a month and hosting the occasional book swap or zine launch. 'Being a 'club about books' rather than a 'club about a book' gives our members the autonomy to read what they like on their own schedule,' Duncan said. 'Since we're not all reading the same book at the same time, our meetings often include more generalized book discussions, recommendations and present opportunities for peer-to-peer lending.' Along the way, the club has raised more than $2,000 for charities like the literacy program Parkdale Project Read. 'My favourite moments are the ones that bring me closer to people,' said Duncan, who describes the monthly meetups as 'very chill, unpretentious, third space kind of vibes.' The 'third space' element — the idea that humans need a place that's not home or work to connect with others — is key to the appeal of this growing global trend, according to Amanda Gauthier, a category manager at Indigo. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW It's not dissimilar to a long-standing behaviour that the bookstore chain has embraced for decades, she said — 'that someone would come and sit in a stuffed chair in the window of a downtown street and read publicly as a gift to themselves. 'There's something about occupying that space that must scratch some kind of itch in terms of a soft social need that we have.' Malcolm Duncan founded Actual Book Club in 2023 as an act of resistance against social media's obsession with books as esthetic objects. Courtesy of Actual Book Club Citing Alberto Manguel's 'A History of Reading,' Gauthier added that the first libraries were not silent places anyway, since reading was done by sounding out letters aloud. 'I think of that often, that idea that there is something about recognizing a fellow reader, seeing and understanding what they're experiencing.' She also connects it to a dissatisfaction with our screen-centric lives. 'The penny is dropping. We want to get off our phones. This does feel like a low-risk way to put yourself out there,' Gauthier said. 'There's something really meaningful about having that book in your hands, and saying, 'I know the people who are there are going to enjoy talking about books, and that's going to give us a place to begin.'' That's exactly why Monique Findlayter started the Melanin Silent Reading Club, designed to be a 'safe space for BIPOC women to come together,' in February 2024. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW She had been reading Will Smith's memoir, in which he writes about going on a silent retreat. An avid reader who got into Bookstagram 'because none of my friends or family care about what I read,' Findlayter wondered if there might be a getaway centred around books. 'It's just the thought of being in a space where nobody is talking, and then adding books to that,' said the 43-year-old Findlayter, who runs her own cleaning company, 'where I can be in a space with other women and just read, knowing we're all here because of books.' Her initial search revealed options in the U.S., but nothing in Toronto. After two years and two failed attempts to get a retreat off the ground, an acquaintance sent her a Facebook post about a silent reading club. 'I did run a traditional book club 10 years ago that lasted about a year, but ... not everybody wants to read the book that's chosen; it feels like it's school having to finish by a certain date,' Findlayter said. 'So I thought, 'Yeah, I want to try this silent book club — but everybody can bring their own book.'' A dozen women attended the first meetup. 'It was absolutely amazing,' she said. 'Everybody bought their own book or a Kindle or listened to an audiobook. We met at a restaurant, chatted for a bit, and spent a portion of our time together reading.' The Melanin Silent Reading Club has been meeting regularly ever since — and, last October, they were finally able to go on that silent reading retreat. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'Six of us went to Muskoka for the weekend. We did more chatting than reading, but it was exactly what we needed,' Findlayter said. 'As women, especially Black women, it's just hard finding meaningful friendships out there. It's become more than just reading.' Finlayter also hosts a monthly 'reading sprint' on Zoom, where everyone reads together virtually for an hour and a half on a Saturday morning. The atmosphere when they are all silently reading together, she said, is peaceful. 'I know for myself, this is my only social gathering for the month. I'm a single mom, so I don't really have a lot of options to say, 'Hey, watch my daughter.' I make sure that once a month I find a babysitter, because this is my time.' There is also an official, trademarked Silent Book Club, founded in San Francisco in 2012, which boasts 1,500 chapters in 54 countries (including Canada), and whose members gather in bars, bookstores and libraries to read together quietly. One of the newest arrivals on the scene is the Toronto chapter of Reading Rhythms, a social-media-famous global organization that bills itself as 'a reading party' — a phrase they've trademarked — rather than a book club. With chapters in four countries and 20 cities (and a database of a 100,000 people requesting one in their own city), Reading Rhythms is probably best known for hosting one of these parties in New York's Times Square last year — at 6 a.m. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The Toronto chapter had their very first event in March, a gathering at the Annex's Duke of York pub, whose $20 tickets quickly sold out. 'Their approach is to have a trained host to facilitate a curated experience for readers and hold readers accountable to come and read their book, but also connect with a community of readers,' said Jackie DaSilva, a 39-year-old campaign strategist and the Toronto chapter lead. 'It's that juxtaposition of 'reading' and 'party,' the introvert and the extrovert.' Every party follows the same format honed by the original New York chapter started in 2023: quiet reading time mixed with time to chat. 'It's giving people permission to talk to strangers,' DaSilva said. 'In Toronto … I don't think people are casually talking to people they don't know. We've become a lot more guarded and skeptical.' Reading Rhythms uses books as that opening conversational gambit: You might be encouraged to go up to someone who's reading a book you're intrigued by, or join a group revolving around a theme you gravitate to and begin chatting. One of DaSilva's favourite moments from the first event was seeing the pub basement fill up with people who didn't know one another, many of whom came alone. 'It was almost instantaneous that people started talking to each other,' she said, adding that at the end of that night, she was elated. 'I felt like it was the start of something really great.'
Hamilton Spectator
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
What in the world are silent reading clubs, and why are they cropping up all over Toronto?
Toronto the Better is an ambitious, optimistic and constructive series exploring how we can improve the quality of life in this city, both collectively and individually. One night a month, an unusual phenomenon takes place in the back corner of the Bampot tea house on Harbord Street. As spectacles go, it's notably quiet: A group of people, scattered around tables, bow their heads over books. The titles they're absorbed in — a plastic-covered library hardback of 'Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials' by Marion Gibson; 'The Paradise Problem' by Christina Lauren on Kindle; a well-thumbed paperback of Madeline Miller's 'The Song of Achilles' — are as diverse as the readers. This is a meeting of the Curious Company Reading Club , started by friends Lawvin Hadisi and Marilyn Kehl. 'Marilyn and I really bonded over reading. We were reading the same books, or if we weren't (we were) saying, 'You need to read this book,'' Hadisi, who works in health care marketing, told the Star. 'We were constantly messaging each other.' One day last spring they had a brainstorm: What if they read together, rather than alone beside partners who didn't understand why they couldn't put that book down? And what if they did it in public, inviting others to join? 'Reading has been seen as an isolating hobby that you would do on your own,' Hadasi said. 'Our reading club and others are reinventing that. Reading in the presence of other people is just as fun as other hobbies. We have a social aspect as well, so you're getting the best of both worlds.' Their first meeting was on a Thursday evening last June at Trinity Bellwoods Park. Nearly a year later, it's become a regular monthly event where time is split between reading and chatting. Some attendees are dedicated bookworms plowing through multiple books a week; others are looking to get their reading mojo back after hitting a slump. 'We've had some people who purely want to focus on reading; some people want to engage. We're just fostering a meetup, and there's no right or wrong answer to the approach,' Kehl said. 'The whole point of it is to build a bit of community.' 'Reading in the presence of other people is just as fun as other hobbies,' said Lawvin Hadisi, co-founder of the Curious Company Reading Club. Literature as a communal activity has usually taken the form of a book club , where members read the same book and then get together to talk about it. A new wave of reading clubs — or clubs about books that are not book clubs — are offering the city's bibliophiles a different way to share their love. For Malcolm Duncan, founding Actual Book Club in 2023 was an act of resistance against social media's obsession with books as esthetic objects. 'I thought it would be a good idea to get ahead of the inevitable commodification. I wanted to create a space for people who read, without the financial obligation associated with this type of resurgence, or the social pressure of traditional book clubs,' said Duncan, a 30-year-old urban planner. 'Actual Book Club takes a meta perspective — rethinking what a book club is and what it can be.' Practically speaking, that encompasses a meeting at Parkdale's Osprey Cafe once a month and hosting the occasional book swap or zine launch. 'Being a 'club about books' rather than a 'club about a book' gives our members the autonomy to read what they like on their own schedule,' Duncan said. 'Since we're not all reading the same book at the same time, our meetings often include more generalized book discussions, recommendations and present opportunities for peer-to-peer lending.' Along the way, the club has raised more than $2,000 for charities like the literacy program Parkdale Project Read. 'My favourite moments are the ones that bring me closer to people,' said Duncan, who describes the monthly meetups as 'very chill, unpretentious, third space kind of vibes.' The 'third space' element — the idea that humans need a place that's not home or work to connect with others — is key to the appeal of this growing global trend, according to Amanda Gauthier, a category manager at Indigo. It's not dissimilar to a long-standing behaviour that the bookstore chain has embraced for decades, she said — 'that someone would come and sit in a stuffed chair in the window of a downtown street and read publicly as a gift to themselves. 'There's something about occupying that space that must scratch some kind of itch in terms of a soft social need that we have.' Malcolm Duncan founded Actual Book Club in 2023 as an act of resistance against social media's obsession with books as esthetic objects. Citing Alberto Manguel's 'A History of Reading,' Gauthier added that the first libraries were not silent places anyway, since reading was done by sounding out letters aloud. 'I think of that often, that idea that there is something about recognizing a fellow reader, seeing and understanding what they're experiencing.' She also connects it to a dissatisfaction with our screen-centric lives. 'The penny is dropping. We want to get off our phones. This does feel like a low-risk way to put yourself out there,' Gauthier said. 'There's something really meaningful about having that book in your hands, and saying, 'I know the people who are there are going to enjoy talking about books, and that's going to give us a place to begin.'' That's exactly why Monique Findlayter started the Melanin Silent Reading Club , designed to be a 'safe space for BIPOC women to come together,' in February 2024. She had been reading Will Smith's memoir , in which he writes about going on a silent retreat. An avid reader who got into Bookstagram 'because none of my friends or family care about what I read,' Findlayter wondered if there might be a getaway centred around books. 'It's just the thought of being in a space where nobody is talking, and then adding books to that,' said the 43-year-old Findlayter, who runs her own cleaning company, 'where I can be in a space with other women and just read, knowing we're all here because of books.' Her initial search revealed options in the U.S., but nothing in Toronto. After two years and two failed attempts to get a retreat off the ground, an acquaintance sent her a Facebook post about a silent reading club. 'I did run a traditional book club 10 years ago that lasted about a year, but ... not everybody wants to read the book that's chosen; it feels like it's school having to finish by a certain date,' Findlayter said. 'So I thought, 'Yeah, I want to try this silent book club — but everybody can bring their own book.'' A dozen women attended the first meetup. 'It was absolutely amazing,' she said. 'Everybody bought their own book or a Kindle or listened to an audiobook. We met at a restaurant, chatted for a bit, and spent a portion of our time together reading.' The Melanin Silent Reading Club has been meeting regularly ever since — and, last October, they were finally able to go on that silent reading retreat. 'Six of us went to Muskoka for the weekend. We did more chatting than reading, but it was exactly what we needed,' Findlayter said. 'As women, especially Black women, it's just hard finding meaningful friendships out there. It's become more than just reading.' Finlayter also hosts a monthly 'reading sprint' on Zoom, where everyone reads together virtually for an hour and a half on a Saturday morning. The atmosphere when they are all silently reading together, she said, is peaceful. 'I know for myself, this is my only social gathering for the month. I'm a single mom, so I don't really have a lot of options to say, 'Hey, watch my daughter.' I make sure that once a month I find a babysitter, because this is my time.' There is also an official, trademarked Silent Book Club, founded in San Francisco in 2012, which boasts 1,500 chapters in 54 countries (including Canada), and whose members gather in bars, bookstores and libraries to read together quietly. One of the newest arrivals on the scene is the Toronto chapter of Reading Rhythms, a social-media-famous global organization that bills itself as 'a reading party' — a phrase they've trademarked — rather than a book club. With chapters in four countries and 20 cities (and a database of a 100,000 people requesting one in their own city), Reading Rhythms is probably best known for hosting one of these parties in New York's Times Square last year — at 6 a.m. The Toronto chapter had their very first event in March, a gathering at the Annex's Duke of York pub, whose $20 tickets quickly sold out. 'Their approach is to have a trained host to facilitate a curated experience for readers and hold readers accountable to come and read their book, but also connect with a community of readers,' said Jackie DaSilva, a 39-year-old campaign strategist and the Toronto chapter lead. 'It's that juxtaposition of 'reading' and 'party,' the introvert and the extrovert.' Every party follows the same format honed by the original New York chapter started in 2023: quiet reading time mixed with time to chat. 'It's giving people permission to talk to strangers,' DaSilva said. 'In Toronto … I don't think people are casually talking to people they don't know. We've become a lot more guarded and skeptical.' Reading Rhythms uses books as that opening conversational gambit: You might be encouraged to go up to someone who's reading a book you're intrigued by, or join a group revolving around a theme you gravitate to and begin chatting. One of DaSilva's favourite moments from the first event was seeing the pub basement fill up with people who didn't know one another, many of whom came alone. 'It was almost instantaneous that people started talking to each other,' she said, adding that at the end of that night, she was elated. 'I felt like it was the start of something really great.'
