Gary Taxali's one man show, 'Last Year's Winner', opened last night at Magic Pony. Mr.Taxali has long been a star in the field of commercial illustration and has shown his work in galleries through out North America. However with last night's huge turn out, his recent dabbling in toy design and the creation of his own children's book, Gary Taxali seems to reaching out to a wider audience. He answered a few questions for me before last night's opening.

99 Sudbury will be hosting the Soulpact dance party and silent auction tomorrow. The after hours bar will be filled with live performances and great artwork that will be on sale from 8-11pm.

Among the artists contributing to the silent auction are Isabelle Hemard, Cassandra German, Kathleen Troy, Jesse Ewles and yours truly. As for the performers, Shamanta Chandran will be singing to the crowd and there will be two presentations of Aerial Silks - dancers hanging from the ceiling by strands of silk, doing some kind of mid-air routine. After that the party starts. Charity goers are invited to dance it up until 4am.

Soulpact is held in memory of Nathan Saverie, who passed away in March 2005. Last year's event, held at Spin Gallery, raised $5000 for the Toronto Distress Center. Soulpact organizer Chanel Croker, hopes to double that this year. Tickets are $12 in advance and are for sale at John Steinberg & Associates at King and Portland. Latecomers may still purchase tickets at the door for $20.

Most Ontarians support merging the public and Catholic school systems. Commissioned by the CBC, Oraclepoll Research randomly phoned 600 Ontario adults last May and 58% supported a merger. Be that as it may, a merging of the two publicly funded school systems isn't going to happen anytime soon. Although, it does offer an interesting thought experiment. If it did happen, I'd look very carefully at the conditions for such a merger.

Would Catholicism simply have to look elsewhere for funding. The Vatican perhaps? Or would Christianity be swept into a single "world religions" class? This would be my ideal solution. A more inclusive approach to religion, within one public school system, would encourage tolerance and understanding and not only between different religious groups, but between atheists and their quirky religious pals.

The conservative party's current platform states that the party is "committed to creating an opportunity for non-Catholic, faith-based schools to choose to join our publicly funded education system the same way Catholic schools have already done" and providing direct funding for those schools. The same way Catholic schools have already done? Providing public money for people to pursue their own religious ideas, offers nothing to the public that is footing the bill. It is funding a divisive society, ignorant and afraid of the beliefs of it's different members. If taxpayers are paying for religious study, their children should have access to those religious findings.

An education in the multitude of religious beliefs in this country would further stress that these ideas are only "beliefs" and not worth getting in a tizzy over. Perhaps then, we could all hold hands and accept the one true doctrine - Science, into our hearts.

*Illustration provided by Todd Julie

I don't know much about La Lucha Libre - Mexican wrestling masks have always reminded me of Bane, the comic book character that broke Batman's back twelve years ago (don't worry, he got better). Yesterday, I was given a whole new set of images to associate them with. Throwing booze, art geeks and LaBamba'esque rock music into the mix, The Embassy in Kensington Market, hosted a free evening of La Lucha wrestling.

Painting can really stress me out. Yesterday, after an hour of studio time, I was fuming mad. Luckily I headed down to MOCCA afterwards, to Creative Art Gems 2007 - a silent charity auction for the Creative Works Studio.

7 Kensington is bland looking and easy to miss - especially on Pedestrian Sunday, when everyone else is hitting the streets. I had to ask a store owner to find it. The only indication that the building is inhabited is a cute kitty on a leash out front. Inside it's much more eye-catching. Collective 7 have just set up shop here and opened their doors for the local street festival.