Photo above by Shawn McPherson courtesy of Andrew Johnston.

We live in an acclaimed city for producing top-breed comics, and is a great place for comedians to accelerate their careers, explains Andrew Johnston, as he sips his cup of tea at a coffee house on The Danforth. "Toronto is a phenomenal place to get into comedy. The opportunities that present themselves here for you are amazing," Andrew explains, and on a bigger scale, Canadian comics have a great reputation in the world because of the range of diverse options comics have to get up on their feet.

Andrew grew up in Brockville, Ontario and later attended Queens University in Kingston before making his way to Toronto to do a post-grad writing course at Humber College and then settling in downtown, "Really, if you're from small-town Ontario, and you're a homo, presumably, you're probably going to go to Toronto. That was kind of always the plan."

'EGR', however, now that's a name that means business.

And so it's fitting that Erica Gosich Rose, a young urban artist whose vanilla-flavoured name seemed ill-suited to her jalapeno-laced output, decided to adopt the EGR moniker for her artworld pursuits. For while the Erica's of the world were experimenting with makeup and painting their faces, EGR (pronounced 'eager') was experimenting with aerosol cans and painting public walls and trains.

Dedicated fansites created by gushy admirers used to be the sole domain of musicians, porn stars, Hollywood starlets and their ilk. In short, a crowd that did not include usability experts and workaholic tech gurus; that is, not until Amber MacArthur came along.

You may know her as Citytv's new media specialist, filling you in on the latest in pop/tech culture and interactive trends every night. What you may not know, however, is that MacArthur's "just for fun" side projects include producing and hosting two other regular shows. There's commandN, a video podcast that covers technology trends online and offline; and net@nite, an audio podcast about web trends, with Leo Laporte. She also does business development for local design firm Arktyp. And did we mention that when the big boys (think: Globe and Mail, CBC, MTV et al) need a tech expert, they call on MacArthur?

The tech wiz claims on her website: "When I'm not working and surfing, I enjoy running, snowboarding, music recommendations engines, Malpeque oysters, and spontaneous road trips." blogTO suspects that MacArthur has never surfed, ran, snowboarded, used Pandora, eaten Malpeques, or taken a road trip. Frankly, with a schedule like hers, we wonder how she finds time to breathe.

"It has far more character than most parts of the city, tons of great dive bars, great brunch spots, and most of my friends are on the west side," explains the director, who recently finished work on k-os' new music video. "I chose Parkdale for its bohemian roots...and Bacchus Roti."

Lightfoot, however, hasn't always been an East Coaster; his childhood years were spent just outside Vancouver--"on the fresh coast". While other children amused themselves with rounds of Red Rover and Kick the Can, this creatively inclined half-pint was fantasizing about automated Lego empires. While other little boys gave the standard "firefighter" and "policeman" replies to the million-dollar "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question, Lightfoot harboured no such ambitions: he had his sights set on becoming Billy Corrigan.

"You fucking terrify me" were the first words Kyle Maling heard when the then-aspiring publisher debuted his magazine idea to friends. Not exactly encouraging.

The year was 2003. The location was Vancouver. And the concept was Highrise: a magazine for the modern day Renaissance man, one that would cover the latest in contemporary living, style and design culture. It wasn't the concept itself, however, that had naysayers trying to dissuade Maling and business partner Dylan Crawshaw from giving publishing a go, it was their business strategy.

"[Our friends] had a point," Maling chuckles today. "We were going national right off the start with 35,000 copies and using extremely high quality paper, [while] being independent and self-financed. Sometimes, I look back and think, 'Wow. There is a fine line between taking a risk and being a complete fucking idiot.'"

Needless to say, I was beginning to feel pretty darn sorry for myself. Then a matchmaker introduced me to Her and, suddenly, everything changed.

The first week, She steered me in the direction of a Resfest party featuring Blockhead. Twas bliss. The following week, Mark de Clive-Lowe rocked my world--with Bembe Segue, no less--something I would have otherwise missed had it not been for Her. The week after? I found myself twirling and whirling to Reuben Wu and Mira Aroyo of Ladytron, again tipped off by Miss Thang.

I was in heaven. Indeed, my saviour was none other than Denise Benson, one of Toronto's most trusted authorities on good music. The DJ, radio host, and journalist has been gigging, promoting, pushing, living, breathing and writing about the city's music scene for nearly two decades.

I expected wrong.

Sure, at any other restaurant, a quiet hour with the big kahuna two hours before service may have been possible. But Susur is hardly any other restaurant.

Opened in 2000, Lee's second restaurant in Toronto--the celebrated Lotus closed its doors in 1997--has been getting rave reviews from the culinary cognoscenti since day one. The distinguished temple of gastronomy offers five- and seven-course tasting menus that change daily, a concept simple in theory, but remarkably difficult in execution. Each night's offerings are crafted based on Lee's mood and purchases at the local markets that day. As such, menus are not known until 5:00pm the day it is served.

Maybe a 4:00pm interview wasn't such a great idea.

Fast forward three years and, my, how things have changed. Since the 2004 release of Sounding a Mosaic, Bedouin's breakout album, Malinowski, along with bandmates Eon Sinclair and Pat Pengelly, have been catapulted to music stardom. (Juno aside, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't get a goofy grin upon hearing the devil-may-care amble of "When the Night Feels My Song.") These days, the Montreal-born, Vancouver-bred Malinowski calls Toronto home. That is, when his schedule actually permits him to spend time in one fixed location. Bedouin's touring schedule will see the band in 11 different countries in the next month alone, playing in venues all over Europe. Not too shabby for someone whose definition of a good night, last we chatted, was pocketing $50 from a night of gigging at the local dive.

Mention to the same doltish dunce, however, the names Kenny and Spenny and, more likely than not, you will be greeted with enthusiastic blabber about two of our nation's most (in)famous citizens.

"Dude, remember that time Spenny got covered in cow shit?"
"Yo, what about the first episode of season two, when Spenny ate Kenny's puke? That was awesome!"
"No, man, the best was when Spenny had to bite off Kenny's toenail. Now, that was cool."

It seems like everyone has a favourite tale about these two hometown heroes. ("We're Toronto boys, born and raised," they boast.) Forget Margaret Atwood, forget Glenn Gould, forget Leonard Cohen, and say hello to Canada's current red-hot exports: a guy (Kenny) who, on their show just last week, ingested his best friend's (Spenny's) freshly harvested snot balls. (Though, to be fair, not all famed Canadian exports have us beaming with pride: Vegas showgirl--errr, songstress--Celine Dion comes to mind.)

You may know him from such events as Alto Basso's Dear Hip Hop (nee LOVEmovement), the monthly Shuffle Party at Revival, and the African Way Tour with K'naan and South African hip hop outfit Tumi and the Volume. In the past week, he's spun at k-os' record release party, hosted a weekly radio show, thrown a bumpin' monthly jam, and got the wheels a-turnin' on a new food-meets-music entertainment/dining concept in Toronto (psst: it's still very hush hush, but you heard it here first).

Meet Nana Jr. Gyamfi-Kumanini, aka DJ NaNa, the local hip hop beatsmith who brings new meaning to the phrase "life in the fast lane".

"I just won a wicked pair of boots on eBay!" she gushes when prompted for some recent news. Uhhh, come again?

Though Vogels has certainly earned her bragging rights in Canada's media landscape, she hasn't let it get to her head. There's no hint of gloating about "My Messy Bedroom" and "Dating Girl", the two nationally syndicated columns she pens weekly. Nor any trace of smugness regarding her radio appearances on The Edge. Over the course of our interview, she barely mentions her column on toronto.com, her regular contributions to xyyz.ca, or her coast-to-coast campus tours. In fact, while most others use interviews to detail their accomplishments in the public eye--love me! validate me!--Vogels breezes over the biggest of them in one quick breath: "TVandradioprojectsintheworks,plusacoupleofnewbookprojects."

Attention-hungry media wench she certainly is not. Still, the media does love to lavish her with attention. They can't get enough. And it's easy to see why: Vogels is the woman for women.

Welcome to the inaugural "Toronto Through the Eyes Of", a new blogTO column [hold your applause, please, you're far too kind]. Each Wednesday, we will cozy up to the city, exploring it through the eyes of a local celebrity, hero, do-gooder, or simply winning individual. Hope you enjoy.

For many a transplanted Vancouverite, Toronto-bellyaching is a popular pastime. They get misty-eyed as they recall winters spent in the powdery bliss of Whistler. Drool seeps from their mouths as they debate amongst themselves which Vancouver sushi joint serves up the best all-you-can-eat. (For the record, it's Richmond Sushi.) They scoff at The Beaches, recalling seemingly better, bygone days wiled away at Kits Beach, Jericho and English Bay. Ahh, yes, the forever disgruntled 416er from the 604.

Such is not the case with Sook-Yin Lee. The star of John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, which premieres this Friday, bade farewell to Vancouver for a VJ gig at MuchMusic in 1995. Today, she is a gung-ho Toronto cheerleader. The CBC show host (Definitely Not the Opera), musician (Bob's Your Uncle, Slan), filmmaker (Unlocked, Girl Cleans Sink), actor (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Art of Woo), and all-round overachiever (see select list of accomplishments in preceding brackets), has found her version of bliss--it's called Kensington Market-- in the city the rest of Canada loves to hate.