Stop 8: Toronto

The Taddle Creek tour wrapped up on Wednesday, December 8th, right where it began, in Toronto. The final tour stop/launch of the winter issue took place at the Cameron House, 408 Queen Street West, a longtime favourite of the magazine’s. The evening had disaster potential written all over it, starting with the fact that the booker seemingly forgot it booked Taddle Creek and asked the magazine at the last minute if it could hold its launch in the front room instead of the back. The front is a much nicer room, but less conducive to what Taddle Creek has planned. Arriving an hour early to set up achieved little except finding out that a band was playing right up until the magazine’s event, so time to test out all the visual and audio tricks the magazine had planned was scant. The live video feed with Peter Josselyn, founder of the Saint John Society for the Preservation of Horse Troughs and Drinking Fountains (the final Out-of-Towner event), had to be projected on a wall covered in art, but the packed crowd loved it nonetheless. Moving on to the new issue, fine readings were given by Jessica Westhead and Adrienne Weiss, and the evening closed with a door-prize draw by the Halbot 3000, Hal Neidzviecki's futuristic counterpart. (The main door prize was art donated by Blair McLean, featured in the new issue.) Some hanging around after, then a sad after-party at the Horseshoe. It was better than it sounds. It was actually a pretty excellent launch. Even better, it was the end of the tour.