Soup gets a sell-out September, Rick goes to war, Kathy makes it Official & Suzanne’s still a Knockout

THE DEVIL SELLS TICKETS: Advance tickets for Hot Doc’s Oct 21 Canadian premiere screenings of The September Issue, the doc which reportedlly delivers

WINTOUR: in the Soup

an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the annual September issue of Vogue magazine — and an unprecedented gaze into the life of fashion icon Anna Wintour, the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada – are already sold out, making it the hottest ticket in Doc Soup history …Chita Rivera celebrates the release of her new CD And Now I Swing tonight at famed Manhattan music room Birdland … Daniel Lanois, set to return to The Troubadour in L.A. this Thursday, has a new stream-lined website … and Rick Mercer, who never saw a loaded gun he didn’t want to play with, tries his luck with 19th century weapons tonight when he participates in a re-enactment of the War of 1812 on the Rick Mercer Report at 8 pm on CBC-TV.

MERCER: circa 1812

LITERATI: Writer Ian Brown reads from his riveting, rave-winning Boy In The Moon tonight at McNall-Robinson at the new (and vastly improved) Don Mills Centre …Rex Murphy (Canada And Other Matters Of Opinion) headlines next Sunday’s Ben McNally/Globe & Mail brunch series at the King Eddie … Linden MacIntyre serves up pages from his Giller-nominated Bishop’s Man on Oct 21 at the Bonnie Stern Book Club ($135 includes dinner and recipes) … former PM Paul Martin wades through Hell Or High Water on Oct 27 at the Edward Johnson Building (behind the Planetarium) … glamourous survivor and voice-in-the-wilderness Suzanne Somers launches Knockout, her book of interviews with doctors who are curing cancer – “And How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place” – on Oct 29 at the John Bassett Theatre … most intriguing novel on the immediate horizon: Doug Coupland’s Generation A … and my favourite book title so far this fall?

GRIFFIN: It's official

Official Book Club Selection, a predictably irreverent autobiography by funny girl Kathy Griffin.

CALENDAR JOTTINGS: Industry nights for the upcoming 2009 Gemini Awards are next Monday Oct.19 & Tuesday Oct. 20 … that thumb-happy RIM team (yes, the Canadians who gave us the Crackberry) will be feted at a Design Exchange gala in their honour on Oct. 24 … the seventh annual fund-raising dinner for Pierre Berton’s Writers Retreat is set for Nov. 17 at the Berkeley Church on Queen Street East … Tutored Tastings, the new Gourmet Food & Wine Expo, is set for Nov. 19-22 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre … and outrageous Brit comic Graham Norton is confirmed as host of the 2009 International Emmy Awards honouring Sir David Frost on Nov 23 at the New York Hilton.

TOMORROW:

Ann Landers comes to Broadway.

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Anne kicks off a new tour, Robin gets ready for Rama, Robert gets ready to make a splash, the NFB gets animated & T.O. film buffs go on Cairo Time

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Jazz legend Joe Sealy, cabaret queens Nancy White and Judith Lander, and We Will Rock You alumni Yvan

LANDER: October concert

Pedneault and Alana Bridgewater headline an afternoon musicale Oct. 25 at Rosedale United Church … Robin Williams plays Casino Rama Nov. 11 & 12 … Ron James is set to host the Nov. 14 Gemini Awards telecast from Calgary … good news for her Atlantic fans: Serena Ryder will play the first of six “intimate” east coast gigs November 26 in St. John’s … and Robert LePage’s nine-hour theatrical marathon, Lipsynch, is currently on view at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with intermissions and a dinner-break, through this Sunday. The brilliant Quebec dazzle-master, set to world-premiere his predictably controversial new opera The Nightingale and Other Short Fables

WILLIAMS: at Rama

here next week at the Four Seasons Centre, plans to fill a partially raised orchestra pit with roughly 30 tonnes of water. His singers will wade in, waist-deep, to manipulate puppets while the orchestra plays onstage behind them. Now that’s show business!

FLICKERS: New season for the TIFF Cinemateque screenings at the AGO starts tonight, with Lisa Ray set to make an appearance tomorrow night for the screening of Deepa Mehta’s hit comedy Bollywood/Hollywood. For more info, just click here …  TIFF award-winner Cairo Time, with Patricia Clarkon and Alexander Siddig, opens in T.O. today. Film buffs, take note: Director Ruba Nadda will be attending tonight’s 7pm screening and tomorrow’s 2pm and 7pm

CLARKSON: in TIFF winner

screenings at the Varsity Cinemas for post-screening Q&A’s … award-laden writer-director Paul Haggis’ current film project has an intriguing title: The Next Three Days … and in celebration of International Animation Day and the National Film Board of Canada’s 70th anniversary, the NFB is launching a special edition of Get Animated! – a series of free public screenings, from October 23–31, 2009, in 13 communities across this country. Accordingly, the NFB’s Get Animated! website is already offering exclusive animation programming to all its visitors.

LITERATI: Royalists continue to be fascinated by the Queen Mother’s recently revealed diaries and letters, despite the fact that her younger daughter,

MURRAY: on the road again

the late HRH Princess Margaret, reportedly destroyed a lot of the Queen Mum’s correspondence in an effort to cover up the scandals created by Charles and Diana … look for new books this fall from both Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy … on your mark, set, buy: Top Five fiction finalists for this year’s Giller Prize are Kim Echlin, The Disappeared; Annabel Lyon, The Golden Mean; Linden MacIntyre (yes, the Linden MacIntyre,) The Bishop’s Man; Colin McAdam, Fall; and Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault … and Anne Murray is set to kick off her cross-Canada tour to promote her new autobiography, All Of Me, with a signing session at Indigo Books & Music on Oct. 29 at the Eaton Centre. To find out when she’s coming to your town, just click here.

And have a happy Thanksgiving.

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