Toronto Life articles from April 2001

Toronto Life archives from April 2001

Legal fiction (30 university of Toronto law students lie about their grades).
April 1, 2001... They lied. They got caught. But they didn't panic. The 30 first-year U of T law students who misrepresented their grades to Bay Street firms managed to spin their dishonesty into a noble protest: we shall not be ranked. If nothing else, they're...

Party trained (Sam Hiyate of Gutter Press).
April 1, 2001... I call my house a home. Sam Hiyate calls his "the Hiyate Space," as if it were a bar. "We could meet for cocktails at the Hiyate Space," he suggests when I propose this profile. The Hiyate Space proves to be a two-storey loft near...

Telling tales: J's low (Jennifer Lopez is taunted at Much Music appearance).
April 1, 2001... MuchMusic still prides itself on its Moses-inspired principle of transparent television. For better or worse, pop stars trotted through the studio come face to face with fans, live broadcasts and old-fashioned low-tech interactivity. But...

Telling tales: folk hero (Robert Lantos meets Bob Dylan).
April 1, 2001... It's vaguely comforting to know that even big-shot movie moguls sometimes get all googly eyed and star struck. When Robert Lantos was down in L.A. for the Golden Globes (his family saga, Sunshine, was up for three awards), he found himself at...

Telling tales: fly boys (Roots Air has stylish staff).
April 1, 2001... Savvy restaurant-goers will soon be wondering who robbed the city of all its buff and charming waiters. Let it be known that the man to blame is Canadian leather goods king Michael Budman. Word has it that he and the other folks behind Roots...

Telling tales: hoop dreams (will Vince Carter stay or go?).
April 1, 2001... There's still a year and a half before Vince Carter becomes a free agent, but the campaign to keep him in Hogtown has already reached a feverish pitch. Anxious team managers recently enlisted the help of business guru Roger Martin--a Harvard...

Telling tales: nuns on the run (CBC employees told not to dress up as nuns).
April 1, 2001... The idea was about as innocent as Julie Andrews declaring that the hills are alive: a gaggle of producers at CBC's This Morning decided to get decked out in habits and go en masse to the Eglinton Theatre for the opening night of the Sing-a-Long...

Face off: Mao vs. Mau.
April 1, 2001... These days, the term "revolutionary" is just as likely to be applied to a new nail polish as a major political movement. So don't feel bad if you've accidentally mixed up the design whiz Bruce Mau with the late leader of the Chinese Communist...

Fool proof (LCBO's quality assurance lab tests keeps bad wines out).
April 1, 2001... Just north of the lake, in a yellow-brick building on Freeland Street, a chemist prepares to test a 750 mL bottle of merlot. Save for the soft thrum of fluorescent lights, the LCBO's Quality Assurance Laboratory is silent. The chemist's fingers...

This issue (Allan Slaight brings magician Stewart James to public eye).
April 1, 2001... UNTIL RECENTLY, MY DENTIST WAS A GUY NAMED LARRY, whom I saw two or three times a year for 25 years. Early on, I concluded that he was somewhat nerdy--balding, slight and, well, pleasant but boring. One day, while he was poking around in my...

Top drawer (Actor Michael Healey turns to writing).
April 1, 2001... TOP DRAWER Scene: camera pans over a dusty Tijuana street. Locals and one Irish-looking gringo loiter, bored and hot. Cut to a tray of McDonald's new burritos and, presto, happiness. Everyone chatters in Spanish. Except for the gringo. He fakes...

Soprano (singer Renee Fleming to come to Toronto).
April 1, 2001... THE SOPRANO Renee Fleming has been kissed by the gods so bountifully and variously that it's hard to imagine what was overlooked. Hers is a lustrous, cultivated voice, deluxe and creamy, with an immediately identifiable timbre--an opera star's...

Slumber protest (Substitute City's art on display at the Power Plant gallery).
April 1, 2001... SLUMBER PROTEST Toronto usually gets glammed up or dirtied down to pass for New York in the movies. But in Substitute City, 17 artists reveal Toronto as they see it: sans makeup and prostheses. Kika throne and Adrian Blackwell's eight-minute...

Rock of ages (Frank Black, formerly of the Pixies, releases new album).
April 1, 2001... ROCK OF AGES It's hard to keep a madman in the closet. Just ask the multifaceted Charles Michael Kitteridge Thompson IV, better known as Frank Black, formerly the notorious Black Francis. He assumed the latter role in the late '80s as frontman...

It spot (Azul restaurant profile).
April 1, 2001... Where: Tiny hidden treasure Azul (181 Bathurst St., 416-703-9360), cached Just north of Queen. What: DJ Little Lord Thompson mellows with a blend of down-tempo, ambient breakbeats. When: Friday and Saturday nights for drinclab. Tables...

Bleak house: to David Shiner went the miserable job of writing the city's 2001 budget ...
April 1, 2001... "YOU'VE GOT TO BLEED YOURSELF BEFORE you ask others to bleed," began Mayor Mel. It was the afternoon of February 15, and our fearless leader had summoned the media to his office to launch what some historically challenged wag on his staff had...

Man of the people: he was our anti-Garbo, the star who was always in attendance, always in the spotlight. But somewhere in the blur of Al Waxman's lengthy career, we forgot what made him a brilliant actor ...
April 1, 2001... WHEN AL WAXMAN DIED UNEXPECTEDLY of heart failure following bypass surgery in the middle of January, everyone I spoke to began with a disbelieving protest. "But I just saw him at Larry's Party at the Bluma," or "But he was at Zadie's Shoes at...

Arts and craft: when Matthew Teitelbaum took over the helm at the Art Gallery of Ontario three years ago he was received as the great white hope ...
April 1, 2001... TO UNDERSTAND MATTHEW TEITELBAUM, you must first look at his office. Usually, a museum director's inner sanctum exudes a sleek authority, an exquisitely uncluttered command central of Modernist leather, chrome and glass, perhaps with a recent...

Flower tower (unique architecture of 44 Walmer road).
April 1, 2001... The best way to experience the shock of 44 Walmer Road is by approaching the building on foot. As you walk south along the street from Dupont, on either side you see solid bourgeois homes, many sporting Doric columns, like some sort of cultural...

Winners are ... they delight us with innocence and artistry. They are our restaurants. Join with us now as we pay tribute to the men and women who weave these gastronomical dreams ...
April 1, 2001... BEST SUPPORTING ROLL What's the first thing you taste in a restaurant? Exactly! The bread. You're hungry, you're curious and hoping for more than a few sawn-off rounds of chalky baguette. Mark McEwan has always understood the importance of...

I see London, I see France (underwear party at the Barn on Church St.).
April 1, 2001... It's after five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and you have just entered the doorway of the Barn, on Church Street south of Carlton. The Barn has been a gay bar for 24 years. It's the kind of place you imagine children imagine when they imagine...

Mogul and the magician: it was an unlikely friendship ... but Allan Slaight and Stewart James were connected by a common obsession. Welcome to the mysterious world of magic.
April 1, 2001... IT'S 1916. Eight-year-old Stewart James stands on the veranda of his Courtright home in southwestern Ontario, forbidden by his parents to associate with other children. From a magic column in the Sunday school paper Boy's World, he has learned...

Monster home: ... University of Toronto's new graduate residence is not unlike the students it shelters: smart, strutting and cheeky. So why does everyone hate it?
April 1, 2001... THE ST. GEORGE CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY of Toronto is hard to keep in your head. Cleaved by the broad expanse of Queen's Park, its two parts bleed into the city without benefit of gates or signposts. The buildings, some marvellous, many...

Flower girl: Clare Vander Meersch.
April 1, 2001... You won't see a stitch of navy pinstripe on the new photo editor at The Globe and Mail's ROB magazine as she scouts for young, hot photographers to fill the pages. In fact, she looks more the hip fashion stylist in her relaxed, trendy finds....

Tasting notes (wine reviews).
April 1, 2001... These notes list producer-shipper, agent (and telephone), CSPC number (V indicates a Vintages bottle), price per 750 mL and region. Consignment bottles are generally bought by the case from the agent. Rating is on a five-star system that...

Tuning out: May 1957 - May 2001 (legacy of CHUM radio goes talk).
April 1, 2001... The Cottage restaurant at St. Clair and Bathurst had it all: a soda fountain, stools that twirled and booths where you could nurse a cherry Coke for hours after school, french fries and gravy thick enough to gag a badger. By 3:30 every weekday...