Toronto Life articles from August 2003

Toronto Life archives from August 2003

Suspect. (This City).(Michael Briere charged with murder of Holly Jones)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Five weeks into one of the largest man-hunts in Toronto history, police charged 35-year-old software developer Michael Briere for the gruesome murder of Holly Jones. As a white-garbed forensic team scoured Briere's west end apartment, we...

Dead calm. (Profile).(Ontario's chief coroner and commissioner of public security Dr. James Young)
August 1, 2003... At first glance, the office of Dr. James Young is like that of any high-level bureaucrat: big desk, bookshelves, a variety of awards, and a worn couch for meetings. But look closer, and you'll notice that it's filled with genteel reminders of...

Book city. (Telling Tales).(Book Expo Canada)
August 1, 2003... The literary crowd was worried that Book Expo Canada, the annual business and pleasure extravaganza, would flop in the wake of SARS. Maybe internationally renowned authors would cancel their speaking and signing engagements; perhaps small-town...

Urban decoder. (This City).
August 1, 2003... Dear Urban Decoder: Most Friday afternoons, at the corner of King and Bay, a bagpiper plays to and the week for all of us downtown core workers. Is he employed by a nearby financial institution, or is he just a bonny busker? --Nancy...

Star wars. (Camera).(Canadian Idol hopefuls)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... On a balmy late-May morning, 4,000 exhausted youngsters vyinq for a spot on Canadian Idol rose from their sidewalk slumber. For three days, wannabe stars from all over the province had camped outside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre,...

Campfire confidential. .(Summer camps.)
August 1, 2003... Not all summer camps are created equal. There are day camps, Y camps, religious camps, music camps. Then there are the Havergals and UCCs of campdom, pricey outdoor playgrounds for the sons and daughters of the well-to-do, many with such...

This issue.
August 1, 2003... FOUR OF THE FIVE STORIES IN LAST YEAR'S SUMMER FICTION issue were nominated for National Magazine Awards. None of them won, although Toronto Life and its contributors had other reasons to celebrate (about which more later). The quality of the...

Their big, fat $50,000 wedding. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2003... I recently got engaged and bought the June issue to learn about how to manage costs, how not to have our wedding get out of hand. But this was not a "simple, no-fuss" wedding, as your cover said. This was a 270-person wedding at the Liberty...

Kids today. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2003... I realize you had prepared your article ["A decade in the making," June] long before Holly Jones was abducted and murdered. However, I question your judgment in placing the photos, names and neighbourhoods of those children in the public realm....

Landmark decision. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2003... The article "Room for Improvement" [April] about Landmark Forum left an inaccurate impression regarding a lawsuit brought by a Maryland woman. The article suggested that the court made no determination about her failure to prove that she...

Keeping score. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2003... Shame on you. Anyone who knows anything about "footie"--or soccer, as it's called here--knows that England played and beat Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final at Wembley [This Month, May]. England played Argentina in the quarterfinal of that...

Theatre. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... OPENING Evita. A girl sleeps her way to the top, becoming the first lady of Argentina; her fitful charity, her intoxicating beauty and her premature death all transform her into an icon, a secular saint. The musical's singular feat is to...

The patriarch. .(William Ian deWitt Hutt.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... William Ian deWitt Hutt (to use his gorgeously theatrical full name) is 83 years old this year, is recently back from Paris and a role in a Norman Jewison film, and is happily preparing the role of Spooner (a seedy poet with an eye permanently...

A light touch. .(Mary Lou Fallis.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... When Mary Lou Fallis launches into one of her spoofs on opera singers, she knows what she's lampooning. The Toronto-born soprano comes from strong musical stock: her mother is a singer and music educator; her grandmother guest-conducted the...

Classical music. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... ELORA FESTIVAL This marks the 24th year of Elora's summer choral music event, which features world-class performers and a wide range of musical styles, from classical and jazz to gospel and world music. Below are some highlights from the...

Dance. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... [FREE] Hot and Spicy Food Festival. Along with the mouth-watering taste treats, this weekend of culinary arts and culture (see the Diversions listing on page 40) also fields a strong dance component that is equally exotic, with performance...

Art. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... [FREE] A Conversation of Views. Lisa Rapoport, Mary Tremain and Christopher Pommer, the three landscape architects who comprise the clever design firm Plant, have borrowed a technique from an Old Master. Using vanishing points in much the same...

Back to the future. .(Sophtware Slump.)(Sound Recording Review)
August 1, 2003... As their name suggests, the members of the California quintet Grandaddy are dubious about change. Worried that our technology fetish may be alienating us from nature, their jangly, neo-psychedelic tunes are absurdist laments shaded with wry...

Nightlife. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... CONCERTS B. B. King Music Festival. Seemingly unstoppable (he's been quoted as saying, "My plan is to retire five or 10 years after I'm dead"), the quintessential blues master has once again convened his travelling fest. This year's...

A stitch in time. .(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Dorothy Caldwell is fascinated by historic samplers--not the framed displays of fancy needlework by ladies dreaming of their next cotillion, but rather the templates used by working women to practise stitches for mending linens and garments. In...

Jazz and standards. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... The International Markham Jazz Festival. For its sixth season, the festival continues to match first-rate music with community spirit, featuring ticketed concerts, free outdoor performances and a host of jazz and blues groups in Markham's bars...

Kids' events. .(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... Kidsummer 2003. Activities courtesy of Today's Parent magazine continue throughout the GTA. Highlights include Don't Touch That Dial, in which CHFI invites kids into its studios to explore the ups and downs of live radio production. Neophyte...

Diversions.(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... BuskerFest. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing, from the four corners of the earth, the weird, the wonderful and the seriously wacky. The fourth annual festival of street performance features 40-plus sword swallowers, fire breathers and other...

Night crawler. .(Dundas Street West.)(Bar Review)
August 1, 2003... Dundas West Luring revellers with its heady Latin rhythms, Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas St. W., 416-588-0307) was the first intrepid adventurer to open Dundas West to the night. A year later, this once homely strip is dotted with intriguing dens,...

Almost famous: when musician Greig Nori decided to transform a bunch of eager Ajax teens into rock stars, he knew much would depend on luck. But it worked: now Sum 41 is a platinum-selling sensation, and he's a hotshot producer. So why can't he enjoy the success? (Pop Culture).
August 1, 2003... FOR OVER A DECADE, GREIG NORI has been the singer and guitarist in a Toronto band called Treble Charger. He stuck with it because the yearning is strong and the big break is always just around the corner--and also, he loves to play. Finally,...

Ms. Chatelaine: not long ago, Canada's oldest women's magazine seemed headed for irrelevance. Under Rona Maynard, however, Chatelaine has been transformed from a glamour and celebrity magazine into a "personal empowerment vehicle." Today, after 75 years, it's thriving as never before. (Media).
August 1, 2003... The most financially successful magazine in Canada, Chatelaine, passed two milestones this year: in March, it completed 75 years of publishing, and in June it brought out an issue running 288 pages, the thickest Chatelaine ever. Few...

Calendar.(Southern Ontario events)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
August 1, 2003... Get the inside scoop on this month's hottest events and promotions from the following advertisers: LIMESTONE CITY BLUES FESTIVAL August is hot in Kingston as the city smoulders with the blues. It's one of "Blues Brother" Dan Aykroyd's...

The man in the moon.(Fictional Work)
August 1, 2003... When I was eleven years old, I left Montreal in a green car whose fender was busted. I was with a social worker I'd never met before. I was going to live in a foster home in Sorel that I'd stayed in when I was a baby. I couldn't remember the...

All past crimes will be forgiven. .(Fictional Work)
August 1, 2003... She stood on the threshold between the hall and the bedroom, hidden behind the slightly open door, watching her father's reflection. The curtains inside were drawn, and she could barely see his image in the mirror on the far wall. The wooden...

Luck. .(Fictional Work)
August 1, 2003... I count my Aunt Frances' descent into madness from the hour of a car accident she had driving north on Highway 400 into the Ontario lakeland in the summer of 1958. We--I was in the car as well--were driving up to a camp called Erewhon, to...

The gift of precision. .(Fictional Work)
August 1, 2003... In the living room, a hired woman in a black dress and copper earrings with a severe set of thin, dark eyebrows sat at the piano playing a mid-life birthday selection, from Billie Holiday through to Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Neil Young and...

Kundalini. .(Fictional Work)
August 1, 2003... It began because Carolyn gave me some self-healing tapes. I didn't ask for them--not even in that way people talk about nowadays, when, unaware of your own latent intentions, you ask for help from a higher source. I didn't want help from any...

Tune up.(Natural)(Sound Recording Review)
August 1, 2003... The ultimate soundtrack to caipirinha-mellowed afternoons, Brazilian singer-songwriter Celso Fonseca's international debut CD, Natural, swirls spitfire samba, heat-blurred bossa nova and '50s cool jazz. His silken vocals, reminiscent of legends...

Leader of the pack.(Granny Smith suitcase product review)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... This Granny Smith green weekender from the colour kingdom Benetton--fashioned for the impulsive bikini-and-toothbrush getaway--is the envy of the airport conveyor belt. Resin-bodied and chrome-trimmed, the roller (also available in flower child...

Magic pic.(evaluation of Pentax Optio S digital camera)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Primed for stakeouts and other inconspicuous photo ops, the Pentax Optio S digital camera is so slight it can fit snugly into an Altoids container. But don't be deceived by its negligible weight (just 4.1 ounces). The silver sliver is tricked...

French connection.(Restaurant Review)
August 1, 2003... At Le Gourmand, artists linger over cafe au laits, croissants and open sketchbooks; it's a civilized rebuttal to the city's atmospherically starved latte laboratories. Cozy and luminous, the Parisian outpost--complete with an old-fashioned hat...

Orange alert. (Picture perfect).(review of stained glass centerpiece by Ornella Pisano)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... This mandarin centrepiece--hailing from Venetian designer Ornella Pisano's Brooklyn-based company, Ercole--is too glamorous for mere fruit bearing. Crafted from Italian stained glass, the bowl's tiles are individually hand-cut, endowing each...

Green peace: filled with junk and choked by weeds, the Annex yard was decidedly un-gardenlike. How pioneering architects and a weekend carpenter nurtured it into an urban oasis. (Design).
August 1, 2003... BEHIND AN UNREMARKABLE-LOOKING Annex semi-detached, the backyard measures a typical 23 by 82 feet. That's the only typical thing about it. Serene and deliberate, the garden unspools from the house in a series of discrete spaces: first a dining...

Hot couture: at 26, Thien Le has a level of focus and discipline few young designers can match. He also has the audacity to charge $1,500 for a dress when bigger names wouldn't dare. (Fashion).(Biography)
August 1, 2003... "WELCOME TO MY SWEATSHOP," HE SAYS, waving a hand around a few hundred square feet of grey urban workspace, where a seamstress sits at her sewing machine and an assistant unravels a bright bolt of silk. Racks of samples hug the walls; plain...

Tasting notes. (Drink).(information on wines made in Ontario)
August 1, 2003... Wine east on your next weekend wine excursion, climb aboard the 401 and head east into a new wine land of strivers and believers-just like Niagara 20 years ago. The diamond in this rough is Ontario-Gothic Prince Edward County, which juts...

Restaurants.(Toronto area restaurants reviewed)
August 1, 2003... A LA MODE [NEW] Fressen ** 1/2 One of a kind as far as Toronto restaurants are concerned, Fressen allows vegans, vegetarians and the vegi-curious to enjoy a little Dom with their herbivorous cuisine. Circles are everywhere in evidence:...

The whispers of the venticelli were all of Arlequin as May slipped into June. (Tidbits).(restaurant's doors closed in May)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... The whispers of the venticelli were all of Arlequin as May slipped into June. Chef-owner Fraser Prince's veteran bistro on Avenue Road had closed its doors--some said for renovation, while others talked of alarming debts. Even when Prince filed...

The inaugural gathering of the Chefs' Breakfast Club at George Brown College (an intriguing initiative devised by John Higgins, GBC's coordinator of new initiatives) was a dazzling success. (Tidbits).
August 1, 2003... The inaugural gathering of the Chefs' Breakfast Club at George Brown College (an intriguing initiative devised by John Higgins, GBC's coordinator of new initiatives) was a dazzling success. The guest of honour was Michel Roux, one of the...

Those who believe that cuisine is a more civilizing dynamic than commerce must applaud the current trend of transforming corner-of-main-street bank branches into temples of gastronomy. (Tidbits).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Those who believe that cuisine is a more civilizing dynamic than commerce must applaud the current trend of transforming corner-of-main-street bank branches into temples of gastronomy. A Mount Pleasant CIBC becomes Celestin; a Bank of Montreal...

Shopping with chefs. (Restaurants).(Owen Steinberg)
August 1, 2003... Owen Steinberg of J0V Bistro, 1701 Bayview Ave., 416-322-0530 With the bright-eyed curiosity of a kid on a fishing trip, Owen Steinberg follows fishmonger Taro Akiyama's every move. We're standing counterside at Taro Fish (3160 Steeles Ave....

Diner breakfasts. (Restaurants).(Restaurant Review)
August 1, 2003... Most of our boomer friends and acquaintances have pared down their morning meal to the sensible likes of yogurt with granola or cereal with soy milk. We have, too. But when we've just pulled an all-nighter, nothing beats the good old all-day...

Our long engagement. (The End).(same sex marriage)
August 1, 2003... On June 10, the Ontario Court of Appeal turned dozens of middle-aged couples with mortgages, grown children, obsessive careers, weight gain and hair loss into improbable newlyweds. For all of us, these weddings were not the star-struck...