Toronto Life articles from February 2001

Toronto Life archives from February 2001

Byronic man: Hawksley Workman.
February 1, 2001... His name sounds like something out of Oscar Wilde, and his music would seem right at home played on a gramophone. Hawksley Workman even looks like a man from another era: with his shaggy black curls, Byronic poses and a thing for flower-print...

Middle ground: (Rick Salutin and Conrad Black).
February 1, 2001... They're about as ideologically opposed as Karl Marx and Margaret Thatcher. Still, Rick Salutin, in his lefty Globe and Mail columns, often reveals a flicker of admiration for Conrad Black. Consider his analysis of the media mogul from one of...

Inside the beltway: (Anne-Marie Sten goes to the arts award ceremony at the Kennedy Center).
February 1, 2001... Just when you thought that Anne-Marie Sten had burned her last bridge, she resurfaces, glam as can be, on new, lustrous social terrain. From evenings out in Paris with Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, to swank New York balls with Merrill...

Wilderness trip: (Paradise Falls films in the cold months).
February 1, 2001... The cast and crew of Paradise Falls figured out the hard way why vacationers rarely book their Muskoka holidays in the month of October. Scheduled to air on Showcase in the spring, the series is being hyped as a Twin Peaks-style drama where...

Spinning out of control: (two rave clubs battle it out).
February 1, 2001... So much for raves being all about peace, love and happy drugs: ever since Industry shut down last year, a bitter rivalry has been simmering between two remaining clubs, each one anxious to assume the now vacant position of number one...

(Who is Rebecca Street in Toronto named after?).
February 1, 2001... Dear Urban Decoder: There's a street just north of the Queen Street mental health centre called Rebecca. Who is it named after? --William Hynes, Downsview Dear William: Back in the mid-19th century, farmers and merchants were...

Killing field: (murders in Toronto).
February 1, 2001... Killing Field For the first time In almost a decade the murder rate has gone up: there were 59 this past year, which is 11 more then in 1999. Still, we are nowhere near 1991's peak of 89. And compared with other, similar-sized cities, our...

Tangled web: ... many people who took new-media jobs never expected big bucks; they just wanted something different, maybe creative, something fun ...
February 1, 2001... JOHN TURNER, 29 Dot-com job: senior producer, viceland.com Lasted all of: six months The experience: "I worked for viceland.com during the whole wave of Net creation. Money was being thrown around all over the place. I was...

This month: theatre.
February 1, 2001... OPENINGS Alien Creature: A Visitation from Gwendolyn MacEwen. Linda Griffiths' homage to poet Gwendolyn MacEwen (our homegrown Sylvia Plath) returns. The script for this one-woman wonder netted a Chalmers Award and a Dora. There's real...

This month: classical music.
February 1, 2001... ORCHESTRAL Death and the Maiden. Sinfonia Toronto spotlights clarinetist Julian Milkis as he plays Schubert's funereal masterpiece with warmth and sustaining sound. The mood ranges to light and lively with Pierne's Canzonetta and...

This month: dance.
February 1, 2001... Arte Flamenco! Artistic director Elena La Comadre embraces Spanish dances and canciones from classical to flamenco in Romance Espanol. But she takes it one step further by adding moves and rhythms from different dance forms. Guest artist Lisa...

This month: art.
February 1, 2001... Earth Works. Initially assembled for the Canadian Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover, this ceramic exhibition confirms Canada's international reputation as a hotbed of talented individualists. Welcome inclusions in this nationwide survey are the...

This month: nightlife.
February 1, 2001... CONCERTS Backstreet Boys. AJ, Howie D., Brian, Nick and Kevin await your presence, in all their bicepped splendour. OK, enough cynicism; some of you have children who will want to partake of the garcons' world tour. In preparation, go and...

This month: jazz.
February 1, 2001... CJRT-FM's Sound of Toronto Jazz Series. A member of a rising generation of local talent, songstress Melissa Stylianou sings a mix of standards with jazzed-up tunes by the Police, Bjork and the Beatles. She's joined by guitarist Kim Ratcliffe,...

This month: kids' events.
February 1, 2001... Children's Own Museum. Protection from flying watercolours is advisable as kids dabble with texture painting, Jan. 29 to Feb. 4. Toddlers can don helmets, then dunk their noggins in pails of paint for a day of messy head-butting, ominously...

This month: diversions.
February 1, 2001... Canadian International AutoShow. You'd think Toronto intersections would offer enough sights to satisfy the keenest automotive buff; on any given day, there are enough cars parked at Yonge and Eglinton to fill the SkyDome. But apparently not....

Making the grade: they produce resumes, complete with photos, for their five-year olds. They send them to $50-an-hour tutors ... what parents will do to get their kids into private schools.
February 1, 2001... JACK* HAS BEEN SITTING AT THE DESK for almost two hours, a long time for a seven-year-old boy who loves to play hockey and watch Pokemon on TV. This is the day of the big test, the one that will decide whether he has a chance to go to Upper...

Behind the scene: she designs sets and costumes for theatres large and small, for dance productions, for film, even for television... Astrid Janson stands at the top of her profession ...
February 1, 2001... ASTRID JANSON ONCE LOVED TO GATHER other people's garbage. Growing up in Parkdale in the pre-recycling 1950s, she found plenty of waste to work with. A bar at the corner of Brock and Dundas provided particular opportunities, and she remembers...

Last Gypsy King: descended from a clan that migrated to Canada over a century ago, he spent his life fighting for the survival of his culture .. . the life and death of Frank Butch.
February 1, 2001... APRIL 4, 2000. IT'S A DANK, COLD DAY that kills any hope of an early spring. At Broadview and Danforth, the Ralph Day Funeral Home is humming with preparations for the wake of Frank Butch, Toronto's gypsy king. He died of a massive stroke two...

Rituals: all that jazz (at Grossman's Tavern).
February 1, 2001... It's a late Saturday afternoon at Grossman's Tavern, and drunk people are dancing on tables. This is not a rare occurrence, or at least it isn't when the band playing is Kid Bastien's Happy Pals. Midway through a snarling rendition of "Down on...

House calls: dozens of services to keep you healthy, fed, organized and pampered. The ultimate never-having-to-go-out guide.
February 1, 2001... HOME Estelle Gee started Orderly Lives (461-8018, orderly@inter log.com) when she realized how many people were collapsing under the weight of their own clutter. Gee will organize anything: crammed storage spaces, cluttered kids'...

Icons: growth industry. (University of Toronto's greenhouse).
February 1, 2001... A dysfunctional greenhouse. But God, it looks good. Domed cap and finials. Intricate window tracery and stylized apse. A delicate confection at the northwest corner of College and University. Bald cypress struts, having survived decades of...

Outsiders.
February 1, 2001... It's off Cherry Street, in a debris-coated field stretching between Lake Shore Boulevard to the north and a narrow canal at the bottom of the Don River called Keating Channel to the south. There, you will find: 20 or 30 inhabitants, living in...

Kids' progamming, adult entertainment.
February 1, 2001... Woodworkers Georg Jensen (and the odd piece from Christofle) aside, we can't recall ever getting so excited about cutlery. But this charming Galet line by Sabre is crafted in steel and woody resin, with a keen eye to both design and...

Home on the grange: on the outskirts of Slabtown, two hours north of the city, a plywood tower rises above the surrounding orchard ...
February 1, 2001... THE BEAVER RIVER WINDS ITS WAY through a patchwork quilt of apple orchards, a green loop that opposes the orchards' strict geometry. In the hamlet of Slabtown, a bridge crosses the river. It is what the architect Brigitte Shim calls "the Norman...

Space engineer: John Tong.
February 1, 2001... A trip through the airy, spare new M.A.C. head office or the chic, refined resto KUBO reveals John Tong's aesthetic. A principal in the design firm 3rd Uncle, he is equally precise and thoughtful when it comes to the clothes on his back....

Wealth of nations: south-of-Eglinton snobs take note: eateries in the burbs boast reasonable prices, good, honest cooking and a loyal clientele ...
February 1, 2001... LIFT UP YOUR EYES, TORONTO, AND BEHOLD! A soaring masterpiece, consummate art--the baroque splendour of the suburbs! From east to west, they arch above the city like a painted ceiling by Tiepolo, "the gathering of nations" his energetic theme....

(Wine) tasting notes.
February 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...

(Toronto) restaurants.
February 1, 2001... Restaurants are rated on a five-star system by A LA MODE NEW Biff's *** 1/2 What happens when the full resources of the Oliver-Bonacini team (Canoe, Jump, Auberge du Pommier) focus on creating a bistro? A star is born,...

Temperance, 1904-2000.
February 1, 2001... These impassioned declarations for sobriety were published in a Women's Christian Temperance Union leaflet a century ago. But no voices were raised in protest this past November, when Toronto's only remaining dry area finally voted to allow the...