Toronto Life articles from June 2000

Toronto Life archives from June 2000

Soul man.
June 1, 2000... On a Saturday morning in late April, Albert Schultz is surrounded by pink-tutued first graders and their mothers in the crowded foyer of a dance class for his titian-haired moppet of a daughter. Clad in a mercilessly pressed burgundy...

Figure head to head.
June 1, 2000... Figure head to head Though neither John Ralston Saul nor Pope John Paul has pot-bellied, bearded guys hauling speakers around for them, they have been acting a lot like rock stars. Each has logged at least as many miles as an average concert...

Finders keepers (TTC lost & found).
June 1, 2000... Every morning, just above the Bay subway station platform, three staffers at the TTC's lost articles office work the phones to return eyeglasses, wallets, purses and other abandoned belongings. Heaps of personal property--42,000 articles a...

This issue (old-timers hockey).
June 1, 2000... AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, WHEN THE NATIONAL PUBLIC BROADCASTER, desperate for advertising revenue, pre-empts the news for hockey, I am reminded that as a boy I dreamed of playing in the National Hockey League. In 1972, I wrote a book with Bruce...

With a vengeance (Point blank will be shown at Cinematheque Ontario).
June 1, 2000... Lee Marvin's film career was filled with keenly nuanced roles, but none was as quietly devastating as his turn in John Boorman's 1967 crime drama Point Blank. The pug-faced actor stars as Walker, a brooding--and largely monosyllabic--felon who...

Soul trainers (Centre for Esoteric Studies hosts a soul conference).
June 1, 2000... All God's children got soul, but did you sell yours for that career on Bay Street? Did you plum forget about it the day Mom stopped dragging you to church? The Centre for Esoteric Studies, a group of international healers and therapists, would...

It spot (Toronto night club Roxy Blu).
June 1, 2000... Where: Two floors and three packed rooms at the casually elegant Roxy Blu (12 Brant St., 504-3222). What: Once a month, Movement DJs Aki, Dee Jay Nay, Jason Palma, John Kong and A Man Called Warwick explore the vistas of modern dance. The...

City of angles (Susanna Heller's paintings are on exhibit at the Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto).
June 1, 2000... Dizzy buildings incline toward each other, steadied by the partnering sky. For Susanna Heller, Manhattan is one big, crazy quadrille, and she's gazing from great scaffolded bridges--at the swirling ocean, or up at the winged clouds that gather...

Go publish yourself (author builds a do-it-yourself publishing house called No Media Kings, and publishes his second novel, Angry young spaceman).
June 1, 2000... If the cheerleading press is to he believed, 20-something dot-com millionaires are everywhere. These cocky high-tech empire builders have slipped into the public imagination like nothing since the Gen-X slacker started a wave of hand-wringing...

Peerless leader: how Jean Ashworth Bartle, the stern (if loving) head of the Toronto Children's Chorus, created one of the best - arguably the best - kids' choirs in the world.
June 1, 2000... THE WOMAN LEADING THE chorus of beaming, singing children is no Maria von Trapp, gamine and effervescent. Jean Ashworth Bartle, founder and music director of the Toronto Children's Chorus, is made of sterner stuff. Meticulously coiffed and...

U of P: Rob Prichard will deliver his last convocation address at a university he has transformed as president. The new U of T is ambitious, optimistic, energetic and rolling in dough.
June 1, 2000... You begin to understand the reasons for Rob Prichard's success when you see him preside over graduation ceremonies in Convocation Hall. In his 10 years as president of the University of Toronto, he has turned this springtime ritual into a...

"Hey! Where's the car?".
June 1, 2000... "I think you got my car here," barks an American tourist. "Five after four, and my car was already gone. Can you beat that?" He hangs his head. "Oh, Jesus," he says, with an ironic, why-me laugh. Behind the counter at the impound shed of...

Who earns what: from drag queens to dot-com phenoms, overpaid butlers to underpaid artists: we asked and they told us, or they told us where to go. The 2000 salary survey.
June 1, 2000... "I've been called a media whore but I'm not, I'm a media slut--whores make money," explains drag queen, lover of uniforms and official mayoralty candidate (running on a platform of tighter shirts for firemen) Enza "Supermodel" Anderson. For...

Rock, shampoo, scissors (House of Lords).
June 1, 2000... I was in Grade 7 when I finally got control of my own haircuts. No more Dad dragging me to Jimmy the barber at the Chelsea Inn. Of course, I went straight to the House of Lords. I got off the subway, headed down Yonge to Isabella, took a deep...

Trouble with Tracy: Tracy Lequyere was a poster boy for rehabilitation, drumming up corporate support for a literary program to help street kids ... now ... (he and Susan Young) are charged with fraud.
June 1, 2000... SOME STORIES ARE AS OLD AS TIME. MEN. WOMEN. INDEPENDENT orbits: social, economic, intellectual. They meet. Need. Want. Tracy: As we discussed I enclose a certified cheque for $45,000 and cash of $5,000. These are personal funds and...

West enders: travels to the "poor man's Riviera," encounters with the deli women and a night with Dr. Zhivago. How one man learned to love Roncesvalles.
June 1, 2000... IN A CITY ARRANGED ON A GRID, WHERE streets begin and end clearly at right-angled intersections, Roncesvalles is an anomaly. Even now, I am never quite sure where it starts. At some point, Dundas sweeps upward to the subway station, bossily...

No logo: John Nightingale.
June 1, 2000... One of the city's most recognized models--he's plied the trade for 14 of his 32 years--the charming John Nightingale abjures the shmattes of high fashion in favour of dressing down. "I laugh when someone asks me, `Who's your favourite...

Hurry up and wait: stellar restaurants - such as the new Canadiana-crazy Patriot in the Colonnade - we have in abundance. What we need are more five-star servers.
June 1, 2000... EVER SINCE I SAW THAT FILM Who am I kidding? Most waiters couldn't care less. A solitary bookworm is less of a nuisance than the majority of customers, as long as the restaurant isn't too full and he doesn't linger too long, tying up a...

Tasting notes.
June 1, 2000... 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 brought in by the case from the agent. Rating is on a five-star system that...

Lichtman's: 1909-2000.
June 1, 2000... When Starbucks--that great, rapacious corporate steamroller--thundered into Toronto four years ago, there arose sudden murmurs of loyalty, even affection, for the Second Cup. Previously, few had been moved to sing the praises of this pedestrian...