Toronto Life articles from June 2001

Toronto Life archives from June 2001

Carla's calling: Carla Collins.
June 1, 2001... When she was 11, a man in a stocking mask tried to kill Carla Collins. The girl with the gun to her head contained only shades of today's blond and spaghetti-thin Ubiquitous Entertainment Personality. Then, she was a frizzy-haired brunette with...

Pepsi generation: (iDance rally being organized to draw corporate sponsorship toward raves).
June 1, 2001... Club kids will remember how the iDance rally drew over 20,000 to Nathan Phillips Square last year to protest the ban on raves in municipal buildings. Well, it looks as if this year's event will be somewhat less political. Organizers have...

Starving artists: (Women in Film and Television annual awards dinner).
June 1, 2001... The Women in Film and Television annual awards dinner is such a feel-good event that organizers would have to try really hard to ruin it. Amazingly, at this year's ceremony, held at the CBC's downtown headquarters, ruin it they did. Guests...

Temple tantrum: (Paul Kowarsky, father of Ryan and Daniel from b4-4, leaves the Beth Tzedec temple).
June 1, 2001... The yentas up at Bathurst and Eglinton's Beth Tzedec synagogue have been gossiping for months about the fate of their cantor, Paul Kowarsky. There were obvious signs of trouble as early as last fall, when Kowarsky--who's been there for 21...

Slave-driver: (celebrities still practice yoga).
June 1, 2001... Some stars have switched to Tae-Bo. Others have turned to Pilates. But yoga isn't dead in Hollywood just yet. On the Toronto set of Owning Mahowny (in which Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a compulsive gambler who defrauds the bank he works for),...

Sync-ing sensation: (Joey Fatone from N'Sync buys $4,000 worth of DVDs).
June 1, 2001... The music geeks at Sam the Record Man have seen their share of impulse buying: Beatles box sets, complete works of Beethoven, the Pet Sounds session outtakes. But all such splurges were recently put to shame by the "Bye, Bye" boys from 'N Sync....

National sport: (National Post editor Ken Whyte replaced the boardroom furniture with a ping-pong table).
June 1, 2001... Since its launch two and a half years ago, the National Post has sold itself as the ballsy, hard-hitting paper we'd all been pining for. Now, finally, it's living up to the hype: in early spring, editor Ken Whyte replaced his boardroom...

Urban decoder: (squirrel droppings; audible pedestrian signals; Royal Bank office tower).
June 1, 2001... Dear Urban Decoder: Bird, goose and raccoon droppings are all too apparent in the city's many parks, while squirrel poop is noticeably absent. Are squirrels bashful or just picky? --Andrei Babichuk, Sherbourne and Richmond Dear...

Dirty job: (dry cleaning plant).
June 1, 2001... Behind the racks at the Careful plant at Avenue Road and Davenport, past the ironing tables, the casket-shaped steam pressers and the higgledy-piggledy chaos of dirty laundry, you'll find two oversized washing machines that are, in fact, for...

Eat, drink and be airy: (Martha von Heczey opened the first open-air cafe).
June 1, 2001... It all started with a Hungarian by the name of Martha von Heczey. It was the early 1960s, outdoor drinking had just become legal, and there was as yet nowhere in town to sip a glass of wine and watch the world go by. That's when von Heczey...

Kiss and tell (celebrities).
June 1, 2001... It's not often that a publisher boasts about one of his books giving him a woody. But that's how Sam Hiyate, the CanLit bad boy from Gutter Press, praised Tamara Faith Berger's Lie With Me at the sexy novella's late-April Bar Italia launch....

(Writing profiles).
June 1, 2001... WHEN YOU'RE WRITING A PROFILE, THE FIRST THING YOU DO is ask the subject for an interview. Sometimes--increasingly often, it seems--they say no. A few years ago, we commissioned David Macfarlane to do a piece on the newly elected Mike Harris...

This month: theatre.
June 1, 2001... OPENINGS Antigone. Independent company Red Red Rose tackles Jean Anouilh's tragedy about the princess who just wants to bury her brother. Director Sarah Phillips has re-translated and adapted the play to de-mustify it. Christine Brubaker...

This month: classical music.
June 1, 2001... ORCHESTRAL TORONTO SYMPHONY Roy Thomson Hall 60 Simcoe St., 416-593-4828 www.tso.on.ca Bobby McFerrin is the joyful avatar of free-and-easy melody making--classical conductor, jazz singer and mastermind behind the peace-and-love-soaked...

This month: dance.
June 1, 2001... Eryn Dace Trudell takes inspiration from heliotropes, the light purple flowers that turn to face the sun. To Trudell, they symbolize wisdom and courage--a perfect metaphor for a choreographer who leans toward the spiritual side of dance. This...

This month: art.
June 1, 2001... [FREE] City of Fictions. Day-to-day survival in teeming Mexico City requires ingenuity. And the lines between right and wrong, truth and fiction can quickly blur in the scramble to get things done, as Toronto artist and guest curator Gwen...

This month: nightlife.
June 1, 2001... CONCERTS Coldplay moodily dwells somewhere in between the treacle of Travis and the brilliant, dark fire of Radiohead, but the Britpop band clearly drinks from the same introspective well. The quartet has had an enthusiastic following in...

This month: jazz and standards.
June 1, 2001... CONCERTS Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis. As the senior creative consultant, frequent narrator and a subject of Ken Burns's television documentary Jazz, Wynton Marsalis was revealed to be the most controversial figure in...

This month: kid's events.
June 1, 2001... Black Creek Pioneer Village. Some 250 make-believe soldiers, decked out in tricornes and red jackets, fake street skirmishes to the delight of onlookers. Civilians are also welcome to take part in marching drills and visit authentic...

This month: diversions.
June 1, 2001... BuskerFest. From the puppet master who performs a rock 'n' roll revue to the Japanese candy maker who whirls toffee into dragons, it's clear these aren't your run-of-the-mill buskers. The 15-odd street artists at the second annual festival of...

Euro smash: reinterpreting a repertoire of classic plays - by Moliere, Chekhov, Shakespeare - Mitteleuropean directors are parachuting into the city at regular intervals ...
June 1, 2001... JULY 1999. THE FLEDGLING SOULPEPPER Theatre company has started rehearsals for Chekhov's Platonov. The director, Laszlo Marton, a Hungarian with an easy smile and an irrepressible twinkle, talks to the actors about the realities of the play's...

Blame Canada: third world governments, no matter how heinous their actions, can usually count on a little sympathy from Haroon Siddiqui ...
June 1, 2001... IF YOU ASK HAROON SIDDIQUI ABOUT the lack of democracy in the Arab countries, the ugly word "racist" jumps out of his mouth 15 seconds into his answer. Racism, as in "entrenched inequality based on race," is much on his mind and much in the...

Partners in crime: they fell in love at Saltfleet District High School in Stoney Creek .. Ron and Loren Koval, then and now.
June 1, 2001... Fugitive voices. One voice says: "Hi, Amy." Another joins in, and together they sing: "Happy birthday to you." Disembodied strains from the people behind the headlines: couple on the lam; $100-million fraud; possible sightings in Costa Rica and...

Rituals: Rx in the city.
June 1, 2001... Some streets are anchored by their landmark bars (College) or retail stores (Bloor) or beloved eateries (Danforth). St. Clair West has its Shoppers Drug Mart. Just after nine p.m., tonight and almost every other night, I hop in my car and zip...

Animal house: when the Toronto Zoo opened in 1974, it received accolades from around the world. But for the past two decades, shrinking funds and escalating costs have put it on a steady path of decline ...
June 1, 2001... Spring at the Toronto Zoo, one of those soft, spongy days that make being outside in the sun seem like the only good idea. Canada geese patrol the pathways as usual, peacocks strutting among them like self-appointed sergeants major. I'm sitting...

Icons: fish and ship (Captain John's Harbour Boat Restaurant).
June 1, 2001... You may have first noticed it while casually strolling along the waterfront or driving home in the wee hours from a dance night at the Warehouse. You stared at it, incredulous. Maybe you marvelled at seeing such an imposing vessel up close....

Reluctant heir: David Thomson has always know he'd one day succeed his father, Ken, as head of the Thomson business empire ...
June 1, 2001... HE LOOKED SULLEN UP THERE. HE LOOKED ANGRY. He stood wearing a thin shirt and khakis at the front of the large meeting room, hands stuffed in his pockets, leaning back with one foot propped insolently against the wall behind him, while seated...

Big chill and a savvy salve.
June 1, 2001... Groovy pads In this world of e-mail and Palm Pilots, such archaic accessories as pen and paper have taken on a recherche glamour. Take these funky fried-egg notebooks by Spanish paper designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. Graphic and...

Hot property: ignoring the quaint images of fire halls of yore, the architect of Station No. 334 looked to the lake for inspiration ...
June 1, 2001... THE SCENE AT FIRE STATION NO. 334, OTHERWISE known as the Harbourfront fire station, is straight from a child's picture book. Affable and seemingly relaxed, the firefighters welcome a visitor into their big kitchen. Coffee? Milk in your coffee?...

French twist: Monique Centeno.
June 1, 2001... As she jets from Toronto to Paris to St. Tropez, Centeno's style radar is never idle. The owner of Yorkville jewellery mecca Fabrice is always on the hunt for the bauble du jour. "I'm very curious. I love researching and buying," she says in...

Planet Italia: when Grano opened its doors, Toronto wasn't ready for the (barely) controlled chaos of a caffe centrale: an aggressively warm welcome at the door ...
June 1, 2001... FEW ART FORMS ARE MORE CIVILIZED THAN the long Italian lunch. If I close my eyes, I can see the table set out under the shade trees, hot sun on old stone walls, a view of vineyards climbing to distant hills. The ceaseless rasping of cicadas,...

Tasting notes.
June 1, 2001... Roll out the barrels Made from the nebbiolo grape and named for a village in Piedmont, aristocratic barolo is a wine built to age. Traditionally, it spent a long time macerating on grape skins in open cement tanks before aging in large old...

Restaurants.
June 1, 2001... Restaurants are rated on a five-star system by A LA MODE Goldfish *** Angular, minimalist and pale, pale blue, the look is ice cool on this otherwise duffle-coated stretch of Bloor. Precious little objects become sculpture in...

Moe Koffman, December 28, 1928 - March 28, 2001.
June 1, 2001... Until Moe Koffman raised his alto sax at Massey Hall that Saturday afternoon in 1948, the jazz had sounded fusty to us teenagers in the audience. Onstage, the musicians--all Canadian, most middle-aged--played a style rooted in trad and swing....