Toronto Life articles from June 2002

Toronto Life archives from June 2002

One-man brand (Choclair).
June 1, 2002... Choclair is notoriously proud of his virility. The high-flying hip hop MC's sophomore album, Memoirs of Blake Savage, is a panting, funk-heavy endorsement of "sinnin' and indulgin' in women." He describes himself as the Suave Dog, the...

Womanizer, a man of his time.
June 1, 2002... The new novel by swashbuckling journalist, social activist and Dooney's Cafe fixture Rick Salutin, due out in the fall, is to be titled The Womanizer, A Man of His Time. Those who have had a peek at the manuscript say it chronicles the exploits...

Too many cooks.
June 1, 2002... Manhattan's best-selling chef and author, enfant terrible Anthony Bourdain, was in town in early April to promote his new book, A Cook's Tour. After sampling Canadian lunch fare at Patriot bistro, he headed to Mildred Pierce for an evening...

Old boys' network (Marcello Cabezas).
June 1, 2002... The key to a successful theatrical career? A robust Rolodex. Consider Marcello Cabezas, former ad guy, one-time Sex and the City casting intern, actor, waiter at Kubo and, perhaps most important, UCC grad. Cabezas, along with Steven Moore from...

Glass menagerie (Toronto Raptor Vince Carter).
June 1, 2002... Misfortune seems to be following Raptor Vince Carter around. First there was the 17-losses-in-18-games pre-playoff swoon, then knee surgery, and finally the bummer of watching his teammates carry on without him. The six-foot-six jump-shot...

League of our own.
June 1, 2002... Baseball may be the great American game, but the Blue Jays couldn't have had a more classically Canuck-style debut. Twenty-five years ago, when they played their first home game at Exhibition Stadium, it was so cold it snowed. One player mushed...

One hundred years of attitude.
June 1, 2002... There were three types of guests at the AGO's sumptuous 100th-anniversary party: rich, filthy rich and filthy stinking rich. Green-jacketed valets lurked on the front steps, swooping down as a series of Lincolns disgorged power brokers, CEOs...

(Toronto's use of Lake Ontario).
June 1, 2002... UNLESS YOU'RE A SAILOR OR LIVE ON THE WATERFRONT, Lake Ontario is, for all its size, oddly invisible. Riding the ferry back from the Islands, catching a glimpse of the city perched on its miles of waterfront, is always a revelation: Toronto is...

Atonement: when 24 students at U of T's faculty of law lied about their grades to land summer jobs, they tarnished the school's reputation and risked their own futures.
June 1, 2002... When 24 students at U of T's faculty of law lied about their grades to land summer jobs, they tarnished the school's reputation and risked their futures. Punished and penitent, they've paid for their folly. Why won't the school shoulder its...

Music maker: at an age when most impresarios have long since retired, Nicholas Goldschmidt is enriching the city with an international choral festival.
June 1, 2002... DURING ONE STORMY WEEK IN JANUARY 1999, the heavens dumped more than three feet of snow on Toronto. The city was paralyzed, but Nicholas Goldschmidt was not about to lose a day's work. A non-driver, he left the fire-lit warmth of his...

Reimaging the waterfront (history of Toronto's waterfront).
June 1, 2002... The history of Toronto's waterfront is a history of missed opportunity. Between our homes and the lake, we laid train tracks and roads and built office towers, factories, walls of condos. We pushed the lakefront ever farther south, obliterating...

"Bridge the gap between the lake and High Park".
June 1, 2002... In the New York neighbourhood where I live, on the west side of Lower Manhattan, it's a short jog to what is rather hopefully called Hudson River Park, a thin strip of bike paths, derelict piers and a scattering of benches separated from the...

"Redevelop the Ex's grandiose halls into stories, offices and libaries".
June 1, 2002... When it opened in 1879, the Toronto Industrial Exhibition was at its most genteel. It had stalls for the newest farm implements, displays of the latest rose varieties and competitions for prize pigs and perfect pies. That was Toronto the Good....

"View the Gardiner's supposed flaw as a virtue and exaggerate it".
June 1, 2002... In this city, as in many cities, we design the least significant things the most and the most significant things the least. We expect our teakettles to be masterworks, but our highways--used by commuters every day for hours at a time--remain...

"Create a network of 100 islands, separated by street-width canals".
June 1, 2002... Viewed from above, the Toronto Islands resemble a running shoe: Centre Island is the heel, Ward's the toe. Formed by silt carried west from the mouth of the Don River, this archipelago was for much of its history a fluid landscape of lagoons,...

"Create a water city, where the lake plays a roll in people's daily lives".
June 1, 2002... At 1,000 acres, 10 times the size of London's Canary Wharf, the portlands are the most valuable tract in the city. Yet for the past two decades, much of the area has been abandoned by the very factories and warehouses it was designed to...

"Carve out a canal system to funnel the Don's floodwater out to the lake".
June 1, 2002... The West Donlands are a millstone around the province's neck; no one wants them, at least in their current state, including the owner, the province's property management branch, the Ontario Realty Corporation. Bordered by the Don to the east,...

"Make the Don Valley our Central Park".
June 1, 2002... Toronto's geography has always been characterized--and qualified --by its network of ravines. We often describe them as our greatest natural asset, yet throughout the city they remain largely invisible: backyards to mansions or a backdrop for a...

Golf green and nose candy.
June 1, 2002... Wheeler dealer Sometimes low-tech is state of the art. Such is the philosophy behind the craze for this Kronan bike, first designed in 1942 for the Swedish army. The one-speed coaster-brake two-wheeler with balloon tires and steel frame is...

Kensington palace: Courage my Love has seen the rise and fall of the hippie, the yuppie and the khaki. Now the retro haven finds itself aligned with the stars of international fashion.
June 1, 2002... STEWART SCRIVER HOISTS A BLACK GARBAGE bag full of vintage goodies onto the counter of his Kensington Market shop. "Omigod," says his daughter, Cece, as she holds up a white safari-style suit with matching braided belt. "This is so cool." A...

Living on the veg: the greatest barrier to the spread of vegetarian dining isn't politics - it's the boring slop dished up in lieu of good food ...
June 1, 2002... I MET JOAN OF ARC AT A PARTY THE OTHER day. She was dressed to repudiate fashion--heavy work boots and ugly, androgynous clothes, a shock of short black hair--but her eyes were luminous with the idealism of youth. I learned she was studying...

Tasting notes.
June 1, 2002... Red hot Chile Spanish conquistadors introduced vinifera to this thin strip of a country in the 16th century, but these days Gallic grapes dominate plantings: cabernet sauvignon is first among fruits of the vine, followed by merlot, chardonnay...

Restaurants.
June 1, 2002... Restaurants are rated on a five-star system by A LA MODE [NEW] Rouge ** 1/2 Minimalist decor lends a sense of airy space to the slim room and draws the eye to moments of colour: an amaryllis in an alcove, the four-stool bar in the...

Sacred texts of Ansei Minsk 1870-2002.
June 1, 2002... The arsonist comes to burn books. It's early in the morning on March 11, and the arsonist--he or she, we still don't know--ducks past the sign in front of the Anshei Minsk synagogue that reads "Israel Now and Forever." He heads for the dark...