Toronto Life articles from March 2002

Toronto Life archives from March 2002

Lord of the ring: (Carl DeMarco, president of WWF Entertainment Canada).
March 1, 2002... At the Canadian headquarters of the World Wrestling Federation, cardboard cut-out wrestlers stand guard in nearly every office, buff and wax-chested with arrrrgh!-shaped mouths and arms so bulgy they can't quite meet their sides, like kids in...

Rock botton: (Barrick Gold founder Peter Munk and the Canadian Mining Association Hall of Fame members).
March 1, 2002... The Canadian Mining Association hosts a swank annual dinner at the Royal York to celebrate its newest Hall of Fame members. This year's event kicked off with the induction of Bill James, a fixture in the industry practically since the Klondike,...

Enza (Anderson) unzipped.
March 1, 2002... On New Year's Day, at the annual mayor's levee at City Hall, Enza "Supermodel" Anderson--the only Canadian Alliance leadership candidate who waxes regularly--presented a photograph of herself (signed "For a good time, call Enza") to Mel...

Petty crime: (Rebecca Caldwell's review of Ross Petty's children's play).
March 1, 2002... Ross Petty Productions' sixth-annual holiday pantomime at the Elgin Theatre was Snow White and the Magnificent Seven, a tongue-in-cheek vaudeville-style production with much headache-fuelling participation from audience members of the...

Flagging members: (York Club looking for new members).
March 1, 2002... Ye olde upscale social clubs have been having a rough go of it lately. Carved woodwork, grand staircases and brown leather wingback chairs have lost their appeal. Today's young Bay Streeters prefer gyms or golf clubs and opt to network in...

Shaken and stirred: (Kevin Sullivan's meeting with Angela Burns).
March 1, 2002... Sullivan Entertainment, the group responsible for such after-school fodder as Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea and Wind at My Back, hosted its Christmas party last year at an upscale King West bar. Since there were no bouncers outside nor...

Inside: (Toronto's Emergency Operations Centre).
March 1, 2002... Disaster zone Hurricanes, ice storms, subway collisions, nuclear plant mishaps and terrorist attacks rarely befall Toronto, so the Emergency Operations Centre usually sits dormant. In the event of a catastrophe, 26 officials, from the mayor to...

This issue: (Urjo Kareda).
March 1, 2002... IT WAS 1967 WHEN I NOTICED HIS BYLINE IN And who was that? When he died in December at the age of 57, he had been artistic director of the Tarragon Theatre for 20 years, brilliantly and painstakingly fashioning it into the country's leading...

Till death do us part: after a police sketch of a double murder suspect circulated in Blind River ... a friend of Reina Lacroix's joked that the picture looked like her husband in a wig ...
March 1, 2002... AT A PRETRIAL HEARING IN THE Brampton courthouse this past April, an ex-cop sits in a glassed-in booth listening to lawyers wrangle over DNA evidence. His name is Ron West, and he is accused of raping and killing two women in their homes north...

Hockey night in Mississauga: when Don Cherry declared his intention to go behind the bench of the losingest team in the OHL, he said he was the best guy ...
March 1, 2002... AT HIS LOUDMOUTH WORST, DON CHERRY, the host of Hockey Night in Canada's "Coach's Corner," bashes Europeans, defends goons, and bullies Ron MacLean, his soft-spoken CBC sidekick. Before he was a coach in front of the camera, however, he was a...

All about Eves. Spender. Cutter, Left winger, right winger... Ernie Eves is a jumble of contradictions. If he's going to be our next premier, it would be nice to know where he stands.
March 1, 2002... A joint-numbing wind howls through the Y-intersection of Eglinton, O'Connor and Victoria Park in mid-December. It's both fact and comment that the most attractive structure in sight in any direction is Eglinton Square. Inside the Scarborough...

Across the pond: Grenadier Pond.
March 1, 2002... Afterwards, slithering up the hillside to hot chocolate and french fries with a side order of gravy. Under the red fabric leaves of the Grenadier Cafe's pseudo maple tree, weary parents harness their broods and a middle-aged couple with...

Renter's hell: why would people pay astronimical rents for dingy, broken-down, subterranean hovels? With a 0.9 per cent vacancy rate, they have no other choice.
March 1, 2002... They rise at six a.m., grab a coffee and start scanning the classifieds, the alternative weeklies, the on-line listings, the ethnic papers. No time for a shower. They approach the search like a military campaign, the kitchen table strewn with...

Little shop of hormones: (Lovecraft).
March 1, 2002... Before Lovecraft, there were stores on the Yonge Street strip where you could buy plastic-wrapped smut. But if you were not a man, not wearing a raincoat and in search of sex toys, there was really nowhere to go. Anne Amitay, a nursery...

Return of the Mummy: since his death at the age of 45, he has been exhumed, robbed, stripped naked, and made to suffer countless other indignities at the hands of thieves ...
March 1, 2002... THE MUMMY KNOWN AS NO. 1999.1.4 IS SHELVED, BOXED, lidded and labelled. He is naked, and for this reason is sometimes also referred to as "the unwrapped mummy." The room in which he is stored is dark, though the lights are turned on when...

Foot feat and a new regime.
March 1, 2002... Bed-in Jeffrey Fisher started out in fashion apprenticing for Wayne Clark and costuming Livent productions. For the past few seasons, however, the Toronto designer has turned his talents to the boudoir, with an eponymous line of bedding...

Sugar shack: in Dufflet's new plant, white-garbed bakers beat vats of buttercream into submission, smack cakes out of pans, glaze tarts, drizzle chocolate ...
March 1, 2002... AT THE CONFLUENCE OF DOVERCOURT AND Sudbury, hundreds of children are having a rare city experience. They're growing up within the sight and smell of a factory. And not one that makes zippers or ball bearings, intriguing and rare as that would...

Sporty spice: Patti Russell.
March 1, 2002... The co-owner of Sporting Life is living proof that being a lock isn't antithetical to sartorial flair. Perennially active (her latest obsession is snow-shoeing), Patti Russell is also perennially stylish. Her secret? A judicious blending of...

Stage fright: we live in a city where the restaurants and theatres rank among North America's best, but when the two art forms combine, the results can range from insipid to inedible ...
March 1, 2002... "YOU'RE ENGLISH, RIGHT?" SAID MARK McKinney. "How odd you became a food writer." We were having a long, unhurried lunch together at Gamelle, that casually suave little bistro on College Street. The afternoon sunshine streamed in through the...

Tasting notes: (wine).
March 1, 2002... My darling Argentine In the wine world, the real South American powerhouse isn't Chile -- it's Argentina. Until the 1990s, the world's fifth-largest wine producer was known for quantity not quality, for vinous stuff that was low in tannins,...

(Toronto) restaurants.
March 1, 2002... Restaurants are rated on a five-star system by Toronto Life's anonymous reviewers, who are required to be honest, accurate and fair. Marks are awarded only for a restaurant's cooking, taking into account the kitchen's ambitions, consistency of...

Uptown nut house, 1937-2001. (Jennie Michals).
March 1, 2002... Memory is a fickle mistress, locking away favourite moments, unleashing others unbidden. But she in turn has always been at the mercy of olfaction, the shortest route to reminiscence, as perfumed women everywhere seem to know. With the...