Toronto Life articles from May 2002

Toronto Life archives from May 2002

Manji of the hour (Irshad Manji).
May 1, 2002... It's a two-storey Riverdale detached house, the sort that people called working class before Toronto's real estate booms, with one anomaly: a faded pink couch on the veranda. She answers the door wearing the skinny casuals favoured by youthful...

No cigar (Jerry Seinfeld shopping in Toronto).
May 1, 2002... On a sunny afternoon in March, a gentleman in a nondescript leather jacket, jeans, baseball cap and dark glasses walked into Prestige Auto Art & Gift Gallery (a mecca for wealthy automobile enthusiasts and model car collectors) wielding a big,...

Brow beating (Faye Dunaway's eyes).
May 1, 2002... Few moviegoers will forget the role Faye Dunaway's perfectly arched eyebrows played in such films as Chinatown and Network. And what would the stylized '70s thriller Eyes of Laura Mars have been without them? Well, Dunaway is not about to put...

Axis to grind (David Frum's famous line for President Bush).
May 1, 2002... Anti-feminist talking head Danielle Crittenden is now infamous for boasting about neo-con hubby David Frum's rhetorical prowess. The e-mail she sent claiming Frum had coined President Bush's "axis of evil" phrase ("I hope you'll indulge my...

Doggy style (Kim Cattrall in Toronto).
May 1, 2002... Outside the Nienkamper furniture store on King East, a yuppie walking his dog was dismayed when the husky-foxhound, Arthur, paused to relieve his full bladder. As the sales staff watched the pooch make a fine mess against the window, the dog...

Body check (Nikolai Antropov does his own shopping).
May 1, 2002... Who knew NHL hockey players did their own grocery shopping? Hunky young Kazakhstan export Nikolai Antropov, a centre for the Leafs, was doing just that recently at the Loblaws on Queens Quay (the six-foot-five player has to feed his...

Camera: sisterhood is powerful.
May 1, 2002... There was no call for bra burning at this Mardi Gras-themed International Women's Day celebration inside the Church on Berkeley. The Queen East nightclub was packed with ladies glammed up in body glitter, feather boas and fishnets; others...

Kids (in the Halls) these days.
May 1, 2002... The controversial Canadian comedy fivesome that brought you Buddy Cole, the Chicken Lady and Cabbage Head have recently reunited for what they've called Tour of Duty, a North American slog from Buffalo to Kelowna that runs to the end of this...

(Toronto is deprived of first rate architecture).
May 1, 2002... IT'S ACCEPTED WISDOM THAT OURS IS A MATERIALISTIC society, which is generally understood to mean that we're overly interested in things. This is considered bad, because things, according to accepted wisdom, are less important than ideas. I...

Brief history of Time: in their earnest effort to protect Canadian culture, the Liberals left us with one of the world's lamest magazine industries. So says George Russell ...
May 1, 2002... MANY OF THE JOURNALISTS WHO STAFFED Time Canada in the 1960s and early 1970s moved on to impressive careers. Richard Gwyn went to work for the federal government and then became a political columnist, author and broadcaster. Geoffrey James,...

Bloody shame: one day in 1993, Chris Leblanc stodd in front of his grade school class and revealed a secret: he was a hemophiliac and HIV positive ...
May 1, 2002... THEY ARE KNOWN AS BLEEDERS. Not that they bleed more than anyone else; they just bleed longer. A gentle knock against a table's edge can send a bruise blooming from thigh to heel. A bumped knee causes blood to well in the joint, the swelling...

Shtick figure: caustic, confrontational, and unscripted, Mike Bullard goes head to head with Jay Leno and David Letterman and wins ...
May 1, 2002... Mike Bullard is sitting naked from the waist up. This, admittedly, is not the world's most riveting sight, insofar as he is a large man with a fleshy, undefined pectoral and deltoid musculature, but it has a certain contextual logic. And it is...

China syndrome (William Ashley on Bloor Street).
May 1, 2002... If the girl in the Valentino tweeds hears any more shrill maternal advice, she will take hold of the solid silver macaroni and cheese server ($580.50) and thrust it, pointy side first, into her darling mother's eye socket. Saturday...

Burb appeal: if you still think that 905 offers nothing but dingy doughnut shacks and serpentine subdivisions, think again ...
May 1, 2002... SHOPPING On weekends, Cayne's Super Housewares (112 Doncaster Ave., Thornhill, 905-764-1188) is packed with slack-jawed women gaping at prices and products while their resigned husbands repeatedly chant, "Yes, dear." A large blue...

Mystery train (North Toronto freight trains).
May 1, 2002... On a dark winter evening, I'm driving north on Bathurst, and the roadway is a luminescent river of colour that seems to run uphill at the old Lake Iroquois shoreline, north of Davenport. Off in the middle distance, the familiar vista is...

Bum rap and a sweat shop.
May 1, 2002... Downward togs One of our favourite objections to working out has been the hideousness of spandex. Now, with Vancouver-based Lululemon open downtown, our excuses have lost their steam. Founded in 1999 by Chip Wilson, a West Coast...

About face: in oh-so-traditional Forest Hill, Julian Jacobs turned a house away from busy Spadina toward the tree-lined ravine...
May 1, 2002... THINK FOREST HILL. A SURREAL LANDSCAPE where, in defiance of history and geography, Loire Valley chateaux and Tudor manors keep close company. Think empty nesters in Forest Hill, and the picture shifts a bit, perhaps to compact Regency- or...

Twirling dervish Esmeralda Enrique.
May 1, 2002... As director of the Academy of Spanish Dance, Esmeralda Enrique dresses the part, even after the curtain call. All formfitting tops and full, flowy skirts, the Texas native's wardrobe is clearly the choreography of a flamenco diva. "In dance,...

In the grand manor: Langdon Hall has always been a haven of luxury. But in 12 years, Canada's best boutique hotel has faced kitchen fires, an attempted coup ...
May 1, 2002... LAST NIGHT, I DREAMT I WENT TO LANGDON Hall again. The house was just as I remembered it--that first, distant glimpse as the driveway curves out of the woods--red brick, grey stone, white pillars holding up a massive triangular pediment. Posed...

Tasting notes.
May 1, 2002... Viva las Vegas Home to Vega Sicilia, Spain's most famous wine, for nearly a century, Ribera del Duero has only recently realized its true vineyard potential. Until 1982 (when DO Ribera del Duero was created), even the region's best bottles were...

Restaurants.
May 1, 2002... Restaurants are rated on a five-star system by A LA MODE Accolade *** Expectations have been so justifiably high in recent years that a slight slip in standards seems magnified. The old-fashioned opulence of the room needs more...

Ontario Hydro, 1906-2002.
May 1, 2002... "Nothing is too big for us. Nothing is too expensive to imagine." So argued Ontario Hydro's megalomaniac founder, Adam Beck, before 700 municipal delegates in 1914. Originally set up as a transmitter, not a generator, Hydro was supposed to own...