Toronto Life articles from October 2001

Toronto Life archives from October 2001

Jane's air: (Jane Farrow).
October 1, 2001... She has the face of an exhausted child. Rag-doll round, clear of brow (as they might have said in a Victorian novel), somehow guileless and impish at the same time, Jane Farrow's face betrays few signs of having just tiptoed into its...

Member of the party: (celebrities at art exhibition).
October 1, 2001... While invitations to the SOF artist collective soiree in mid-August promised "an emotional journey of healing through paint," the event proved a lot more revealing. The guest of honour was Rockmond Dunbar, the heartthrob who plays Kenny on the...

Table manners: (Fully Committed to open in Toronto).
October 1, 2001... Later this month, the Canadian production of Fully Committed will open at the New Yorker Theatre (recent home of such under-the-fig-leaf productions as the The Vagina Monologues and Puppetry of the Penis). The off-Broadway comic hit is about a...

(Celebrities who attended Janet Jackson's concert).
October 1, 2001... When pop vixen Janet Jackson brought her "All for You" tour to the Air Canada Centre in August, celebrities clamoured to land last-minute VIP tickets. Newly re-signed Raptor Vince Carter made the cut. So did bombastic R&B man Shaggy, domestic...

Animal magnetism: (new digital television channels).
October 1, 2001... CTV has a reputation for its swish launch parties. Star-struck journos are still swooning over the lavish bash held in late spring, where they shared canapes with actors from The West Wing, The Sopranos and Ally McBeal. But launching seven new...

Home is where the art is: (Mick Jagger visits Toronto).
October 1, 2001... Every year, the film festival leaves in its wake an entire class of exhausted celebrity handlers: chauffeurs who haven't slept in days, bellhops with sore backs, pedicurists with hands numb from fatigue. We in Toronto have become experts on...

Fusion confusion: (Celebrity fashions).
October 1, 2001... Twinkling greeters, flouncing models, stylists, television actors and fashion execs crowded the launch of the grammatically challenged "hAute cuisine et couture" on King East to sample restaurateur Vishal Bhalla's pricey fare. Asymmetrical tops...

Faceoff: (Julian Fantino vs. Emperor Julian).
October 1, 2001... Julian vs. Julian One is the all-powerful leader of a vast horde, responsible for many territories. The other was the emperor of Rome. Given that our capo di tutti capi cop has been lauded and denounced in positively Caesarean terms, we...

Inside (Webcom - the largest book manufacturer in Toronto).
October 1, 2001... First impressions Tucked away on a wide, barren street in Scarborough, behind a border of tidy greenery, Webcom's printing presses hum and whir all summer long to prepare for the fall rush. The largest book manufacturer in the city occupies...

This issue: (writer Marcie McDonald).
October 1, 2001... IN THE 1960S, And then there was Nathan Cohen, Honderich's chosen theatre critic. Cohen was nationally famous as the host of a popular CBC Radio program called Fighting Words and himself a piece of theatre (he wore a cape and carried a...

This month (in Toronto): theatre.
October 1, 2001... OPENINGS Elisa's Skin. An engaging woman sits in a cafe compulsively riffing on past love affairs. Periodically, she asks you to inspect her elbows. Yes, everything is as per usual in playwright Carole Frechette's latest excavation of...

This month (in Toronto): classical music.
October 1, 2001... ORCHESTRAL Sinfonia Toronto. Lauded pianist Andre La-Plante, winner of the first International Piano Competition in Sydney in 1977, joins the orchestra for Mozart's bright and brilliant Concerto No. 12 in A Major, k. 414. Also on the...

This month (in Toronto): dance.
October 1, 2001... Australian Dance Theatre may call ultraconservative Adelaide home, but the 35-year-old company has a tradition of radical eccentricity. In Birdbrain, artistic director Garry Stewart and dramaturge David Bonney have taken on the hoary classic...

This month (in Toronto): art.
October 1, 2001... [FREE] F2F: New Media Art from Finland takes interactive to a whole new level. At F2F (Internet slang for "face to face"), you can comfort a baby projected onto your cloth-covered lap (the calmer you are, the quicker the infant goes to sleep);...

This month (in Toronto): nightlife.
October 1, 2001... CONCERTS Bjork. The startling, eccentric Icelandic singer performs with both orchestra and choir, a grand backdrop to her trademark brand of ethereal, electrifying vocals. She released her first album of trad Icelandic folk standards at...

This month (in Toronto): jazz and standards.
October 1, 2001... CONCERTS Diana Krall. The B.C. native and consummate sultry chanteuse--simultaneously capable of restraint and drama--sings romantic ballads with a breadth of inference ranging from the confident to the wistful, from loss to playful...

This month (in Toronto): kids' events.
October 1, 2001... Ghosts of the Garrison spooks with a visit from the restless spirits of Fort York. The fortress may have been designed to keep out unwanted visitors, but a tour of Toronto's oldest buildings by flickering lantern may reveal that the walls are...

This month (in Toronto): diversions.
October 1, 2001... Arab Heritage Festival. The Canadian Arab Federation takes its culture out of the headlines and into the everyday with a festival celebrating the arts and traditions of 21 countries. A raucous hafleh, or party, on Saturday night really gets...

Half-million-dollar man: last year, Mike Garrett was worth $225,000 to the city. This year, we're paying twice that much to get rid of him ...
October 1, 2001... MACHIAVELLI, LONG AGO, OFFERED this bit of strategic advice for up-and-coming despots: now and again, it's a good idea to leave the head of one of your enemies in the town square as a way of instilling fear and respect among the courtiers and...

Post traumatic stress: how I learned to stop worrying about Conrad Black's evil plan to destroy Canada's universal health care system and love my job at the National Post.
October 1, 2001... THIS IS HOW MY DAYS BEGAN. I'd drive south to drop off my daughter at her public school. I'd park the car illegally, half on the sidewalk, walk my daughter to her Grade 2 classroom and suck up to her teacher for a few minutes. The teacher is...

Occupation hazard: Biffi's. Pronto ... the glorious rise and tragic fall of Raffaello Ferrari.
October 1, 2001... A YOUNG MAN STRIDES THROUGH THE ARRIVALS GATE at Toronto International Airport. Wonder animates his face. His smile is easy, broad. He looks as spirited as his name: Raffaello Ferrari. Tall and attractive, he has longish hair, somewhat curly,...

Preacher's pets.
October 1, 2001... The middle-aged blonde is the first to arrive at the west-side entrance of St. James cathedral, and she's holding a small wooden box with care, as though it were a jewel-studded Faberge egg. It's noon on a radiant October day, and within an...

Office tower: the cast of characters that inhabit First Canadian Place - 10,000 staff and tenants ... within the walls of a vertical village.
October 1, 2001... It's 10 to nine on a Tuesday morning, and the press of human beings squeezing through the underground doors from the Toronto Dominion Centre into First Canadian Place is unrelenting. They seem to move as one giant entity, leaning forward,...

Parkdale plaza.
October 1, 2001... The oldest hotel in the city is a ramshackle brick and terra cotta pile at Dufferin and Queen. There are some 60 rooms at the Gladstone, rented by pensioners and transients for $140 plus tax per week. On the ground floor, you'll find Parkdale...

Our man in the White House: David Frum was always an overachiever. Degrees from Yale and Harvard, A job at The Wall Street Journal ... now he's putting words in the mouth of the most powerful man on earth.
October 1, 2001... SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE last year's presidential election, William F. Buckley's National Review asked prominent American conservatives from Peggy Noonan to Rush Limbaugh to provide campaign advice to George W. Bush. Of all the offerings, David...

Nice creams and a pedal pusher.
October 1, 2001... Tick talk If your mid-life crisis has you out training for the Ironman five nights a week, you'll want no lesser watch than the Polar S 410. The savvy sporting device tracks your heart rate, then sends the data to your PC via a wireless...

Dairy tale: wherein three Yugoslavian emigres buy a onetime Victorian milk factory on the edge of little Italy, add a sweeping galleria and a crystal boardroom, and call it home.
October 1, 2001... OLGA MIHAILOVICH IS SITTING IN HER RADIANT boardroom quoting Rodin. Her long legs crossed under a glass table, she invokes the French sculptor to explain how she and her partners converted a turn-of-the-20th-century dairy into a...

Savile bro: Andrew Jennings.
October 1, 2001... You would grow old before catching Andrew Jennings slouching about in crinkled khakis and man sandals. The dapper Brit, president and managing director of Holt Renfrew since 1999, is dead serious about lean, meticulous elegance, unlikely to don...

Extreme sushi: finally, an antidote to mass-produced Japanese. The master chooses the menu ... all he wants is your surrender.
October 1, 2001... SHE SAT ON THE END OF THE BED IN THE dimly lit motel room and let down her long red hair, soft on her shoulders, the way I like it. The ribbon slipped from her fingers, sliding like heavy liquid onto her lap. A B. B. King song murmured from the...

Restaurants (in Toronto).
October 1, 2001... 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...

Musical chairs: Master t signs off.
October 1, 2001... T stood out, and not only because of his dreadlocks, his clanking jewellery and his immense frame. For 11 years, he was the smartest, most competent and all in all most together VJ on the MuchMusic roster. His encounter with the Spice Girls...