Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i Toronto Life

Star Power There was a lot of love for “The New Hollywood North,” our cover story on the diverse and talented screen artists emerging from Toronto these days. “Easy to be a fan of these great actors and shows! Aren’t we lucky to have such stunning talent on our screens?” —patriciamills895, Instagram “I’m really digging this Canadian Marvel takeover. Liu, Vellani, Maslany, all really great.” —purplepopsicles, Instagram Many readers singled out their favourites, and Iman Vellani ranked high on their lists. “I love you, Iman Vellani, in every universe.” —@Likkash1, Twitter “So proud to see brown representation in the superhero world.” —rejoicewellnessmedspa, Instagram Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Mae Martin and Bilal Baig were up there too. “Maitreyi is such a gift to watch! Best show I’ve seen in ages!” —megnatics, Instagram “It’s…

“The days of browsing bookshelves are behind us”—Peter Ruis, CEO of Indigo, p. 32 When it comes to ballet, London and Paris usually get first dibs on world premieres. But, this month, MaddAddam debuts at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts before making its way to London. It’s the third co-production between the National Ballet of Canada and the UK’s Royal Ballet and the first to debut here. The show is based on Margaret Atwood’s trilogy of dystopian novels, and she serves as creative consultant. The ballet is a showcase of Toronto: choreographer Wayne McGregor says he was inspired by the city’s iconography and proximity to nature, and he’ll even be hanging an upside-down model of the skyline above the dancers—an apt staging for a surging city.…

Every day, I visit a café near my office to get a takeout lunch, usually a bottle of water and a veggie sandwich from the refrigerated display. When prompted by the debit machine, I always skip the tip because, well, I’ve done all the work. Here’s the thing: whenever I pay, I notice the staff behind the counter giving me dirty looks, clearly because of my no-tip policy. Should I really be tipping even where there’s no service to speak of? —Gratuitous Silence, Midtown UD: A tip should be awarded only for good service, so you’re technically off the hook, but try to see it from the staff’s perspective. They’re probably making minimum wage, scrambling to earn a post-pandemic income. In a sense, they are providing a service by opening up…

Josh Cartu and his two brotherscollected race cars, hung out withcelebrities and bounced betweenluxury villas in his private jet. But behind their playboy façadeswas a dark secret: they hadthousands of jilted investors and anarmy of investigators on their tail ON A QUIET october morning in 2015, Elaine Hoffman, a 71-year-old grandmother, sat in her suburban Indiana home and turned on her computer. She read through a few messages from friends and family, deleted some spam, wrote a couple of emails and was about to walk away from her desk when a banner ad caught her attention. Its claim seemed unbelievable: that she could make money with the click of a mouse. Hoffman knew her way around investments. She had a math degree and had worked as a financial planner before…

At 83, William Baker has had his share of injuries and illnesses, but nothing compares to what happened to him on January 4, 2022. At some point that day, Baker, a Stouffville resident, began feeling enormous pressure in his abdomen – so much so that he ran to the bathroom, where a startling amount of blood started pouring out of his body. He eventually managed to get into his car with his wife, who drove him directly to the emergency department at Oak Valley Health’s Markham Stouffville Hospital (MSH). As he waited to be triaged, he experienced a second bleed so severe that he nearly passed out from blood loss. Baker underwent numerous tests until a colonoscopy showed the bleeding had stopped. Seemingly stable, he was discharged home, but a…

WATER WORKS Toronto’s long-suffering lakefront is being redefined by world-class talent. Here are three architects behind the changes CLAUDE CORMIER Founding principal claude cormier et associés CURRENT WATERFRONT PROJECTS: LOVE PARK, LESLIE LOOKOUT PARK Dream job as a kid: “Genetics and plant breeding. I wanted to invent a flower.” Celebrity doppelgänger: “When I was younger, people said I looked like Bryan Adams.” If you could have one superpower: “Unlimited energy.” Guilty pleasure: “Poutine.” Project you’re most proud of: “The Ring in Montreal. It looks simple, but it’s structurally and thematically complex.” Favourite Toronto building: “Massey College at U of T.” Architects you admire: “Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron because of their inventiveness and clarity of design.” Your job requires… “Drive, persistence, confidence and vision.” Biggest success: “Learning to identify…

Fifteen novels into a nearly six-decade career, John Irving is widely considered one of the great American novelists—a flag-waving label he could do without. A New Englander by birth and Torontonian by choice, Irving has written stories that criss-cross the globe, from an orphanage in Maine (The Cider House Rules) to a circus in Mumbai (A Son of the Circus) to a garbage dump in Oaxaca (Avenue of Mysteries). His latest, The Last Chairlift, shifts from Colorado to New England to Toronto and around again as it spans generations of the extended Brewster family, a ski-country clan with an avalanche of issues. The book covers familiar Irving territory: absent parents, murder, war, and sexual and gender identity all make an appearance. But, first and foremost, it’s about the people we…

THE SORT-OF SECRET: Frank Ranalli’s, an Italian beef sandwich spot inside a west-end hot dog shop YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF IT IF: You’ve visited Woofdawg Hotdog, where chef-owner Stephen Payne now makes and sells the Italian sammies (or if you got a hankering after watching The Bear) BUT YOU PROBABLY HAVEN’T TRIED IT BECAUSE: Payne is well-known for his hot dogs, but word is still getting out about his new sandwich side hustleM Much like his sandwiches, Stephen Payne is on a roll. Last year, he opened Woofdawg Hotdog on Dundas West, serving up fully loaded franks. Now, he’s selling seriously sloppy (in the best way) Italian beef sandwiches from inside the same spot. “They’re messy and super flavourful,” he says. “Every bite is a juicy one.” Payne draws…

“We’re going out more now that we can see people again” LAUREN CAIN, 24, AND KEVIN MAIER, 24 WHAT THEY DO She’s a graphic designer at a marketing agency; he’s a network support analyst for an internet solutions provider WHAT THEY MAKE $120,000 combined WHERE THEY LIVE A one-bedroom condo in Bathurst Quay—purchased by Lauren’s parents in 2018 as an income property—with their cats, Callie and Milo REGULAR EXPENSES RENT $1,600 a month. GROCERIES $800 a month. Lauren admits that they prefer to shop at Loblaws despite the high markup. CELL $72 a month each with Freedom Mobile.  INTERNET $133 a month with Rogers. PET SUPPLIES $200 a month for Callie and Milo’s food, litter, and cat grass, which the kitties like to munch on. CAR-RELATED EXPENSES $370 a month…

TORONTO’S URBAN EXODUS BEGAN MERE MONTHS INTO THE PANDEMIC. All told, more than 64,000 people left the city for other parts of the province between mid-2020 and mid-2021, according to the most recent data from Statistics Canada. That’s up about 14 per cent from the previous year. Another 6,600 Torontonians left Ontario entirely—helping to create the largest population outflow from the province since the early 1980s. And, with average house prices north of a million and climbing, who could blame them? Those who left went to the suburbs and the countryside, drawn by generous square footage, sprawling yards, sweeping vistas and much, much lower prices. The low Covid-19 case counts didn’t hurt, either. But things have changed. Toronto’s red-hot housing market has chilled—and experts predict that a historic correction is…

I WAS BORN WITH A RARE DISEASE called hollow visceral myopathy, or HVM, which prevented my digestive tract from functioning properly. I couldn’t eat and could barely swallow. Doctors put me on a special feeding regimen through an IV drip called total parenteral nutrition, or TPN. Without it, I wouldn’t have survived. The only other option was a massive transplant surgery—a replacement of my liver, stomach, pancreas, and small and large bowel. But this was 1986, and most transplant patients didn’t make it. I was just over a year old when my condition was diagnosed, and surgery was deemed an unnecessary risk. As a child, I’d sit with my family or my friends at mealtimes, but I wouldn’t eat. Instead, from 6 p.m. until 8 a.m. the next morning, I…