Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Toronto Life

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“I married young—that saved me from being an ass”—Bob Hallett, p.28 Ontario’s population will hit roughly 22 million by 2050, with half of those people living in the GTA. The province requires massive amounts of clean energy to meet demand, and Premier Doug Ford has placed his faith in nuclear power. Darlington Nuclear is ground zero for the coming revolution. Prep work has begun on the construction of four small modular reactors, which should power 1.2 million homes by the mid-2030s. The project has plenty of detractors, who point out that wind and solar are far cheaper to build than nuclear and produce no toxic waste. Of course, Ford cancelled almost 800 renewable-energy projects upon being elected in 2018, proclaiming that he was saving taxpayers $790 million in the process.…

$406 Price of the Armand de Brignac Ace of Spades Brut Gold Champagne bottle that Jay-Z gifted a fan named Alisha Digba, who was tearing up the dance floor at Beyoncé’s Rogers Centre show. $6,800 Amount Tesla attempted to charge two Orillia residents who were victims of a hit-and-run during a test drive. After reporters reached out for comment, the car manufacturer agreed to forgive the couple and close the case. $644,000 Cost per minute that Toronto will pay to co-host the 2026 World Cup at BMO Field. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has asked Mayor Olivia Chow to cancel the city’s $100-million-plus investment in the tournament. $1,600,000 Damages sought by landlord Allison Rasquinha in a lawsuit against Airbnb, the city and two tenants after her condo on Adelaide West was…

IN LATE 2018, JOHN DI NINO became president of his condo board at Bellaria Residences, in Vaughan. At 52 years old, he was inching toward retirement from his leadership job at the Amalgamated Transit Union, and he wanted to get more involved. He and his wife, Doreen, had been living in the penthouse suite at Bellaria’s Tower II for a year, and they loved it. It was part of a leafy gated development at Jane and Rutherford that contained roughly 880 units spread over four lavishly decorated towers. Bellaria was loaded with amenities: a wine cellar, a movie theatre, four gyms, Pilates and yoga studios, a training pool, and two kilometres of forested trails. Most of all, John and Doreen enjoyed the sense of community. Their new neighbours were so…

AT 18 YEARS OLD, I was like X-Men’s Cyclops (without the goggles), and Lewis Baumander was Professor Xavier. He honed my skills and powers and made them intentional. It’s not an overstatement to say that he is the foundation of my career. I first met Lewis shortly after I graduated from Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts, in Scarborough. I was moving through the casting process for a TV series, and a cast member mentioned that Lewis could really help me with my audition. I was pretty arrogant at the time, with a chip on my shoulder, stepping into LB Acting Studio and Central Casting in downtown Toronto thinking this mysterious figure doesn’t know what he’s doing. I had all these ideas about how I wanted to play the audition…

As a teen in Toronto, I worked as a model and did catalogue work as well as commercials. Pretty soon, I was getting calls for small roles in Canadian TV shows. But, once on set in a speaking part, I had no idea what I was doing. I remember booking a pilot for a TV show—I was playing a ghost. Most of my scenes were shot underwater, in a big tank, so I had just a few lines. All of a sudden, the director decided that he wanted me to do a monologue on my deathbed. The camera was right up against my face, and I was so nervous that I felt like I was going to vomit. I gave a terrible performance. Afterward, I thought, If I’m going ahead…

When I was 17, I was busy auditioning for feature films, but nothing was hitting. I was starting to wonder whether acting was something I should be doing. That’s when I heard about a film cowritten by Jennifer Holness and directed by her producing partner and husband, Sudz Sutherland. Word was that Drake had been attached to the role I wanted: a British teen who suddenly finds himself back home in Jamaica. According to my managers and agents, young actors in England were auditioning for the part. There was this aura around the project, like, It’s going to be a big deal for whoever gets this. The casting took place in a very small space, which didn’t help my nerves. But Jen made sure to give me the time to…

I’ve known I wanted to be an actor since I was five years old. Growing up in Scarborough, I performed in all the plays and skits at school, eventually signing up for Grade 10 drama in 1978. Within a week, my lovely teacher, Lois Kivesto, said to me, “You shouldn’t be here. You should be in Mort’s class.” Mort Paul, the Grade 11 acting teacher, was a legend at Sir John A. MacDonald—imagine a really physically fit Groucho Marx. He took me seriously from the beginning, despite the fact that I was younger than my classmates. He took everything seriously, but his classes were always fun. Rather than indoctrinating us into some stiff definition of theatre, he encouraged imagination and risk. He was the first person to make me trust…

Every month, TL Insiders enjoy terrific experiences and events across the city. More than 1,000 Torontonians have already signed up, and you can too! Members get front-of-the-line access to cultural events and private dining experiences plus exclusive invitations to Toronto Life’s salon-like discussion series. Membership is only $75 a year—so sign up today and rediscover the city as a member. Don’t miss out. Sign up at: members.torontolife.com Wine and dine: On two separate nights, TL Insiders enjoyed the Wines of Sicilia DOC perfectly paired with multi-course Italian fare at La Palma on Dundas West and Zitto Zitto Taverne on College Street. Guests sipped and discovered the exquisite Wines of Sicilia DOC, where the island’s unique climate and terroir have given rise to several distinctive wine styles. Home-style Indian cooking demo…

WHO: Shirley Meisels, designer WHERE: near Eglinton and Allen Road SHIRLEY MEISELS likes being in the thick of things, so she plunked her home office just off the entrance to the Forest Hill home she shares with her husband, Mitch Altman; their three grown kids; and Penny, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. From her desk, Shirley has a view of her leafy street through large windows that fill the interior with light. She runs the design firm Mhouse Inc. while Mitch takes care of back-of-house details, like accounting and updating the website. Pre-Covid, the couple shared the space, and Shirley was out of the office so much that they didn’t get in each other’s way. But, during the pandemic, they were on top of each other and outgrew the space—so…

THE BUYER: Tammy Teeter, 48, an emergency room nurse, and her two kids, Brandon and Rhyan THE STORY: In September of 2022, after separating from her husband of 24 years, Tammy Teeter was living with her two adult kids in a two-bedroom apartment in Etobicoke. It was a temporary arrangement: the kids needed their own rooms, and she planned to get back into the market once she and her ex sold the south Georgetown home that they had shared. She wanted three bedrooms and two bathrooms, all within a 30-minute drive of her hospital. When the family home sold for $1.35 million, Tammy set a budget of $830,000 and started her search. OPTION 1 GLEN ERIN DRIVE near Britannia and Winston Churchill Listed at $750,000 Sold for $880,000 In March,…

JIANG XIAO BAI S50 This mild baijiu is balanced and delicately sweet. Hong Shing uses a comparable bottle from the same distillery as a neutral canvas, infusing it with things like coffee beans and shiitake mushrooms. lcbo.com, $4.95 LUZHOU LAOJIAO ERQU This strong-aroma baijiu from one of China’s oldest and largest distilleries presents apricot and grape notes followed by a smooth, almond-tinged finish. Use it to add fruity flavour to cocktails. lcbo.com, $22.95 KINMEN KAOLIANG LIQUOR PLATINUM DRAGON Don’t be fooled by its eye-popping 58 per cent ABV: this light-aroma baijiu from Taiwan is quite mellow. Its layered earthy, floral and nutty notes are ideal for spirit-forward sips. lcbo.com, $49.95…

RAMA RAU writer, director and producer CLEOPATRA BY STACY SCHIFF “Cleopatra is a brilliantly written and researched biography of one of the most famous and powerful women of all time. It offers a different perspective on the queen of Egypt than the one we’re used to seeing in Hollywood. I’d recommend it to all non-fiction buffs.” ALAN DILWORTH artistic director, Necessary Angel Theatre Company SEVEN VEILS (TIFF) “I always try to see Atom Egoyan’s work, whether it’s on a stage or a screen. Seven Veils is a meta opera-cum-film inspired by Egoyan’s passion for Strauss’s opera Salome, which Egoyan first directed for the Canadian Opera Company in 1996. The film follows a fictional opera director as she remounts the famous work.” CHANTAL LIM actor, Ancient Dying Chinese Dialect “WELLLL” BY…

What is a son of Newfoundland doing buying a theatre in Toronto? This all started in 2018, when Walter Schroeder—a Canadian philanthropist who loves supporting Newfoundland artists—and I formed our theatre company, Terra Bruce. My band Great Big Sea hadn’t been active for a few years, so my plan was to run the company in St. John’s since there’s so much talent there. But we realized early on that, to do the kinds of shows we wanted to do, we needed a presence in Toronto. So we bought the Regent in early 2022. Toronto has a lot of beautiful old theatres. Why the Regent? That was just fortuity. In recent years, the Regent had become a down-at-the-heels venue. Covid crushed any shot at business, so the owners were ready to…

Becoming a screen legend takes more than wishful thinking: aspiring stars need talent, luck, determination—and a dream team of cheerleaders behind the scenes. In these pages, you’ll find salutes to the motivators: the drama teachers, directors, managers, agents, bosses and besties who were all in from the beginning. They shot audition tapes, paid for pizza, talked to parents, pushed and shoved, convinced and cajoled—they were the early believers who helped catapult some of the city’s best actors into the spotlight. Now, those same actors are returning the favour.…

I moved from Montreal to Toronto on my own when I was 15. I was headstrong and very determined to become an actor, so my parents didn’t have much of a say. I signed with an agency that was based out of a house and ended up living in the basement because I was underage and couldn’t get an apartment. When the owner left for LA, she hired Dani, who inherited an agency and a squatter. Dani says that, the first time we met, I was standoffish because I was testing her; I have no recollection of that, but it does sound like me. After that, we became instantly close. Within a few years, I moved out of the basement—and eventually to LA. I also left Dani because I thought…

In 1984, Bruce, Dave, Kevin and I had started the Kids in the Hall, but we were flailing around, trying to find our place. There was a Monday comedy night at the Rivoli, which was owned by Andre and David, and we were given the spot. Back then, the Rivoli was mostly a music venue; bar owners tend to like music because that’s what gets people dancing and sweating and buying beer. For a year, we really struggled to find an audience, but David and Andre let us keep trying, and they came to all of our shows. They validated the art of what we were doing. Still, things were tough, and we were on the verge of breaking up, so we decided to do a “best of” show. (Before…

My best friend Shaharah played a big role in catapulting me into show business. We were in our last year of high school in Mississauga and there was an open casting call on Twitter for the lead in a new show created by Mindy Kaling. Tens of thousands of people responded, but I would have never found the casting call myself because I wasn’t on Twitter. I mainly used Instagram, to share pics, jokes and the latest memes. But Shaharah has a writer’s brain, so of course they were on Twitter. They saw the posting and sent it to me. Here’s the thing: even if I had somehow found the casting call without Shaharah, I don’t know that I would have auditioned by myself. We didn’t really audition thinking we…

I was in my early 20s when I met Aiksimar. He was producing events at clubs around Toronto and I was finishing up university. I was trying to figure out how to turn my hobby—making YouTube videos—into a career. My comedy sketches had hundreds of thousands of views, but I didn’t know how to get to the next level. My inbox had started to fill up; it was so full that I was missing opportunities for paid work. That’s when I knew that I needed help. I think Aiksimar was surprised when I asked him to meet me for lunch, but he came, and within a couple of hours he was a manager and I was his first client. Neither of us knew what it meant to manage a YouTuber…

WHO: James Merkur, private equity tech investor, and Christine Viinberg, interior planner and stylist WHERE: near Eglinton and Spadina CHRISTINE VIINBERG has completed many renovation projects on her 1930s Tudor home since moving in 16 years ago. She turned the backyard into a European-inspired urban oasis, created a top-floor teen hangout and set up a proper home office for her husband. Formerly drab and disorganized, the room lacked an identity. “Everyone’s stuff was all over the place,” says Christine. “James needed a space to decompress.” Previously, in his job as an investment banker, James worked out of an office on Bay Street during the week and at home on evenings and weekends. To corral the chaos, Christine moved everyone else’s stuff out and created a dedicated office for James. She…

WHO: Kate Hollett, multimedia artist WHERE: near Dundas and Carlaw IN 2010, Kate Hollett moved from Toronto to Berlin, where she lived and worked for a decade. While overseas, she rented out the live-work Leslieville loft she’d owned for over 20 years. She also had the place renovated, redoing the floors, kitchen, bathroom and staircase as well as adding a third floor plus a rooftop deck. “I wanted it to be clean and simple and white, like my flat in Berlin,” Kate says. (The walls were formerly painted sage green, harvest yellow and hunting-coat red.) “My rooftop in Germany was so bright—I wanted to replicate it.” Kate returned to Toronto in January of 2020, and when the pandemic hit, she already had a fantastic shelter-and-work-in-place set-up ready. Gallery-white walls are…

1. For cocktails with a view EVANGELINE 51 Camden St., evangelinetoronto.com THE ACE HOTEL’S buzzy and boisterous rooftop bar is nothing like the movie it’s named after (Canada’s earliest recorded feature film). Evangeline is a larger-than-life living room straight out of the ’70s, bookended by behemoth fireplaces and anchored with a patchwork of vibrant rugs. As the sun sets, golden light spills into the west-facing room—a cue for guests to snap the perfect selfie while sipping on elegant cocktails, like a martini augmented with yellow chartreuse and sage. Although drinks are the focus here, the food (overseen by Alo’s Michelin-starred chef Patrick Kriss) is excellent. The portions are petite—like a sweet little scallop crudo served on the half-shell—but deceptive, with big-for-their-size flavours. 2. For the after-dinner DJ dance parties MISS…

Inside the AI Crisis on Campus Until recently, AI was known as that useful, benign thingy that optimizes Google searches and finishes text messages. Then, late last year, the San Francisco company OpenAI launched a public version of ChatGPT, and everything changed. It was faster and smarter than anything we’d seen. These days, with a few keystrokes, we can create a believable anything. Deep-fake videos. Audio recordings. A photo of that time Albert Einstein played harmonica at Glastonbury. (Wait, did that happen? Exactly.) The implications were potentially catastrophic. In a world where anything can be faked, how does anyone know what’s real? This question landed thunderously in the academic world, where the subject of cheating became urgent. With the oceanic depths of the internet at its disposal, ChatGPT could crank…

At the high school Abhinash attended in India, calculators were forbidden. For tests, including the statewide university entrance exams, students wrote out their equations in longhand. They were being evaluated not only for their understanding of math but also for their ability to trudge through the steps of each equation, work that no scientist or engineer in the 21st century would ever need to perform. In 2019, Abhinash moved to Toronto to pursue a degree in earth and environmental sciences. (Abhinash is a pseudonym. Like other students interviewed for this story, he asked me to withhold his real name because he has done things his professors may consider cheating.) In Toronto, he enrolled in a linear-algebra class, where, to his surprise, calculators were not merely permitted but required. The first…

After I graduated from Burnhamthorpe Collegiate, in Etobicoke, I told my parents that I wanted to be an actor. They were afraid for me. My dad wanted me to get a job at Canadian Pacific Railway, where he worked. Then, in 1973, Bernie Sahlins brought Second City from Chicago to Toronto and opened up a little theatre on Adelaide Street East. My sister, Mary-Margaret, and I were waitresses there. I got to watch the show every night. After about a year, Bernie decided to close the theatre. Andrew Alexander, a theatre producer who had seen Second City in Chicago, knew that improv theatre was viable. So he made a deal with Bernie to give Toronto another shot. Andrew reopened Second City, this time on Lombard Street. John Candy hired me…

I MET DALMAR on Degrassi: The Next Generation in 2007, when we were both 17. He was cast in the role of Danny Van Zandt, and I played Sav Bhandari. We were on set together a lot, and he was just so funny, so rambunctious, so outrageous. He had me in stitches all the time; my face and stomach would hurt from laughing. Until then, I’d never felt like I was particularly funny, but he’d think of something and I’d tag in and we’d just keep riffing. Being around him was addictive. The team at Degrassi picked up on our chemistry and how close we were becoming, so they wrote us as best friends on the show. When we graduated from Degrassi in 2011, we moved into a one-bedroom-plusden in…

MARTHA HAD JUST opened the Martha Hicks School of Ballet when I began attending at age five. She was operating out of church basements in the area where I grew up, near Avenue and Lawrence. I was a naughty kid and so were my friends—we were naughty, rowdy hams. Martha was always very kind to us, but she had that air, the one that made it clear you weren’t going to fuck with her. She had completed the teacher training program at the National Ballet School, a very pedigreed place. The teachers she went on to hire—who often worked as dancers for the Raptors or in music videos—were tough but also encouraging. It’s through them that I discovered a love for performance. The dance world, especially ballet, is a very…

WHEN I WAS younger and having a tough time—a role I didn’t get or a heartbreak—my mum would say, “Don’t let the fuckers get you down.” She spent part of her childhood in an internment camp in China during the Second World War, so she has seen her share of real tragedy. That’s where she fell in love with acting and put on some of her first performances. Her imagination was a refuge. When I started acting, she wasn’t one of those overly pushy stage moms; the word I would choose is advocate. This was the 1980s-we didn’t have the child labour laws that exist today. I often worked very long days, and people had tempers and didn’t care what was appropriate for children. She was my shield: either because…

AS A DRAMA TEACHER AT Northern CI, Debbie created a little pocket where students could speak honestly-she was a port in a storm. In my senior year, she picked me to co-direct Cyrano de Bergerac, which was huge. Taking on that responsibility gave my life a shape at a time when it was totally shapeless. Debbie had softness, tenderness, vulnerability and honesty—and she knew how to support those traits in others. I remember her pulling me aside as she was helping me prep for university auditions. I thought, Oh, she’s gonna tell me how proud she is, but it was the opposite. She was the one person who said, “You need to work harder than you’re working or you’re not gonna get there.” I was scared of running the scenes,…

WHO: Daniel Fagen, president of Impact Marketing, and Natalie Fagen, director at a not-for-profit WHERE: near Wilson Heights and Wilson Avenue WHEN THE WORLD shut down in 2020, Natalie and Daniel Fagen and their two sons were living in a condo downtown while they waited for their new house to be built. Between supervising Zoom schooling and renovating a house, they were also working demanding jobs—Daniel in marketing and Natalie at a not-for-profit. The couple moved into their new house in March of 2022, but they were still leading hectic lives. “We were running out of the house in the morning to get to work,” Natalie says. “We didn’t feel connected.” Something had to give. Daniel quit his job and started his own company, Impact Marketing, which sells promotional materials.…

JOE MIMRAN HAS A KNACK for building apparel giants (Club Monaco, Joe Fresh) from scratch. His latest project: transforming stodgy hat maker Tilley, known for its classic brimmed cap beloved by birdwatchers and anglers, into a fresh, modern brand that appeals to both Gen Z influencers and their hiking-obsessed parents. Since Mimran and his business partner, Frank Rocchetti, took over leadership of the company three years ago, Tilley has opened a trendy storefront on Ossington and launched vibrant new trekking, travel and lifestyle lines. Mimran also runs Gry Mttr, a stylish office furniture and accessories line, and has an organic baby-and-toddler brand called Rise Little Earthling. “I’m staying very busy and creative,” he says. We asked the perennial tastemaker to tell us about the home decor items he’s coveting right…

BAIJIU IS THE MOST CONSUMED liquor on the planet—though its popularity is pretty much localized to China and Taiwan, where the clear sorghum-based spirit is enjoyed neat and at room temperature. But bartenders here in Toronto are beginning to recognize its possibilities. “In China, a bottle of baijiu is always on the dinner table, but you rarely see it in Canada,” says Cleman Fung, general manager of Hong Shing Restaurant, which recently launched the city’s first baijiu-focused cocktail program. Westerners familiar with baijiu may associate it with a throat-burning sensation and a serious hangover. Indeed, it ranges from 40 to 60 per cent ABV, but its taste profile is remarkably nuanced. Baijiu can be categorized into four types, or “aromas”: rice, light, strong and sauce. And its flavours range from…