blogTO | Posts by crystal

Toronto Through the Eyes of Denzil Minnan-Wong

Crystal Luxmore — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:51:24 EDT

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong's pinstripe suit clashes with the fairyland on the wallpaper behind him, and the couch he's sitting on is flowered in the same pattern as a bedspread my mother bought in the '80s.

Working a suburban ward lined with strip malls, there are just a few choice places to be a "man of the people," and the Valley Fields Family Restaurant is one of them. We met last week, and as the Councillor sipped ice tea and waited for his large plate of fries, he smiled and told me that he just got tickets to the TIFF premiere of The Men Who Stare at Goats and would thus need to duck out in about half an hour.

The right-wing Councillor for Don Valley East was first elected in 1994. He moved into the neighbourhood when he was 8-years-old, after his parents bought a three-bedroom bungalow, their first house. We chat and easily finish the interview in 20 minutes, and then his girlfriend pops in wearing a black sequined outfit before they step into a silver convertible and head for the red carpet.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Jan Wong

Crystal Luxmore — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:13:49 EDT

Jan Wong is off the meds -- but she's still in therapy for depression. It hit a few years ago, she tells me as we stroll to a quiet location to talk, and when it did it took her by complete surprise. "So what do I do? I write about it."

Trying to write a memoir about depression when you're depressed is, well, downright depressing, but for Wong, who just submitted her manuscript to the publisher, putting fingers to a keyboard is the only thing to do.

Wong's books revolve around her own experiences -- in Beijing Confidential, she writes about the guilt she felt later in life, remembering how as a diehard Maoist she turned in a fellow university student who requested help to flee to America in the middle of the Cultural Revolution -- and in Red China Blues, how her idealism turned to hardened realism as she chronicled corruption and tragedies like the Tiananmen Square massacre as the Globe & Mail's Beijing correspondent from 1988 to 1994.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Steve Munro

Crystal Luxmore — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:30:28 EDT

Steve Munro is a transit geek with an edge. His Santa Claus beard and twinkling eyes signal natural warmth, but the click of his badass leather motorcycle boots as we walked through his neighbourhood around Broadview and Danforth reminded me that this guy does more than just salivate over streetcars.

An intricate shaded tattoo of a grapevine starts on his right foot winding all the way up the side of his body and down his arm. On his back a tree grows up his spine and across his shoulders. He got the tattoos in his fifties because he loved the artist, Daemon Rowanchilde, and chose them partly because they're symbols of inherent strength without the nasty aggression.

A proud trainspotter, Munro's been riding the rocket for kicks since he was a kid. He parlayed that love into a life of transit activism, crafting a reputation at City Hall for his reasoned ideas and ability to recall any streetcar on the line. It also makes him Yoda to up-and-coming urban planners and transit fans in the city, penning columns for Spacing Magazine and getting phone calls from reporters and city planners hours after publishing his latest blog post.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Leah Miller

Crystal Luxmore — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:39:29 EDT

I met Leah Miller at what her publicist said would be a "fun, promo event" for the new season of Miller's show, So You Think You Can Dance Canada. And if a "fun promo event" is a couple of girls handing out squished up SYTYCD beach balls, a few hip hop and break dancers occasionally busting a move in an eight by six foot taped-off rectangle, and the show's hosts milling around smiling and signing autographs - then, yeah, super fun.

After leaving for L.A. to pursue her star-studded dreams Miller returned to Toronto because she missed her family, landing a job at Much Music and not looking back. The newlywed married musician Dallas Green of Alexisonfire last year and together the couple probably gets more party invites in a month than most of us get all year. So when Miller punches out every night, where does she go? Home of course, to bake and watch TV.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Anna Willats

Crystal Luxmore — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:29:38 EDT

Anna Willats approaches life through her political filter: from the serious, like her 19-year stint working at Toronto's Rape Crisis Centre, to the social, like dancing in Caribana as a mischief-making Blue Devil, splashing revellers with blue paint.

Growing up in Milton, Willats's passion for social justice issues was ignited at 17-years of age. She was at a town hall meeting convened by the late, crusading anti-abortion, anti-queer Baptist preacher, Ken Campbell to block a visit by a gay man and a lesbian to her high school to "rap" about homosexuality. "I was not identifying as homosexual, and I thought I didn't know anybody who was queer, but I really reacted to the hate in this guy, I just couldn't understand that level of hatred," says Willats.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Ian Clarke

Crystal Luxmore — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:25:09 EDT

It's the off-season for Ian Clarke, the man in charge of the money for the Raptors and the Maple Leafs. Most summer days he trades in his suit for a short-sleeved shirt, gold chain hanging on an open neck. In September, his suit and tie will make a comeback as Clarke attends nearly every hockey and basketball game of the season, schmoozing clients in the corporate suites he implemented, hanging in the VIP lounge and checking that beer service (another of Clarke's ideas) is fast flowing before grabbing a late-night dinner or drinks with his wife and some friends. With a life like this, it's hard not to like Toronto.

The Montreal native moved here in 1984, along with his girlfriend (now wife), a new Chartered Accountant designation, and the energy to "work hard and play harder." In 1990 he joined Maple Leaf Gardens Limited and rose up the ranks, financing the 1998 deal to buy out the Raptors and the Air Canada Centre.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Mindbender

Crystal Luxmore — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:47:01 EDT

Toronto hip hop artist, Mindbender, told me to meet him in front of MuchMusic. As I arrived he gave a hug goodbye to a tall, gorgeous young woman. A minute or so later, another hottie waved at him from across the street. Five minutes after that, as we were crossing McCaul to chat under the OCAD stilts, he said what up to yet another beautiful woman.

When talking about his love for Toronto, he makes frequent mention of "the beautiful ladies" - and he has clearly tapped into a network of fierce females. But Mindbender, also known as Adhimu Stewart, has not a creepy bone in his body. His big smile, fro-hawk, and high pitched giggle after he brags about his work, are markers of a big heart and a wide open approach to life.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Adam Vaughan

Crystal Luxmore — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:09:17 EDT

Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, stares down at Adam Vaughan whenever the Councillor for Trinity-Spadina works in his sunny City Hall office. Like the never-say-die reformer, Vaughan seems uncomfortable in the trappings of political office, and reluctant to let go of his reporter's training - a neat row of black notebooks lines one side of his desk, the dates of use neatly scribbled in silver on the front.

There's only one reason why Vaughan chose politics - he's hopelessly, romantically and unapologetically in love with Toronto. I met up with the long-time Queen & Bathurst resident to get the dirt on his love affair.

Tell me what it was like growing up in Toronto?

I grew up in a really magical little neighborhood. At a time when a lot of middle-class families were leaving the downtown my parents chose a house in Wychwood Park. Back then it was largely university professors, not that different from the Annex.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of the Great Bloomers

Crystal Luxmore — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:16:17 EDT

When the Great Bloomers signed a record deal with Maple Music last year, singer/songwriter Lowell Sostomi was so hyped he failed a couple of classes in his last semester at Ryerson. The five-piece band's inventive, accomplished album, Speak of Trouble, released in April has the city's indie music media swooning.

Originally from Fort Erie Lowell and guitarist Nate Hindle are nostalgic for the small town life but Toronto is home. To see the city through their eyes we had a pint at their favourite Toronto Bar, the Victory Cafe, and then went to see their favourite city band, The Sadies, backing punk legend John Doe at their favourite city store Sonic Boom.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Shane Belcourt

Crystal Luxmore — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:02:41 EDT

Getting out of their father's shadow is something many young men wrestle with - and musician and filmmaker Shane Belcourt, son of Métis leader and activist Tony Belcourt is no different. But he's managed it better than most.

His award-winning 2008 film Tkaronto (the Mohawk word for Toronto) follows two characters as they struggle to maintain or recapture their Aboriginal identity in the concrete city. The heavily autobiographical tale prompted me to ask Belcourt about his relationship with the city.

Belcourt moved here from Ottawa at the age of 20 to study film at York University. When he isn't working on a suite of film and television projects including an animated documentary short, "Red Car, Blue Hood," (about growing up the son of a Métis rights leader), Belcourt is absorbed in the daily duties of family and fatherhood in his home near Pape and Danforth.

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Toronto Through The Eyes of Priscila Uppal

Crystal Luxmore — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:36:09 EDT

Poet and novelist Priscila Uppal's work wrestles with the big stuff of life - identity, fertility, mortality. With two novels and six books of poetry behind her, including this year's novel, To Whom It May Concern, The World Literature Review calls her "one of the most engaging young poets writing in English in Canada today."

The York University English and Humanities professor draws inspiration from the everyday people living, working and roaming Toronto's streets. Her poem "Divorce or Spanish Lessons?" draws inspiration from two advertisements beside one another on an island of the St. Clair West subway line. Uppal reads the poem in an audio recording for blogTO at the end of this post, but first, here's Toronto through her eyes.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Peter C. Newman

Crystal Luxmore — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:55:43 EDT

Even as a scrawny Upper Canada College student, Peter C. Newman was never far from the action. Arriving in Toronto as a Jewish refugee fleeing the Holocaust, Newman isn't shy about his love for the country and the city he's called home for most of his life.

But he says he'll always be an outsider. He's also a gifted storyteller who believes not just in singing, but bellowing, for his supper, characteristics that let him play confidant to the likes of Conrad Black and Brian Mulroney before spilling their confessions in naked, and bestselling, biographies.

The dedicated journalist has certainly shaped our city - as editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star, author of nearly two dozen books on Canadian politics, business and history and the man behind Maclean's shift to a weekly newsmagazine.

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Toronto Through the Eyes of Paul Nguyen

Crystal Luxmore — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:00:01 EDT

Politicians both inspire and cheese off Paul Nguyen. He likes government buildings because "that's where change can happen," but City Hall politicians "gotta come on down" and visit his Jane and Finch neighborhood before they try to better things.

Born in Toronto after his parents fled Vietnam as part of the wave of boat people leaving the country in the 1970s and 1980s, 29-year-old Nguyen's love for his city is firmly rooted at Jane and Finch. His fascination with the history and culture of the Jane-Finch area, and his beef with nothing but negative press about the place, drove him to create jane-finch.com, a neighborhood website that features local news, homegrown music videos and live coverage of local events.

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