Canadian company helps World Trade Center’s ascent to new heights

By Verena Dobnik, The Associated Press - Monday, April 29, 2013 at 6:41 PM - 0 Comments

NEW YORK, N.Y. – One World Trade Center, the skyscraper that replaces the fallen twin towers in New York City, is about to receive the last pieces of its crowning spire, a 124-metre structure built in part in Canada.

Once the spire is installed, the 104-story highrise, already New York’s tallest building, will be just feet from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere.

Officials had hoped that would happen Monday, but the weather did not co-operate and it was postponed due to high winds. The event will be rescheduled when conditions permit.

The new tower’s crowning spire is a joint venture between the Montreal-based ADF Group Inc. engineering firm and New York-based DCM Erectors Inc., a steel contractor.

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Ed Koch, former mayor of New York, dead at 88

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 1, 2013 at 7:28 AM - 0 Comments

New Yorkers wake up to the news of the loss of Ed Koch

Ed Koch, mayor of New York from 1978 to 1989, died Friday morning of congestive heart failure. He was 88. Here’s how he is being remembered on Twitter this morning:

Storified by Maclean’s Magazine· Fri, Feb 01 2013 04:27:17

Saudi group sell majority stake in New York’s Plaza hotel in $575m deal

By The Associated Press - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 5:41 AM - 0 Comments

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The investment firm headed by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal says it has sold a majority stake in The Plaza Hotel in New York to a major Indian real estate conglomerate in a $575 million deal.

Kingdom Holding Co. says it will retain 25 per cent equity ownership in the landmark hotel, now controlled by a group led by Sahara India Pariwar. A statement Tuesday said Kingdom Holding made $32.9 million profit on the deal.

The 115-year-old Plaza has 282 hotel rooms as well as condominium units and retail space.

Kingdom Holding is a major shareholder in Citigroup and holds stakes in other companies, including News Corp., Apple Inc. and Twitter.

Spire for 1 WTC making its way to New York City by barge from Canada

By The Associated Press - Friday, November 23, 2012 at 3:49 AM - 0 Comments

NEW YORK, N.Y. – The giant spire that will top 1 World Trade Center is making its way to Manhattan from Canada.

The spire is divided into 18 sections that weigh between five tonnes and more than 67 tonnes. Eight of the sections are being transported via barge from Canada on the Atlantic Salvor.

It left Quebec on Nov. 16 and is expected next week at Port Newark in New Jersey.

The remaining sections are expected to arrive via truck in mid-December.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site, says progress of the barge and the spire can be tracked online: http://bit.ly/UWwvio.

Once the 125-metre spire is installed, the tower will stand 541 metres tall, making it the tallest in the Western Hemisphere. The Port Authority says it will take about three months to install.

‘In an uncertain world’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 28, 2012 at 11:21 AM - 0 Comments

The text of the Prime Minister’s speech last night in New York. Colin Horgan quibbles with Mr. Harper’s understanding of the War of 1812.

“Thank you very much Rabbi Schneier, Chairman Chenevert, Louis; my colleagues Ministers Baird, Kent, Fantino,Ablonczy; Parliamentary Secretary Obhrai; Senator Wallin; Ambassadors Doer and Rishchynski; High Commissioner Campbell; Consul General Prado; my fellow award winners Vikram Pandit and Virginia Rometty; all the honoured guests of our head table and distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.

“First, I want to begin by thanking Henry Kissinger for that generous introduction.

“I have to say Dr. Kissinger, I am of course aware not only of your immense contributions to your country and international relations, but I have long been an admirer.

“I have to tell you, I have been an admirer indeed since before I was old enough to vote.

“So being able to share the stage with you and to be introduced really does mean a great deal to me.

Continue…

The Commons: The PM, the UN and QP

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 25, 2012 at 5:25 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. John Baird stood and waved to the crowd. The Prime Minister had just identified Mr. Baird as the Canadian official who will be addressing the United Nations this week and the Foreign Affairs Minister—with Mr. Harper still speaking, mind you—rose in his spot and welcomed everyone’s recognition and adulation.

Alas, Thomas Mulcair was not reassured by the promise of Mr. Baird’s presence. “Mr Speaker, he’s busy photocopying his speech at the British embassy,” he chided.

Once more, the NDP leader pressed this matter of the Prime Minister’s agenda for the week. “Two years ago, the Conservative government lost Canada’s bid for a seat at the UN Security Council, a first in Canadian history,” he continued. “This week, the Prime Minister turned down an invitation to speak at the UN general assembly, even though he is already scheduled to be in New York. Has the Prime Minister given up on Canada’s role at the UN? We are merging our embassies with Great Britain, is our delegation to the United Nations next?”

This did not quite convince the Prime Minister to reschedule. “Mr. Speaker, as I just said, never under any government has it been the practice of Canadian prime ministers to speak every single year at the United Nations general assembly,” Mr. Harper offered. “The Minister of Foreign Affairs will be speaking this year. I am sure he will do a very good job.”

Mr. Baird put his hand on his chest and mimed as if flattered.

“That said,” Mr. Harper said, “nobody in Canada doubts, whether they agree with us or not, that the government takes strong, clear and independent decisions on foreign affairs.”

So there. Continue…

REVIEW: Mr.Broadway: the inside story of the Shuberts, the shows, and the stars

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, May 14, 2012 at 11:39 AM - 0 Comments

Schoenfeld’s memoir of his decades as a Broadway producer was published posthumously (he died in 2008), but even if he were alive, it would seem like a missive from a lost world of theatre showmanship. Originally a lawyer for the powerful theatre owner J.J. Shubert, Schoenfeld and his partner Bernie Jacobs took over the Shubert Organization in 1972, when Broadway theatre was in a death spiral that mirrored the collapse of New York City: theatregoers were driven away, he writes, by “unsafe streets littered with trash and all kinds of hustlers and criminals.”

Schoenfeld tells us how he and Jacobs helped turn this around by vertically integrating their business: instead of just booking shows into their theatres, they began to produce and invest in the plays. Part of their strategy was to lure “young as well as minority audiences” to Broadway, starting with ’70s smashes like Pippin and A Chorus Line; another part was campaigning for “the revitalization of Times Square,” making New York more attractive for tourists. Much of the book from that point on is a catalogue of hits, from British-invasion shows like Amadeus and Phantom of the Opera to cult favourites like Sunday in the Park With George and The Goat.

Because Schoenfeld was not known as a particularly colourful producer, the book doesn’t abound in juicy anecdotes; the closest he comes to anger is when he complains at length about Nine beating his hit Dreamgirls for the Tony Award. But Schoenfeld helps us understand the business of Broadway and how backward it can be; theatres didn’t even take credit cards until he came along. And he calls attention to the neglect of Broadway by the city and state governments, which subsidize film and TV instead. The “I Love New York” campaign of the ’70s boosted theatre revenue, but “inexplicably, it was not repeated.” Still, the book provides some hope for Broadway: if Schoenfeld helped revive it when it was dead once before, someone else might come along to revive it again.

Toronto’s luxury condo prices rival New York’s

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Christian Heeb/Laif/Reux; Peter Mintz/Getty Images

Imagine you had $4 million to spend on a new downtown home. In New York, one of the world’s great cities, you could buy a three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom apartment on the edge of Central Park. If you were feeling more frugal you could move a couple of blocks away and snatch up a penthouse with a full view of the park for less than half the price, $1.5 million.

Or you could spend the money on a three-bedroom, four-bathroom suite at the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton with a full view of . . . Toronto. A two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite in the same building costs as much as that New York penthouse, and a survey of the Multiple Listing Service shows over 100 condos in Toronto selling for $1.5 million or more.

The multi-million-dollar New York price tags for some condos in Canada’s biggest city speak to a dangerously overheated market, say some observers. In Ontario, construction of multiple urban units (which mostly means condo buildings) was up a staggering 50 per cent in March from the previous month. In Toronto alone, there are nearly 48,000 units under construction. In 2011, the city counted 132 residential high-rises under construction—more than New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston and Dallas combined. Later this year, that number is expected to reach 189, according to housing market analyst Ben Rabidoux.

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‘We must remain vigilant’

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 6:28 PM - 1 Comment

The text of Stephen Harper’s speech in New York City today.

Thank you, Mr. Johnston. Merci beaucoup. Thank you to everybody. Greetings to Consul General Prado, to Consul Generals Lopez and Scanlon, to Senator Wallin, to Commissioner Castro, to Mr. Stewart, to of course so many members of our protective services, and of course families and friends of those whose memory is honoured here today.

À titre de Premier ministre du Canada, j’ai l’honneur d’accepter l’offre de tenir en ce cadre enchanteur une cérémonie commémorative officielle pour les Canadiens et Canadiennes qui ont cruellement perdu la vie il y a dix ans aujourd’hui.

As Prime Minister of Canada, it is my honour to accept the offer to include in this beautiful place an official commemoration of the Canadians whose lives were taken so cruelly ten years ago today. On behalf of the people of Canada, I thank her Majesty, the Queen, and I thank Mr. Stewart, Mr. Johnson and the officers and directors of the trust for this gracious gesture. We warmly welcome the decision to also include here other Commonwealth countries, and we support wholeheartedly the plan to rename this garden the Queen Elizabeth the Second Garden to reflect this decision. It is fitting that the Canadians who perished on 9/11 should be remembered here, alongside the Britons, Australians and other Commonwealth citizens who were also killed in that atrocity.
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Leave tiramisu alone!

By Jessica Allen - Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 11:59 AM - 2 Comments

Stijn Nieuwendijk/Flickr

Florence Fabricant wrote about a disturbing new food trend in the New York Times dining section recently: people are messing around with traditional tiramisu by adding new stuff, like lemon and berries, to it.

I know. I’m panicking too. Fabricant reports that a new specialty shop that serves six variations of the classic Venetian dessert has just opened up on Christopher Street in Manhattan. And get this: a similar-themed spot also opened up not too long ago in the motherland itself (Milan, specifically). Continue…

Panic on the playground

By Cynthia Reynolds - Monday, August 29, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 20 Comments

Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

When it comes to playground safety, New York isn’t taking any chances. In June, police ticketed two women eating doughnuts on a bench inside one of the city’s public playgrounds; another doughnut-eating pair on a nearby bench also received tickets. The quartet, who had bought their snacks from a cramped doughnut shop across the street, had broken the same municipal law as a group of seven men who were ticketed last winter while playing chess at another playground. They disobeyed a sign posted at the entrance, forbidding adults from entering—part of the city’s measures to safeguard kids. “It’s pedophile panic,” says New York writer Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and host of new reality show Bubble Wrap Kids, which will debut this winter. “We think everyone is a pedophile until proven otherwise.”

While the doughnut eaters will have to appear in court this summer to learn their punishment, other U.S. cities, including Miami Beach and San Francisco, also have measures in place banning adults from entering public playgrounds unless they are accompanied by a child. Though Pocatello, Idaho, doesn’t have such measures, it shares in the spirit: in July, after witnessing an older man snapping pictures at a playground, a mother angrily confronted him and chased him away. The police were alerted along with the local news, which issued a detailed description of a “suspicious man spotted taking pictures of children,” driving a “tan/brown van.” Shortly after, the man in question called the police and identified himself. He had been photographing his grandson; the only reason he left, he added, was because a woman was yelling at him.

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Hey kids, time to walk slowly past old stuff

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, August 8, 2011 at 10:05 AM - 8 Comments

iStock; Getty Images; Photo illustration by Taylor Shute

After enduring the Spider-Man musical, which is neither good nor bad-good enough to warrant more words than these, we wandered through Central Park toward the Guggenheim Museum. It was time to get the kids some culture.

That’s a thing we’re supposed to do as parents: expose our children to “culture.” Enough of this having fun and enjoying everything we’re doing, kids—it’s time to walk slowly past some old stuff.

At the Louvre last summer, our family and every other tourist in Paris had the idea of heading straight for the Mona Lisa when the museum opened. At first we all walked casually. But the competitive instinct kicked in. Soon we were race-walking. Grown men were throwing out their elbows and grunting. Our boys charged ahead, weaving through the fading old ladies. They don’t remember anything about the painting but still talk about how they blew past a large Italian family on the final turn before the salon.

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A (clashing) Tribe Called Quest

By Claire Ward - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 6:30 PM - 1 Comment

Q-Tip. Photo by Robert Benavides, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

IN TEN WORDS OR LESS: Worth watching, but leaves you wanting more

You don’t need to love high-speed dubbing (or know what it is), to enjoy this documentary. Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest is an engaging, dramatic portrayal of iconic hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest, even if it sometimes feels like a big screen version of MTV’s Behind the Music. Brought to you by first-time director and actor Michael Rapaport, Beats is a collage of concert footage, backstage drama and present-day interviews with ATCQ members, as well as an impressive roster of well-known musicians, all set to a satisfying soundtrack of the group’s hits.

First, let’s get the controversy out of the way: this doc was released amid a kerfuffle between Rapaport and his subjects. The band, who were initially supportive, ultimately disagreed with Rapaport’s direction. Half of them didn’t show up to the L.A. premiere. Band member Q-Tip went so far as to voice his lack of support over Twitter. The hate seems to have died down a bit, though, after Q-Tip has explained himself and Rapaport has said that they’ve agreed to disagree. Okay, let’s move on to the film. Continue…

Leadership moments in New York

By John Parisella - Monday, June 27, 2011 at 12:59 PM - 0 Comments

Back in September 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a position in favour of building a mosque near Ground Zero and, in so doing, joined a highly emotional debate that swept the nation. He didn’t back away when the controversy became a national one, taking a principled stance as mayor of the city that was the subject of an unspeakable terrorist attack. This was a leadership moment.

Since January 2011, New Yorkers statewide have been treated to a similar series of leadership moments by recently elected Governor Andrew Cuomo, particularly with respect to his negotiations with the state’s unionized employees.  Continue…

Aritzia joins fashion's big leagues

By Cigdem Iltan - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Courtesy of Aritzia

It’s been three years since Vancouver’s Aritzia LP took its repertoire of feminine, fashion-forward wares south, but next week’s opening of its flagship store in New York marks the boutique’s official coming out to the U.S. market. The successful execution of the clothing retailer’s 50th location is crucial, given its plans for a wider expansion in the U.S. Hot on the heels of the June 15 opening is another store launch in August in neighbouring New Jersey.

The two-storey New York store’s prominent corner location at Broadway and Spring Street in fashion haven SoHo has Aritzia rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in the industry, from J.Crew to Prada. It’s a move that puts the firm in a better position to attract attention from prospective landlords, fashion media and tastemakers, says retail analyst and DIG360 Consulting principal David Ian Gray. “There are lots of retailers seeking prime spots in prime locations, and because Aritzia is coming in as an unknown entity, they’re having to fight that fight much like they did when they started out in Canada.”

But the company has little reason to be intimidated: Aritzia boasts some of the highest average sales per square foot amongst retailers in North America. And while it doesn’t reveal specific sales numbers, the private company earns somewhere between $200 million to $300 million each year, says Aritzia’s vice-president of marketing Sally Parrott.

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Toronto's war on fun

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 36 Comments

Jessica Darmanin

You can interpret a city’s ambitions by the face it presents to the world. When it comes to Toronto, its streets fretted with bars called Harlem and Brooklynn, the skyline spiked by condo developments with names like The Manhattan, and the Legoland imitation Times Square installed at the corner of Yonge and Dundas, it is clear that the city wants to be New York. Which is funny, because there are few large cities in the world that are less like New York than Toronto. Where New York is dense and chaotic, Toronto is sprawling and orderly. New York has endless canyons of stunning architecture, while Toronto’s flat streetscapes look like they were designed by blindfolded six-year-olds. And while New York is resolutely devoted to upholding its rep as the city that never sleeps, Toronto wages a relentless war on fun.

Let’s start with an old favourite, the municipal ban on ball hockey on city streets. Every Canadian kid plays street hockey, but only in Toronto is it a furtive activity, occurring under the reproachful gaze of signs declaring “Ball and Hockey Playing Prohibited.” Defenders of the bylaw argue it is harmless because it is so seldom enforced, and that trying to get rid of it might cause more problems than it solves. But that misses the crucial point, which is that it is a fundamental principle of a free society that what is not explicitly prohibited is permitted. A city that feels the need to prohibit many things is one that deep down does not trust the citizens with their freedom.

It isn’t only homegrown pastimes the city finds objectionable. Last summer, Toronto became one of the few jurisdictions on Earth—along with the Taliban regime that terrorized Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001—to prohibit kite flying in a park. The ban was a response to complaints about debris left from kite-fighting competitions held by members of the city’s Afghan and South Asian communities­—the leftover string was apparently disrupting lawn mowing and fouling trees, and there were concerns that some of it was embedded with glass shards that could endanger birds. A year later, city officials are trying to come up with a compromise. Part of the proposed solution involves a prohibition on “competitive kite flying in parks that have significant bird activity,” though the definition of “significant” remains unresolved. At any rate, it doesn’t appear to concern anyone that the freedom to fly a kite without being harassed by petty little officials was one of the reasons many of these people moved their families thousands of kilometres away from their homelands in the first place.

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Taking the NY out of NYSE?

By Kate Lunau - Monday, April 18, 2011 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

A long-standing symbol of American capitalism, the venerable New York Stock Exchange traces its history back almost 220 years. Now, facing a likely merger with German market operator Deutsche Börse, a pressing question has emerged: what will the new stock exchange be named?

As the deal was announced in February, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer insisted that “New York” should come first in the new name. “NYSE is one of the most pre-eminent brands in the financial industry,” he said, “and there is no reason it shouldn’t come first.” But German politicians have patriotic concerns as well: although NYSE chief executive Duncan Niederauer is set to take the same title at the new company, Deutsche Börse will own 60 per cent. (The company will be headquartered in both Frankfurt and New York.)

An early front-runner for the new name, “DB NYSE Group,” is apparently out of contention. According to the Wall Street Journal, employees of both companies have submitted more than 1,000 suggestions, which will be looked at over the next few weeks by a committee of experts. Set to become the largest stock exchange in the world, it seems likely that—whatever the new company’s called—its name will eventually become an icon of sorts, too.

Scenes from Chess Day at a Brooklyn school

By Zoran Milich - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Chess-in-the-Schools is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to improving academic performance and building self-esteem among inner-city public school children. Since 1986, Chess-in-the-Schools has taught more than 400,000 students in Title 1 New York City public schools.

Through structured classroom, after-school, weekend, and summer programs, they use chess as an educational tool to promote learning and to help young people develop skills in critical thinking and problem solving.

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Scenes from Chess Day at a Brooklyn school

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March 5, 2011, Brooklyn, New York—Luc Arias, 9, of Public School 226 check mates David Allen, 9, of Public School 40 during the Chess-in-the-Schools program, which hosted 800 students at a Chess Day tournament at Intermediate School 318. Photo by Zoran Milich

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Baby, it’s awful outside

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:54 PM - 4 Comments

Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Being a billionaire mayor in a city like New York means never having to say you’re sorry. That is, until your snow plows leave millions of residents stranded and they have to strap on skis to navigate the streets of Manhattan. And so it was that three days after a raging, thundering snowstorm dumped half a metre on the Big Apple over Christmas—the heaviest snowfall in decades—Mayor Michael Bloomberg fessed up that the city had botched the cleanup job.

It didn’t help that this was the second December in a row the city, along with the U.S. Northeast, has been hammered by wild weather. But the region was far from alone. The same massive storm system plunged 50,000 homes in Atlantic Canada into darkness as snow, wind and floods devastated beaches, parks and tourist sites. The deluge followed a series of brutal storms and Atlantic hurricanes over the past few months that have already heaped misery on residents in the region.

Mother Nature’s fury was felt everywhere. The United Kingdom is suffering the coldest winter since 1683, which along with snowstorms in New York and Moscow forced the cancellation of 6,000 flights. In California a barrage of winter storms caused flash floods and mudslides, while Los Angeles has been buffeted by hurricane-strength winds. Queensland, Australia, is drowning beneath the worst floods in half a century. Continue…

The beautiful mind of the creator of collage

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Mary Granville Pendarves Delany; National Portrait Gallery London; Illustration Taylor Shute

THE PAPER GARDEN:MRS. DELANY BEGINS HER LIFE’S WORK AT 72
Molly Peacock

Mary Granville Pendarves Delany, aged 72, was in the throes of grief over the death of her husband when she casually picked up a pair of scissors and by dint of sheer curiosity invented the art form known as mixed-media collage. Noticing how a piece of coloured paper matched the fallen petal of a geranium, she meticulously cut the exact geranium petal shape from the paper. Then another, and another. She assembled the pieces, and when a friend walked into the room and could not tell the paper geranium and the organic version apart, an art form was born.

Delany was no 18th-century parlour dilettante: she approached her art with scholarly sensitivity, dissecting floral specimens in order to render her paper versions with botanical accuracy right down to the flower’s ovary, and then cutting and layering hundreds of delicate pieces. In the span of a decade, she produced about 1,000 of these exquisite, fragile works.

Author Molly Peacock opens with her own discovery of Delany’s art: “I saw my first flower mosaic at three o’clock on Saturday, Sept. 27, 1986, at the Morgan Library in New York City . . . ” She builds her case that these are no grade-school craft projects: “I could not get over the dexterity, the eyesight, and the fine muscle coordination that had produced them. I was hooked, I was sunk.”
Ditto for the reader. Delany’s life and artistry would be compelling enough, but Peacock gives us so much more, and the details and precision of her text mirror the dogged, forensic approach Delany took with her work. Peacock wants us to see how the artist and the art are one.

Like collage itself, The Paper Garden is carefully layered—part fascinating biography, part history lesson about the English Georgian period, part gripping memoir, part paean, and part art appreciation accompanied by dozens of vivid photo reproductions. Beautifully written and rendered (the pages are printed on heavy glossy paper, the likes of which are rarely encountered in modern publishing), Peacock’s obsession for Delany’s art and life becomes ours, too.

- JANE CHRISTMAS

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Dress warmly, and watch out for the mice

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

It seems that if you can make it at the Canadian Consulate General in New York City, you can make it anywhere. Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and policy analyst, has uncovered—thanks to an access-to-information request—troubling details about the working conditions at the Consulate General’s visa office in the Big Apple.

According to the annual report, staff working in the basement office at 1251 Avenue of the Americas are often forced to wear their winter jackets and scarves to deal with temperatures dipping as low as 15° C. Air quality is “uncertain,” the report states: “Studies conducted several years ago were inconclusive.” Employees there have complained about a lack of natural light, which affects morale. Sanitation is also questionable; a fleet of mice has invaded the dank quarters, and are often seen scurrying about, leaving droppings on peoples’ desks. Extermination attempts have “proven unsuccessful.” A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade told Maclean’s that they are “aware of the issues” and have “consulted with the landlord and taken steps to correct the situation.”

Still, Kurland is “shocked” by his findings, and that the complaints have not been fully addressed. “I’d expect to see this in a Canadian operation in the Third World, but not in New York,” he says. Kurland hopes his discovery will shed light on the challenges that can arise in Canada’s embassies. “Enforcement of Canadian standards regarding workplace issues stops at the Canadian border,” he says. “People think that it’s all champagne and fancy dinners overseas, but sometimes you’re relegated to the basement and dining on ‘rats-a-roni.’ ”

In conversation with Glee’s Cory Monteith

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, November 15, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 4 Comments

Splash News/GQ, Ture Lillegraven/Corbis Outline, Jason Kempin/Getty Images

The first time Cory Monteith ever sang for a live audience was at the White House last Easter. The second occasion was later that same week on Oprah. By the time he and his cast mates from the Fox TV hit Glee completed a live tour with five sold-out performances at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in late May, it was becoming old hat.

Less so, the kind of teenybopper adulation that saw the 28-year-old Victoria native get chased down Fifth Avenue. Or the buzz-name status that convinces tabloid editors to turn a night out bowling in L.A. with a group including the singer Taylor Swift into cover stories about their “romance.” But that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re one of the stars of the hottest thing on television. A multi-platform commercial juggernaut that draws 12 million viewers a week, Glee has spawned more charting singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 than the Beatles, sold five million albums, 13 million digital downloads, and launched a clothing line at Macy’s. It’s a campy satire about a high school choir that has improbably convinced millions of teens worldwide that singing show tunes and classic rock ballads is cool. A show that is only six episodes into its second season and is already a certified cultural phenomenon.

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Robert LePage in conversation

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photography by Erick Labbé

Robert Lepage is Canada’s most celebrated stage director. He has created shows for companies ranging from Cirque du Soleil (Kà, Totem) to the Metropolitan Opera, which premiered the first part of his innovative take on Wagner’s Ring Cycle last month. Based in Quebec City, where he founded the multi-disciplinary company Ex Machina, Lepage is also an actor, playwright and filmmaker. Two of his creations come to Toronto this fall. The Andersen Project, a one-man show that has toured four continents, will be mounted by Canadian Stage at the Bluma Appel Theatre from Oct. 21-30. Taking over the role originated by Lepage, Yves Jacques plays an albino artist from Quebec commissioned by the Paris Opera to adapt an obscure fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. A production of Eonnagata from London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre plays the Sony Centre on Nov. 18 and 19. Acting and dancing, Lepage plays Charles de Beaumont, an 18th-century diplomat, soldier and cross-dressing spy.

Q: The Andersen Project is about a Quebec artist at the mercy of a high-handed manager at the Paris Opera. That sounds like it could be you—is the satire autobiographical?
A: It’s a strange project. It was a commission from the 2005 Hans Christian Andersen bicentenary in Denmark. They did this big bash where they commissioned choreographers, writers, filmmakers and directors to stage Andersen’s fairy tales. And I had been specifically asked not to do that, but to do something about him. I said I’d do it if it could be about me also. I started to read the biographies, which were a bit boring. And then I read Andersen’s personal diary, and he had all these little markings every time he masturbated. Tons of these little markings. I thought, “Oh my God, this guy is a masturbator!” He writes children’s tales, and we have an image of this tall, naive nerd who is inoffensive and all about fantasy, and actually he was very much about sexual fantasies.

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Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 15, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

The prince gets down
Prince Charles, donning a red bindi, charmed locals with a charmingly poor dancing form while visiting the northern Indian city of Jodhpur during India’s Commonwealth Games. After some cajoling, he began to follow the movements of the elderly farmers, and began to smile as he twirled about.

And long may you run
Omemee, Ont., a wide spot on the highway between Lindsay and Peterborough, is the early childhood home of rock icon Neil Young. It’s also the site of Youngtown, a museum packed to the rafters with rock memorabilia of every sort, and a tribute to the Young family, including Neil’s late father, storied sportswriter and author Scott Young. Last week Neil and his older brother, Bob, visited the museum for the first time since it opened in 2008. “The hour-long visit was simply an awesome experience for this writer,” museum founder and collector in chief, Trevor Hosier, wrote on Youngtown’s Facebook page, “and I’m glad to report that we passed the audition.”

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