Natalie Goldenberg-Fife | torontolife.com

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All stories by Natalie Goldenberg-Fife

House of the week: $1.2 million for flawless views of Lake Ontario

Sweet Escape

ADDRESS: 1 Lakeshore Dr.
NEIGHBOURHOOD: New Toronto
AGENT: Paul and Angela Giraudy, Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd. Brokerage
PRICE: $1.2 million
THE PLACE: It may be unassuming from the outside, but this waterfront home is a 5,ooo-square-foot refuge for Torontonians who adore both the city and nature. Almost every one of the open-concept rooms has a panoramic view of Lake Ontario. The majestic master bedroom has a six-piece ensuite bathroom lined with lake-facing floor-to-ceiling windows.

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The Informer

Gimme Shelter

May 3, 2010 | 10:16 am

2 Comments

House of the week: a $12.8-million customizable Yorkville penthouse

Sky’s the Limit

ADDRESS: Penthouse, 206 Bloor St. W.
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Yorkville
AGENT: Diane Stead, Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, Brokerage
PRICE: $12.8 million
THE PLACE: This unit is the kingpin of the 26 exclusive luxury suites that will sit atop MuseumHouse. The pre-built penthouse will occupy both the 18th and 19th floors, providing 180-degree views of the city. Though all residents will have direct elevator access in their suites, the MuseumHouse team stresses that this building will be all about “community.” With just over two dozen units, occupants will have a hard time not getting to know their neighbours; we hear a mystery rock star, a bigwig athlete and a handful of financial giants are among them.

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The Hype

Pop Art

April 29, 2010 | 12:35 pm

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K’Naan: making moms swoon and the world a better place since March, 2010

The K’naan-induced warm fuzzies keep on coming. Our hearts are still swollen from his Juno wins for artist and songwriter of the year, and we can’t get the song “Wavin’ Flag,” which was chosen as the official song for the World Cup Trophy Tour, out of our heads. Even our moms are swooning over the Somali-Canadian—a.k.a., The Little Prince of Mogadishu. And now we find out K’naan’s star-studded remix of “Wavin’ Flag” has reeled in over $1 million dollars for the victims of the Haiti earthquake.

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The Hype

Creative Types

April 26, 2010 | 3:33 pm

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Eeew, gross: William Shatner’s kidney stone fetches $75,000

"...which is why my internal organs are so valuable" (Image: jul13d0wn3s)

In the latest news no one wants to visualize, William Shatner has revealed he was paid a significant sum for his kidney stone. The former Star Trek star, a.k.a. the best governor general we’ll never have, recently told the Toronto Sun that a company offered him $75,000 for his kidney stone. As a passionate philanthropist, he happily obliged and donated the money to Habitat for Humanity. Despite thinking as many happy thoughts we possibly could to get this image out of our head, we can’t help but wonder what kind of company buys a 79-year-old’s kidney stone, and what the heck are they doing with it?

• ‘Star Trek’ scripts, Shatner’s motorcycle on auction [Toronto Sun]
• William Shatner won’t be our next governor general, but he totally should be [The Informer]

The Dish

Bottoms Up

April 26, 2010 | 3:14 pm

3 Comments

Fairmont Royal York fires 22 staffers alleged to have raided the hotel wine cellar

(Image: Steve Harris)

The Globe is reporting that the Royal York has sacked 22 employees, claiming that they were stealing wine from the hotel’s food service. Melanie Coates, a spokesperson for the legendary hotel, told the Globe that the people in question were dismissed due to “inappropriate activity” and “a violation of workplace rules.”

Many questions are left unanswered. Were the 22 alleged thieves working together or on their own? Did they steal amarone or chianti? Chablis? Bollinger?

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The Goods

New in Shops

April 26, 2010 | 2:09 pm

4 Comments

A $171,000 Mother’s Day gift

The Ontario diamonds start at $1,400—we'll take two (Image: Swamibu)

If you have a couple thousand to drop on a Mother’s Day gift (and, really, who doesn’t?), then the Birks store on Bloor Street is the place to do it. Some of the first-ever Ontario-mined diamonds, extracted from a De Beers mine in the James Bay Lowlands, are up for grabs there starting today. According to the Star, the diamonds are of extremely high quality: the clear and colourless stones are so fantastic that they have the second-highest value per carat in the world.

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The Informer

The New Normal

April 21, 2010 | 4:31 pm

4 Comments

Virgin to start flying out of Pearson, hopes it goes better than last time

We assume this is what's meant by "mood-lit cabin" (Image: LWY)

Virgin America announced yesterday via Twitter it would soon be offering daily flights from Toronto to California’s west coast. The flights on the airline (a brainchild of loopy British billionaire Richard Branson, though mostly owned by Americans) will begin June 23, departing from Pearson and making stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles. One-way fares will start at $212.

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The Hype

Shelf Life

April 20, 2010 | 12:55 pm

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Ian McEwan stuck in Toronto thanks to potentially inspirational volcano

It’s nice to know there’s one stranded European not throwing a hissy fit for being stuck in Toronto due to Iceland’s flight-stopping volcanic ash cloud. And it’s even nicer when that person is Ian McEwan. The British author wrapped up his three-week reading tour for his new novel, Solar, here in T.O. Being a glass-half-full kind of guy, he’s embracing his extended time in Canada. He’s even using the theme of being stuck in a country against your will as potential inspiration for a new novel, reports the Star.

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The Informer

Gimme Shelter

April 19, 2010 | 9:30 am

Comments

House of the week: $9.9 million for this waterfront property with views of the Toronto skyline and Niagara Falls

Waterworld

ADDRESS: 88 Wolfdale Ave.
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Oakville
AGENTS: Don Goodale and Brad Miller, Century 21 Miller Real Estate Ltd. Brokerage
PRICE: $9.9 million
THE PLACE: A lakefront estate that offers all the privacy and serenity of a Muskoka cottage without Goldie Hawn or the two-hour drive. Former owners include a businessman from Dubai and a Taiwanese couple who snatched up the house simply because the address was lucky number 88.

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The Hype

Prime Time

April 15, 2010 | 1:23 pm

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Finally, more programming for men on TV

That's so Miranda (Image: Richard Riley)

A new Canadian rating system has confirmed the obvious: men are not closet aficionados of women’s specialty channels. Hardly surprising, but until now there was no proof that men weren’t getting their kicks from watching celebrity look-alike make-overs and profanity-free versions of Sex and the City, from which Samantha has been all but eliminated.

The Globe reports that this news has repercussions for Toronto media company Corus Entertainment Inc., the owner of female-centric channels W Network, Viva and Cosmo TV. The new system, which uses a Personal People Meter (not to be confused with the Purple People Eater) to track who’s watching which show and whether they watch it in its entirety, is forcing Corus to admit to advertisers that there’s only one gender watching How to Look Good Naked and Anna and Kristina’s Beauty Call.

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The Informer

Streetcar Named Disaster

April 15, 2010 | 10:53 am

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Fare treatment: TTC driver charged with assault

(Image: Loren Javier)

Before long, we’ll be able to make seven dwarfs jokes about the TTC. First, there was the photo of the fare collector snoozing on the job. Then there was the fellow leaving customers on a vehicle while he took a break in the middle of his route. After that, bus passengers had to call 911 on their tipsy driver. Now, Toronto police had to be called after a TTC employee got into an altercation with a passenger, leading to an assault charge. Sleepy, Happy, Dopey and Grumpy.

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The Hype

Cinemania

April 14, 2010 | 1:38 pm

1 Comment

Best hookup ever: Spike Jonze and Arcade Fire make sweet movie together

A spokesperson for director Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) has announced that Jonze will be collaborating with Montreal’s Arcade Fire on a short film. It’s not the first time the group has been involved in one of Jonze’s projects; devoted fans may remember hearing their song “Wake Up” in the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are (at left). Currently filming in Austin, Texas, the movie—which is almost 100 per cent guaranteed to be freaking awesome—is rumoured to be about friends who grow apart. For our sake, we hope Jonze and Arcade Fire remain friends forever.

• Spike Jonze and Arcade Fire team up for film collaboration [NME]

The Dish

Culinary Curiosities

April 14, 2010 | 10:30 am

3 Comments

Poutine-eating contest at TFC game means Toronto might win something at TFC game

Go for the gold, Toronto (Image: Christoph Borer)

We remember how good we felt when Joe Carter knocked that winning home run out of the SkyDome and won us a back-to-back World Series championship on home soil. Since then, Toronto championship chances have decreased considerably. That is, until now. A poutine-eating contest is coming to town, and along with some of the world’s top professional eaters, Torontonians will have a chance to pump some winning pride back into the city.

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The Hype

Shelf Life

April 14, 2010 | 9:30 am

1 Comment

Deprived no longer: $225 erotic book finally allows the blind access to “culture saturated with sexual images”

Toronto photographer Lisa J. Murphy wanted to give blind people something they have never had access to—tactile pictures of nudes for adults—because, as she told the Star, the blind have been “left out” in a culture saturated with sexual images. So she created Tactile Mind, a handmade soft-core book containing 17 3-D images (each takes about 50 hours to create), along with explicit text about the image. One of the accompanying descriptions reads:

A tactile picture of a naked man dressed as a bunny rabbit. He wears a paper bag mask, maxi pads across his chest, and a toilet paper roll with cotton balls around his penis. Paper hearts decorate the background.
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The Dish

Locavoracious

April 13, 2010 | 2:09 pm

2 Comments

Meat isn’t as bad for the environment as previously thought: study

(Image: SpecialKRB)

Slate.com’s Green Lantern column is reporting that farm animals might not be “the global warming bogeymen…previously imagined.” Back in 2006, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) published a paper that accused livestock of producing 18 per cent of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions—more than the entire transportation sector. Frank Mitloehner, a researcher from the University of California-Davis, claims that while the figure may be accurate, it doesn’t apply to the United States (where transport accounts for 26 per cent and livestock 2.8). The question is, Does this mean that people should be cutting back on meat consumption?

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