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Lucky us. Canadians will be the first readers in the world to bemoan experience the New York Times’s new (and much discussed) on-line pay wall—if only for two weeks, before the program goes global on March 28. Why do Canadians have to pay before any one else? The Times Web site states, “We want to ensure as smooth a transition as possible for our millions of readers. We are launching in Canada first… in order to fine-tune the customer experience before the global launch.” Um, thanks?
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New York Times uses Canada as “giant guinea pig” to test-market its new pay wall
Could a Tea Party–esque movement be good for Toronto?
A Tea Party protest in Texas (Image: Susan E. Adams)
With federal and provincial elections looming, there’s a good chance that Torontonians will have conservative leaders all the way to the top—mayor, premier, prime minister. In the Liberal fortress that is Toronto, that could be seen as cause for alarm, or even despair (if nothing else, it’s a huge change from 2003 to 2006, when we had David Miller, Dalton McGuinty and Paul Martin running things). But maybe it shouldn’t be. Ed Glaeser, writing in the New York Times, says that there’s a lot the Tea Party can offer cities in the U.S., and some of his arguments are just as relevant to Tim Hudak and Stephen Harper as they try and break into Toronto.
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Joe Fresh’s anticipated New York opening excites tourists, not analysts
Joe Fresh is making the move to New York this fall, but some skeptics suggest that the Mimran dynasty may have to pull back to Canada sooner than anticipated. Analysts seem mixed on the potential success of yet another fast fashion retailer. The Financial Post notes that companies who moved south of the border (among the fallen are Danier, Harry Rosen, Tristan, La Senza and Brown’s Shoes) haven’t always been welcome, while the New York Times highlights a boom in tourist traffic around Joe’s chosen 5th Avenue and 43rd Street location.
Debate over hockey head shots overshadows the drama on the ice
The Toronto Maple Leafs dropped a pivotal 3-2 decision against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Air Canada Centre last night, a setback that, in combination with the squad’s disappointing 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Islanders on Tuesday, delivered a devastating blow to their playoff hopes. But the post-season implications were largely overshadowed by the passionate debate once again raging full force across this hockey-mad nation—what is the National Hockey League going to do about hits to the head? The answer seems to remain the same: very little.
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Q&A with Vikram Vij: the celebrated Vancouver chef on his successes and why he won’t open a restaurant in Toronto
Vikram Vij at All the Best Fine Foods
Vikram Vij, chef and owner of Vancoucer haute Indian restaurants Vij’s and Rangoli, was in town this week for the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association show and a series of meet and greets around the city. His namesake restaurant is well known for its no-reservation policy, long lineups and devoted fans, including New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, who once hailed it as “among the finest Indian restaurants in the world.” Recently, we sat down with the chef, restaurateur and cookbook author to talk about the reasons behind his success and why he won’t expand to Toronto.
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New York Times’s Mark Bittman comes to Canada, is baffled by milk in a bag
Mark Bittman and Jessica Allen go shopping. Click image to go to full video. (Image: Maclean's)
New York Times writer and all-round foodie hotshot Mark Bittman came to Canada to sell his book last week, and the good folks at Maclean’s had the bright idea of bringing him to Toronto’s biggest independent grocer, Fiesta Farms (north of Bloor on Christie), for a wee spree. The video of the event (left) features Bittman and an overeager Jessica Allen meandering through the aisles at Fiesta while they discuss Bittman’s views on organic produce (in 100 years, if there are still people, they’ll be eating organic almost exclusively), weight loss (Bittman shed 30 pounds by going vegan-until-dark) and whether junk food is really cheaper than real food (nope).
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Yesterday’s News: a look behind this week’s Globe and Mail redesign
Phillip Crawley, the publisher of the Globe and Mail, is gambling $1.7 billion on a redesign that could revolutionize the industry. The flubs, the firings and the ticking doomsday clock at our national newspaper
(Illustration: Kagan McLeod)
About four months ago, I cancelled my Globe subscription. I admit I felt a little guilty about the decision; I have several friends who work at the paper or write for it—I myself have written for it frequently—and really, as a journalist and concerned citizen, shouldn’t I be a faithful supporter, or at least a diligent reader, of what is supposedly our foremost national newspaper? But I didn’t feel that guilty. On my charitable days, I think of the Globe as more of a nuisance than a necessity, a compendium of warmed-over wire copy, ham-fisted charticles and increasingly irrelevant or insipid columnists. And, like all newspapers these days, it’s less comprehensive, an emaciated version of its once robust self (an editor once described her section to me as being “skinnier than a Puerto Rican street dog”). This isn’t entirely the Globe’s fault. No one with an Internet connection needs to read a newspaper to feel completely informed; by the time the Globe lands on my doorstep, I’m already thoroughly immersed in the events of the day, having checked my Facebook, Google Reader and Yahoo accounts, scoured a half-dozen news Web sites and dipped into Twitter, where the Globe writers whose work I do admire often provide a stream of entertaining invective, observations and links that is just as valuable as the stories they produce for the paper—sometimes more so. The very notion of information being gathered and analyzed by a few people and the results of that analysis printed on paper that is then trucked, over great distance and at great expense, to homes, offices, newsstands, convenience stores and metal boxes that sit on the street now seems almost absurdly antiquated. How much more efficient, logical and environmentally sustainable (arguably) for us to get that same information transmitted to the devices that most of us now interact with every moment of the day? Read the rest of this entry »
Casey Affleck admits I’m Still Here is fake, Joaquin Phoenix is an actor after all
Casey Affleck has finally given into the public’s badgering and admitted that I’m Still Here, his Joaquin Phoenix documentary that showed at TIFF, is a sham, albeit a “terrific performance.” In an interview with the New York Times this morning, Affleck claimed he “never intended to trick anybody” and “the idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.” But even David Letterman wasn’t in on the joke when Phoenix famously appeared on his show last year. The film has received dreadful reviews from Roger Ebert and several others, so we wonder whether Affleck is trying to drum up positive press for Phoenix’s acting skills.
Joaquin Phoenix to appear on Letterman next week
Joaquin Phoenix’s startling but funny appearance on David Letterman’s Late Show last year was one of the most buzzed-about celebrity scandals in 2009. The actor’s apparent cocaine-fuelled downward spiral is at the centre of I’m Still Here, the Casey Affleck documentary screening at TIFF. Today, the Late Show announced that Phoenix will appear on the program on September 22. We’re curious to see if he shows up bright-eyed and clean-shaven as he has at several recent charity events.
• Joaquin Phoenix to Make Letterman TV Show Encore [New York Times]
At the Caitlin Cronenberg party, guests diss TIFF opening gala fashion
Caitlin Cronenberg at the Red party (Image: Fraser Abe)
Condo space Pears on the Avenue at Av and Dav has been taken over by Toro magazine to host a series of events for TIFF, the first of which was last night’s Caitlin Cronenberg–curated exhibit. Red: Canada Through the Lens of the New York Times. The party was full of the homegrown celebs we’ve come to expect at these events: Spencer Rice of Kenny vs. Spenny, proud papa David Cronenberg, Little Mosque on the Prairie star Debra McGrath and her husband Colin Mochrie, with whom Caitlin shares a love of Ann-Margret.
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Good news, Toronto! When the housing bust comes, it will suck less for us than it will for Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton and Calgary
One of the scenarios for the next four years imagined by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Source: CCPA)
Griping about expensive housing is as traditional a sport in Toronto as griping about the TTC or the Leafs. In the past year or two, that kvetching has been supplemented with a healthy dose of worry over how bad the price drops will be in Toronto when the correction inevitably comes. No less than New York Times columnist and Nobelist Paul Krugman has warned, “Canadians spend too much relative to their household incomes, and the country’s housing bubble has yet to burst.” A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives attempts to give us some idea of what the carnage will be like. The good news is that, for Toronto at least, the drops will be relatively modest.
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New York Times picks the “coolest” places in Toronto
Parkdale's in, Leslieville's out: Parts and Labour makes the list (Image: Jon Sufrin)
With the film festival mere weeks away, Toronto is the focus of a recent T Magazine style map, which names a dozen of the shops, restaurants and hotels that put the “‘Tdot’ on any style-setter’s radar.” Other than the fact that all of the businesses are south of Dupont and west of Jarvis, it’s a good list, with fantastic smaller boutiques, like Chasse Gardée and Fawn, earning mentions, as well as new fashiony foodie destinations Parts and Labour and Cinq 01. Former NYT favourite the Drake Hotel is notably absent; The Thompson and The Hazelton are its hotel picks. The full list, after the jump.
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Sky-high heels are the official footwear of the recession
Pair of women's sling-back sandals with white leather uppers and sequined platforms, mid-1970s, by Casuccio and Scalera for Loris Azzaro (Image: copyright © 2009 Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto)
Recessions bring many things to the style world: banal Jeanne Beker exposés of high fashion’s cautious ventures into luxury, and such new memes as “recessionista” and “staycation.” But according to the Bata Shoe Museum’s senior curator, Elizabeth Semmelhack, recessions also bring a proliferation of sky-high footwear. A New York Times slide show showcases various gravity-defying soles on display at the Bata Shoe Museum, including Salvatore Ferragamo five-and-three-quarter-inch sandals from 1938 and OPEC crisis–era six-inch Louis Azzaro peep-toe slingbacks. As Semmelhack explains to the Times, “These little trifles can elevate one’s mood.” Perhaps this season’s brogue trend, therefore, is a sign of economic optimism.
New York Times on G20 riot violence: meh
The old grey lady shrugs her shoulders (Image: Jason Kuffer)
While this weekend’s orgy of vandalism may have been earth shaking for Torontonians, the event left the New York Times decidedly nonplussed. After not mentioning the riots for most of Sunday, the old grey lady churned out a piece in today’s print edition. In it, editors seem to find the staggering number of arrests (over 900) noteworthy, but that’s about all.
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World media not really bothering with Toronto’s G20 riots
Screen shots from the three major American news broadcasters taken around 4:30 Saturday afternoon—in the middle of the G20 riots in downtown Toronto
Canadians will have to wait and see if Jon Stewart picks up the G20 story tonight, but so far the international media’s attention to the summit could best be called “whuzzat?” Even as smoke was rising from the besieged downtown core, Fox, CNN and MSNBC were all more interested in the World Cup. Maybe it’s because for most people outside of Canada, the idea of Canadians rioting must sound impossible, like Russians smiling or the French using margarine. Despite flaming wreckage so close to a gathering of world leaders, we just can’t seem to get people’s attention.
The New York Times Web site ran a Reuters piece about the rioting at 11 p.m. last night (about a full day after the riot had ceased) and printed a piece about the treatment of protestors today. A much-reprinted Associated Press piece saw a similar treatment, getting picked up after the police cruisers had stopped smouldering. About the only British paper to cover the G20 substantially was The Guardian—perhaps because one of its bloggers had been arrested. Outside of the Canadian media, you’d barely know the G20 had happened at all.
What does a Canadian have to do to make the news these days? Oh, right.
• Police Clash With G20 Protesters, End In Standoff [New York Times]
• Police arrest more than 600 at Toronto summit [Yahoo News]
