December 2009 Contents
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Features
25 Ideas That Are Changing the World
Some have profound implications for our health and our social order. Others solve no-less-terrifying conundrums, such as where to find parking and how to kick the Facebook habit. The innovations and inventions that impressed us most this year
Seeing Black
He lived most of his life in the shadow of his famous activist father and his even more famous pop star brother. Then he wrote The Book of Negroes, which got him an audience
with the Queen and broke the publishing industry’s rule that black novelists don’t sell.
The sudden rise of Lawrence Hill By Katherine Ashenburg
The Last Days of Stefanie Rengel
It started as a joke. Melissa Todorovic and David Bagshaw fantasized about how they wanted to hurt and humiliate David’s ex-girlfriend. They talked about it for months and months, until the fantasy became a plan, and Melissa gave David an ultimatum: no more sex until Stefanie was dead. How two high school students became murderers By Marina Jiménez
COLUMNS
A Salesman for God
When I was 19, I spent two years walking door to door, trying to convert strangers to Mormonism. I was shouted at, threatened and chased off people’s lawns. It was a test of my faith, and ultimately I failed By Greg Hudson
THIS CITY
Up close and personal with Damian Abraham, the snarling, screaming punk idol of Fucked Up • You asked, we answer: is Mall Santa’s lap a wholesome place for your little Cindy-Lou Who? • The secret to Hazel McCallion’s spooky endurance revealed
CITY SURVIVOR
The List
Ten things George Smitherman can’t live without By Courtney Shea
Holiday Super Shopper
Our annual gift finder, with 100-plus ideas from under $30 to over $3,000
By Alanna Davey
Real Estate
Why the Regent Park loft where Ondaatje wrote Divisadero took 22 days to sell By Bert Archer
Food
Prepped foods are selling like hotcakes. How grocery stores turned into takeout restaurants By Sasha Chapman
Drink
Do celebrity wines suck? Our critic sips and spills By David Lawrason
Restaurants
A serious salumeria sprouts on Queen West • Classic crème caramel, Italian and Vietnamese style
This Month
The Group of Seven–Nutcracker mash-up you never knew you always wanted • Sculptor James Carl’s venetian blind blobs (and other banal domestic scraps made interesting) at the Power Plant
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