Category: Spring 2001

With stage fog drifting through the air, acrobats swinging from the ceiling and bass-driven music throbbing through the building, the pace of the party at first seemed oddly out of sync with its purpose. The green, orange and purple overhead spots cast an outlandish light on a milling crowd of journalists, Globe and Mailstaffers and… Continue reading Who’s On Top?

To a passerby on Yonge Street, the scene could have been an Italian wedding. The Sunday crowd included not only swanky 20-somethings sporting designer Italian jackets, but also their proud parents, who clutched envelopes stuffed with money. They piled into Grano restaurant in midtown Toronto-neutral ground for Woodbridge suburbanites and College Street urban dwellers alike-to… Continue reading Uphill Struggle

They’ve got a fire burning outside. Our tongues taste the smoke that seeps in through different wall cracks every time the wind shifts… They’re going to hang us. The year is 1879. In a ramshackle cabin somewhere near Kamloops, Alex Hare endures a siege. He’s haunted by fragmented memories of a murderous rampage. Maybe those… Continue reading Lock, Stock and One Smoking Barrel

After a day of working the downtown streets, a 30-something panhandler dressed in a tattered bomber jacket and dark tuque makes his way home to Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square. Even in the city that radiates prosperity, the face of homelessness is everywhere. The man crawls inside his sleeping bag and prepares to bed down for… Continue reading A Passage from India

In January 1962, a 28-year-old female reporter with uncontrollable, flaming red hair and a fiery spirit to match made an impression on a certain Cuban president. She was in Cuba for The Globe and Mail, covering the country’s third anniversary celebration of the revolution over dictator Fulgencio Batista. After the official proceedings were over, Fidel… Continue reading Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room