Series: Spring 2001

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

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

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?

When Naomi Klein was in high school, she had a part-time job at Esprit, a popular retail clothing store for women. Esprit had a great manager, but sales were down, and so the head office brought in a supervisor to see to it that things turned around. It seemed image was part of the problem.… Continue reading Radical Chic

My very favourite news stories these days are those poignant tales of parents who have been investigated by the police or social service agencies because rolls of film they have submitted for processing turn out to contain nude photos of their children. These parents are often very badly treated. Their children may be temporarily taken… Continue reading The Fine Art of Being Loathsome