DRIVEN magazine - December 2008

DECEMBER 2008 * DRIVENMAG.COM *

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life.in.motion

L I F E S T Y L E

2009 CE ROLLS-ROY

PHANTOM

COTUIOPNÉARY

A C AU L E TA

Exclusive

The Gentleman’s

Gift Guide

9 fake ads • 81 real ideas

New short fiction from the 2008 Giller Prize winner

Glass action suits Spruced Up

JOSEPH BOYDEN

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The greatest luxury in life is time.

Savour every second.

Power. Luxury. Exclusivity. Breitling and Bentley share the same concern for perfection.

The same exacting standards of reliability and precision. The same fusion of prestige and performance. In the Breitling workshops, just as in the Bentley factories in Crewe, cuttingedge technology works hand in hand with the noblest traditions. Born from a passion for fine mechanisms, the Breitling for Bentley collection offers connoisseurs a rich range of exceptional chronographs.While conveying the quintessence of aesthetic refinement, these wrist instruments are all equipped with high-performance “motors�, patiently assembled by watchmakers at the peak of their art. Time is the ultimate luxury. breitlingforbentley.com

The Bentley 6.75 Chronograph Selfwinding chronograph with large date. Variable tachometer (exclusive system).

Officially chronometer-certified by the COSC.

On Bloor

F o r re t a i l e r l o c a t i o n s , p l e a s e v i s i t w w w. l o n g i n e s . c o m 4o 1 r6 c a. 9l l 215- 8 - 903-9015 . 3656 0 0 F o r re t a i l e r l o c a t i o n s , p l e a s e v i s i t w w w. l o n g i n e s . c o m o r c a l l ( 4 1 6) 703-1667

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On the Cover.

JOSEPH BOYDEN Fashion Z Zegna three-piece suit from Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com); A.P.C. moccasin boots from Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (nomadshop.net); J. Lindeberg shirt, Polo by Ralph Lauren tie, and stylist’s own pocket watch

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Car 2009 Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé Photography Lee Towndrow Styling Luke Langsdale Makeup & Hair Anita Cane (artistgrouplimited.com)

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Location Filmport Studios (filmportstudios.ca)

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48 38 HE GOT GAME Author and avid hunter Joseph Boyden’s second novel, Through Black Spruce, won the prestigious 2008 Giller Prize. When IBI KASLIK tracked Boyden down, she found him cleaned and dressed, and ready to discuss the craft of prose, the art of the pose and a few of his wild life experiences.

48 the PHANTOM MENACE Danger ahead: Stretching along the coastal cliffs

of San Francisco, Highway 1’s scenic, serpentine

northern arm befits a vehicle of distinction and

precision. GARY BUTLER takes his turns with the

2009 Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé.

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50 RUNNING TO STAND STILL Active wear is put through its paces by acrobatic wunderkind Joe Eigo, and MARK ZIBERT is there to capture dazzling styles and monstrous moves.

Fashion takes flight ... literally.

58 GENTLEMAN’S GIFT GUIDE In the spirit of giving, DRIVEN volunteers the finest free advice to help separate your salary from your wallet. The season’s best for travel, drink, tech, music and all purchasable points in between are here: 81 items that you or anyone on your list would love to have—and 9 that no one ever will.

Joseph Boyden and “key party” photos by Lee Towndrow; Parcour photo by Mark Zibert

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Departments 20 Personality Grace Park 14 Flash Coffee: We will sell no grind before its time 18 Graphics GötterdämmerBatterManners 16 Grooming Shawl necks, shawl good 14 Bytes Google ads: Bye-bye to words to buy by?

Automotive 44 2009 BMW 750Li 46 2009 Volvo XC60

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FICTION EXCLUSIVE “Three Wiser’s Men,” Joseph Boyden’s first new writing since the release of his award-winning novel, Through Black Spruce CRYSTAL VISIONS In case of fashion emergency, break glass EXCUSES, EXCUSES When a great defense—legally speaking—causes great offense BIO-GRAPHICAL The third installment in a series of six comic-book shorts.

This issue: “The Long Lost Sounds of Otis Henry-Lyons”

Illustration by Juliana Neufeld; Glass photo by Mark Zibert; Milk film still courtesy of Alliance Films

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DRIVEN: life.in.motion Editor-in-chief Gary Butler

THE GREAT PRETENDER It started four years ago, with a smart little art book called The Male Mystique.

A page-flipping joyride through 100-odd (very odd) magazine ads from the 1960s and ’70s, its content covered off every masculine touchstone from advertising’s swingingest age: cigarettes, booze, tight polyester slacks, sideburns, stereos, psychedelia and stewardesses. Short of including a U.S. Army ad, this tome was every man’s complete go-to guide for “being all that he could be.” In theory, a whole lot more.

I’d stumbled across the book in a specialty store, and I purchased it almost immediately. It was love at first sight, the kind that insinuates itself deep in the heart of the self-deprecating narcissist.

I recognized a distant self within far too many of The Male Mystique’s pages: proud, aggressive and tactless. And gullible. And, to some extent mercifully, oblivious. That guy amused me.

The very next day, I went back and scooped up the store’s dozen-or-so remaining copies. My father, my brother, my friends: The men in my life needed this reminder that while it’s all well and fine to be sophisticated and enlightened, one’s inner primitive could use an occasional pat on the cranium—he’s lonely. My wife thinks I’m laughing at him, whereas I say I’m basically buying him a coffee and trading stories from the tacky trenches.

We’re probably both right.

Advertising often tries to sell us the possibility of being someone we think we’d like to be. Then again, so do magazines, among many media. The fake ads in this issue of DRIVEN—you’ll know them when you see them; in fact, I think you’ll recognise that distant self in them—are invoking that caveman from both angles, inspired by the charming book and effect known as “the male mystique.”

I certainly hope you like what you’re about to see. Because there has to be more to this stuff than just what I’m reflecting.

Gary Butler

Art director Kelly Kirkpatrick Managing editor George Zicarelli Assistant editors Zach Feldberg, Eric Grant Automotive Mark Hacking Fashion Luke Langsdale Fiction Nathan Whitlock Travel Johnny Lucas Art intern Amanda Moody Fashion intern Daniella Maiorano Contributors Joseph Boyden, Justin Couture, Ian Harvey, Jamie Hunter, Ibi Kaslik, Joe Kilmartin, Jeff Lemire, Mark Moyes, Juliana Neufeld, Michael Pullmann, John Reid, Emma Segal, Richard Sibbald, Lee Towndrow, Elizabeth Walker, Steve Waxman, Derek Weiler, Mark Zibert Account managers Catherine Martineau catherine@DRIVENmag.com, 416.682.3493 x202 Michele Marotta michele@DRIVENmag.com, 866.631.6550 x295 Stéphanie Masse stephanie@DRIVENmag.com, 866.631.6550 x244 Vincent Nöel vincent@DRIVENmag.com, 866.631.6550 x228 Advertising coordinator Melissa Bissett, 866.631.6550 x244 Finance and administrative director Patricia Petit, 866.631.6550 x227 Accounts receivable 866.631.6550 x233 Accounts payable 866.631.6550 x235 Printer Solisco

JOE EIGO Millions around the world have been astounded by the highflying stunts of mighty Joe Eigo (“Prêt à parcour,” p50), whose eye-popping fusion of gymnastics and martial arts—an athletic discipline he calls “multi-level moves”—have made him an Internet celebrity. (In fact, someone probably just watched one of his wildly popular web videos— found on YouTube, of course, and at Multilevelmoves.com—while you read this.) Eigo’s prowess so impressed Jackie Chan that the movie star invited him to join his stunt team in 2004. Hiring the outlandish acrobat for our magazine’s freeze-frame fashion spread was an obvious choice.

Certainly, this DRIVEN modelling stint gives new meaning to the term “active wear.”

IBI KASLIK Ibi Kaslik used a time-honoured tactic to get Joseph Boyden to open up for our cover story (“Wild life,” p38): She attempted to establish a rapport based on common interests and experiences. Then she plied him with booze. An internationally published novelist and freelance writer, Kaslik’s first book, Skinny, was a New York Times best-seller.

Her most recent novel, the indierock tragicomedy The Angel Riots, was published in March, to national critical acclaim.

Ibi and Joseph share the same publisher, publicist, cigarette brand and taste in wine. There are those who say they are the same person, but this may be an illusion created by the simple use of mirrors, suggestion and a box with a false back.

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JULIANA NEUFELD Many major planets in the Canadian creative galaxy seem to gravitate towards Juliana Neufeld (Joseph Boyden’s “Three Wiser’s Men,” p32), a Torontobased painter, illustrator and photographer. In addition to illustrating the Giller winner’s newest slice of fiction, Neufeld recently appeared on IFC Canada in the Bruce McDonalddirected The Rawside of Brendan Canning; she was shown hanging with Broken Social Scene’s Canning, as she worked on the cover art for his solo album. Her work has been published in Urbanology and the Ryerson Review of Journalism. Always armed with a sketchbook and camera, she continues to relentlessly pursue her childhood dream: discovering the real Bigfoot.

MARK ZIBERT Mark Zibert (“Lights, camera, action!” p26 and “Prêt à parcour,” p50) likes to use his lens to trap discreet instants of motion. The photographer traveled to China to shoot a 2008 Olympic outdoor advertising campaign for Adidas, a campaign which won a prestigious Gold Lion award from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Zibert has built a client list straight from the who’s who column, from Nike and Pepsi on the commercial side to Life and Report on Business magazines on the editorial side.

He balances his commercial work with documentary projects in several African countries, on behalf of various NGOs that work to improve the lives of refugees, child soldiers and people affected by HIV/AIDS.

Marketing director Larry Futers, 416.407.8338 InField Marketing Group Publisher Michel Crépault DRIVEN magazine 412 Richmond St. East, Ste. 200 Toronto, Ont. M5A 1P8 416.682.3493 DRIVENmag.com Issue #25 ISSN 1712-1906 Auto Journal Inc. 1730, 55th Ave. Lachine, Que. H8T 3J5 866.631.6550 DRIVEN is published six times per year. No part of this publication may be copied or reprinted without the written consent of the publisher.

Subscription for one year: $30 (plus applicable taxes); $60 US surface; all other countries $120 airmail. For subscription inquiries, call 866.631.6550 x250.

Editor’s photo by Richard Sibbald; Styling by Luke Langsdale

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TEXTUAL HEALING

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The sizzle’s at stake. Can Google change web advertising all over again?

Photo by Tktktk tktktk

By Mark Moyes

Civet service

Some like it hot

The quest for the rarest coffees involves getting a bitter price By: Justin Couture

Hands up for a fifty-dollar cup

Take a moment to praise the affordable luxury: the ably citrusy and floral tasting brew, with a tea-like particular digestive chemistry, it turns out, does everyday indulgence that makes one feel cared for, aftertaste. With just a few hundred kilograms of the wonderful things to a coffee bean, and after the without causing any financial disfigurement. Let us beans harvested each year, it’s a genuine rarity and beans are excreted, they are collected by human By Justin praise the cup of coffee. a true treat forCouture any coffee connoisseur. Prices vary workers, cleaned thoroughly and lightly roasted.

When considering a mug of joe, what turns a from year to year and batch to batch, depending Civet coffee is reputed to be incomparably sweet, daily caffeine dose into a luxury to be savoured on auction demand and harvests. Last year, the rich and complex. Given the unique processing and North Americans tend to treat caffeinechoicest like an those who insistextremely that thelimited coffee they produced, consume isn’t so much the difference between the local beans went forFor roughly $130/lb, unroasted. quantities a pound of shop’s 89-cent thimbleful and the ubiquitous This year’s top of the crops auctioned off at around this exotic coffee can run as much as $450. If you everydaydonut luxury; in so doing, we fail to consider the pass through no mouth before their own, Panama’s monster chain $4-and-change custom frothed latté. $100/lb, which makes the current price of about manage to find some place that serves this unusual fact thatBecause it could actually benoan uncommon Esmeralda growsbrew, a geisha if money reallywas object, the truth is one. $10 Let’s for a single cupHacienda of the brew aLa relative bargain, gourmet expectvariety to pay $50of or more for the that there’s a world of fine caffeine out going for despite the fact that any self-respecting addict couldprivilege of drinking a cup. take a moment, then, to stop and smell the coff ee. bean that is ranked second to none by connoisseurs. upwards of eight dollars a shot—and that’s for procure a whole pound of standard roasted gourmet Our culture does not yet place fine coffee in In thestraight, age ofblack thecoffee. über-brand, the differencecoffee beans for around “Esmeralda Special” cofftheeesame gives a citrusy, floral brewcognac the same price. gourmet league as wine, scotch, One such cup is brewed from beans grown If you find yourself on a quest to experience the or even beer. Still, the advent of coffee-tasting betweenbya Panama’s donut chain’s buck-fifty double-double and with a tea-like aftertaste, and its beans are harvested Hacienda La Esmeralda, a beverage Krug of coffees, head to the south seas (or perhaps evenings in downtown cafés will help educate the available only in limited quantities in a select few to certain or the U.S.) curious.

While $50 for a few ounces of black gold a higher-end monster franchise’s $4-and-change lattétony establishments annuallyintoJapan a count of only a few hundred kilograms, Canadian coffee houses, notably Caffe Artigiano for Kopi Luwak, also known as civet coffee. The cof certainly bends the notion of affordable luxury, has less to do with price than one would think.

Expert making it a true rarity.

The good news is that a very in Vancouver and Calgary and Manic Coffee in fee is harvested naturally in Indonesia, by cat-like dropping 10 bucks on a cup of coffee truly worth Toronto.

These carefully harvested a what animals called palmselect civets, which also process the savouring isn’tcoff necessarily out of reach, marketers, these businesses don’tgesha justbeans, sell us we few independent Canadian ee houses do especially variety that originated in Ethiopia, yield a remark coffee plant’s berries by eating them. The civet’s given that it’s likely to be the best you’ve ever tasted.

need—daily hits of caffeine—they sell us what we want—a very specific self-image. The affordable end of 20 DRIVEN October 2008 DRIVENmag.com this spectrum is packaged to make customers feel like “regular” folk. The pricier option plays on associations of financial success and educated taste.

Money does matter, especially when daily customer loyalty is at stake. But if money really is no object, there is a world of truly ultra-luxe coffee out there, a cup of which can go for anywhere from eight dollars a pop to $50, or more. And forget about froths and flavour shots, those prices are for drinks served straight, black and decidely to the point.

The Krug of coffees remains the recently notorious Kopi Luwak. Also known as civet coffee, it’s harvested naturally in Indonesia by palm civets, weasel-like animals that process the coffee plant’s berries by digesting them. A pound of the excreted beans can run as much as $450, or $50 per cup. Although the civet digestive system is said to do wonderful things to a coffee bean, there is no doubt that the self-image of the imbiber is a factor in the outrageous price of this exotically weird and expensive brew. *

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acquire it, usually through middlemen who bid for the world’s rarest beans in tiny, limited auction lots.

Among the outlets that carry Esmeralda—once, maybe twice a year—are Caffè Artigiano in Vancouver and Calgary, and Toronto’s Manic Coffee.

So far, the investment’s paying off. Auction lots obtained for hefty prices still sell out within weeks.

Prices vary from year to year and batch to batch, but last year’s best from La Esmeralda went for roughly $130/lb, unroasted. This year’s top of the crops auctioned off at around $100/lb, which makes the current rate of roughly $10 for a single cup of the brew a relative bargain, despite the fact that a full pound of standard roasted “gourmet” coffee beans goes for around the same price.

Excellent beans aren’t the only ingredient in a truly fantastic cuppa. A knowledgeable, friendly barista, who can explain what a customer is tasting, and why he does or doesn’t like it, will groom an actual educated taste, where the chi-chi chains can only create a cheap veneer of sophistication. Is it worth the extra bucks? Maybe the actual question is: Are you?

Illustration by Emma Segal

Eight years ago, online advertising was positively Neolithic, the prevailing wisdom being that if you wanted to get users back to your cave, you had to smack them over the head with a club. Web campaigns were comprised of carelessly deployed pop-up windows and animations—veritable assaults of flashing, blinking and honking.

In October of 2000, Google changed the game with the launch of AdWords, a pay-perclick service that introduced unobtrusive, image-free text links alongside Google search results. From a consumer’s perspective, it was a welcome reinvention: Google’s ads were classy, quiet and, well, ignorable.

While rivals continue to compete for attention—floating “interstitials” that cover page content are as popular as ever—Google has remained a beacon of restraint. But despite what amounts to a successful approach, recent evidence shows that the company is changing tack. This fall, Google announced new initiatives that will bring targeted text ads to the iPhone, online video games, RSS feeds and its own Google Maps.

The irony? When plastered across every last tentacle of the web, AdWords’ inherent subtlety is all but shed, meaning that Google’s stubborn focus on text ads may be its downfall. Worse still, when neighbouring ads belch out mixed messages such as “Stop Debt Collectors” and “Kelowna BC Real Estate” in the same breath, it’s not just ugly, it’s gauche.

Fortunately, the company is trying new things. Although CEO Eric Schmidt has said that he prefers displaying text ads alongside streaming videos as opposed to embedding them, Google recently signed a deal with CBS to intersperse ad spots throughout full-length TV shows on YouTube (which it owns). A plan to launch image-based ads alongside Google Images search results in 2009 was also announced.

In this day and age, Google needs another breath of fresh air; what was fresh eight years ago is stale now. A plea to Mr. Schmidt: You don’t have to flash us, but a little honking and blinking would do lots to liven things up.

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That’s shawl, folks!

Three threads weave every shawl neck: versatility, luxury and stylishness

By Luke Langsdale

Counter-clockwise from top left

Winter is the season for knitwear and this year sees the long-overdue revival of a vintage 1930s gentleman’s favourite, the shawl neck. Basically a flap of fabric, like the beginning of a small hood, it folds over to create a stand-up collar that’s widest at the back of the neck, and tapers down to meet flush under the chin at the front.

Usually found on clothes with buttons that secure an open front—jackets, sweaters and cardigans—the shawl-neck collar is perfect for keeping out chilly winter breezes.

It’s great to see this style of sweater so widely available this year because, as well as being one of the most aesthetically pleasing styles of men’s knitwear, the shawl neck is incredibly versatile and, hence, essential in any discerning man’s wardrobe. It can be dressed up with a shirt and tie and worn into the office, or sported opennecked with a T-shirt for a refined but casual look. (No gaudy prints, please—keep it classic.) Wear it in the day to ward off the chill; come evening, team it with a tweed or corduroy jacket for a cozy outfit that doesn’t lose out in the style department. The shawl neck can even make do in a pinch as a scarf substitute under a winter coat.

When summer comes, take the time to pack away your collection properly—preferably in a cedar-lined box or trunk, with cedar blocks to keep the moths at bay.

This season you’ll find the shawl neck available in many different yarns and fabrics. Price points range wildly from an affordable wool mix at $60 right through to luxurious cashmeres and hand knits at $2,000.

The “Walking in a winter wonderland” sweater Polo by Ralph Lauren, Wool/Cotton, $260

The “Half in, half out” mock shawl neck Vince, 30% Alpaca 30% wool 40% cashmere, $300

The “Hanging around the house” sweater Paul Smith, 64% mohair 33% nylon 3 % wool, $365

The “Compliments from your comrades” sweater Hermès, 100% wool, $1,995

The “Beers with the boys” cardigan H&M, hand knit 50% wool 50% acrylic, $60

The “She wants you to stay home and cuddle” sweater Michael Kors, 100% cashmere, $425

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The ‘Stylist’s Own’ sweater Vintage – Rugby by Ralph Lauren, ‘Team Zissou’ detailing by stylist. Priceless Where to buy? For details, see “Buyer’s Market” on Page 81

Photography by Lee Towndrow

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Why so scurrilous?

All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder isn’t your father’s Goddamn dark knight By Joe Kilmartin

SPIRITUS SANCTI

The ghost of graphic genius past By Michael Pullmann This month, comic book crime-fighter The Spirit will enjoy a public profile some 50 years gone, courtesy of a new, big-budget film adaptation.

Directed by Frank Miller, creator of the hypermacho comics and films Sin City and 300, the cinematic Spirit promises to be a pulpy tough guy extravaganza, where the men are hard-boiled and there are two kinds of women: those with a sunny side and those who are overly easy.

This might give viewers the wrong idea.

When it debuted in a syndicated newspaper insert in June of 1940, Will Eisner’s Spirit seemed to be just the latest masked adventurer littering comics’ Golden Age, not much different from once popular but now forgotten creations like The Black Terror or The Sandman. While The Spirit and his revolving-door cast of femmes fatales are still highly esteemed by many comics aficionados—and certainly offer the right grist for the Hollywood mill—the comic’s lasting legacy grows from something much deeper. Not only did Eisner use the private-eye format to explore the social contract, often sidelining his own character for a human-interest story, he also used the strip itself for pure experimentation.

By series’ end, in 1952, Eisner had pioneered numerous artistic and narrative techniques, the limits of which are still being explored today.

Spirit strips are continually lauded for Eisner’s groundbreaking design work on almost every opening page. He did away with a standard logo contained in a sterile banner, and developed full 18 DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

pages on which the words “The Spirit” either reflected the episode’s setting or became incorporated into the world of the story—be it as a billboard, a price tag or a series of skyscrapers.

The experimentation continued well past the splash pages. Ever the tinkerer, Eisner pushed sequential panels to evolve beyond the standard black frame, making them open, contract or vanish as needed to convey not just plot, but mood and theme. One story saw the readers literally looking through the eye sockets of a murderer before The Spirit apprehended him; in another, parallel panels show two identical men as each seeks to escape his own fate.

In 1978, following a two-decade stint doing lucrative work-for-hire instructional comics, Eisner published A Contract with God, now widely credited as the first North American graphic novel. Once again ahead of its time—graphic novels have only really come into their own in the last decade on this continent—the work comprised four interlinked, partly autobiographical short stories set among Jewish-American immigrants in the 1930s. From this point until his death in 2005, Eisner continued to bring to centre stage the kinds of people who had sometimes been supporting characters in The Spirit.

Moviegoers and comic fans will no doubt get an eye-popping adventure with the silver-screen Spirit, but no one should expect Hollywood to do justice to Eisner’s vision. The Spirit’s willing, we’re sure, but how can the analog help but be weak?

THREE YEARS AGO, DC COMICS enlisted veteran creator Frank Miller to essentially relaunch Batman. It was hoped that All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder would free the dynamic duo from the burden of decades of convoluted story lines, which were suspected of alienating casual readers. One of the comics industry’s few real celebrities, Miller was returning to the character 20 years after writing two definitive Batman stories, The Dark Knight Returns and Year One, gritty ’80s works that rescued the character from the kitschy ’60s (and heavily influenced the recent hit Bat-films of Christopher Nolan).

Miller’s book proved to be anything but heroic, his return anything but prodigal. A line-crossing, ultra-violent, sexually charged and self-destructive approach to the iconic do-gooders, All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder is as much a piss-take as a pastiche of their traditional depictions. How far over the line is it? Hardcore Bat-fans have declared ASBAR—or, as it’s known in snark-filled online circles, ASS-Bat—to be nothing short of unreadable.

Rebooting the story of the dynamic duo from the moment that soon-to-be Robin’s parents are murdered, ASS-Bat immediately dives into the tale of a borderline maniac: the Dark Knight himself.

“Are you retarded or something ?” the man in the cowl demands of Dick ‘Robin’ Grayson, shortly after kidnapping the boy. “I’m the Goddamn Batman!” The Goddamn Batman then abandons the already traumatized boy in the Batcave and insists that he survive on rats (as did, according to Miller’s new revisionism, Batman himself).

With Miller’s penchant for potty-mouthed dialogue (though the dirty words here are blacked out for ‘sensitive’ readers) and swimsuitsexy, misandrist females (ASS-Bat includes a literally ball-breaking Wonder Woman, who calls random guys on the street “sperm banks”), it’s hard to know how the man intended readers to take it all. Is it the grittiest Batman story ever told, a ‘realistic’ look at the kind of personality who’d don a mask and tights to fight crime? Or is it simply a crass parody of Miller’s beloved earlier works, designed to tick off the obsessive Bat-fans, the same fans who keep his name forever chained to a character with his own line of kiddie pyjamas?

Whatever. Basically, if superherodom’s Death Proof-meets-JACKASS sounds good, look no further than ASS-Bat. If it doesn’t, well, take the big guy’s advice: Put a Bat-sock in it.

The Spirit by Will Eisner © Will Eisner, Inc.; Batman by Jim Lee, Batman logo by Bob Kane © DC Comics

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Alias, Grace

Three shows, four roles. Grace Park may be coming for your job next By Eric Grant

So, a Homeland Security agent, a sassy heiress, two spaceship pilots and several hundred gorgeous killer robots walk in to a small cocktail reception...

Hmm, let’s start that one again. Grace Park walks in to a small cocktail reception, held on the set of the CBC action-and-intrigue series The Border, and DRIVEN tries to remember that the lovely Ms. Park is not any of the plethora of people she plays on TV. Which is to say: In real life, she is not a recovering addict with a trust fund; she is not a pistol-packing U.S. security officer; she is not a mechanical Cylon infiltrator who mistakenly believes she’s human.

The 34-year-old actor never actually shot Edward James Olmos point-blank in the chest, nor shared a steamy romantic history with Benjamin Bratt. And lest we forget: Tracked a religious cult through the Western wilderness? Had her half-human baby stolen? Been assassinated or experienced reincarnation? Nope, nope, nope and nope.

What Park has done in the past year is co-star on three fairly different television shows, with almost simultaneous shooting schedules: The Border, The Cleaner and Battlestar Galactica. While that feat of juggling may not seem like much in the face of the above-mentioned fictional trials, it nonetheless saw her shuttling between Los Angeles, Toronto and her hometown of Vancouver, desperate simply to seize enough sleep to remember whom exactly she was playing on any given tomorrow, never mind which peril they were facing.

“I noticed the couple of times I didn’t [get enough sleep],” she says, “it was like a baaaaad accident.”

Aside from extreme exhaustion, another clear and present danger that Park has thus far managed to avoid is full-time residence in L.A. She explains that she is wary of that city’s sometimes claustrophobic

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entertainment-industry culture. “There are things I do like about Los Angeles, but it’s nice to have a break from that, to remember what real life is like,” she says.

Real life, in this case, is a bucolic space-and-time confluence, “where not everybody knows what awards show is on Friday, and who wore what to which event. … [Hollywood] is not even a reality, it’s a falsehood. It’s bizarre.”

If the actor is not completely comfortable with her profession’s social artifice, and not at all like her assorted television personae, then what is she really like?

To get an idea, consider the following Grace Parkisms…

On how to diplomatically discuss first-draft TV scripts: “The last thing you want to do is say, ‘What is this shit? Who was writing this?

What are you smoking?’”

On the value of professional management: “I remember the first time I got sent a package [a gift from a Battlestar fan], I was worried that it was a bomb, so I left it in my manager’s office. Isn’t that horrible?”

On appropriate reactions to inane showbiz red-carpet questions like (true story), What do you think about all the girls on 90210?

“Uh, whaaa?”

And on the follow-up, You know, how they’re all so skinny thin?

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but … if the girls are young, it can always be challenging, growing up in the public eye.”

And on the, well, kicker, So-and-so died, what do you think about that?

“Geez, don’t even go there.”

Who is the real Grace Park, then? That particular identity isn’t one that a brief chat at a media event and a half-hour telephone interview can nail down. We can say this much, though: She is a refined and intelligent artist with impressive reserves of energy, keen to put people at their ease and possessing the casual charm to do it.

In a word, she is gracious. We also suspect that, in a less formal setting, she’d be some hell to drink beer with. D

Photo by Giuliano Bekor

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Let them plead cake

No taste, less fulfilling. Zach Feldberg considers the unappetizing ramifications of the controversial late-’70s “Twinkie defense” Original courtroom drawings from “A Front Row Seat at the Dan White Trial” by David Newman, 1979

On an idyllic level, criminal justice serves as the bedrock of civilized society, helping to maintain order as we know it. At its worst, though, it’s a contradiction in terms. An all-toonecessary system of checks and balances exists to keep it all honest—save for the fact that the shrewd manipulation of semantics can often end up limiting its efficacy.

In his book Sex, Drugs & the Twinkie Murders, American satirist Paul Krassner describes the 1979 trial of Dan White, a former San Francisco supervisor who famously served just five years in prison for the murder of two city officials: Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in U.S. history, and Mayor George Moscone.

A protegé of the acerbic comedian Lenny Bruce, as well as the publisher of the late counterculture magazine The Realist, Krassner wrote at length about what he once famously dubbed “The Twinkie defense.” It’s an intentionally outrageous description for an equally outrageous claim: the legal argument, presented by White’s Drawings © David Newman (telenaut.com/danwhite, DNSF.com); All Rights Reserved

counsel, that the defendant’s judgment was impaired by the reckless over-consumption of, believe it, sugary snacks.

During White’s notorious trial, a small army of psychiatrists was brought in to speak to the defendant’s diminished capacity. One of them, forensic psychiatrist Martin Blinder, stated that “if not for the aggravating fact of the junk food, the homicides might not have taken place.”

Whether or not the audacious claim was a deciding factor in the jury’s lenient decision—most political assassins are imprisoned for life, or executed—remains a source of public interest. This month sees the release of Gus Van Zant’s biopic Milk, starring Sean Penn as the title character and Josh Brolin as White, his troubled killer.

“Dan White got away with a double political assassination,” says Krassner, who still walks with a cane as a result of injuries sustained during the ‘White Night Riots’ that erupted outside San Francisco’s City Hall in response to what

many everyday citizens felt to be a miscarriage of justice. “He killed a progressive mayor, and he killed Harvey Milk—the gay equivalent to Martin Luther King.” (Indeed, Milk was no less inspiring—or polarizing—than the late reverend.)

Krassner covered the trial in its entirety for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and does not deny that other factors served as fuel for the jury’s sympathy—notably, a powerful testimony from White’s wife, who cried on the stand. But the Twinkies, he agrees, could have been the tipping point.

Krassner likens legal shenanigans to the game of chess. “The Twinkie defense was one of several ‘moves’ that ... took responsibility away from what he did.”

No surprise that the Twinkie defense has gone on to become a derisive colloquialism for any legal testimony that cites an outlandish excuse as cause for a crime. White’s landmark case tested the boundaries of diminished capacity, and opened the creative floodgates for DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com 23

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attorneys everywhere—for better or for worse, depending on whom you ask.

In 2005, a 33-year-old Toronto man named Jan Luedecke was acquitted of rape charges when his defense team convinced a jury that the defendant was asleep for the duration of the incident. Dr. Colin Shapiro, one of the world’s foremost experts on sexsomnia and other parasomnial occurrences, told the court that Luedecke’s actions were the result of a combination of alcohol, sleep deprivation and genetics, and that he could not be held accountable. The acquittal did not sit well with either the press or the public; three years on, the story is still inspiring new Facebook groups.

Criminal lawyer Jonathan Dawe was part of the team that defended the Luedecke ruling after the Crown appealed earlier this year. He maintains that justice was served. “This is the sort of issue that everybody on the street seems to have a very strong opinion about,” he says, “But the fact is, the science in this is uncontradicted [sic]. A lot of lawyers would say, ‘Come on, nobody could do this.’ But their intuitions are formed from their own experiences, and their own experiences just don’t apply here.”

Dawe adds that, despite being the creative architects of legal defenses, attorneys seldom bear the brunt of public rebukes—it’s the clients who are exposed. “We experienced very little backlash directly,” he says. “It’s much more difficult for Jan. He’s the one who’s been vilified.”

For Dan White’s part, vilification came in the form of hate mail, vandalized property and overt threats to family. Unable to cope, he took his own life in 1985, less than two years after completing his manslaughter sentence.

Where some are forced to deal with unlivable consequences in the wake of a controversial ruling, others enjoy renewed notoriety. The popularity of R. Kelly, for example, has only increased in the seven years since his child pornography trial was set in motion. Kelly, accused of filming himself engaging in sex acts with his goddaughter “whom he knew or reasonably

24 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

should have known to be under the age of 18” (per the prosecution), beat all 14 counts of child pornography. The defense made the jury doubt that Kelly was the man they saw on the tapes.

The pop star’s lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., went so far as to invoke the lowbrow 2006 comedy Little Man, saying to the jury, “They took the head of Marlon Waymons [sic] and put it on a midget, and it looked real, didn’t it?” Judge Vincent Gaughan instructed the court that the testimony was anything but expert. Still, the jury went on to find Kelly not guilty.

Lawyers are paid to win cases by any (legal) means necessary, however imaginative, and regardless of any resultant controversy. During a courtroom argument about whether or not criminals should retain the right to hire the lawyer of their choice, Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court said, “[If I’m a defendant,] I don’t want a ‘competent’ lawyer—I want a lawyer to get me off. I want a lawyer to invent the Twinkie defense. I want to win.”

Krassner can relate: He was busted for mushrooms about 10 years ago. He beat the charge, specifically because, he maintains, he hired “a very good lawyer.” Interestingly, that lawyer, Doron Weinberg, is now the lead counsel in the Phil Spector retrial. Krassner says that he believes Spector is guilty, and that Weinberg probably believes the same. And it’s irrelevant.

“It has nothing to do with truth. It has to do with the image of truth—the possibility of truth.”

Astonishingly, no medical professionals showed up to test the possible limits of their own ethics on behalf of Rep. Vito Fossella of New York.

Fossella, who still awaits sentencing, tried to dispute his DWI charge this October by saying that he was a regular user of Purell, and that the hand sanitizer’s 60 per cent ethyl alcohol content level increased his blood alcohol reading.

Someone should tell Krassner that there’s hope for the system after all. He’s still vitriolic over the Twinkie psychiatrists. “They were being untrue to their professions. … They were prostitutes—with apologies to prostitutes.” D

Golden boys

100 Twinkies, 24 Cokes, two men, no bile

By Zach Feldberg

Five years ago, on assignment for a men’s lifestyle magazine not unlike this one, my friend Damian Abraham and I set off into the Ontario wilderness for four days, armed only with a diary, a case of Coke, and a crate of Twinkies. True story: We were testing the Twinkie defense.

Long before Gus Van Zant’s Milk generated renewed interest in the Dan White murders, we wanted to investigate the possibility that “the aggravating fact” of a sugary diet could make “homicides take place,” as White’s legal team successfully argued some 25 years earlier.

Needless to say, Twinkie-inspired manslaughter did not occur in 2003—at least, not in the greater Kinmount area.

That said, neither of us was suffering from the other issues that factored into White’s situation: We hadn’t lost our jobs or distanced ourselves from our wives, and we had no specific vendettas against each other. We were starting our shared journey at full—not diminished—capacity.

Alas and alack, at the end of the curious experiment, both of us were fine, not to mention alive. (This, despite the kind of extreme physical discomfort that only the double-whammy of sorbitan monostearate and polysorbate 60 can bring on.)

Mentally speaking, we were doing fairly well, or at least no worse than when we idiotically first decided to eat only junk food for the better part of a week. As our day-three travelogue recounted, with subtle enthusiasm, “The Coke is hot and the Twinkies are reduced to spongy paste in their little crinkly baggies. What was once delicious is now received with indifference.

What’s more, we are still not insane; we are completely aware of how bored we are.”

Better bored than bereft of breath. Over a 96-hour period, we consumed, exclusively, an ungodly two-dozen sodas, and roughly 100 Twinkies—each.

We’ve come a long way since then: I write for a different men’s lifestyle magazine now, and Damian is a travelling salesman who practically lives on the road. We still make time for the occasional supper of Twinkies and Coke, though, albeit in significantly smaller quantities, and only for nostalgia’s sake, since neither of us actually likes Twinkies. In fact, we never did.

Here’s to growing up. Santé!

Photo of Feldberg & Abraham by Lee Towndrow

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Lights, camera, action!

Photography Mark Zibert Fashion Styled by Luke Langsdale Art Direction Kelly Kirkpatrick Makeup and Hair Anita Cane (artistgrouplimited.com) Models Andrew and Eric, NAM Personal Management Inc. Where to buy? For details, see “Buyer’s Market” on page 81

26 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

Shirt Burberry Prorsum Cummerbund Prada Vest Lanvin Pants Prada Scarf Hermès Photo by Tk tk

Jeans Christian Dior Shirt Prada Sweater Alexander McQueen Scarf Hermès Shoes Louis Vuitton Belt Surface to Air Photo by Tk tk

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Shirt Maison Martin Margiela Pants Louis Vuitton Shoes Louis Vuitton Belt Fossil

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Photo by Tk tk

Cardigan Louis Vuitton Pants Louis Vuitton Shoes Common Projects Photo by Tk tk

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Shirt Louis Vuitton Pants Louis Vuitton Shoes Louis Vuitton Cardigan Comme des Garรงons

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fiction *

Three Wiser’s Men

By Joseph Boyden

Illustrations By Juliana Neufeld

A

xe Man drives the RV down to New Orleans from Penetanguishene. It’s The Bat’s vehicle, but he’s not been able to drive it for years due to his affliction. Big Indian keeps the thing running, all of them drinking rye out of Tim Hortons coffee cups.

They break down just outside Toronto in the first hours of the ride, The Bat pacing and whining, but thank god Big Indian is a whiz with the wrenches. The Bat loses his pop-bottle thick glasses somewhere in Ohio. Gas station? Discount liquor store?

32 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

Who knows. He looks like that Bubbles character from Trailer Park Boys with those ridiculous things on, anyways.

Truth is he’s blind as a bat now. That’s for sure. Axe Man will write a song about this, accompanied by his sweet lady, his sweet axe, his Gibson Hummingbird True Vintage acoustic guitar.

When they break down once again in Kentucky and it looks like everything is lost, Big Indian crawling out from beneath the old RV forlorn and looking like a greased-up residential school survivor, Axe Man becomes depressed.

Is this what their lives have finally boiled down to? Three middle-aged fat guys in a crapped-out RV? But the Indian works his magic once more, and the glorious afternoon, sticky and hot, arrives when they hobble out of that RV

and onto the streets of the French Quarter, Axe Man’s darling sleeping in her case in his hand. ig Indian and The Bat bail on him a half-hour into their stroll to head into Craw Daddy’s and catch the early show. Craw Daddy’s promises a live sex extravaganza, but that kind of action doesn’t do it much for Axe Man anymore. If there’s one thing Axe Man has always wanted to do, it’s to play to a crowd on Bourbon Street. He can picture the tourists surrounding him, shouting for more, urging him to play his river blues, right hand thrumming steady, left hand with slide on pinkie finger, working the neck with his lover’s touch. They’ll be throwing money into the open case, red velvet covered in green, green Yankee bills.

Axe Man searches for the most New Orleans-looking street corner he can find.

Not too difficult. The frigging place is like a movie set. He sits and opens the case gently, stares at the polished wood of his Gibson gleaming in the sunlight. My God, he thinks, this city is hot, like standing in the mouth of an overworked dog. He can feel his ponytail, dank with moisture. As he leans to pick up his guitar, he’s horrified to see his own sweat plop onto that immaculate wood. Axe Man pulls the bandana from his pocket and wipes her clean. He’s had this lover, the same lover, for years.

He doesn’t need no live sex extravaganzas to get off.

Axe Man hasn’t even finished tuning his baby when up walk two cops, asking to see his permit, smiling, but not with their hard eyes. Axe Man has to ask them “Pardon?” twice. His hearing isn’t what it used to be,

B

forces him to play the blues louder than he should.

“Permit, motherfucker, permit!” the thinner of the two cops shouts at him. A crowd begins to gather, but unfortunately not for the music.

“I just drove down from Canada, sir,” Axe Man says as sweetly as he knows how. “I didn’t know of any legalities pertaining to permits, sir.”

Maybe his politeness does it, maybe it’s that his hands shake so hard his guitar quivers, but the cops let him go with a warning. “We catch you playing music on these streets without a permit, your long-haired ass is in central lockup for the duration.” Axe Man has to read the cop’s lips. Duration sounds like a long time.

After hours of wandering, peering into the daiquiri, sex, antique, and T-shirt shops, he finds himself at this same intersection of Bourbon and Royal again. He’s going to play, even if it means doing hard time. You can’t kill the blues. You can’t hold the black man down, or the Axe Man, for that matter. Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” plays over and over in his head.

I’m wanted. Wanted! He’ll have to learn to play that one.

Axe Man peers down each of the four streets as coolly as he can. The night has come, but the heat remains. He’s as close to being a wanted man in this town as one can become. All he has to do is open his guitar case and the real heat will be on him. He’s on the verge of being an outlaw.

Lots of people walking up and down, making it hard to see if there are any cops hiding among them. He’s gonna do it. He has to. Axe Man places the case on the sidewalk, hands shaking as he flicks open

the clasps, blood pounding in his ears.

He fumbles with the tuning of his babe.

It’s hard to focus on chord progressions with the possibility of the hammer falling any moment. Even his fingers sweat. The strings screech and whine. To make it worse, some little black kids with bottle caps on the soles of their shoes have taken up residence thirty feet down the sidewalk and tap dance out a rhythm far too fast and jazzy for the blues. Already an audience gathers around them, clapping and cheering, tossing coins at their feet. uck it. He reaches for the mickey of rye in his ass pocket, unscrews the top, and takes a swallow big enough to make him gag. Pigs can’t stop the music. There was a time that doesn’t feel so long ago when he wouldn’t have even second-guessed himself, a time when he still had his hearing, when his ponytail was more blond than grey and a lot more full, when he would have happily gone to the big house in exchange for the music to flow.

Closing his eyes, he turns to the wall of the Voodoo Magic Shop—the perfect venue for his first New Orleans concert, no?—and focuses his attention on feeling, not hearing, the notes becoming chords, the chords becoming song, the song becoming him. Let your freak fingers fly, he hums to himself, Mississippi River close and to his right, the ghosts of all the slaves of the South beginning to hum along with him. So easy to get lost in the music that he can feel vibrating more than he can hear singing in his guitar.

When the hand slaps heavy on his shoulder, the shock of coming back down is so

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fiction * strong he must clench his buttocks hard to stop from shitting himself. He grips his guitar, considers using it as a Pete Townshend weapon over the head of the pig, but just as quickly realizes his baby is too dear for that. He turns and faces the iron grip.

Big Indian gazes down at him, a smirk on his face. On the corner, The Bat stares through binoculars at the people walking toward and away from him.

“Goddamn it, Indian,” Axe Man hisses, releasing his bum’s death-clench. Big Indian turns his head to the left, scanning the crowd moving in repeated waves, points with his lips at the same two cops harassing a drunken frat boy just a block away.

There are days Axe Man wishes the Indian would talk, but Indian’s learned over the years that speaking is the least important yet most overused of the senses.

Axe Man slips the guitar back in her case just as the cops leave the frat boy be and begin walking toward him. He leaves the case on the ground, using Big Indian as cover, and sidles over to The Bat. The little black kids continue their dance, the click tick ticking of the bottle caps on the soles of their sneakers the nicest thing Axe Man might have ever heard.

“Found these puppies at an antique store,” Bat says about the binoculars, not bothering to turn his head to Axe Man. They’ve all known each other so long that they recognize the others’ smell, the one sense that all seem to have been able to maintain.

“Well, lookie there,” Bat says as Axe Man slyly watches the cops pass by without recognizing him, “Anal Ace. Now that’s a place that might be worth checking out.” Axe Man follows the binoculars’ angle. Even from here he can see the burnt-out “C” of the first word, the burnt out “P” and “L” of the second glowering down over the Quarter like a beacon. Binoculars. What a good idea. Axe Man would never have thought of it himself. He begins to ponder the possibility of finding one of those horns in an antique store, the one you hold to your ear as you say, “What? Speak louder.”

Big Indian joins them, and the three stare up at Anal Ace hanging there, shining over the French Quarter like a naughty moon, all of them comfortable and standing shoulder to shoulder, Big Indian towering

34 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

above on one side, Bat shorter by a foot on the other, staring through his new specs at the girls’ asses now as they walk by a few feet in front of him. Axe Man could write a song about this, he thinks, as he reaches for the warm rye in his back pocket. In fact, he will. Right now. e turns back to the Voodoo wall, hating to cut short such a moment, but the music is most important.

He turns back to that Voodoo wall and, like a bad curse, his world begins to spin. The little black kids and their bottle cap clicking sneaker soles have split. And along with them, his lover, his guitar.

For frantic hours they search the Quarter,

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the three men breathless, peering down every piss and rotten fish stinking alley they can find. Axe Man has been crying quietly on and off. This guitar was given to him fifteen years ago by his wife, who saved up for a year and then, two days after Christmas, died of an embolism. Is there no God left in this world? Axe Man wants to scream to the orange moon hanging like a halo above the head of the Joan of Arc statue on Decatur.

“No sign of those urchins,” The Bat reports, peering through his binoculars. Big Indian, still as one in front of a cigar store, peers the other way up the street, his hand shading his eyes, his profile stern.

“We have to keep looking,” Axe Man mutters. “She’s all I have left.”

Big Indian turns to him, shaking his head sadly, his eyes saying, “She’s gone, my friend. She’s gone,” just like they did fifteen years ago. He puts his big arm around

Axe Man and leads him into the doorway of a dark and dank rundown bar, a place perfectly fit for three losers like them.

They sit in a row at the bar, one friend on either side of Axe Man as if to protect, or to comfort. “You covet something too much,” The Bat says, “you’re bound to lose it.” Big Indian shoots The Bat a glare that even Axe Man can feel burn. “What I’m trying to say,” The Bat continues, “is that the world is built so that eventually we’re going to lose the things we love. You got to just keep on keepin’ on.”

We will all eventually lose the things we love the most. This thought doesn’t exactly make Axe Man feel better. He looks over to Big Indian, who just stares into his glass now. Axe Man looks over to The Bat, who’s peering at Axe Man intently through his binoculars.

The Bat’s eyes through the lenses, bigger than twin bloodshot moons, startle Axe Man. “I’ve lost the last thing I loved so much,” Axe Man says.

“You still have us,” The Bat says, dropping the binoculars. Axe Man stares into his friend’s milky cataracts.

Yes, you’re right. Yes, I do, Axe Man wants to say. He will say it right now.

But then it echoes into the bar: the click clack clackety click of pop bottle caps on sneakers striking pavement.

Outside now, the three men circle like middle-aged and overweight wolves, cornering the children against the wall. The children slow their tap dance to a heartbeat. The one in the middle, the smallest, stares to Axe Man’s left. “What that is?” the child asks, his mouth open slightly.

Axe Man knows this must be a trick. As soon as he moves his eyes from the boy, all of them will dart away, dark minnows into the humid night. But the child’s wondrous look forces Axe Man to turn to what the child sees. The Bat stares down at the child through his binoculars, his mouth set in an angry line.

“Where’s my guitar?” Axe Man asks, trying to sound like Clint Eastwood. His voice cracks though, on the verge of sobs.

The three children just stare up at him, as if they don’t understand his language. Axe Man looks to Big Indian on his right, thick arms bulging muscle beneath his plaid

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fiction * shirt. Big Indian looks tough, Axe Man thinks. “My guitar,” Axe Man says. “Where is it?” The children just continue to stare up at the three Canadians, mouths still open. Axe Man, hands shaking, begins to reach for the smallest child in the middle.

He’ll throttle the kid.

“I bet I know where you got your shoes,” the tallest of the boys says to The Bat. Axe Man looks to the child. He must be no older than ten or eleven.

“My guitar,” Axe Man says. “Tell me where it is.”

“I don’t know about no guitar,” the tallest boy says. “But I do know where that weird man there,” he points to The Bat, “I know where he got his shoes.”

“That’s impossible,” The Bat says.

“You don’t even know where I come from. How can you possibly know where I got my shoes?”

“I’ll bet you five dollars,” the boy says, “that I know.”

This must be a trick, Axe Man thinks. These tiny dancers are attempting to confuse and misdirect.

“I’ll bet you twenty dollars, then,” The Bat says, “that you don’t know where I got my shoes.”

“Deal,” the tallest boy says. The two of them shake hands. All of them grow quiet for the boy’s answer. “Listen,” the boy begins. “You got your shoes…” He pauses for effect. “You got your shoes, on your feet, in the middle of Decatur Street.”

The Bat lowers his binoculars. “Son of a bitch,” he mutters. “That just ain’t right.

I thought you meant you knew where I purchased my shoes.”

“Pay up,” the boy says.

“I will not,” The Bat responds.

“I’ll call the cops.”

“Pay him,” Axe Man says. “He got you fair and square.”

The Bat looks through his binoculars at Axe Man for long moments, then drops a hand and reaches for his wallet. “This means I’m buying you no more beers tonight,” he mutters.

36 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

As his hand reaches with the twenty toward the waiting hand of the boy, Axe Man says, “Wait.” All eyes turn to him. “We’ll give you this money, but first you tell me what you know about my guitar.”

The three little boys look to one another.

They nod in unspoken agreement. The middle one finally speaks. “You know those tattoo dudes?” he asks. “The ones who come out like rats at night? The ones that got the piercings in their faces and tongues?”

Axe Man has seen many freaks on this long day in the French Quarter, including

the small army of homeless kids dressed like Sid Vicious who beg change on the different corners. He nods.

“Some of those got it. We seen them take it from the sidewalk.” The boy pauses.

“Give us another twenty, an’ we take you.

They not far from here.” he nerve! Axe Man’s hands reach out once more to throttle the little shits, but Big Indian nudges past him and hands the boy another twenty. Big Indian looks at Axe Man. He must see something in the boys that Axe Man cannot.

The group of them walk down Decatur, the bottle caps on the boys’ feet clicking out a rhythm. By the corner of Decatur and Esplanade, the boys stop. The middle one raises his arm and points to an abandoned storefront, a young couple huddled in its entrance, leaning toward one another.

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Axe Man’s heart leaps when he sees his guitar case resting against the boarded-up door behind them. A fire of anger burns in his ribs. He approaches them, ready for battle, ready to pummel them before he retrieves his guitar.

Close enough now that he begins to reach out to them, Axe Man freezes in his advance.

The young couple, he sees, leans to one another, not to share a crack pipe or a joint, but to shield a tiny baby that the mother nurses. The child sucks hungrily then pulls off the mother’s pierced tit, staring up with blind eyes to him. The couple follows their child’s gaze.

A slight wind cools Axe Man’s neck, rustles leaves and garbage on the street. A baby. Was this child their need, their reason to take his guitar?

After long moments, the gutter-punk father reaches behind him and passes the case over to Axe Man. Just from the weight, he can feel it: his darling is still safe inside.

He can also feel the eyes of the children and of his friends behind him.

“Before you leave,” the young mother says, “can I ask you to do something?”

Axe Man nods.

“Will you play a song for my baby here?”

Axe Man looks down to the child in her arms. He places the guitar case onto the ground, snaps open the clasps with a sureness of fingers he’s not felt in a long time.

He can feel his friends and the children edge closer as he lifts his lady up and begins to strum.

Do minutes pass? A half-hour? An hour?

The tap-dancing children keep lookout for unwanted cops. People begin to gather, just a small crowd at first. The father and mother with their baby in her arms sway to Axe Man’s blues. Coins begin to fall like silver rain as the crowd grows larger, then dollar bills flutter down, snowflakes into the open case. When Axe Man looks up, he sees his two friends, nodding their heads proudly and clapping their hands, Anal Ace above them shining down like the moon. *

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Background Script; The opening Lines of “Through Black Spruce,” Hand-Written by Joseph Boyden

At the hunter’s meridian Whether roughing it in the bush or writing about the same, Giller Prize-winning author Joseph Boyden seems to be a straight shooter

By Ibi Kaslik

I

n another life, Joseph Boyden’s hands were explosive weapons. “I used to teach school with black eyes,” says the author-teacher, who just last month won Canada’s most prestigious literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, for his second novel, Through Black Spruce. “My students thought I was nuts.”

He wasn’t nuts, he was just a scrappy, long-time practitioner of Jeet Kune Do, the martial arts system developed by Bruce Lee. An individual with an admittedly focussed personality, Boyden explains there was a time when he sparred so often that he couldn’t walk into a room without eyeballing every occupant, sussing out potential ‘situations’ that might arise. “I definitely became obsessive,” he reflects, “but I don’t think I’m aggressive.” Not crazy, either, despite his students’ understandable suspicions.

The obsession certainly paid off, as there are a few violent fight scenes in Through Black Spruce. But given the Giller Prize’s three-punch combo of critical acclaim, $50,000 purse and instant national bestseller-level success, it’s safe to say that the man is now officially a successful writer and not a fighter.

Three Day Road, Boyden’s first novel, was based on real-life Aboriginal First World War heroes, specifically examining the war experience of two Cree youths. Published in 2005, it won nearly every major Canadian literary award for first attempt, save the Governor General—for which it was nominated—and the Giller. Through Black Spruce is a tangential sequel; the tie is limited to character lineage (Boyden’s plan is for an overall trilogy). It describes the tragic life of comatose bush pilot Will Bird and his

Styling by Luke Langsdale; For details, see “Buyer’s Market” on page 81

fashion-model/animal-trapping nieces, Susan and Annie. Set in Moosonee, Toronto, Montreal and New York, the story flits seamlessly from metropolis to reserve and manages to be both traditional and modern in its depiction of Aboriginal culture. As Boyden says, he hopes the book “paints a fuller picture of First Nations life.”

That Through Black Spruce claimed the Giller Prize within a mere two months of its release certainly makes for juicy press; throw Aboriginal roots and dashing good looks into the mix, and Boyden has become irresistible to the Canadian media. Grabbing a Giller so early in a career would send any Canadian writer on a dizzying ego bender, but Boyden seems entirely level-headed. “It kind of wipes away any concern I might have had that I’m not on the right path,” he offers, without irony.

The thing is, Boyden’s naturally-happy-and-rooted-epic-novelist vibe appears genuinely unrelated to any kind of success. On the afternoon of our interview, four days after his Giller win, there’s a heavy storm in Toronto. Boyden is content and affable, and completely over the topic of black-tied literary victories. In actuality, it hasn’t even sunk in. For now he’s happy just to be out of the fierce rain, sneaking in a smoke and a phone call to his good friend, The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie.

After an exhausting day of being primped and prodded like a pin-up, Boyden has learned something about himself. “The irony of ironies is…” he tells Downie, reflecting on an afternoon of pouting and striking poses, “…I’m a terrible model.”

If the novel’s accurate-enough modelling content did not spring from hours spent under the ministrations of stylists and flash bulbs, maybe it came from Boyden’s own family, specifically his sisters. He was the first boy born after four girls (in a family of 11), so he should be used to the role of man-doll. “Maybe that’s what I was working through in the book: being made up by my sisters?” he laughs, flashing another media-friendly attribute—an honest but dazzlingly toothy grin.

DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com 39

B

oyden flicks his palm over his black curls to reveal the fleshy part of his thumb, where his son’s name is tattooed in bluish, bleeding ink. Like the deep horizontal scar on his chin, the tat is both conspicuous and vulnerable—public yet private.

Rubbing that bad-ass chin scar, Boyden chats about writing, friends and mixing marriage with business (his wife is novelist Amanda Boyden). There are attempts made on the part of both photographer and interviewer to inflate that even-keeled ego, but the award-winner-as-incorrigible-asshole angle is clearly not happening. There will be no “Do you know who I AM”?-moments, no cellphones whipped at maître d’s. The worst that happens is that we binge on Pinot Grigio as we discuss the masochistic process of novel writing and the current season of America’s Next Top Model (a program that pre-photoshoot Boyden “totally got addicted to!” while watching it as part of his research for Through Black Spruce.)

So, will all the fussing and attention brought on by his Giller win cause Boyden’s head to swell? “Gord says awards are for sucks,” Boyden laughs. If he disagrees, he doesn’t admit it. “Plus, I’m already pretty much settled into who I am as a person.”

Figuring out that identity was, at times, very difficult. Boyden’s adolescence was marked by periods of self-imposed homelessness and one serious suicide attempt. As an ’80s punk-rock kid, though tough on the outside, he grappled with depression.

“There were definitely many dark periods in my life,” he says. “I guess I tie in depression with being lost.” By his mid-20s, Boyden had finally started to find himself: He shaved off his mohawk, graduated from York University’s creative writing and humanities program and moved to Moosonee to teach at Northern College. He also began writing in earnest, which helped him leave behind his angry-young-man phase. “I realized I had to change my world outlook.”

Part Ojibwe, Boyden adopted the Anishinabek worldview of his ancestors, reclaiming a piece of his heritage. “The natural world doesn’t need humans in order to survive. But humans need everything in our natural world to survive,” he explains. It’s an earthy philosophy and, along with Boyden’s own writing, embracing it went a long way to quelling those youthful demons. Now, at age 42, Boyden says he’s happiest living a simple life, writing novels at the kitchen

“

40 DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

table with his wife, and participating in environmental endeavours including, notably, the Waterkeeper Alliance. “Our waterways don’t belong to corporations or to governments. Waterkeeper includes people from across the political spectrum—from left-leaning ‘tree huggers’ to right-leaning hunters and fishermen. It’s an inclusive organization; I’m all about that.”

Both for personal reasons and narrative grist, Boyden loves the hardship of Northern bush life. Unlike modelling, it’s a lifestyle with which he’s had some experience, notably the hunting aspect—though he stresses that he is no natural-born killer. Hunting, he explains, is a combination of many factors; necessity is among them, bloodlust and sport are not. It’s more about the quality of male companionship and less about, say, gunning a goose to death. “I’m not a trophy hunter,” he says. “I do it to fill the freezer.”

Boyden explains that, when hunting, the perfect kill shot on an animal is like the perfect first draft of a novel: largely a myth. “I wish it was neat and tidy. But more often than not, that animal suffers, and I suffer with it.” He admits that he recently found it slightly easier to bypass those difficult feelings while hunting in the company of his 18-year-old son, who had just killed his first moose. “There was a great pleasure in gutting and eating it, something very—I don’t know if tribal is the right word—but something very simple and straightforward about that.”

While Boyden’s latest book paints an intimate and forthright portrait of Northern Ontario reserve life, more complex themes of tribal loyalty, violence and First Nations spirituality dominate his fiction. It’s strange, then, that though he clearly carries the narrative Aboriginal torch, Boyden seems oddly unaware of his background’s resonance. In fact, when a CBC interviewer informed Boyden that he was the first person of Aboriginal roots to win the Giller prize, the author’s reaction was one of honest shock. “I didn’t even realize,” he says. “I almost said ‘Holy shit!’ out loud on TV.” Oblivious or aware—and like it or not—Boyden and his works cannot help but be considered in terms of, and examined for, their socio-political implications, and not just their literary ones. (Those implications are perhaps best left for another article, one which does not contain allusions to the life’s work of either Bruce Lee or Tyra Banks.) In fact, because of his

Hunting is more about the quality of companionship and less about, say, gunning a goose to death. “I’m not a trophy hunter.

I do it to fill the freezer.”

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roots, and the Aboriginal world he writes about, Boyden is now in a powerful position to redefine and re-contextualize colonial Canadian literature.

The flip-side is that the man is uncomfortable being identified as a purely First Nations writer. Why? Because he is not one. He is of Irish, Scottish and Métis/Ojibwe descent, always careful not to overstate his Aboriginal roots—hence the emotional almost-outburst on the CBC. “It would be very difficult to label me as a semi-disguised non-fiction writer,” he says. “I am very different from my characters.” t is now time for this very different man to go his own way. Outside, rain sluices down and cabs buzz about, evasive as water spiders. Toronto’s Queen East hustlers descend on us; Boyden gives his last cigarette to one of them, a dude named Rocky, then becomes subdued. It’s the final night of a 65-day book tour (which admittedly ended well, what with that Giller and all).

Tomorrow morning, he will return to his ‘real life,’ his non-celebrity status, his quiet existence as teacher—and writer—in New Orleans, a place that he describes lightly as a “little Banana Republic.”

Boyden lingers for just a moment, absorbing it all—perhaps watchful for looming ‘situations’? He seems both absent and wholly present. Like his unconscious bush-pilot character, Will Bird—who spends the duration of Through Black Spruce in the torpid state between life and death—Boyden is removed, or perhaps merely a wee bit drunk and exhausted.

British novelist Graham Greene wrote that every writer has a splinter of ice in the heart. Novelists need that cold, sharp shard, that metaphoric distance: it allows them to see humanity without clouds of emotion; it allows them to torture their characters; it allows them to send those characters through hell, if necessary. Some of them, like Will Bird, make it back. Boyden, too.

A cab pulls up and Boyden ducks in, turning around to make a final gesture. He waves that splinter like a warrior; he waves good night. D

I

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automotive *

2009 BMW 750Li Teutonic shift

By Mark Hacking

D

resden, Germany— Somewhere in the vicinity of the former industrial capital of the bygone East Germany, I

decided to take a completely different approach to test-driving. The vehicle was the brand new 7 Series from BMW, and the approach was something I’d never done before (something I’d considered, sure, but never dared act upon). While my partner was driving, here’s what I did: I climbed in the back.

44 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

Before you question my judgement or my ability to render an informed review from such an unorthodox vantage point, bear in mind the following: This was the new 750Li we’re talking about, the long-wheelbase version of BMW’s executive sedan. Compared to the regular 750i, it delivers 140 more millimetres for back-seat drivers to stretch their legs and a reconfigured roofline for greater headroom.

That’s just the start.

There’s something incredibly liberating about hurtling along the autobahn in the back seat of a limousine, feet up on the footrest, power seats perfectly adjusted, seat-massage feature cranked, climate control set, stereo humming, privacy screens covering the windows.

It’s as if you’re suddenly transformed into a top business executive, rushing to an emergency meeting of the G8.

As I leafed through the International Herald Tribune and pondered my own position in the markets (these statements are both lies), I paused for a moment to reflect on the considerable design and engineering effort that has gone into the fifth generation of BMW’s flagship sedan (this is the truth).

Photos by Alberto Martinez

L

et’s begin with the obvious: the look of the 750Li. While the previous version of the 7 Series, introduced in 2001, became something of a poster child for jarring car design, the 2009 model is refreshingly fluid. Of all the BMWs in the current lineup, the new 7 may just be the most compelling from a design standpoint. But you need to keep a watchful eye to catch all the nuances: the dip behind the front wheel, the bold shoulder line, the elongated hood, the slight curves peaking out from various angles when the light is just right.

All the above taken into consideration, the overall design of this new saloon seems—dare I say it—less Germanic and more Romanic.

In fact, had designer Karim Habib [profiled in DRIVEN, dec. 2007—Ed.] replaced the BMW propeller logo on the hood with the Maserati trident, he would’ve fooled more than a few people. Until they fired the thing up, that is, at which point the driving dynamics of the 7 would immediately define the car as a dyedin-the-leather Teutonic executive sedan.

At the elevated speeds so cherished by those travelling the continent, the BMW 750Li doesn’t float—it hovers. I sat up in my seat to pose the following question: “Driver, how fast are we going?” “Two-sixty,” came the reply.

I powered down the privacy screen on the side window and noticed that we were indeed travelling at a fair clip, passing other cars as if they were mired in the last century.

Even the very best small sedans feel a bit nervous at 260 km/h; they lift slightly over cracks in the road, dart around too much when changing lanes and get pushed sideways by gusts of wind. Not the 7. With its grand stance, this car is stable to a fault, creating the impression that you’re really not going that fast.

(Correction: You’re not going that fast, it’s just the world that’s going slow.)

Aside from the impressive physical dimensions of the vehicle, the reason why the 750Li is so smooth can be found beneath its skin.

Nestled under the hood is the company’s new 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8, an engine that generates 400 horsepower and 450 lb-ft of torque. These figures compare very favourably with the previous generation’s V8 (360 hp; 360 lb-ft) and V12 (438 hp; 444 lb-ft). Not only that, the new engine is expected to deliver better fuel economy than either of those still noteworthy predecessors.

The twin-turbo is matched up with a six-speed automatic transmission that’s been massaged for increased shift speed

and better overall fuel efficiency. The past generation’s stubby column-mounted shifter has been replaced by a floor-mounted version first seen on the latest BMW X5. Vastly different in appearance, the two shifters share a common trait: They take some getting used to. (Or so my driver told me.)

Another new development has helped to create the 7’s inherent smoothness: the revised suspension system. Engineered to strike the right balance between sports sedan-like handling and luxury sedan-like ride, the system features self-levelling air suspension, which does exactly what the name suggests: It keeps the BMW planted on the tarmac regardless of said tarmac’s condition.

The 750Li also has something called Dynamic Damping Control, a slick bit of kit that allows the driver to select among four different settings for the shock absorbers ranging from firm to cushy. This feature is engaged through a system that also modifies the engine, transmission and steering char-

acteristics correspondingly at the same time.

The results are impressive.

So, what’s the net/net on the 2009 BMW 750Li? Well, for as long as this test driver can remember, I’d considered the 7 Series to be one of the few weak links in the BMW armour.

While the 3 and the 5 have very definitely been the class of their respective segments for a long time now, I don’t believe the same could always be said of the 7.

With this latest generation, though, the times, they have indeed changed: The new sedan boasts more presence, more style, more hi-tech features and more comfort than ever before.

Approaching the Dresden city limits, first impressions of the 750Li already entrenched in my mind, I decided to relieve my driver of his duties and take the wheel myself. A return engagement with the open road beckoned and I had at my disposal an executive saloon par excellence. Novel approach to reviewing cars be damned—I wanted to drive. *

DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com 45

automotive *

2009 Volvo XC60 The safest bet By Mark Hacking

Valencia, Spain—The 2009 Volvo XC60 chills me to the bone, shakes me to the core and, frankly, scares me to death. Not because this brand new mid-size crossover is wildly fast (it’s not), unstable (far from it) or poorly built (hardly). Rather, it’s because the XC60 so clearly foreshadows a time when drivers will be made completely redundant, thereby sending automotive journalists like me to life’s scrap heap.

Allow me to elaborate. A cursory look at the history books reveals one overriding, defining trait since Volvo first came into existence in 1927: a focus on safety. A partial list of innovations that have emerged from this staunchly

46 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

Swedish car-builder provides a taste of the standard features on the vehicle you’re driving today: the safety cage, the three-point seat belt, the side-impact airbag.

Over the past decade in particular, passenger safety has become not just nice to have, but a must-have (and indeed regulatory necessity in many jurisdictions around the world). Every car manufacturer has, step-by-step, made its products stronger, safer and more jam-packed with technology designed to prevent accidents or reduce the harm from them.

For Volvo, this development must seem a double-edged sword: Though able to take deserved comfort in the fact

Photos by Mikel Ponce

that its efforts have helped to bring added safety to the everyday motoring experience, the corollary is a loss of ownership of a key brand characteristic that once separated the manufacturer from the rest of the automotive crowd.

With the introduction of the XC60, though, Volvo seems bound and determined to take it back. In presenting this new model, the brand gurus resisted dubbing it the safest vehicle in the world—no doubt, in-house counsel argued caution—but they did proclaim it to be the safest Volvo in the world. Let’s look at the reasons why.

First of all, this Volvo automatically applies the brakes for you. Yes, that’s correct. Your foot does not need to be anywhere close to the brake pedal. You could be hangin’ 10 out the side window and it wouldn’t matter. This crossover is so smart, it can sense when you’re about to slam into an immovable object and bring you to a safe stop with centimetres to spare—all by its lonesome.

The technology at work here, a world’s first called City Safety, operates at speeds of up to 30 km/h. Radar sensors mounted at the front of the XC60 detect the object in question. Wheel sensors determine the closing speed and a central brain triggers the brakes at just the right moment. Net result: rear-end collision prevented.

In a practice session using large inflatable barriers, the system proved infallible. It’s perfect for the driver too preoccupied with that text message, double-double or brunette on the bistro patio to pay attention to the “stop” part of stop-and-go traffic.

But there’s still more weaponry in this particular automotive safety arsenal: an entire Roget’s Acronym Dictionary’s worth of systems designed to keep drivers and passengers out of harm’s way.

Feeling sleepy? The XC60 is available with Driver Alert Control (DAC), a system that monitors the vehicle’s road manners and sounds a warning chime if erratic movements are detected. Following too closely? Distance Alert (DA) uses radar sensors to signal when you’re tailgating, even without the activation of the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), a system that automatically maintains a safe gap from the car ahead when the cruise control is engaged.

Confused yet? Don’t worry: the Volvo XC60 has more than enough brain power to compensate. And if you thought the list of electronic driver aids ended there, guess again. There’s a system to tell you if someone is riding shotgun in your blind spot (Blind Spot Information System, or BLIS), another to advise if you happen to

straddle lanes (Lane Departure Warning, or LDW) and yet another to warn you if a crash is imminent (Collision Warning, or CW).

Of course, there are also the expected active safety features such as anti-lock brakes, traction control and roll stability control, and a plethora of air bags set to explode from all possible directions in the event that the other systems somehow fail to correct self-destructive behaviour behind the wheel.

Speaking of said behaviour, the driving experience itself, wherein I did my utmost to unsettle the XC60, proved that Volvo also knows how to inject some fun into the proceedings. Motoring around the energetic city of Valencia, I didn’t feel the urge to test out City Safety for real. The traffic circles here aren’t so much directional guidance as they are a NASCAR-style freefor-all. In this setting, the XC60, left to its own devices, would have been on and off the brakes like a serial dater.

Still, jockeying for position among the ebb and flow of Valencians, the XC60 proved nimble, spry and compact enough to fit into some barely there spaces. This urban adventure was aided and abetted by the vehicle’s 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo engine; with 281 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque, this Volvo is by no means a rocket ship, but it’s got the huevos necessary for accelerating out of tight city scrapes and invigorating the average country drive.

Outside the city limits, the XC60 proved about as fun as any mid-size crossover on the market. While its handling isn’t as razor-sharp as some and its ride still leans towards the softer side, the net effect is positive. The standard all-wheel drive system is of a fairly sophisticated design and would surely be a boon in wet or snowy weather; on the dry Spanish roads, however, the tendency for the front end to push wide in the turns was something its racier competitors have more or less cured.

Inside and out, the XC60 continues the Volvo tradition of smart design and clean lines. The floating centre stack is angled towards the driver for ease of use; its metal frame and wood inlays convey a sense of practical luxury, if there is such a thing. The leather seats are wildly comfortable and are available with a fairly bold two-tone X design. While the exterior is not nearly so audacious, it does resemble the larger XC90 and should meet with approval from the crossover cognoscenti.

All in all, then: The 2009 Volvo XC60 warrants close inspection from anyone looking for a mid-size vehicle armed to the teeth with advanced safety systems—particularly if they have the tendency to swap paint and apply the chrome horn when least expected. *

DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com 47

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automotive *

2009 Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé Dances with bears By Gary Butler SAN FRANCISCO—The sign at the side of the highway was succinct and calm: “Road Narrows.”

I don’t know why, but I looked at myself in the rear-view, and I can’t deny that I detected mischievous excitement in those beady eyes. There was nothing succinct or calm in what the sign was actually telling me. I was about to take a 2009 Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé onto California Highway 1. Actually, I knew that already. What I didn’t know until now was that the dangerousenough, sidewinding strip of cliffside highway was going to get narrower. And here I was in a $440,000 coupé that just happens to be the widest model on the North American market.

So, the beady eyes, the mischievous excitement: Sure, I felt excited. I was just the driver; Rolls-Royce had plotted the route. And sure, I felt slightly roguish. It seemed to me that a deep shade of bespoke burgundy (five hand-finished individual layers of paint and lacquer, I’m told) suited a rogue. And a rogue suited a Rolls.

I spiked the pedal and the Phantom Coupé fairly roared past the warning sign. Why not, I figured. Treat myself to some narrow-mindedness.

It bears mentioning that in the 200 km I had already covered, the burnt-red beast had been constantly daring me to accelerate. This had a lot to do with the 6.75-litre V12 engine, delivering a significant 75 per cent of its maximum power at just 1,000 rpm and enabling her to spring from a relative stop (0-100 km/h in 5.6 sec.) with a grace that I was tempted to call feline—until I came up with a better animal totem.

At the risk of overplaying the Canadian card, during lunch I had told my host that the Phantom Coupé was no car—it was a polar bear on 21-inch wheels. (Paul Ferraiolo, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, so enjoyed the 48 DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

comparison, I heard him using it later. Since he reminded me of an all-business Dana Carvey, in an impeccable suit, I was OK with that.)

To the “bear” facts, though. Consider the design alone: the Phantom Coupé’s exterior is defined by majestic but sleek racing lines, shaped to suggest a motion blur, even when the vehicle is stationary.

Rear-hinged doors allow for an uninterrupted A-pillar. The result is a head that’s svelte and noble, a torso lithe and muscular. The body itself: enormous. Imposing, yes, yet elegant.

Next, the engineering: the Phantom Coupé’s all-aluminium spaceframe is derived directly from its sister, the Drophead Coupé. This means that it’s solid as steel—a Drophead’s support structure must offer unparalleled torsional rigidity, simply in order to keep the roofless creature from splitting down the middle—but the aluminium means that it weighs an astonishing one-fifth of almost any equivalent-sized vehicle. (The night previous, our hosts had wined, dined and statted us. While the numbers were all well and good, the most impressive part had been the palm-sized aluminum and steel samples on hand. It’s one thing to tell the

media that a vehicle weighs 20 per cent of something similar-sized; it’s another to let a writer feel in his hands the calibrated weight difference.)

The Phantom Coupé’s polar-bear speed and handling, I’ve already addressed. At least, I’ve addressed the Phantom Coupé’s speed and handling before taking her back to San Francisco along the cliff’s edge of Highway 1.

I didn’t mean to speed off after lunch, honestly I didn’t. But bears will be bears. Paul and his crew didn’t need me anyhow; I’d given them a very good Sarah Palin joke to use that evening (pre-election; and they did), plus they needed to escort back to the city one driver who, pre-lunch, had made a three-point turn. Cliffside. In the fog.

By comparison, I was Villeneuve (choose one).

I could go on about the Phantom Coupé’s notable intelligent driving systems, not to mention an on-board navigation system whose ease of use makes one wonder how any driver could get lost, and need to make a three-point-turn, on a cliff, in a fog... But I digress. You want to hear about the hulking vehicle and the narrow highway. And the cliffs. (The cliffs, always the cliffs with you people!)

I regret to have to inform you that, as an editor who prides himself on reading between the lines, the Phantom Coupé outmanoeuvred me, slaloming the serpentine strips of two-lane with what can only be called parallel grace. The handling was about as responsive as this writer has ever experienced, and in the largest vehicle of its class I have ever driven. The rogue in me wondered why any of the company’s 400 new vehicle owners per year (in North America), would choose to waste it all on a chauffeur.

The whole way back to San Francisco, I surged with a feeling of absolute driver’s confidence, as I was possibly slightly exceeding the speed limit at every twist and turn. In fact, despite every twist and turn. And this was before I activated the ‘S’ function (Rolls-Royce does not have a “sport” function; the term simply isn’t elegant enough to emboss on a button inside a vehicle whose wellappointed interior ensures that occupants’ bodies touch only leather, chrome and wood.) All ‘S’-d up, there was nothing to do but steer. And grin.

My inner imp resurfaced when the Golden Gate appeared in the distance. The highway had straightened, so I decided to really test the Coupé’s claimed 250-km/h top speed by heading back to the hotel at … 130 km/h. The top end, I would save in case the CHiPs decided to pursue the matter of limits. They didn’t; had they, though, I would have blamed it on the car—and meant every word.

The 2009 Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé dares you to throw caution to the wind; it dares you to dance, horizontally entrechat (or entreours?).

I probably could have gotten Paul to bail me out, by the way. There was a really good anecdote I hadn’t told him yet, about a luxury press junket, a narrow road, a fast car and—really, can you blame me?—a rogue pilot. *

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57

The Gentleman’s

Gift Guide

Let DRIVEN take you back to a time when men can be men … again

The ads are fake, the people are real, the fashion is now.

Photography by Lee Towndrow • Fashion Styling by Luke Langsdale • Art Direction by Kelly Kirkpatrick Hair & Makeup by Natasha Nikolic, artistgrouplimited.com • Key party location: Sons & Daughters Production Company

* Dinah Luxton, Divisional Merchandising Manager, Bluenotes (Dress Emilio Pucci, Shoes Hermès, Key ring Klaxon Howl); Adam Brodie, Comedian (Shirt Prada, Shoes Salvatore Ferragamo Belt Salvatore Ferragamo, Pants Fillipa K); Debbie Attack, Librarian (Dress Exile Vintage, Boots Hermès); Stuart, Elmer Olsen Models (Shirt Dior, Jacket Tris Vanassche, Bow tie Stylist’s own); Nicolas Kazamia, TV producer (Shirt Etro, Pants Exile Vintage)

PARKING LOFTS

Wheels Gift Guide:

Two slick t reatments of the moder n garage give reason to revisit the last room in the house

By Jamie Hunter

Equating one’s body with a temple is beyond trite. More credible, and achievable, is the cleanliness-becomes-godliness approach to an aesthetically organized garage, which, properly maintained, can become a home away from home (or at the very least, beside one). No need to tap the inner caveman in order to find a sense of sanctuary therein, and escape life’s little pressures by revelling in things chromed, epoxied and panelled. Beer fridge optional.

Mahal for one...

Alas, garages tend to resemble blast sites more than shrines. No longer, we say. Clutter, old Playboy’s and VHS tapes are out, and gone is the Joe’s Garage of yore (surely Frank Zappa would pardon the denigration). Welcome, gentlemen, to the newer school of vehicular hospitality. Quoth Metallica, Garage Days Re-Revisited. Indeed.

Here’s a comprehensive service dedicated to the kind of parking arena that previously only existed in the mind’s eye. GarageMahals of Scottsdale, Ariz. offers, quite simply, the dream garage. Every detail imanginable is customized to match individual tastes, from the flooring to the paint schemes, to the option of a wet bar. Customized levels include: Prestige ($35,000), Luxury ($170,000) and Signature ($275,000). At 752-sq.ft., the pictured “Zen Garage” is bigger than most urbanites’ condos. $125,000/GarageMahals.com

60 DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

Gift Guide:Wheels ...and one for OnWall

An easy step to garage nirvana involves simple organization. When tools, bicycles, recycling bins and the like are tidily stowed away, the result is an uncluttered space where a gearhead can finally get around to restoring that old muscle car—or simply washing that new one. Markham, Ont.-based OnWall Solutions offers exclusively custom renovations. Its complete line of modular systems, including cabinets, work benches and even car lifts, bring both form and function to any garage. $9,500 (pictured)/OnWallSolutions.com

A few for the roadster 1. Boomerang2 Anti-theft GPS system As the name suggests, the Boomerang tracking device helps bring stolen vehicles back—specifically, through a wireless network powerful enough to detect a car parked in a lead-lined shipping container headed straight for Moscow. Final product does not reflect display image—the spyware’s real, but no, it doesn’t look like a boomerang. $950, including 1st year of service

6. Montblanc Key Chain Over 100 years of fashioning intricately detailed writing instruments has made Montblanc adept at creating small objects of distinction. The “Contemporary ” line’s key rings combine accents from classic fountain pens—including the circular guilloche pattern and floating emblem—with platinum-plated scratch-resistant steel. $370

7. Leatherman Charge Del Rey utility tool To mark its 25th anniversary, Leatherman enlisted Argentinian master sculptor Adrian Pallarols, renowned for creating custom accessories for the Pope and the King of Spain. The truly unique result: Luxury meets utility in the form of 25 numbered, 18K-gold, automotive-repair multi-tools.

You need one. $40,000

2. Driving shoes Increase the fancy footwork on those pedals with classic Gommino alligator slip-on driving shoes by Tod’s. $5,400

Onwall Photos by Richard Sibbald

3. TAG Heuer Night Vision Glasses Long associated with motor racing, TAG Heuer developed Night Vision glasses for use at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Intelligent lenses maximize driver visibility during the low light levels between dusk and dawn. Flexible temples enable under-helmet usage. $430

Editor’s Pick

4. Knight Rider GPS System Unleash your inner Hasselhoff with this portable navigation system, which delivers its turn-by-turn guidance with the condescending voice of K.I.T.T. from the original Knight Rider TV show. $270 5. Honda HSM1336iC Hybrid Snowblower Green attacks white: Honda’s hybrid HSM1336iC snowblower is the cleanest solution for your driveway. A robust 13-hp engine powers the auger and blower, heaving up to 83 metric tons of snow per hour, easily generating more than enough electricity to power the dual, track-drive motors. $7,680

“Rustic Warriors” auto-part chess set Put the ‘rust bucket’ back in ‘rustic’ with Novica’s custom chess set. All 32 pieces are hand-welded from recycled auto parts. Salvaged spark plugs, bolts and sprockets become stylish and hefty art-deco kings, pawns et al.

Check, please! $250/Novica.com —Gary Butler

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* Alastair Miller, guitar maker, and Alicia Nauta, painter, know how to make peace and look good. Shirt Exile Vintage, Pants and shoes Model’s own, Dress Diane Von Furstenberg, Boots Hermès James Allodi, director, has got a non-slip grip on golf fashion. Golf shirt Paul & Shark, Pants Vintage Farah slacks, Belt Salvatore Ferragamo, Glove Hattie Smith, Club Feel Golf

Gift Guide:Golf Gift Guide:Tk

Adidas Tour360 3.0 Golf Shoes

How’s my driving?

Just try and swing out of these shoes... Adidas’s latest features an external moulded heel cup and 360WRAP technology. The stand-up result: super-solid stability. $220—George Zicarelli

By Steve Waxman

Editor’s Pick

Cobra L5V High handicappers benefit from the Cobra L5V. A larger face means more consistent contact; additional weight in the back encourages higher launches for improved distance. If you’re prone to slicing your drives, a handy tool allows you to adjust the shaft to bring the ball closer to the centre of the fairway. $500

THE FIRST TIME THAT I SWUNG THE CALLAWAY FT-iQ DRIVER ($530), it was a chill fall morning, moments after the dawn had lit the fairway. I’d played this hole every Saturday and Sunday since the beginning of the season. Each time, without fail, my first shot drifted left and then further left, landing in a bunker or behind a line of trees. On this morning, my drive went straight—dead straight, to my amazement and that of my playing partners.

The FT-iQ is Callaway’s second generation of square-shaped drivers. They call it a “smart” driver, claiming that it hits the ball 35 per cent straighter than their previous standard. So here I was on this cold October morning, ready to play the admittedly audacious percentages.

I have been golfing for 10 years. It started with a golf professional humiliating my friends and I at a corporate tournament. A once-a-year folly on borrowed clubs became an obsession of almost 100 rounds per annum. In addition to the many green fees came lessons and newer clubs. Practice and updated technology made me better, and my handicap dropped to single digits.

Testing the Callaway on the second hole, I quickly came to understand the good and the bad of the FT-iQ. My second tee shot of the day went as straight as my first but my dreaded outside-to-in swing sent the ball dead left. Conclusion: this ruthlessly efficient club dispatches the ball perpendicular to the angle of the clubface.

By the third hole, I understood that I needed to slow down my swing. Sure enough, despite out of bounds on the left and a long and winding creek on the right, I easily split the fairway once again. With the swing down, I found myself rushing to each new tee box, to see if the success would continue. It did. For the next three rounds, I consistently played second shots from the middle of the fairway and my scoring did improve.

Two weeks later, the real test came: I trotted out my older, more traditional driver.

Not only did I not end up in the now familiar fairways, my frustration got the better of me on the 17th hole, where a well-executed overhead triple chop with a sand wedge took a hunk out of the ground.

Once the FT-iQ was back in my hands, all was well again. I’ve now spent a month playing what will surely be the most-talked-about driver of 2009. As for Callaway’s fairly grand claim: Any way you cut it, playing from the fairway always makes this game easier, so whether I hit the ball 35 per cent straighter is not nearly as important as the 100 per cent satisfaction I feel with this driver.

Ah, but readers want numbers. Try this one: My last round of the 2008 golf season was played at the venerable St. George’s, in Toronto. I am happy to report that, with the FT-iQ, I was able to land on 11 of 12 fairways. And, the pro we were playing with complimented me on how well I hit the ball. Vindication!

Nike Golf SQ DYMO STR8-Fit Technolog y has made the line between a conforming and nonconforming driver pretty fine. As a result, manufacturers are now focussing on customization. Nike is going further than most other manufacturers with the DYMO STR8. A custom torque wrench allows you to adjust the club up to eight ways, varying not just launch but also spin and loft. Three PGA Tour events in 2008 were won by players using a DYMO prototype, including Trevor Immelman at the Masters. $500 Titleist 909 Titleist has long enjoyed a reputation as a “player’s club,” solidly engineered and gimmick-free. The new 909 series offers three drivers, each with a unique launch angle and spin. The DComp provides a higher launch and spin rate, to help short-hitting golfers add distance. Low handicappers will see added yards with the D2’s midrange specs, while D3’s lower-range configuration—along with a slightly smaller face—allows better players to shape the ball off the tee. $560 DComp, $500 D2 & D3 TaylorMade Burner For 2009, North America’s best-selling brand of drivers has turned two great clubs into one. The Burner combines SuperFast tech from TaylorMade’s 2007 model and Dual Crown tech from its Tour Burner, for a lighter driver with more weight in the back.

The result off the tee is a higher launch angle and lower spin-rate, leading to a dramatic boost in distance. $400 DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

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Traveller Gift Guide:

Carry on, wayward sons Stylish sans-suitcase solutions

By Zach Feldberg

Most of us are willing to accept increased airport security as an unfortunate fact of life, but when it comes to lost luggage—or charging for a single checked bag (United, US Airways, American Airlines)—you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone quite so understanding. The good news: Travelling lean has never looked quite so good. More than ever, luggage manufacturers and clothing companies alike are issuing stylishly versatile goods crafted specifically to help fliers lose the lineups and find peace of mind. Perhaps the perfect starting point for that much-needed, stress-free holiday vacation? Certainly, the perfect gift for the perfect getaway.

Filson Large Carry-On Bag Deceptively simple in appearance, Filson’s twill bag boasts enough room to pack for a long weekend, yet it’s rugged enough to repel water and dirt. The modest design also makes it a great fit for the workplace. $485

Hermès Faubourg Express The cool, retro vibe of the Hermès Faubourg Express represents a distillation of the company’s virtues: high quality materials, beautifully assembled, with an uncanny knack for innovative, yet classic, design. The sophisticated traveller would do well to be armed with this head-turner. $4,125 (also pictured, suitcases: $6,400 and $8,175)

ZÜCA Pro Carry-on Luggage Like all Züca bags, the company’s slim and sturdy carry-on holds the distinction of doubling as a chair—perfect for long lines and impromptu card games.

It also boasts a clear toiletry pouch, created specifically to address the new on-board liquid laws. $235

Portable Pictures presents an Elwood Buthler Production James Coco • Bernadette Peters • Charo “The Luggage” A film by Poland Romanski • Paul Williams • The voice of Orson Welles Mark Spitz • Ron Howard as ‘The Kid’ • Jerry Mathers as The Bellhop 64 The DRIVEN Gift Guide: December 2008 * drivenmag.com

* Louis Vuitton would roll over in his grave if this were a real ad.

Belkin FlyThru laptop case Sometimes, a simple thing makes a big difference. Belkin’s brand-new laptop case sports two sizeable pockets—one isolates the business traveller’s computer behind a clear window. The laptop is fully protected when the case is folded over, and easily exposed for the purposes of airport security screening (it also satisfies stringent TSA guidelines). In other words: it is the only case on the market that does not necessitate laptop removal for x-ray scans. $80/Belkin.com —Gary Butler

Editor’s Pick

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*Cabot McNenly, cinematographer, is not a duke, but he can be arch. He can also be clothed. Shirt Etro, Suit Etro, Tie Etro, Decanter William Ashley

Gift Guide:Drink

Editor’s Pick Marina Cvetic Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, Masciarelli Cognac’s humble Ugni Blanc grapes travel to Italy and turn into wine. Trebbiano’s 2005 vintage was listed as one of the world’s 100 best bottles by Wine Enthusiast magazine. $50/stemwinegroup.com —Zach Feldberg

Camus V.S.O.P. Elegance A blend of Cognacs

A Cognac primer to get you into the right spirit By George Zicarelli THOUGH FRENCH EUROPEANS produce some of the world’s most exquisite wines and spirits, deciphering some of their labels requires a certain amount of, shall we say, finesse. Bordeaux, for example, has over 50 appellations, each with a distinct blend of grapes not always specified on its bottle. Cognac, a brandy cultivated north of Bordeaux, also requires effort in the understanding.

North Americans account for over 40 per cent of global Cognac consumption, while some 90 per cent of Cognacs are made by Rémy Martin, Hennessy, Courvoisier and Martell. As chances are pretty good that you’ll either give or receive a bottle during this, the alcoholiday season, DRIVEN asked Véronique Lemoine of France’s L’École des Cognacs to provide a primer.

About 98 per cent of the grapes used in Cognac are Ugni Blanc, a varietal with high acidity and low alcohol, perfect for distillation into brandy or eaux-de-vie. Unlike most other brandies, Cognac is distilled twice, concentrating the flavours and aromas; it’s then aged in French oak barrels for a minimum of two years, typically blended.

The label gives an idea of the Cognac’s age.

The designation V.S. (Very Special) refers to a blend where the youngest spirit has been aged a minimum of two years; V.S.O.P. (Very Superior Old Pale) denotes one where all the spirits have been aged at least four years; and X.O. (Extra Old) and Napoleon indicate a blend of spirits a minimum of six years old.

Lemoine cautions that designations alone do

not prove quality. “Finer Cognacs take time to reveal their complexity,” she says.

More indicative of a Cognac’s merit is the sub-region, or cru, from whence the grapes came. Lying at the epicentre of the Cognac region, Grande Champagne cru produces spirits of immense complexity and concentrated flavours that age extremely well. The Petite Champagne region spawns similar spirits, though with a little less ageing potential. The Borderies has a more clay-like soil, meaning grapes with more juice yet less-concentrated flavours than either of the Champagnes. Fins Bois grapes tend to mature much quicker; Cognac from this area is used mostly in blends, and only rarely bottled under its subregion’s proper name. This is also true of the final crus on the list, Bons Bois and Bois Ordinaires, which are used mostly as blends in V.S.-designated Cognacs.

Traditionally an after-dinner drink of the gentleman set, Cognac has now proliferated into the mainstream, notably spurred on by hip hop and urban culture. Lemoine notes that the classic way to take it is plain or with a drop of water or an ice cube; she also says that younger consumers have been drinking younger Cognacs ... in cocktails.

We’re all for Cognac being hip, but we’re hopping mad about using it as a mixed drink.

Selected in conjunction with Dan Volway, sommelier and instructor at the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, here are six no-mix picks, with something to wine about. Straight advice from us, all the way.

the Borderies cru, displaying floral aromas and a fruity, oak palate. Well-bal-

Martell Cordon Bleu

anced acidity and

The first upmarket Cognac with mass-

tannins make it a

market distribution. It relies on blends

great everyday, after-

from Borderies and is characterized by

dinner drink. $70

the region’s deep nuttiness. $150

Courvoisier V.S.O.P. Exclusif The ages of the brandies in this blend range from four to 12 years, giving it a

Hennessy Paradis Extra Rare

rich, candied fruit

A spicy blend of hundreds of Cognacs;

and truffle taste with

some, as old as 130 years, span mul-

a tinge of Borderies’

tiple generations of the same family of

nuttiness. $80

cellar masters. $445

Rémy Martin: Louis XIII Hine Antique XO

Black Pearl Magnum

A blend of 40 Cognacs from the Petite

Century-aged, Grande Champagne

and Grande Champagne regions,

cru. Baccarat crystal and titanium

aged at least 15 years. Yields a nut

decanter, 358 bottles world-wide—just

and candied fruit palate. $160

15 available in Canada. $35,000

DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

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“A Farm in the charentes,” courtesy of maison de la france

Luxury crus

predominantly from

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Advertorial

Milagro

SELECT BARREL RESERVE REPOSADO Tequila / Mexico Milagro Select Barrel Reserve Reposado is a limited edition tequila made from 100% estate-grown, blue agave harvested from the highlands of Jalisco. The heart of the blue agave is roasted in clay ovens made from the same volcanic-rich soil where the blue agave flourishes in Jalisco, Mexico. Our triple distillation process produces tequila of extraordinary depth and character for unparallel smoothness. Aged 10 months in new French single oak barrels, Milagro Select Barrel Reserve Reposado has a honey amber colour that radiates from its hand blown crystal bottle.

2008 Gold Medal Winner at the International Spirits Challenge

www.milagrotequila.com LCBO $99.95

The Balvenie Signature AGED TELEVE YEARS Scotch / Scotland

Milagro

SELECT BARREL RESERVE ANEJO Tequila / Mexico

The Balvenie Signature aged 12 years, is an exposition of the traditional art of the Balvenie Malt Master, David Stewart. He skillfully marries aged Balvenie from the finest first fill bourbon, refill, and sherry casks to create this signature malt, characterized by honey, spice and subtle oak. A limited release, each batch of The Balvenie Signature is a unique marriage of these three cask types, and each bottle carries its own batch number.

Nose: A rich complex nose with honey, citrus fruits and vanilla oak notes.

Taste: Rich honeyed sweet taste with a hint of sherry fruitiness.

A cinnamon and nutmeg spiciness and a subtle oakiness with time.

Milagro Select Barrel Reserve Anejo is made from 100% estate-grown, blue agave harvested from the highlands of Jalisco that is hand-picked and hand-selected for quality based on the strictest criteria. The heart of the blue agave is roasted in clay ovens made from the same volcanic-rich soil where the blue agave flourishes in Jalisco, Mexico. Our triple distillation process produces tequila of extraordinary depth and character for unparallel smoothness. Sensually warm and full-bodied, Milagro Select Barrel Reserve Anejo is aged 3 years in new French single oak barrels and comes in a unique hand-blown crystal bottle.

www.balvenie.com LCBO $72.95

www.milagrotequila.com LCBO $119.95

2008 Double Gold Winner at the San Fransisco World Spirit Competition

Milagro

Glenfiddich

Milagro Reposado is made from 100% estate-grown, handpicked blue agave harvested from the highlands of Jalisco.

The heart of the blue agave is roasted in clay ovens made from the same volcanic-rich soil where the blue agave flourishes in Jalisco, Mexico. Our recipe produces tequila of extraordinary depth and character. Clear and transparent, Milagro Silver is triple-distilled for unparalleled smoothness.

80 Proof. Hand crafted bottle.

Colour: Bright Silver Aroma: Fresh, with hints of clean black peppercorn and fragrant agave.

Body: A spirited and pleasing sensation in the mouth.

Taste: On the palate the taste is fresh, lovely, appropriately zesty, peppery, and vegetal with just a hint of sugary sweetness at the mid palate point.

Finish: The finish is long, laced with pepper, and refreshing.

Glenfiddich Single Malt Tasting Collection Glenfiddich is the most awarded Single Malt Scotch Whisky in the world! Impress a single malt scotch lover - or create a new one! This collection of single malts includes the Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, the Glenfiddich 15 Year Old, and the Glenfiddich 18 Year Old.

SILVER Tequila / Mexico

www.milagrotequila.com LCBO $45.00

SINGLE-MALT SCOTCH Scotch / Scotland

Glenfiddich 12: A fragrant malt which balances the fruitiness of pear with the richness of subtle oak.

Glenfiddich 15: A balance of warm spice with honey and rich fruit.

Glenfiddich 18: This robust single malt balances notes of oak, apple and cinnamon. A powerful yet sublimely mellow whisky.

(3x200ml) www.glenfiddich.com LCBO $72.95

al

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* Warning: Danny Simmons, musician, is really smokin’ that look!

Shirt Klaxon Howl’s Uncle Sam, Toque Parkhurst, Sweater Stylist’s own

Gift Guide:Unique

Thoughts that count One-of-a-kind gifts for one-of-a-kind people

By Zach Feldberg

It occurred in 2007; for 2008, gift-card sales are expected to dominate in the holiday season. This, despite the fact that fewer will probably be sold due to the flagging economy. In any case, it’s safe to say that most gift recipients can expect the expected this holiday season: A plastic card taped to an envelope. DRIVEN urges you to defy expectations: dare to be unique, not to mention immaterially thoughtful. Give someone something completely different.

1. Bible Illuminated Some people take the teachings of the Bible quite seriously. Swedish ad exec Dag Söderberg focused on just one verse: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation.” The result: an elegant, highly visual, 300-page treatment of the New Testament—a magazine treatment. Bible Illuminated overflows with glossy colour images of Angelina Jolie and Bono, socially conscious ads, and attention-grabbing pull-quotes. Kind of like Vanity Fair, but without Christopher Hitchens. $26/amazon.ca 2. Marko Toothbrush Ohso’s Marko toothbrush is one for the ages, and not only because its bristles are replaceable, or because its sturdy body will last for years. It has a self-dispensing toothpaste chamber—with universal tube adapter! $24/go-ohso.com

3. Bösendorfer Porsche Piano For a three-wheeled Porsche with no engine, this thing’s a cherry. The vaunted auto manufacturer’s recent union with Bösendorfer birthed a piano so sleek, so sophisticated, that it seems to have been created expressly for inclusion in a Bond flick.

Grand, indeed. From $150,000/boesendorfer.com 4. Sleevino By all accounts, Umbra’s Sleevino is the thinking man’s rubber-hand-sticking-out-of-a-car-trunk.

But its charm is undeniable. Bottle of bubbly not included; cufflinks either. $16/umbra.ca 5. Thirty-five-year Collection of Top 100 45s This completist’s fantasy, made up of all 18,400 number 1 singles from the Billboard charts of 1955-1990, was painstakingly created for Neiman Marcus’ legendary Christmas catalogue. $335,000/ neimanmarcus.com (Oh, and shipping is extra.)

Green Gift Guide: For many, whether or not Global Warming is as real a threat as it’s said to be is dictated by the last documentary they happened to see. But if there’s one thing that everyone can agree on, it’s that being a little bit gentler on our one home planet can only be a good thing. This year, allow us to suggest some worthy ways of treating your loved ones and the world at the same time.

1. Asus U6V bamboo Notebook The most salient eco-minded feature in the Asus U6V-B1-Bamboo laptop is surely the casing itself, made from artisan-grade, fast-growing bamboo designed to biodegrade at the end of the computer’s natural life. Asus says its “Super Hybrid Engine” technology reduces energy use by up to 70 per cent over other models, which balances out the unfortunate fact that Wal-Mart’s online ‘club’ cornered the Canadian market. $2,000; SamsClubCanada.ca 2. Boris Bally “Transit chair” Metal sculptor Boris Bally’s handmade, one-of-a-kind chairs are constructed from rescued (as in, junked) aluminum traffic signs. $1200; EcoArtware.com 3. Dynamic Runabout 7 shaft drive bicycle Many careerists aspiring to tackle the daily commute on two wheels find bicycles too

hard on the wardrobe, notably pant cuffs.

The Dynamic Runabout 7’s geared shaft drive replaces the traditional bicycle chain.

No oil, no stains; no muss or fuss on cuffs. $1,035; DynamicBicycles.com

Editor’s Pick

A donation to Nature Conservancy Canada (NatureConservancy.ca) Who deserves a gift more than Mother Earth? Nature Conservancy Canada has supported biodiversity for almost 50 years, which is about 45 years before it was the hip thing to do. Your turn.—Zach Feldberg

4. “Monkey pod” stool This deceptively lightweight stool is made not from monkeys, but monkey pod wood, a sustainably harvested substance from Thailand. $190; GrassRootsStore.com 5. Paul & Shark blouson (& packaging) The ultimate wrapper: A specialist in the art of reusable packaging, Paul & Shark has encased its wool-zipped blouson in a suave, blue-metal case that not only precludes wrap but also functions ably as a down-the-way humidor. Make no mistake: the sweater itself, a wind-resistant and waterproof number created completely from merino wool, merits the heightened presentation. $895;PaulAndShark.com DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

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* Helen Anderson, philosopher, and Nicolas Kazamia, TV producer, prefer to have their hands shaken, not stirred. And they always have a minute to be fashionable.

Blouse Dries Van Noten, Shirt Ermenegildo Zegna, Suit Ermenegildo Zegna, Watch Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner in 18-carat yellow gold

Gift Guide:Watches

Reap the whirlwind A centuries-old design guarantees that today’s gravity-defying tourbillon watches stay up to the second By John Reid Considered a mechanical marvel when it was first developed over two centuries ago, the tourbillon remains the pinnacle of high-end watchmaking. Its modern incarnation is nothing short of wearable art and every premium watch brand has at least one tourbillon in its stable. Most are made with an aperture in the dial, revealing some of its mechanical intricacies. Patented in 1801 by Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, the Leonardo da Vinci of watchmaking, the tourbillon (French for whirlwind) was originally conceived to offset the negative effects of gravity in pocket watches. The tourbillon itself is a revolving cage that moves the watch’s oscillating and escapement system through a full rotation once every minute, evening out gravity’s pull. It remains the watchmaker’s most difficult complication. Today’s tourbillons continue to blend technical sophistication and fine craftsmanship, often using ultra-light titanium alloy, boasting as many as 78 individual parts and weighing as little as 0.28 grams. Due to issues naturally arising from both precision and expense, Breguet made only 35 of them before his death in 1823. The comparable process in the here and now is still managed exclusively by one person, and takes approximately one month, which goes some way toward justifying the six-figure price point.

For the man who has everything but time, here are seven superb contemporary options.

1. Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tourbillon (Top left) In 1952, the French Ministry of Defence asked Blancpain to create a special dive watch. Launched one year later, and guaranteed to a depth of 50 fathoms (91.45 metres), the Fifty Fathoms line was born.

Recently a flying tourbillon was added to the collection, so named because the tiny carriage is mounted only on a single side, sans supporting bridge, and thus appears to be floating in space. It’s water resistant to a depth of 300 metres. $132,000 2. Omega De Ville Central Tourbillon Co-Axial Chronometer (Top middle) Omega has its own prestige tourbillon. Uniquely centre-mounted in a titanium platform, and boasting red gold alpha-shaped seconds hands and case body (both in 18Kt), Central Tourbillons are individually numbered, and set in a skeleton dial, allowing full view of the interior mechanics. $125,000 3. Breguet Classique Grande Complication Tourbillon Messidor (Top right) The Breguet Messidor, named for the date in the French revolutionary calendar on which the legendary inventor received his patent. It is 40 mm in diameter, uses a hand-wound mechanical movement, contains 25 jewels and has a 50-hour power-reserve. $145,000 4. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Tourbillon (Bottom left) Perhaps the best value in a tourbillon, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Tourbillon offers a stainless-steel casing

alternate to traditional luxe gold and platinum. Regardless, JLC’s piece is its own thing of beauty, particularly notable for a clever “jumping” date hand (designed to avoid obscuring the essential view of the tourbillon). $45,000 5. Concord C1 Tourbillon Gravity (Bottom, 2nd from left) Easily the most radical modern tourbillon, Concord’s C1 Tourbillon Gravity won the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève 2008 Design of the Year award, the Oscar for watchmakers.

Its mechanism is mounted on the outside of the watch’s 48.5-mm case, a sensational feat of design. The ultra-limited timepiece also features a “trust index” to help gauge hand winding. $325,000 6. Roger Dubuis Golden Square Tourbillon (Bottom, 2nd from right) Fashioned exclu-

sively in precious metals such as white gold, rose gold and titanium, the Golden Square Tourbillon production run was limited to 28 timepieces. Recently brought under the umbrella of the Richemont Group, Roger Dubuis manufactures 100 per cent in-house and every mechanical watch produced qualifies for the prestigious Geneva Seal. $150,000 7. Patek Philippe 10-Day Tourbillon 5101 P (Bottom right) In 1945, the world’s premier watch brand, Patek Philippe, became the first to put a tourbillon in a wristwatch.

The 5101’s tourbillon is only visible through the sapphire crystal in the back of the elegant platinum case, designed to protect the mechanism from ultra-violet light. Its precision-testing requirements are twice that required by the official Swiss chronometer-testing authority. $350,000

Editor’s Pick Panerai Luminor 1950 Titanium Tourbillon GMT An understated, elegant dial hides this watch’s tourbillon. Distinguished, by visual modesty. Exclusively distributed in Canada by Palladio. $123,400 palladiocanada.com —George Zicarelli

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“BODY HEAT” Film still COURTESY of WARNER HOME VIDEO

Photo by Tk tk

* Nicolas Kazamia, TV producer, and Alexandra Castillo-Smith, actress, understand that umlauts are always in fäshion.

Pants Prada, Shoes Prada, Scarves Hermès, Bangle Model’s own 74 The 74 DRIVEN DRIVEN September Gift Guide: 2008 * DRIVENmag.com December 2008 * drivenmag.com

Gift Guide:Sex

T HE U N B E A R A B L E LIGHTNESS OF BEING SEXY Stir more than your partner’s imagination with the following artistically erotic books and DVDs By Elizabeth Walker S

“BODY HEAT” Film still COURTESY of WARNER HOME VIDEO

ince 1993, England’s Literary Review has been mercilessly mocking writers that have sex—in their novels, that is. The annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award is given “to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.” Past winners include Norman Mailer and Sebastian Faulks and Tom Wolfe.

It hardly seems fair.

The award reveals how much easier it is to laugh at clumsily ardent prose than it is to celebrate those writers who seduce us. The best novels arouse our emotions and show us things that we don’t always want to see about sex and relationships.

It’s slippery ground, to be sure. So when a novel tries a little come-on, let ’s not respond with smirks and eye rolls—some steamy stuff c an really stoke the fire.

Nicholson Baker’s reputation is derived largely from furtive word-of-mouth among readers of his very sexually explicit ’90s novels, Vox ($16) and The Fermata ($21). Characters confide their desires to the reader and to

each other, revelling in the decadent pleasures of the mind’s eye. In reading Baker’s work, one becomes a willing accomplice—sometimes with surprising results.

Mario Vargas Llosa’s magic realist offerings, notably Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter ($21), The Step-Mother ($16) and The Bad Girl ($28), return repeatedly to the subject of erotic fantasy as a means to let loose the imaginations of characters locked into unhappy lives. But grim settings don’t get in the way of the characters’ encounters of the kinky kind. Vargas Llosa takes pleasure in watching his people intersect, and is endlessly fascinated by the many permutations of desire.

Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being ($18) may use the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia as its backdrop, but political turmoil is no match for the upheaval experienced by a married couple struggling with hubby’s compulsive philandering. Morality aside, it’s hard not to be seduced by his lust for life, more so given his charming taste in lovers.

It seems that for sex to be good—in fiction, as in life—it has to both satisfy its subjects and leave them wanting. Still, if one believes the cliché that men respond viscerally to sexual images while women are more aroused by the powers of imagination, one might also think that a selection of salacious pages might not cut it for the blokes. Good thing, then, that movies often feature sex, while DVDs offer privacy.

In the 1980s, the dangerously sexy star vehicle quickly degenerated into the cheap, straight-to-video ‘erotic thriller.’ The era’s most notorious entry was 9½ Weeks ($10) but the real deal was Body Heat ($20), starring William Hurt as the private detective who can smell trouble all over bored, rich housewife Kathleen Turner. Of course, he can’t help but go for her, and their passionate couplings leave Mrs. Walker so hot that she famously resorts to an ice bath to cool down.

Compare that with the tranquil, exotic setting of pre-revolution Vietnam in director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Lover ($15). Based on the also provocative memoirs of Marguerite Duras, it tells of the sexual education of a young French girl by a much older Chinese man. The only languages they share in common are touch and taste.

More recently, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s breakout performance in 2002’s Secretary ($15) made for one of the oddest movies of the past 10 years. James Spader plays a surreally uptight boss while Gyllenhaal is his, well, secretary, whose quiet vulnerability unlocks the boss’s bizarre desires. Bondage and domination become a vocabulary of love for these two misfits in this decidedly romantic film about sex.

Editor’s Pick

Lost Girls Great comics combine literature’s sensual elegance with film’s visual urgency. The tastefully pornographic Lost Girls, by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, tells the sexual histories of three fictional heroines: Wonderland’s Alice, Oz’s Dorothy and Neverland’s Wendy. Sacrilegious? Perhaps.

Sexy as hell? Absolutely. $85 —Eric Grant

DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

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Games Gift Guide:

I N D E P E N D E N T S ’ DAY Small teams, big dreams By Mark Moyes

T

his year, game auteur Will Wright, of The Sims and SimCity fame, released his latest

up by the PlayStation Network. Portal—a brilliant, non-violent reinvention of the first-person

creation, the epic Spore. Despite major advance hype, its eight years of intense devel-

shooter—was released this year on Xbox Live Arcade. And the charming World of Goo, which

opment were marred by publisher Electronic Arts’ prohibitive copy protection, which

boasts the second-best review score of any Wii game on metacritic.com, is downloadable

led gamers to trash the title all over the web. (At press time, it holds an average user rating

via WiiWare. Critically, it beat out the sprawling Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with a devel-

of just one-and-a-half stars on Amazon.com.) At least EA published it. CEO John Riccitiello

opment team of just two.

called Spore a “significant creative risk”—meaning, of course, that it was a financial one.

No More Heroes was too big for the IGF. With its theatrical aesthetic, it would feel right at

With revenues surpassing Hollywood’s box-office heyday, and development costs aver-

home at a Sundance screening. IGF chair Simon Carless insists that the indie scene is char-

aging $15 million per title, the mainstream video game industry is increasingly weighing its

acterized by smaller, self-contained concepts. “If it’s a really neat idea and it’s well-executed,

risks against the bottom line. Enter gaming’s indie scene, where developers are enjoying

it doesn’t have to be 40-hours long.”

increased recognition and six-figure sales from console download services.

A list of recent Independent Gaming Festival winners illustrates the trend: Toronto’s Jon Mak so impressed a Sony executive at IGF in 2007 with his Everyday Shooter that it was picked

That grassroots aesthetic, aided by the proliferation of direct-to-console distribution, may help push indie games into the mainstream. They won’t outsell Halo 3, but at some point you’ll probably end up playing one of these homespun titles. You might not even be able to tell.

Four games that will take you to the next level

Spore/EA

Portal: Still Alive/Valve

The ultimate God game, Spore lets you oversee the evolution of a single-cell organism.

Portal: Still Alive arms you not with a firearm but with a “portal gun” that allows you to blast

The creature creator is great fun but choices hardly affect later stages. $50

objects through walls and teleport them to the other side—onto an enemy, for example. $15

World of Goo/2dBoy

No More Heroes/Ubisoft

Stack and stretch sentient goo balls into towers and bridges while avoiding obstacles.

Essentially a critique of violent gaming tropes, No More Heroes’ slaughter-fest quest to

Propelling you forward is a wonderful music score worthy of a Tim Burton film. These phys-

defeat 10 top assassins is squirmingly affecting. Think Kill Bill on Japanese steroids: You’ll

ics-based puzzles can be finished in minutes—which would make World of Goo a perfect

keep playing through just to see the next creative cut scene. Video games are art.

diversion in a hectic day if it weren’t so damn addictive. $24

Case closed. $24

Editor’s Pick 76 DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

Guitar Hero World Tour/Activision You know your accountant? He probably likes video games. You can buy him this. $220 —Zach Feldberg

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* Andrew Waite, artist, looks even better than he sounds.

Shirt Prada, Tie Duchamp

Gift Guide:Sound Day tripper Our spiffy soundtrack for a day in the life Music writers (and other shut-ins) aside, few individuals continue to practise the Platonic ideal of record-listening: sitting rapt in front of the stereo in a dark room, distraction-free. More often, pop music is used as a complement, colouring our experiences and mixing itself up in our memories as it builds a soundtrack

By Derek Weiler

to our day-to-day lives. It’s with both these notions in mind that we developed DRIVEN’s sunrise-to-sunset picks for 2008. Share it with someone important in your life, or simply treat yourself. Money can’t buy you love, but it will at least cover this: $8 for all eight tracks; $80 for all eight albums (iTunes.ca)

Editor’s Pick

Rudely

Here comes the sun Santogold,

Life is very short Deerhunter,

“L.E.S. Artistes” (from S/T, WEA) An alarm clock aggravates you into the day, but this killer single will make you want to get out of bed and face the world. There is bona fide pop artistry in the little production flourishes, not to mention in Santogold’s twisted, off-kilter phrasing.

When the chorus explodes into a defiant battle cry—“I could stand up mean for the things that I believe”— it’s nothing less than empowering and rousing, not just for her, but for you, too. Time to wake up.

“Nothing Ever Happened ” (from Microcastle, Kranky) Sitting in traffic, twitching and muttering in a lineup, killing time at work. This song knows how you feel when you wish you were somewhere else—and in capturing that frustration, it also transcends it. The doomy bass and guitar slashes are lifted straight from the Joy Division playbook, but here they sound caffeinated, and perhaps a little friendlier. Stasis has surely never been so energizing.

“Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” (from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, Mute) Music fit for pushing your way through human traffic on a downtown sidewalk: While Nick Cave testifies about the urban wanderings of a resurrected modern-day Lazarus, The Bad Seeds kick up a fearsome garage-stomp ruckus to trail in his wake. Above all, this number is crowded, with blasts of organ, thick guitar chords, and background chants all jostling for space.

But when I get home to you

You’re waiting for someone to perform with Orchestra Bao-

You can learn how to be you, in time Lindsey Buckingham, “Great

bab, “Pape Ndiaye” (from Made in Dakar, Nonesuch) You’d never hear a number like this in your typical nightclub, café or party. But in a perfect world... From the staccato drumbeats, to the smoky horns, to the comradely backing vocals, the Afro-Cuban band’s latest release swings with an easy lilt and a celebration of community that will be fondly familiar to fans of Buena Vista Social Club. After-hours music needn’t be a total chill-out; in fact, warming’s just fine.

Day” (from Gift of Screws, Reprise) The curtains are drawn and dead leaves swirl around in the darkened street. Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham is playing reflectively, quietly, and while your body may be ready for sleep, your brain is still humming, just like the jittery beat and the sudden flares of guitar on this track. “It was a great day, great day,” Buckingham sings, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

Indeed, by the end of the song he’s openly second-guessing himself.

Solange, “I Decided” (from Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams, Polydor) The title and the lyrics suggest consummation: a decision has been made, and the hookup has been hooked. Blame it on the Motown groove, then, for making “I Decided” sound eternally expectant not to mention suspended in mid-air— because what the song really evokes is anticipation. The party is still to come, and it could bring anything.

For now, though, just stand at the mirror; smooth your hair, straighten that new tie.

Where do they all come from? Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds,

I’d love to turn you on Death Cab for Cutie, “I Will Possess Your Heart” (from Narrow Stairs, WEA) Late afternoon. You’re speeding alongside a concrete divider as daylight shrinks on the far side of the sky. From the stereo, a bass riff crawls; it’s joined by glints of piano, spiralling hypnotically in a long pneumatic whoosh. Then: The voice of Ben Gibbard tables a plea—“How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me”—and it’s like you’re past the city limits and onto a whole ’nother plane.

Interrupted, “Don’t Break My Heart”

A note-perfect new wave guitar-/synthpop confection, “ Don’t Break My Heart ” is notable for cute ’n’ cautious, deer-in-head light vox that cross CampStay in bed, float upstream er Van Beethoven Erykah Badu, “ The Healer” (from with Flight of the New Amerykah Part One: 4th World Conchords. It ’s all War, Universal) the more darling for When you wake up in the middle super-simple (if not of the night, disoriented and mild- outright naïve) lyrly anxious, this is the one to reach ics that practically for. The slow, druggy vibe and the dare the listener to gently insistent vamp will steady ignore the plaintive your nerves, while Badu’s cracked, song title and indeed free-associative vocals (“Blue flame annihilate the poor scientist/Come out with your scales sensitive bastard. But up/Get Baptized in the ocean of the the best part? It’s not hungry/Humdi luli lalilulo/Humdi actually a love song. lulilalilu”) somehow make the song If you want to get to as comforting as it is eerie. the very human truth of the matter, go to the band’s site (RudelyInterrupted.com).

Still, the background’s ultimately irrelevant. This is a great song, end of—and regardless of—story.

Probably my favourite track of the year, in fact.—Gary Butler

DRIVEN December 2008 * drivenmag.com

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Tech Gift Guide:

HEADPHONES FOR THE HOLIDAYS The gift of music, loud and clear By Ian Harvey

Editor’s Pick

As with most electronic devices, headphones can be a point of male pride. Some will boast of thundering bass, while others flaunt their rich midtones. Other ’phonies care only about how they look. But whether the goal is function or fashion, or both, the three-digit range is always the ‘sound’ investment. Given that portable music is accepted as a basic right in North America, the following above-average gift options will really prick up some ears.

iBeanbag Chair Bass-enhancing headphones: Who needs ’em?

There are speakers inside your chair! Talk about handling the bottom end... $190; iBeanbagChair.com —Zach Feldberg

Sennheiser HD595 The HD595s come with acoustic refinement technology, which eliminates standing waves—meaning there’s no muffling, just crisp, clean audio. So they’re a joy to listen with, and designed to be a joy to wear, too. $300

Denon AH-NC732 Advanced Noise Cancelling On-Ear Headphones Denon claims its headphones cut ambient noise by up to 99 per cent. But even if they fall a little short you’ll probably not notice with the 40-mm drivers delivering sound and the leather ear cushions insulating you from the world. $380

Sony MDR NC5000D With 28 hours of battery life, you’ll probably rest before the music does.

Factor in the industry’s first digital noise-cancelling technology and these Sony MDR’s are perfect for anyone with a busy, noisy lifestyle. $450

Shure SE530 Shure’s ear buds have three relatively massive drivers in each ear module: Two woofers and a tweeter. While this makes them unusually large for ear buds, all is forgiven with the resulting sound reproduction. $450 Grado SR325i Headphones that outperform on all levels, at a price that offers great value. Grado’s retro build is a little larger than that of its closest competitors; still, maybe that helps to add even more dimension to the music. $300

Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-604 Purists sneer at the slow transfer rates of Bluetooth headphones, but for listening to MP3s, you won’t notice any difference. Plus, Nokias automatically mute for incoming or outgoing cellphone calls. $170

The Gentleman’s

Gift Guide

bids you adieu. D R I V E N wishes you happy holidays,

AKG K 480 NC One of the few mini headphones sensitive enough to deliver superb sound. And these AKGs are wireless, so tangled cables are a thing of the past. $130 80 DRIVEN December 2008 * DRIVENmag.com

and a tastefully masculine new year. * No model or garment was harmed in the making of this non-ad, including: Stuart, Elmer Olsen Models, Bunny Head Exile Vintage, Pants Exile Vintage, Shoes Exile Vintage, Jacket Prada

buyer’s market*

DRIVEN

Style guide for December Cover Story Joseph Boyden (On the cover) Z Zegna three-piece suit from Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com); A.P.C. moccasin boots from Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (nomadshop.net); J. Lindeberg shirt, Polo by Ralph Lauren tie, and pocket watch, stylist’s own. (pp38 - 42) Z Zegna waist coat and Z Zegna pants from Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com); J. Lindeberg shirt and Polo by Ralph Lauren tie, the stylist’s own; moccasins and pin, the model’s own.

GROOMING: SHAWL NECKS (p16) Walking through fall foliage – Polo

by Ralph Lauren, available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

She wants you to stay home and cuddle – Michael Kors ,available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com).

Hanging around the house – Paul Smith, available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Half in, half out - Vince, available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com).

Compliments from your comrades – Hermès: Toronto (416.968.8626), Montreal (514.842.3387), Vancouver (604.681.9965) Beers with the boys – H&M hand knit cardigan, available at H&M (www.hm.com/ca).

Team Zissou – Rugby by Ralph Lauren, the stylist’s own.z Fashion Broken Glass (Pages 26-30) Front Page (Page 26) Burberry Prorsum shirt, Prada cummerbund and pants, Lanvin vest all available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Hermès scarf available at Hermès 160 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8628). Louis Vuitton shoes available at Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton.com).

Hiding Face (p27) Christian Dior jeans, Prada shirt, and Alexander McQueen sweater available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Hermès scarf available at Hermès, 160 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8628). Louis Vuitton shoes available at Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton.com). Surface to Air folded belt available at Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.682.1107).

Bare Chest/Black Pants (p28) Louis Vuitton pants and shoes available at Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton. com). Fossil belt available at Fossil (fossil.com). Maison Martin Margiela shirt available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Bare Chest/White Pants (p29) Louis Vuitton cardigan and shoes available at Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton.com). Common Projects shoes

available at Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.682.1107).

Eyes Closed (p30) Louis Vuitton shirt, pants and shoes all available at Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton.com). Comme des Garçons cardigan available at Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.682.1107).

Swinging Scarf (This page) Louis Vuitton shoes available at Louis Vuitton (louisvuitton.com). Christian Dior pants, Lanvin scarf, blazer and shirt all available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Surface to Air hole belt available at Nomad, 431 Richmond St . West, Toronto (416.682.1107).

Fashion Parcour (pp50-57) Living Room Flip Red Sunglasses, from left to right (p54) Nike T-shirt and Air Max One Supreme QK shoes both available at Nike (nike.com).

Christian Dior jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). The Mint Institute by Henrik Vibskov. Mark Cardi cardigan and 3-finger ring both available at Delphic, 706 Queen St. West, Toronto (416.603.3334). Philippe Starck for Fossil watch available at Fossil (fossil. com). Oakley Frogskin sunglasses available at Oakley (oakley.com).

Nike T-shirt and Air Max One Supreme QK shoes both available at Nike (nike.com).

Christian Dior jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). The Mint Institute by Henrik Vibskov Moscow Cardi cardigan and 3-finger ring both available at Delphic, 706 Queen St. West, Toronto (416.603.3334). Philippe Starck for Fossil watch available at Fossil (fossil. com). Oakley Frogskin sunglasses available at Oakley (oakley.com).

Nike T-shirt and Air Max One Supreme QK shoes both available at Nike (nike.com). Christian Dior jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). 3-finger ring available at Delphic, 706 Queen St. West, Toronto (416.603.3334). Philippe Starck for Fossil watch available at Fossil (fossil. com). Oakley Frogskin sunglasses available at Oakley (oakley.com).

Handstand Green Outfit (p52) Gucci pants available at Gucci (gucci. com). Nike Terminator High Premium shoes and jacket both available at Nike (nike.com). Tie-Ups belt available

at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Oakley Frogskin sunglasses available at Oakley (oakley.com).

Wall Flip, from left to right (p53) Simon Miller jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Lacoste Visionaire Polo by Nick Knight available online (visionaireworld.com).

Vans Half Cab shoes available at Goodfoot, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.364.0734).

Simon Miller jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Lacoste Visionaire Polo by Thomas Demand available online (visionaireworld. com). Nike Dunk High shoes available at Nike (nike.com).

Simon Miller jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Lacoste Visionaire Polo by Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin available

Simon Miller jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Lacoste Visionaire Polo by Michael Stipe available online (visionaireworld. com). Adidas Gazelle Sue available at Goodfoot, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.364.0734).

Couch Flip, from left to right (p50) Arcteryx jacket available at Arcteryx (arcteryx.com). A.P.C. jeans available at Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.682.1107). Hermès scarf available at Hermès, 130 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8626). Nike Dunk High Supreme shoe available at Nike (nike.com). Oakley Frogskin sunglasses available at Oakley (oakley. com). Tie-Ups belt available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Hermès sweater available at Hermès, 130 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8626). A.P.C. jeans available at Nomad, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.682.1107).

Nike Terminator High Premium shoe and Goodfoot Elefont scarf both available at Goodfoot, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.364.0734).

Tie-Ups belt available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Oakley Frogskin sunglasses available at Oakley (oakley.com).

Table Flip, from left to right (p55) Gucci shirt, cardigan and shoes all available at Gucci (gucci.com). Mined Rd. Jeansmakers jeans available at Delphic, 706 Queen St. West, Toronto (416.603.3334).

online (visionaireworld.com). Nike Air Max Light Newark Edition shoes available at Nike (nike.com).

Arm Stand, from left to right (p56) Simon Miller jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Lacoste Visionaire Polo by David Byrne available online (visionaireworld.com).

Adidas ZXZ Plus shoes available at Goodfoot, 431 Richmond St. West, Toronto (416.364.0734).

Simon Miller jeans available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Lacoste Visionaire Polo by Karl Lagerfeld available online (visionaireworld.com).

Nike Air Structure Triax 91 shoes available at Nike (nike.com).

A.P.C. cardigan and Helmut Lang shirt both available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Mined Rd. Jeansmakers jeans available at Delphic, 706 Queen St. West, Toronto (416.603.3334). Gucci shoes available at Gucci (gucci.com).

GIFT GUIDE — FAKE ADS Group Shot, from left to right (pp58-59) Emilio Pucci dress available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Hermès shoes available at Hermès, 130 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8626).

Anchor Key Ring from a selection at Klaxon Howl, 877 Queen St. West, Toronto (647.436.6628).

Prada shirt and Filippa K pants both available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Salvatore Ferragamo shoes and belt available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com).

Vintage dress available at Exile, 22 Kensington Ave., Toronto (416.596.0827). Hermès boots available at Hermès, 130 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8626).

Christian Dior shirt available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Kris Van Assche jacket available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Etro shirt available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com). Pants from a selection at Exile, 22 Kensington Ave., Toronto (416.596.0827).

Fore-Play Golfer (p62) Paul & Shark shirt available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com). Vintage Farah pants from a selection at Exile, 22 Kensington Ave, Toronto (416.596.0827). Salvatore Ferragamo belt available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com). Hattie Smith glove and Feel Golf club both available at Free Your Game, 202 Augusta Ave., Toronto (416.850.7115).

Fore-Play Swingers (p62) Diane Von Furstenburg dress available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Hermès boots available at Hermès, 130 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8626). Vintage shirt from a selection at Exile, 22 Kensington Ave., Toronto (416.596.0827).

Archduke Ferdinand (p66) Etro shirt, tie, and suit all available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com). William Ashley glass/decanter available at William Ashley (williamashley.com).

Salty Joe’s (p70) Uncle Sam shirt from a selection at Klaxon Howl, 877 Queen St. West, Toronto (647.436.6628). 100 per cent Merino wool toque available at Mountain Equipment Co-Op (mec.ca).

Ulna Arm Clocks (p72) Dries Van Noten blouse and Ermenegildo Zegna shirt and suit all available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner in 18-carat yellow gold available through Rolex Canada, 50 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto (416.968.1100).

Hëindseït, from left to right (p74) Prada pants available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com). Prada shoes available at Harry Rosen (harryrosen.com).

Hermès scarves available at Hermès, 160 Bloor St. West, Toronto (416.968.8628).

Patch (p78) Prada shirt and Duchamp tie both available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

Hare-Do (p80) Bunny head, pants and shoes all from a selection at Exile, 22 Kensington Ave., Toronto (416.596.0827).

Prada jacket available at Holt Renfrew (holtrenfrew.com).

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