Maclean's

A fanfare for the Pan-Ams

Don’t tell Tanya Dubnicoff that the 13th Pan-American Games is a non-event. After all, with more than 5,000 athletes (from 42 countries), it is nearly the same size as the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, and it is by far the biggest PanAms ever staged. By James Deacon

40

Sports

Games Gamble

To understand why so many Winnipeggers are bullish about their city, it helps to go for a stroll on a warm summers evening to the historic Forks, where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet. For thousands of years, native people were drawn to this junction to camp, fish and trade goods. By Brian Bergman

6

The Mail

I read with great interest your discussion of Internet retail (“Net gains,” Cover, July 12). I find my purchasing habits changing in this small urban centre; I can only imagine the impact of “virtual purchases” on rural Canada. May I suggest, however, that Canadian retailers wishing to do business through my computer still have a number of “low-tech” obstacles to overcome.

44

Lifestyles

The bedroom and the new era of swing

It’s a sunny summer afternoon in Montreal and Jean-Paul Labaye is out on the patio of a downtown billiards club drinking a beer and smoking a blue Gauloise cigarette. A few passersby recognize him and nod their greetings, and the waitress who drops off another round smiles and raises her arm as if to say “cheers.” By Susan McClelland

46

Health

Mapping the genetic highway

As a research scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., during the past five years, biologist Marco Marra has become adept at charting the microscopic landscape of DNA, the genetic material that carries the code for life. A native of Berwyn, Alta., Marra was part of an international team that announced in December the decoding of nearly the entire genetic endowment, known as the genome, of a tiny worm called a nematode. By Mark Nichols

22

Cover

Profiles in tragedy

For Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy, Saturday, July 17, was going to be a glorious day. In Hyannisport, Mass., 275 friends and relatives had been invited to the fabled Kennedy family compound to celebrate the wedding of the 30-year-old documentary film-maker to editor and writer Mark Bailey, also 30. By Jennifer Hunter

48

Film

Stanley Kubrick's last, lingering kiss

After The Phantom Menace and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, now comes the final event movie of the summer. Eyes Wide Shut is, presumably, the one for adults, the class act. All across North America, couples are hiring babysitters so they can enjoy a safe night of adulterous fantasy, watching Tom Cruise and his wife, Nicole Kidman, get naked. By Brian D. Johnson

28

People

A travelling troubadour

Between songs, singer-songwriter Fred Eaglesmith is holding forth on a Dallas stage about how old guitar strings can make an ideal poultry pen. “Just string them up 10 cm apart— that’s 2 1/2 inches in American,” he jokes. With his flat drawl, and the way the Texas audience laps it up, he could be a native son.

30

World

No Easy Peace

At Madison’s pub in downtown Belfast, there is no argument when the police arrive. The hour is late and the crowd dense at the long, copper-topped bar, where the usual frenzy of last call prevails. But the noisy throng falls quickly silent, meekly dispersing into the night as the dark green hats and light green shirts of the Royal Ulster Constabulary spread the news. By Barry Came