There was something strangely indefinable about The Idler Pub that made it a winter kind of place. Howling winter winds somehow make a tunnel at the juncture of Davenport and Avenue Roads. Winter-whipped winds blew many people into the Idler, and as long as Manny Drukier was there, you felt you had arrived home.
Manny, the most genial of hosts, was usually there. It’s difficult to believe that he won’t be after Sept. 22.
The bar was named after The Idler, a literary and political commentary magazine that Drukier published upstairs from the pub he ran for 15 years. A spiral staircase led to the upper floor offices, and they threw fabulous parties there when the magazine, which wound down in 1993, was in its heyday.
The amusing David Warren, who edited the magazine, came down to the pub from his loft to quench his thirst.
But in visiting the Idler, the drawing card was Manny,
Not just the Idler magazine enjoyed the kindness of his sponsorship. The selfless Manny inspired up and coming writers to never give up. All the while, when flagging them on, he never spoke about his own enviable literary talent.
Manny now 73, but looking much younger, is blessed with a boyish kind of charm.
The characters blown into the Idler by the wind were unforgettable, not the least of them Warren and his team of eccentric writers.
It was Toronto Sun colleague Dani Crittenden who first introduced me to the charms of the pub. We used to try to get there early enough to take over the one tiny table in front of the fireplace. After cozy little dinners, reminiscent of café life in Paris, Manny, who always had a story to tell, would hold us spellbound with nostalgic tales from the World War 11 era.
Would-be poets, published and established poets, people from the film and the media industries frequented the Idler. Poetry readings, which take place on a postage stamp size stage sat the back of the pub, take place at least once a week for 50 weeks of the year. The readings have been running for 13 years, and the number of fledgling poets who gained their confidence at the pub, is too high to count.
Almost everyone I know with a passion for poems has read at the Idler, including Toronto Free Press book editor Michael Vallins.
Another Michael, whose surname alludes me, was a University of Toronto law professor, who held round-table philosophical debates on issues of the day, every Thursday evening. If you wanted to join the debates, your thinking faculties had to be in highly polished order.
Manny, whose food and service were always first class, wandered from table to table. A man of a thousand and one anecdotes, spiced wry humour, he had an encouraging word for everyone.
Bigwigs and political stuffed shirts were treated the same as the neighbourhood house painter at this particular pub.
On my way to meet friends at the Idler one evening, I had a previous interview with an unpopular local politician. I was running late, when friends called to inquire about my whereabouts. Overhearing my intended destination, the politician enthused that she had always longed to visit the pub ever since first having heard about it. Discouraging her from tagging along didn’t work, and that night when I blew in through the Idler doors, ‘the enemy’ was right there behind me.
Manny was such a genial host, he seemed born for the job.
Having survived Hitler’s War as a young man, he had narrowly escaped many misadventures and had, as they say, seen it all. Perhaps this is what gave him empathy for others struggling along life’s way.
That his 2001 novel Duty And Passion has been optioned for a movie is no surprise to me.
As a generous patron to so many others, he gave out $15 vouchers against food and beverage for budding poets near and far. The Idler readings came about "because we saw a need for it". Pub readings as far away as Chicago and Los Angeles got underway, having picked their ideas up from the Idler.
Never a big money maker, The Idler, which will close its doors on Sept. 22, will go out with a series of parties, one every night until final closing.
"All good things come to an end," says Manny. "The pub opened in 1987. In closing it, I thought 15 years to the day sounded like a good round number."
But the Idler Pub is the kind of place that can ever really close.
There are too many memories, and too many ghosts, all of them with their coattails flapping in the wind, making their winter evening way to the perpetual warmth of Manny Drukier.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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