Great Leap Forward
You can regard a leap year in one of two ways: as an extra day spent slogging away at work, or as another 24 hours to use your monthly transit pass with no additional charge – a glass-half-full situation. A leap year synchronizes the calendar with Earth’s journey around the sun. Our planet doesn’t revolve once every 365 days; it travels a quarter of a day more – delays that, if ignored, can add up over centuries, creating a world out of whack with the cosmos.
That’s what happened after Egyptian astronomers proposed a fixed 364-day calendar during the reign of Ptolemy II. Over time, that calendar fell out of step with the changing seasons, prompting Julius Caesar in the Roman era and Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century to fix the disparity with the addition of a leap day every four years. A gross simplification, but it shows how the leap day isn’t just some random creation. As a new day born of knowledge and calculated insights, it puts us back into the flow of things. A world of natural rhythms.
The idea of keeping pace with the times runs through this issue. Inside are stories on protons, waste reduction and early-stage drug development, among other groundbreaking research projects at York University. Alumni profiles include dancer and choreographer Christopher House – making a leap of his own as outgoing artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre – and philosopher Eric Meslin, whose examination of ethical issues relating to human life, biology and the environment is informed by a balanced point of view.
To leap means to bound forward, something the Toronto Raptors did when they hired Drake as their global ambassador on the way to becoming the reigning NBA champions – the focus of our sports management story. Last (but far from least) is our cover feature article on Canadian fashion and design entrepreneur Joe Mimran, a proud York alum who has built a career jumping from project to project with inimitable style. You can bet this local legend – the force behind Club Monaco, Joe Fresh and the Staples rebrand – isn’t complaining about having an extra calendar day this year. Knowing him, he’ll turn it into something beautiful. May you be inspired to do the same. ■