Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2021 i Zoomer Magazine

“He is a nihilist,” says Zoomer cover star Brian Cox of the character he plays on the hit TV show Succession. Unlike the fictional (or is he?) Logan Roy, we do not believe life is meaningless, but I, for one, can identify with a creeping sense of hopelessness. The climate crisis burns on with increasing intensity, the pandemic continues to hold life hostage and a dispiriting federal election campaign has exposed how deeply polarized our society has become. It’s a difficult time to be optimistic, so this, our annual Body, Mind and Spirit issue, has never been timelier. It’s about pushing back on despair and elevating our collective mood. It’s about providing you with new tools and ideas that will help you stay the course in leading healthier, happier…

I’M AFRAID WE’LL NEVER have adequate home care in Canada. I say this even though I received excellent care for two and a half months after being treated in hospital for a bile duct blockage. Two 15-minute nursing visits a week enabled me to work full time while recovering, rather than taking unpaid leave or applying for disability after maxing out sick benefits. But I’m convinced my successful home-care experience was only possible because of the skills I’ve developed over decades as a journalist: navigating complex systems and refusing to take no for an answer. When I was discharged, I was assigned a government co-ordinator who had the final word on my care without ever seeing me or speaking to me directly. She was from what used to be called…

RETIRED MEDIC BILL WILSON acknowledges two Remembrance Days every year. On Nov. 11, the Canadian Armed Forces veteran from Leamington, Ont., will honour the sacrifices made by other generations of Canadians in the First and Second World Wars. And on April 18, he will pay tribute to four Canadians who lost their lives in a friendly-fire incident in 2002, during the war in Afghanistan. Nearly 20 years ago, Wilson was the lead medic on a live-fire, midnight training exercise with about 80 soldiers from Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry at Tarnak Farm in the Afghanistan desert, not far from the base in Kandahar. Mistaking the Canadians for insurgents, a U.S. National Guard fighter pilot dropped a 225-kilogram bomb on them. Wilson, then a 35-year-old sergeant, was a few hundred metres…

FOR A MOMENT IN JUNE, there was hope. For the first time in almost two decades, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave conditional approval for an Alzheimer’s drug that was touted as a treatment that could reduce cognitive decline in those with early-stage dementia. Advocacy groups, patients and their families rejoiced, despite the fact that Biogen Inc.’s aducanumab, which targets and potentially reduces amyloid plaques, comes with a hefty price tag – the equivalent of $70,000 a year – and some troubling side-effects, like brain swelling and bleeds. But many in the scientific community, some of whom had worked on the drug’s clinical trials, protested the quick approval and questioned its effectiveness. After Biogen Canada Inc. submitted aducanumab (also known by its brand name, Aduhelm) to Health Canada for…

FOOD FOR THE POOR CANADA WHO: Samantha Mahfood, 54, grew up in Jamaica, where she was surrounded by “need, hunger and poverty.” Frustrated by her inability to help, she left for Canada when she was just 17. Inspired by her uncle, Ferdinand Mahfood, who founded Food For The Poor Inc. in Miami in 1982, she started Food For The Poor Canada in 2008. Thanks to volunteers and donors, it has since built 154 homes, 34 schools and distributed $41 million worth of food, educational and medical supplies to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Jamaica. THE CHARITY: Food For The Poor Canada is an international relief and sustainable development organization with five program areas: food, housing, education, health and income-generating projects. It also responds to emergencies and natural…

I SHOULD have been ashamed that I didn’t know about Viola Desmond until 2016, when she made the shortlist to be the face on Canada’s new $10 bill. Despite paying attention in Grade 10 Canadian history class, being engaged in decades of Black History months and seeking accounts of trailblazing Black Canadians to highlight as a journalist, I was unaware of the woman who fought racial segregation in a country where many don’t know that Black Canadians were barred from some public spaces. In Desmond’s case, it was the main floor of a theatre in New Glasgow, N.S., where she took a seat in 1946 to watch a psychological thriller called The Dark Mirror, because she was nearsighted and couldn’t see the screen from the Blacks-only balcony. I was flabbergasted…

(AND DOWN) James Bond, with an eye patch and killer voguing skills In her new Madame X concert tour documentary, Madonna, 63, is a one-eyed, freedom-fighting secret agent. World’s greatest rock and roll souvenir, or most expensive DIY toupée? A jar of Elvis Presley’s hair, collected by his barber, was sold at an auction for US$72,500. “Who’s that lady with the camera crouched behind the breakfast buffet?” Canadian photographer Naomi Harris, 48, embeds herself at a budget hotel for seniors in Miami for her new book, Haddon Hall. Fright Club Original ghostbusters Bill Murray, 70, Dan Aykroyd, 69, and Ernie Hudson, 75, reprise their roles in the new film Ghostbusters: Afterlife, while Jamie Lee Curtis, 62, returns to face Nick Castle, 73, as slasher Michael Myers, in Halloween Kills. It’s…

“Ah, the cardigan question,” Brian Cox announces in a Scottish stage whisper. He chews on it. Having just now pointed out to him that Logan Roy – the dark-lord media mogul he plays in HBO’s hit series Succession – does appear to enjoy his shawl cardigans, he concedes that it does evoke something: a wolf in sheep’s knitwear. “THE AVUNCULAR CARDIGAN,” the veteran actor reaffirms, relaying that it all started in the first season of the show, back in 2018, when he decided he wanted to wear something more comfortable in some of the scenes set in the offices of Roy’s empire, Waystar RoyCo. That is when it was born, and has since become a thing. “They show up here and there in the new season,” he says about…

WELCOME TO OUR ANNUAL BODY, MIND & SPIRIT ISSUE. This year feels just a bit different. We’re slowly emerging from the dark cloud cast by the pandemic and realizing what really matters. Our emotional fortitude and physical well-being are just the beginning. However we choose to navigate this world, from making a conscious effort to appreciate the moment, being open to experimentation, giving ourselves over to the ones we love – or reclaiming agency over our time and energy after giving too much – it’s a chance to celebrate a new era for our bodies, minds and spirits.…

“WHAT HOLLYWOOD designs today, you will be wearing tomorrow,” couturière Elsa Schiaparelli once said, explaining the complex cross-pollination of film and fashion that has existed since the birth of the movies. The recent Netflix series Halston – which stars Ewan McGregor as America’s first celebrity fashion designer – was a timely reminder of how Hollywood glamour, modern celebrity and popular style are still intertwined. In anticipation of the season’s fashion highlights, we look at three enduring trendsetters who made their mark on the screen and whose sway over fashion made a lasting impression. BOB MACKIE THE SULTAN OF SEQUINS Provocative, nearly naked gowns worn by celebrities like Rihanna, Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian have become routine on the red carpet. The boundary-pushing style is also an on-stage staple for entertainers from…

CANADIAN JOURNALIST and biographer Michael Posner is back, with the newest addition to his ongoing saga about a much-loved and missed Canadian superstar. Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: From This Broken Hill, Volume 2, naturally picks up where the first volume, The Early Years, left off. After Cohen’s formative years in Montreal and literary education at McGill University culminated in his first world tour in 1970, readers will see what success does to the struggling artist. Expect details about his complicated personal life and romantic relationships with Suzanne Elrod, the mother of his two children, as well as ex-love Marianne Ihlen, French photographer Dominique Issermann and – in a brand-new revelation – a five-year, secret affair with a previously unknown lover. It would be a very good guess, but the…

SOPRANOS FANS are in for a treat with The Many Saints of Newark: A Sopranos Story, which is something of a mind warp, because the HBO prequel movie stars the late James Gandolfini’s real-life son and doppelgänger, Michael Gandolfini. Co-writer David Chase foreshadows his iconic TV series with a look at how the loveable goon, Tony Soprano, went from gifted student to reluctant delinquent to Mafioso protégé to mob don. After some viewers were less than satisfied with the beloved show’s finale 14 years ago, James’s untimely death of a heart attack in 2013 dashed hopes for a sequel. But 22-year-old actor Michael (in his first starring role) made the prequel possible – and irresistible, surely – to HBO producers. “It’s a profound honour to continue my dad’s legacy,” Michael…

FIVE MINUTES’ WALK from home, in the first spring of the pandemic, my dog and I crossed a playing field where teams didn’t play anymore. All I meant to do was take a shortcut to the park, but a marvel stopped me. The water fountain, where water was no longer on offer, held three shiny apples. Whoever placed them there had the eye of an artist and the heart of a Good Samaritan. Hungry people had been roaming my Toronto neighbourhood in search of food. One of them would soon take the apples, but first I snapped a photo. I’d been struggling with another kind of hunger – for astonishment, for beauty, for the sense of being swept up by something greater than my anxious, COVID-weary self. The accidental…

“SO, WHAT KIND OF man are you looking for?” Over the years, I’d asked many single, middle-aged women this question. Their answer was invariably the same: “I’m not looking for a rocket scientist or a zillionaire. I just want someone who is kind and can make me laugh.” I was always surprised they would settle for predictability. This time, I was asking a doctor who had just ended her marriage, taken her three kids from her husband and sold their house. It was the summer of 1990, we were making burgers at a friend’s cottage on Georgian Bay in Ontario and everyone else was out on the water. At the time, I was a communications consultant, single and a hopeless cocaine addict who was pretending everything was fine. So I…