Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021/January 2022 i Zoomer Magazine

ONE HUNDRED years ago on Dec. 6, Agnes Macphail made history as the first female elected to the House of Commons, and served 19 years as an MP. After that, the former teacher was one of the first two women elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1943, and won a second term as an MPP in 1948. A founding member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (later the NDP), she fought tirelessly for prison reform, founded the Elizabeth Fry Society and championed equal pay for equal work. In 2017, on Canada’s 150th anniversary, Macphail was the first woman to be featured on a commemorative $10 bill. But, for a moment this fall, the trail she blazed toward gender parity in Parliament was looking like it hit a roadblock. Prime Minister Justin…

HOLIDAY moviegoers – or, more likely, at-home streamers – can look forward to the usual deluge of movies released in December to qualify for 2021 awards. After a three-year directorial hiatus, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story (Dec. 10) leads the race. More than a half-century since the original film adaptation of the Broadway musical, Spielberg’s version stays true to the original story, which is basically Romeo and Juliet set among rival gangs in 1950s New York City. Spielberg gives a cameo to EGOT winner Rita Moreno, 90, who won an Oscar for playing Anita in 1961, cast NYC native Ansel Elgort as Tony and plucked New Jersey’s Rachel Zegler from 30,000 hopefuls to play Maria. Neo and Trinity are also in love, even though they’re not supposed to recognize…

MIMA STAIKOVA doesn’t know how she got COVID-19. The University of Toronto lecturer barely left her house in the spring of 2021 as she prepared an online chemistry course she had to teach in May. Her only trip outside was to the dentist, where everyone was fully vaccinated, only one patient was allowed in at a time, and the technicians were masked, gloved and gowned. Three days later, she spiked a fever that hovered around 40 C for a week. “I was kind of in and out of my senses,” she says. “I could barely get up to get a bit of water.” Staikova also experienced muscle pain, a bad headache and her digestion was a disaster. After a trip to emergency – and almost three weeks from the onset…

HOW DOES A “SKINNY, UGLY JEWISH KID FILLED WITH SHAME” become one of the few men in their 60s with a page on the risqué social-media platform OnlyFans? David Pevsner explains it all in his memoir Damn Shame: Desire, Defiance, and Show Tunes. Pevsner’s engaging, often explicit memoir, which comes out Jan. 11, charts his decades as an actor, songwriter, male escort and advocate for mental and physical health. It wasn’t until he started his “workout journey” in the late ’80s, as a member of the touring cast of South Pacific, that he had the confidence to visit bathhouses and embrace his identity as an out gay man. As he writes in the book, the AIDS epidemic spurred bathhouses across America to educate patrons on safe sex, providing condoms, educational…

1. THE COMPANY: MOËT HENNESSY The hard-hit hospitality industry was anything but bubbly in the past year. Part of the luxury house LVMH, Moët Hennessy Canada has donated thousands of dollars to the Bartenders Benevolent Fund, a Canadian non-profit founded in 2013 to support hospitality workers in financial trouble, and produced a one-off magazine devoted to cocktail creativity. THE GIFT: Coming Together ($25), a coffee-table bookazine, features cocktail recipes from 50 mixologists across Canada. THE GOOD: Proceeds from the sale of each magazine go to the Canadian cocktail creators, who were also paid for their submissions. mhcomingtogether.com; Chapters Indigo 2. THE COMPANY: BIRCH BARK COFFEE COMPANY Entrepreneur Mark Marsolais-Nahwegahbow, an Ojibwe who is a member of the Whitefish River First Nation on Ontario’s Manitoulin Island, is on a mission to…

HOW FANTASTICALLY SASSY of Her Majesty to send the Oldie of the Year award committee packing. With warmest best wishes, the 95-year-old monarch turned down The Oldie magazine honour through her private secretary: “Her Majesty believes you are as old as you feel, as such the Queen does not believe she meets the relevant criteria to be able to accept, and hopes you will find a more worthy recipient.” Launched 29 years ago, The Oldie was described by founding editor Richard Ingrams as a “free-thinking, funny magazine, a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity.” It has attracted some laudable names in literature, such as Auberon Waugh, Germaine Greer and Canada’s own Mordecai Richler. “You can’t simply be described as an elderly achiever: You need also…

“WILL YOU STILL NEED ME, will you still feed me / When I’m sixty-four?” Paul McCartney first sang this now familiar refrain at 25, but after the former Beatle passed that musical landmark 15 years ago, the answer to his question remains an emphatic “yes.” The Fab Four retains a place of relevance, reverence and sentimentality in pop-culture consciousness, which is why Peter Jackson’s three-part documentary, The Beatles: Get Back (released in November) was so hotly anticipated. It features unseen footage of the band’s 1969 recording sessions for Let It Be on the rooftop of their Apple Corps headquarters in London, their last live performance before they split up. The footage was originally shot by filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg while making his 1970 documentary Let It Be, a dour representation of…

EVERYTHING COSTS a lot more these days, with sticker shock most prevalent in the grocery aisles and at the gas pumps, which is a concern for many Canadians – especially retirees living on fixed incomes. While politicians, economists and central bankers don’t like to mention inflation out loud, higher prices are actually a sign that our economy is “roaring back” to life, a phrase Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland often use when referring to the post-pandemic period. Canadians are returning to offices, shopping at malls, eating out at restaurants and making major purchases they put off during lockdown. But as the economy bounces back, manufacturers, farmers, energy producers and retailers who are struggling with global supply-chain issues and staff shortages can’t keep up with demand. When…

THERE IS NO DEARTH OF NON-FICTION BOOKS on the COVID-19 pandemic and its physical, emotional and spiritual toll. In World War C, CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us how to prepare for the next pandemic, while Toronto’s expert on personalized medicine, Dr. Elaine Chin, advises us how to detox and de-stress in Welcome Back! There are calls to environmental action from renowned primatologist and peace activist Jane Goodall, who urges us to work together, rely on our intellect and tap into our “indomitable spirit” in The Book of Hope, and Thich Nhat Hanh, the master of mindfulness, offers a road map to becoming “a Buddha in action” in Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. As we contemplate new ways to live in an uncertain world, here are…

MONTREAL ISN’T AN easy fit for star chefs. With a deep pool of talented local cooks, it’s no wonder restaurants by Gordon Ramsay and the late Joël Robuchon failed to make their mark. Marcus Samuelsson, however, is bucking that trend. The 50-year-old chef was chosen to head the restaurant at downtown’s swank new Four Seasons Hotel when it opened in May 2019. And, despite pandemic setbacks, Marcus Restaurant + Lounge is going strong once again. Born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden, Samuelsson moved to the United States in 1994. The Manhattan-based chef counts 12 establishments in his restaurant group, from Red Rooster in Harlem and Miami, to Ginny’s Supper Club in New York, and Norda in Sweden, and is best-known for his modern take on African-American cuisine, although his…

(AND DOWN) Still Golden Hollywood star Betty White, who attributes her longevity to a sense of humour and a positive attitude, will celebrate her 100th birthday on Jan. 17. A gut feeling about longevity A new Japanese study suggests centenarians have specific gut microbes that help stave off age-related ailments. Heroic genes DNA analysis confirms Ernie Lapointe, 73, of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, is the great-grandson of legendary Chief Sitting Bull, who defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. While shopping for his own birthday decorations, a 62-year-old Maryland man bought a winning US$50,000 lottery ticket And just like that, the “Gone fishin” hat his kids went in on as a gift seemed prescient. If you ever doubted life is a marathon, not…

LONG BEFORE Sonny and Cher, there was Lucy and Ricky. Television’s original power couple – Lucille Ball and her Cuban-born husband, Desi Arnaz – burst onto TV screens 70 years ago as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo on the sitcom I Love Lucy and, over the course of six ground-breaking seasons, delivered some of the most iconic and memorable moments in television history. (Vitameatavegamin anyone?) Meanwhile, Ball and Arnaz, television’s first interethnic couple, proved just as powerful off screen, with Ball, as head of the pair’s Desilu Studios, shattering Tinseltown glass ceilings by becoming Hollywood’s first female studio boss. And it’s the drama of that push and pull – the sitcom success, the behind-the-scenes power plays, the tumultuous marriage, all set against the sepia-tinted backdrop of the Golden Age of…

THE RECENT SPATE OF PROSECUTIONS, investigations and deaths of aged, suspected Nazi war criminals has me fulminating against the universe. German authorities are scrambling to prosecute the last living perpetrators of Nazi-era crimes, but, even if convicted, they are unlikely to face punishment. They are a tiny remnant of the estimated 200,000 perpetrators; and the steady stream of news about nonagenarian defendants has me wondering why so many seem to live to such a great age, enjoying peaceful post-war lives, getting away with it until now. That is a cosmic injustice. Helmut Oberlander was the poster boy for evading justice. The former Nazi death squad member came to Canada in 1954, lying about his wartime activities. He built a prosperous construction business in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., outlasting a 35-year bid to…

CAN YOU GO HOME AGAIN? Of course you can, barring restrictions caused by pandemics, pets, or partners in your life. The question is: Why would you? I came up with some passable answers to this question when friends in Toronto asked why I was going for an extended “visit” to Winnipeg last year. (“Winnipeg? Why?!”) I told them my crowded Toronto neighbourhood felt claustrophobic under lockdown. That everyone worked on Zoom, so it didn’t matter where I lived. That my Toronto-born daughter was launched. That I owned a squirrel-infested bungalow in my hometown and had to decide what to do with it before it became a health and safety hazard. The real answer was: I had no idea why I was going back. I just got in my car…

WHEN ANDIE MACDOWELL walked the red carpet at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival last summer, she let her hair do the talking. It was an audacious move for the professional beauty, famed for her voluminous, chocolatey mane, to showcase the pewter tresses she’d adopted during the pandemic, at one of the world’s most glamorous and photographed events. MacDowell’s arrival at a glittering film première – with metallic eyeshadow echoing her silvery locks – signalled a new era, one in which women confidently embrace their natural grey. Or, as the 63-year-old supermodel/actress (and L’Oréal’s longest-serving beauty ambassador) summed it up in an October 2021 interview with InStyle magazine: “You can’t be young forever but you can always be considered beautiful, fashionable, and glamorous.” We’ve had our glorious grey-haired pioneers: Anne Bancroft,…

TRAVEL ALLOWS YOU TO HIT PAUSE AND TAKE A BREAK, but after living through the pandemic, which gutted tourism-dependent economies, many of us realize it is about so much more. Global leaders such as Prince Harry, who heads the non-profit global tourism initiative Travelyst, are setting the tone. “Travel can be a catalyst for good,” he said during the pandemic. “It can be sustainable, ethical – and even regenerative.” Cultural sensitivity, economic support and environmental sustainability are on everyone’s mind as we resume travelling, but COVID-19 heightened our understanding of travelling with purpose. While dolphins were spotted in the canal near St. Mark’s Square in Venice during the March 2021 lockdown, the loss of tourism dollars in Uganda meant gorilla keepers lacked the resources to guard the endangered animals from…