Zoomer Magazine February/March 2022

FOR DECADES I ONLY measured my net worth in clothes, with “you’ve got to spend money to make money” as my personal financial motto. It is the sort of attitude, informed by the ’80s “dress for success” meets “fake it ’til you make it” ethos, that you could only justify to yourself, as I did, if you were fashion-industry adjacent, as I was. It was a world where you were encouraged to channel fantastical – some may say delusional – dreams of glamour and excitement, while proving you belonged through the haute and the new. It was no surprise to my long-suffering father, who provided school fees and living expenses that often went to $12 hamburgers at Toby’s Good Eats, $30 Christian Dior lipsticks and the like, that my…

BECAUSE IT’S 2022 and the country is in the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s first female finance minister was making it rain money. A month before Chrystia Freeland introduced her first budget – in April 2021 – she had chaired the Task Force on Women in the Economy, struck to address what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a “she-cession” after statistics showed women lost more jobs than men in the pandemic. Her budget included a $100-billion stimulus package, includng $742 million for low-income seniors whose monthly guaranteed income supplements were cut back because they received CERB. In December, Freeland announced employment had rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, the deficit was shrinking and GDP was growing. Shrewd, tough and a consummate negotiator, Freeland has been a feather in the…

QUEEN ELIZABETH II ascended to the British throne on Feb. 6, 1952, the year polio vaccines were tested, I Love Lucy ruled the TV ratings and a German rocket physicist published a book predicting a man named “Elon” would lead a human colony on Mars. Seventy years later, as the Royal Family prepares to celebrate the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee, new vaccines are combatting the COVID-19 virus, Nicole Kidman is winning awards for playing Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos and SpaceX founder Elon Musk is forging ahead with his plan to send humans to Mars. At 95, the Queen still rides horses, drives a car and hosts receptions. Which suggests she still plans to reprise her James Bond skydive (from the 2012 London Olympics) at the June 2 to 5…

2022 STARTS OFF WITH a bang as a crowd of seminal rockers gun for the top of the Billboard charts. Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder drops Earthling (Feb. 11), his first solo album in more than a decade, which is chock full of epic ’80s-inspired power ballads featuring haunting organs and fierce guitar solos; Original Guns N’ Roses members – that’d be Slash, Axl Rose and Duff McKagan, if you need a reminder – join the new G&R lineup for the four-track EP Hard Skool (Feb 25); and British pop-rock group Tears for Fears shouts its triumphant return on the emotionally charged and introspective album The Tipping Point (Feb. 25), its first in 17 years. Last, but never least, Canadian rocker, Zoomer cover subject and frequent photography contributor, Bryan…

A CANADIAN TOUR from Halifax to Vancouver and all points in between for a new album might seem like business as usual for Blue Rodeo, but Many A Mile, the 16th studio release from the alt-country legends, almost didn’t happen. Singer-songwriters Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor were both deflated after 2016’s 1000 Arms album and tour, but “the last record exacted a toll on Greg,” Cuddy says. “He puts everything into his music and recording and when it’s over, he often has a dip. That one was pretty extreme.” But then COVID-19 hit, and the long-time collaborators had a chance to recharge during lockdown. They wrote and recorded the songs separately, and the rest of the band hoofed it back and forth between Cuddy, at a studio in Toronto, and…

IT’S BEEN A long, glorious reign for Netflix’s The Crown at the top of the hierarchy of family dynasty dramas, but the beloved show might be deposed this spring. Two new shows starring strong matriarchs that could maybe rival the Queen are bringing some big names to the small screen. On Fox, Susan Sarandon stars in the musical drama Monarch, as the head of “the first family of country music” and its empire of complicated characters, beginning Jan. 30. In March, Showtime airs The First Lady, featuring almost-EGOT winner Viola Davis (she’s only short a Grammy) as none other than Michelle Obama. But wait, there’s more: It has also cast Gillian Anderson, fresh from her own Emmy win for playing Margaret Thatcher on The Crown, as Eleanor Roosevelt, and…