Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2023 i Zoomer Magazine

Optimists cite the ever-welcome return of nostalgia, while cynics the lack of creativity in Tinseltown, but either way you can expect a serious dose of déjà vu from your television this season. Reboots are back, with everything from Riverdale to Twin Peaks to MacGyver recycled in recent years. But this winter’s a doozie for throwback enthusiasts, whom networks and streaming services know will tune in to revisit (or hate-watch, which works, too) their old faves reimagined in new ways. Exhibit A: On CBS, Matlock, the ’80s mystery-legal drama show starring a lovable Atlanta-based criminal lawyer immortalized by Andy Griffith, gets a modern twist thanks to Madeleine “Maddy” Matlock, played by Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, as an unassuming septuagenarian who uses her so-called invisibility to her advantage while sneaking around to win…

BODY STEP IT UP How many steps are enough? The more the better. That’s the bottom line from a recent meta-analysis of 17 studies into how daily step count impacts the bottom line – our mortality. The findings suggest that reducing our risk of dying from any cause starts at reaching 3,967 steps a day. Every extra 1,000 steps after that was associated with a further 15 per cent risk reduction. Although the health benefits decreased slightly after the age of 60, older adults who logged between 6,000 and 10,000 steps daily still reduced their all-cause mortality risk by 42 per cent. That kind of evidence can be just the motivation we need to change behaviour and adopt healthier habits, says Dr. Dwight Chapin, author of Take Good Care: 7…

IN THE LAST WALTZ, Martin Scorsese’s documentary about The Band’s farewell performance, the director interviews Canadian songwriter and lead guitarist Robbie Robertson. It’s 1976, after Scorsese had won the Palme D’Or in Cannes for Taxi Driver and picked up his camera to film the legendary rock band’s last performance in San Francisco. Robertson is in his trademark look: leather jacket, with a shirt unbuttoned enough to tease some chest hair. He tells Scorsese he wanted the performance at the Winterland Ballroom, which The Band dubbed The Last Waltz, to be a celebration. “Celebration of a beginning or an end?” Scorsese asks, to which Robertson responds, “Beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning.” Robertson’s words hit a different note today. The Toronto-born rock ’n’ roll legend, who was half…

SIX YEARS AGO, JOAN MacDonald was carrying 199 pounds on a 5-3 frame and hiding her 39-inch waist under baggy clothes. She had kidney disease, osteoarthritis, a reconstructed knee and was swallowing a cocktail of drugs to treat acid reflux, high cholesterol and hypertension. “I thought I was in a dead-end situation, and nothing I had done in my life was any good,” the 77-year-old said in a recent interview. Today, her body is celebrated the world over by 1.8 million followers on her @trainwithjoan Instagram account, as well as 56,000 on Facebook and almost 92,000 YouTube channel subscribers. And they’re not just watching the septuagenarian pump iron and flex her enviable biceps. They’re following her lead. In a world that tells women the most important thing about aging is…

LINDA EVANGELISTA kissing a chimpanzee while balancing a shoe on her head? How did she do it? Lovers of fashion, and fashion photography, in particular, will remember that pic, where glamour met primate to create one of the most indelible images of early Linda lore. No inventory of her career would be complete without it, and there it is, in all its madcap glory, in the first pages of the all-new Phaidon doorstopper, Linda Evangelista Photographed by Steven Meisel. Turns out the OG Canadian supermodel – a key spoke in the wheel of the quintessentially 1990s phenom – put a candy in her mouth in order to get the chimp’s attention. It was all her idea, and why Linda is Linda, Meisel says in the book. In the foreword, commissioning…

ON NOV. 11, as always, Canadians will gather at cenotaphs originally erected to commemorate the dead of the Great War. A few – very few, these days – will be veterans; more will be the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who served in the First and Second world wars, or in other conflicts, from Korea to Afghanistan. Most of us know the drill – the wreaths, the bugler, the hymns – perhaps accompanied by a reading of “In Flanders Fields.” But, as Canadian actor R.H. Thomson writes in his new non-fiction book, By the Ghost Light, “many of our remembrance rituals at city halls and cenotaphs, however honourably conducted, have contributed to … forgetting.” He suggests we have banished the horror and the carnage from our minds, and the…

The little yellow taxi deposited us on the grimy sidewalk of Rue Moulay Ismail, where my fellow travellers and I dodged locals and tourists hurrying to and from Jemaa el-Fna, Marrakech’s vast square. We had been warned it would be jammed on the weekend, when “there are a lot of people coming to party from Casablanca and Rabat,” said Rachid Ait El Hadj, our Collette tour manager. He was the patient guide for 24 travellers who joined the 15-day Colours of Morocco trip in May. We started in the verdant capital of Rabat, with stops in the ancient yellow city of Fez, the lush agricultural heartland near Meknes, the golden dunes of the Sahara Desert and the purple-hued peaks of the mighty High Atlas Mountains, before we arrived in the…

UP Like Baywatch, but older and more British In 2008, a photo of Helen Mirren, 63, at the beach in a red bikini instantly redefined how we think about beauty and sexuality as we age. The beginning of the “Betty-ssance” In 2010, Betty White famously appeared in a Snickers Super Bowl ad, then fulfilled a viral campaign to become, at 88, the oldest person to host Saturday Night Live. She won an Emmy for her appearance. Let’s call it an “Aging EGOT” Since Zoomer launched, we’ve witnessed the oldest Emmy winner (Norman Lear, 98, in 2020); Grammy winner (Pinetop Perkins, 97, in 2011); Oscar winner (James Ivory, 89, in 2018) and Tony winner (Lois Smith, 90, in 2020) in history. More from the “You’re only as old as you…

Trailblazer Dolly Parton is at it again, this time hopping genres in a move that is turning the established tradition of “rock stars going country” on its head. Acts from Hootie & the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker to rapper Kid Rock have made the shift, but few have done the reverse. On the album Rockstar (out Nov. 17), the 77-year-old doyenne of twang shelves the proverbial Stetson for guitar-goosed scorchers: There are 21 covers of the most BIC-lighter-worthy anthems, plus nine originals, all of them backed by a small army of cred-boosting marquee guests. They include members of Judas Priest, Blondie, Heart, Bon Jovi, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fleetwood Mac and the Doobie Brothers; plus, Elton John, Sting, Pat Benatar and Sheryl Crow, with many artists performing on the very songs they…

After a lifetime’s worth of travels, Ontarian Maureen Doherty (left), 67 and Californian Sindi McGrath (right), 69, met and fell in love in Nunavut and finally settled in Greenwich, N.S., with their miniature dachshund, Frida. Maureen Doherty: I was trained as a teacher and taught in Nigeria for a year. Then I got married, headed north to Nunavut, and raised three boys. Eventually, I found myself single again and realized if I was going to be with somebody again, it would be a woman. I was 60 when Sindi came into my life. Sindi McGrath: I grew up in San Francisco and put my kinesiology degree to work in everything but physical education: roofing, manufacturing, car mechanic. I moved around the U.S. and then to Nova Scotia. I got…

BONNIE GARMUS was determined not to fret. After handing over the TV rights to her quirky, richly imagined debut novel about a brilliant chemist-turned-reluctant cooking show host, Garmus knew she needed to let it go. There was no point second-guessing how the production team – led by Oscar-winning actor Brie Larson – would interpret Lessons in Chemistry’s droll narrative tone. Or how Larson would portray its relentlessly logical main character, Elizabeth Zott. Still, there was one thing Garmus couldn’t help worrying about: What would Hollywood do with Six-Thirty? The 66-year-old author has a gift for creating distinctive characters. Zott is a single-minded scientist who refers to vinegar as CH3COOH. Her daughter is a precocious kindergartener who reads Vladimir Nabokov and Norman Mailer. But the most unconventional of them all has…

ARCANA WAS CREATED WITH ONE MISSION: To detach urbanites from the city and help them experience the restorative power of nature. The retreat – where stainless-steel-clad cabins disappear into the surrounding forest – encourages guests to start their stay with a custom sound journey, a guided meditation designed to bring you into the present. At its Muskoka location – the exact address is revealed once you book – you enter the property on foot via an art installation called “the woodland portal.” It’s a short walk to the 23 cabins, which were designed to bring the outside in with huge picture windows and a ScandiCanadian vibe: white oak walls, heated floors, sleek kitchens and bathrooms – all stashed in 65 hectares (160 acres) of forest. You can cook your…

I think most of us would agree that the way we interact with our interconnected, hyperlinked world is not only stealing our valuable time, but making our already frayed-around-the-edges attention spans even worse. When this magazine launched 15 years ago, the Blackberry was the most popular smartphone in Canada, but early adopters were already lining up to buy their first iPhones. By 2020, Statistics Canada reported 84 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and up owned a smartphone, 43 per cent checked it every 30 minutes and 47 per cent even used it while watching TV. By late 2022, Canadians were spending an hour on social media and more than six hours online every day. If you’re looking to reclaim your time, and reverse that lack of focus that always…

For a while, I was sure I had brought this on myself. Not by my tendency to be moderately over-confident, I see that as a side-effect of optimism, and I know I have to watch for it. But this time it was epic hubris – a Shakespearean level of hubris – and I was completely devoid of any self-awareness when it came to the matter at hand. Last year around this time, I was getting ready to participate in a very fancy fundraiser for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. As an “honouree” for One Life Gala (put on by a third-party fundraiser for the PMCC), I was along for the ride, even though I thought the whole event was highly professional but way over-produced – from the photos to the…

If movies are the memories of our lifetime, then Hollywood is a museum full of freeze frames, slow takes and long shots that reflect our values and beliefs at any given point in time. As Zoomer turns 15, we pay tribute to the films and filmmakers whose work makes us see our world in a new light. That includes our cover story on Martin Scorsese’s prodigious oeuvre and riveting new cinematic masterpiece, Killers of the Flower Moon, which, at a time when we are grappling with reconciliation and reparations, reveals how avaricious settlers broke trust with Indigenous people. Even a film as seemingly inconsequential as American Graffiti, which turns 50 this year, can be viewed as a cultural touchstone that changed films forever, paving the way for blockbuster franchises…

HERE’S A SCARY thought for anyone who braved the original. It’s been 50 years since The Exorcist had viewers fainting and vomiting as 12-year-old Regan, played by Linda Blair, levitated over her bed, in the 1973 blockbuster. The big news is Oscar-winning actress Ellen Burstyn, 90, who played Regan’s mother, Chris MacNeil, will reprise her role in The Exorcist: Believer, after turning down offers to join the cast of five sequels and prequels. The film, which ominously premières on Friday, Oct. 13, centres on two possessed schoolgirls whose parents seek help from her. At a boyish 85, British director Ridley Scott is by no means slowing down, with filming underway on a sequel to his 2000 Oscar-winning smash, Gladiator, and the release of his historical epic, Napoleon, on Nov.…

THERE’S A TENDER VULNERABILITY TO Salah Bachir, the Toronto entrepreneur, philanthropist and art patron known for his witty repartee, black Hoax Couture wardrobe and the pearls and precious gemstones that drip off his earlobes, neck, wrists and fingers when he commands the room at one of his myriad fundraising events. During a visit to his grand country home and gardens in Paris, Ont., to talk about his celebrity-filled memoir, First to Leave the Party, he tells me how its pages are haunted by the friends, family and lovers he has lost to the civil war in Lebanon, where he was born in the northern village of Kfarhata; to the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s, when there were few funerals for the dead; and to old age and infirmity, in the…

WITH 20 YEARS BETWEEN the storied Olympic performances that put track stars Donovan Bailey and Andre De Grasse in the history books, the athletes are publishing two very different books about their paths to glory. With one-word titles, it’s apt that Canada’s foremost sprinters have kept their book titles as short as their medal-winning runs. De Grasse, 29 in November, who is already the most decorated Canadian sprinter in Olympic history, has written Ignite, which is more self-help manual than memoir. The mild-mannered millennial, who seems less inclined to the signature braggadocio of previous generations, shares the ups and downs of his athletic journey, imparting life lessons learned along the way. On the other hand, Bailey’s Oct. 31 memoir is brimming with his trademark bravado and offers a personal, behind-the-scenes…

I’M LOOKING ACROSS THE MIRROR-LIKE NORWEGIAN SEA. Gnarly rocks jut out of the water, like peaks of mountains above the clouds, breaking an otherwise unspoiled horizon. I’m at the Holmen Lofoten hotel in Søvågen, on one of the islands in the Lofoten archipelago in Norway’s Arctic Circle, where I’ve joined a gourmand experience called Kitchen on the Edge of the World. We’ll dine and learn from some of cooking’s best talents, eating in a restored fishing hut and sleeping in traditional cabins. To understand why three British chefs – host Valentine Warner, and guest chefs Mark Hix and Gill Meller – are holed up in the Arctic Circle, cooking for a group of guests from across the world, I take a walk with the hotel’s founder, Ingunn Rasmussen, who grew…

40S When Kate Hudson’s not here with her musician beau, she’s probably at A-listers’ favourite glow-inducing spa, We Care. JUICE FAST WITH THE A-LISTERS Book in to We Care, the liquids-only wellness retreat where Hollywood elites go to drop a few crucial pounds for the red carpet. SPLURGE ON A VIP PASS With access to air-conditioned restrooms, shaded seating areas, plus specialty food and drink, this is worth every penny. 50S He’s created tennis gear for Adidas so rap star and Louis Vuitton menswear designer Pharrell Williams might easily pop into the BNP Paribas Open. MATCH POINT Every March tennis fans head to the desert for one of the world’s top tournaments, the BNP Paribas Open. Expect LA-inspired dining (there’s a Nobu!). LATER IS BETTER Choose the second weekend –…

MINIMALISM IS OVERRATED IN these post-pandemic times. In the world of entertaining, hosting, dining and cocktailing, we’re embracing vibrant colour and decor, tastebud-dazzling flavours and an overall go-big-or-go-home attitude. That holds for all celebratory gatherings, big and small, including celebrations such as Zoomer’s 15th anniversary, which happens to coincide with the Thanksgiving season! Former party planner and co-founder of high style tableware brand Misette, Amy Burstyn Fritz, loves a tablescape that combines patterns, prints and colours. “You can have quite a neutral base with your table or room and then fill in with different pieces of colour or pattern in a way that’s a little more experimental,” she says. “People used to have one set of dishes for dinner parties. Now we’re seeing [customers] purchasing different pieces [vs sets] that…