Zoomer Magazine October/November 2022

QUITE SIMPLY, THE QUEEN WAS OUR MUSE. When we launched Zoomer magazine in 2008, Elizabeth II was 82, well into what many would consider old age. But there she was, year after year, hiking her estates, driving her Land Rovers, riding her horses and assiduously tending to her red boxes and other affairs of state and Commonwealth. She was the embodiment of the Zoomer philosophy. To me, her family life was defined in terms of succession and she will forever embody duty – the actual work of majesty. It’s telling that she signed off her Platinum Jubilee statement as “Your Servant, Elizabeth,” and worked up until two days before she died, meeting with her 15th Prime Minister, Liz Truss, to invite her to form a government. That the Queen died…

“I remain eternally grateful for, and humbled by, the loyalty and affection that you continue to give me. And when, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me.”QUEEN ELIZABETH II IN A STATEMENT MARKING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER ACCESSION TO THE THRONE ON FEB. 6, 1952 QUEEN ELIZABETH II, who ruled with aplomb and grace, had a long, illustrious life, bookended by two seismic global catastrophes: the Second World War and the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement released soon after her death, King Charles III said: “We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished Sovereign and a much-loved Mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout…

SCOTT THOMPSON is having his moment. Actually, he’s having several. At 63, the comedic actor, best known for his work with the sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall, is poised to dominate small screens across North America now and into 2023. Beginning with two back-to-back episodes airing Nov. 15, Thompson will appear in the hotly anticipated second season of the CBC series Sort Of, carried stateside on HBO Max. The trailblazing, shot-in-Toronto show centres around a queer Pakistani Canadian millennial named Sabi (played by show co-creator Bilal Baig, who, like their character, uses gender-neutral pronouns) and the eclectic characters in their orbit. These include two children Sabi cares for as a nanny, patrons at the bar/bookstore where they also work, as well as 7ven (Amanda Cordner), their garrulous…

SASKATOON IS GOING to be lit. Literally. That’s because, on Nov. 5 – the day he turns 63 – Bryan Adams touches down for a stop on his So Happy It Hurts North American tour. “I think everyone forgot that it was my birthday,” the legendary Canadian rocker says of performing that day during a recent Zoom interview. “We’ll have a party. I like to have a bonfire on my birthday,” he says of the date that also happens to be Guy Fawkes Day. Could his middle name Guy possibly be a coincidence. “Hopefully I’ll find someone somewhere that’ll be able to light a fire for me.” Despite the passage of time, this year “could be my most productive time ever,” Adams admits because, in 2022 alone, he’s released four…

WHEN GREGORY Henriquez was growing up in the ’70s in Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood, he was mesmerized by a Toronto-produced Saturday morning cartoon, a space-age take on the classic English tale about an outlaw and his band of Merry Men but set in the year 3000. “It all begins with Rocket Robin Hood,” Henriquez says about his conceptual proposal called “GHETTO: Sanctuary for Sale,” an exhibition and graphic novel proposing a visionary scheme for new buildings in Venice, combining housing for refugees with time-share apartments for wealthy tourists. “The GHETTO project is exactly the same idea: a futuristic comic proposing stealing from the cosmic rich to give to the suffering galactic poor.” The son of prominent architect Richard Henriquez, and now managing principal of their firm, Henriquez Partners Architects (HPA), the…

MUSCLE UP Faster muscle loss leads to steeper cognitive decline, according to research from McGill University involving more than 8,000 older adults enrolled in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. But muscles are a modifiable factor, says Anne-Julie Tessier, a registered dietitian and lead author of the study published on JAMA Network Open this past summer. “Exercise, especially strength training, and good nutrition can help to gain or at least maintain muscle mass over time,” she said in an email. Lindsay Nagamatsu, director of the Exercise, Mobility, and Brain Health Lab at Western University, whose research focuses on this bi-directional relationship, explained it is a never-ending loop: “If our muscle mass is declining, that means that we’re less able to get up and do things; that’s going to cause…