Now Toronto

For Earth Day, NOW culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai assembles Toronto Regional Real Estate Board CEO John DiMichele, realtors Meray Mansour, Odeen Eccleston and Philip Kocev and Ontario NDP housing critic Jessica Bell for a panel discussion on whether it’s possible to add more affordable housing in the GTA without infringing on our existing green space. 

We thought everyone could use a laugh, so NOW associate entertainment editor Glenn Sumi talks to Toronto stand-up comics Elvira Kurt and Nour Hadidi about how they’ve recalibrated their acts - and their energy - for the virtual gigs necessitated by the pandemic. Read Glenn’s 40 At 40 interview with Elvira at nowtoronto.com/culture/comedy .

COVID numbers are hitting all-time highs and Ontario is under another stay-at-home order, but fall concert dates are suddenly turning up on Toronto’s events schedules. Will people be ready to go see a band in September? Will they even be allowed to? NOW music editor Richard Trapunski and Lisa Zbitnew, owner of the Phoenix Concert Theatre, join Norm to talk about this new burst of optimism.

Last week, the province of Ontario announced a scaling up of its vaccination efforts, with adults 18-49 in designated hot spots newly eligible for their first dose. The problem? The system wasn’t set up for those people, and that’s just one example of the province’s confused pandemic messaging. Bhutila Karpoche, NDP member of provincial parliament for Parkdale-High Park, Maureen Gans, senior director of client services for Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre and Joe Cressy, councillor for Ward 10 and chair of the Toronto Board of Health, talk to Norm about how they’re working to get vaccines to the people who most need them.

During the pandemic, a lot of Torontonians experienced the city through their Instagram feeds. Culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai talks to NOW staff photographer Samuel Engelking and Instagram aces Alicia Edmunds, Sean Frankey, Jonathan Gazze and Peter Papadimitriou about their favorite places to take pictures.

Culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai talks to showrunner Anthony Q. Farrell, writers Murry Peeters, Ian Steaman and Amanda Joy and director Alicia K. Harris, the BIPOC team behind The Parker Andersons and Amelia Parker, two new TV series that debut on Super Channel Heart & Home next week. But they’re not the original team; they’re the people recruited to rework the show’s depiction of Black characters. Find out how it happened in this conversation.

In an exclusive conversation, NOW music editor Richard Trapunski talks to Toronto electronic musician Jacques Greene about how the pandemic led him to embrace the crypto market of Non Fungible Tokens, or NFTs.

On Saturday night, NOW culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai and Twitch streamer Vixen Vu had a conversation about the intersection of anti-Asian racism and the stigma against sex work, joined by Serena Ivy and Elaine Lam, executive director of Butterfly, the Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network. And we think you should hear it.

Scarborough: Once Toronto’s most remote location, it’s now the city’s last frontier for affordable real estate. But what does that mean for its cultural and culinary diversity? Culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai and fellow Scarborough natives Stephanie Hinds and Odeen Eccleston join Norm to talk about Scarborough’s past, present and future … and where to get the best Trinidadian double.

Norm talks to NOW writers Kelsey Adams and Richard Trapunski and Krysta Oben of Paris Paris and Grape Glass about how takeout alcohol sales saved a lot of the city’s bars and restaurants, and what might be in the offing for spring and summer.

In the nerdiest episode of NOW What to date, Norm and culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai face off over Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the four-hour reconstruction of the filmmaker’s original vision for his 2017 superhero team-up movie that just dropped on Crave … and is either a triumph for Snyder’s fan base or the end of the world as we know it, depending on who you ask. Choose your fighter.

The nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards were announced yesterday, so Radheyan Simonpillai, Kevin Ritchie and Glenn Sumi join Norm for a slightly punchy conversation about what made the cut, what didn’t, and why Rad is so invested in The Trial Of The Chicago 7 winning Best Picture.

Has the pandemic changed the amount of time you spend in bed? How about the time you spend actually sleeping? NOW culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai and film programmer Alicia Fletcher join Norm to talk about COVID’s impact on sleep disorders which, it turns out, Norm has some experience with himself.

Thursday marks the anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus a pandemic. March 17 will be a year since Ontario entered a state of emergency. But now that vaccines are arriving and the death rate is slowing, it’s possible to imagine an end to the COVID crisis. Dr. Jennifer Kwan and NOW political editor Enzo Di Matteo join Norm to discuss what needs to happen to get us there.

This week is NOW’s Sound of Toronto music special, and things are a little different this year. To confront that head-on, NOW’s music editor Richard Trapunski gathered local artists The OBGMs, The Kount, Moneyphone and Poolblood for a live stream to talk about what they do, how they do it and how they keep doing it a year after concerts went away.

In the 80s, Toronto friends Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini started a “gay punk” band called Mouth Congress … but it was quickly eclipsed by the success of another creative venture, The Kids In The Hall. In advance of the world premiere of their DIY documentary Mouth Congress at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival this Friday (March 5), Paul and Scott join Norm to talk about the band, the doc, and what it’s like to get older but still feel like screaming.

In this week’s NOW, Julia Mastroianni explores the crisis facing personal support workers, overwhelmed and undersupported by the province as they do their utmost to care for at-risk seniors in communal living situations during a pandemic that’s latest almost a year … and the crisis that awaits us if PSWs continue to leave the workforce at the current rate. Julia and Dr. Amit Arya join Norm to discuss this increasingly urgent issue.

It’s NOW’s 40th anniversary this year, and we’re looking back at some of our most memorable covers with retrospective interviews. Glenn Sumi talks to playwright and actor Michael Healey about his February 18, 1999 cover appearance for his breakout play The Drawer Boy, and how it changed his life … and how, two decades later, another NOW story changed his life once again.

Eleven months into the pandemic, and with winter depressing everyone even further, people are turning to the foods that comfort them. In this week’s NOW, staff writer Kelsey Adams talks to chefs and restaurateurs across Toronto to find out what’s working for them, and why. One of them is Marben executive chef Chris Locke, who joins Kelsey and Norm for this conversation.

Now that NOW has launched a streaming newsletter (NOW Streaming! Check it out!), Norm reaches out to Toronto writers and Substack users Kat Angus (Kat Watches Everything), Matt Elliott (City Hall Watcher) and Andrew Stoeten (The Batflip) to get up to speed on how the platform works for entertainment, news and sports. Learn along with him!