Coronavirus now reaching the bold-faced names

Tales from the COVID-19 quarantine

Mar 10, 2020

Good morning! Happy to report that I’m still completely asymptomatic. Being self-isolated is a challenge, especially from my family, but I look forward to working today (in a contained space). Our public health team is remarkable & I deeply appreciate the support of my community.

Toronto city councillor Josh Matlow went into self-isolation for two weeks due to contact with a man who tested positive for coronavirus after attending the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington, D.C. Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and Michael Levitt also self-quarantined after attending AIPAC.

The quest to sing “Alive” again

Pearl Jam @PearlJam

(1/10) As residents of the city of Seattle, we’ve been hit hard and have witnessed firsthand how quickly these disastrous situations can escalate. Our kids’ schools have closed along with universities and businesses.

A concert tour set to kick off in Toronto, followed by dates in Ottawa, Quebec City and Hamilton, was postponed by Pearl Jam—putting the band at the forefront of live music caution over COVID-19. The impact on game shows will include Jeopardy being filmed without audiences: one more story in this interesting year for Alex Trebek.

“I consider myself a social justice warrior.” Vickery Bowles, the Toronto chief librarian who fielded protests last fall for defending the policy that allowed Meghan Murphy to book a room for a talk on gender identity, explained her position in a speech at the Empire Club. (It can be viewed via YouTube.)

Doug Ford’s pivot to billboards

After the official cancellation of the double-blue licence plate design, which it turned out he felt personally heartbroken by, Ontario’s premier moved on to a roadside fixation. Claiming that the province can use billboards like he’s seen stateside, on Interstate 75, Doug Ford spitballed that “a couple hundred million” can be made from their placement:

Mike Crawley @CBCQueensPark

Ontario’s 400 series highways add up to about 2,000kms in length. So to get 31,000 billboards along them, that would mean 15-16 billboards every km. Or: roughly 1 billboard every 125 metres on each side of every 400-series highway stretching across Ontario. #onpoli

Corey Haim died 10 years ago today. The anniversary of the Toronto actor’s passing was marked by his teen movie sidekick Corey Feldman debuting a documentary, in which he described—in greater detail than before—how Charlie Sheen sexually abused Haim on the set of the 1986 film Lucas. (Sheen once called the claim “twisted lies.”)

Dreams of 1970s Canadian TV

Detours into long-forgotten CBC credits are part of the A.V. Club’s “Random Roles” interview with actor Saul Rubinek. It touches on the 1974 filming of the play Red Emma, a 1976 episode of anthology series Peep Show, and a sitcom pilot, The Rimshots—which resurfaced as Custard Pie because most of the cast was committed to SCTV:

The A.V. Club @TheAVClub

Saul Rubinek recalls a career that’s taken him from Unforgiven’s Wild West to Star Trek’s final frontier trib.al/sOZbqod

TSN 1050 claims Toronto’s most popular sports talk drive times. Bell Media’s boast followed numbers from Numeris that showed Sportsnet Fan 590 losing its lead in the prime time slots after staff changes. The routing of the Rogers station marks the first time the 1050 CHUM frequency can say it’s beaten a ratings rival in roughly 36 years.

Finally, after an unliked Monday

Bob Geldof, the one-time music editor for Vancouver’s recently sold Georgia Straight (and the guest co-editor of the Globe and Mail for one day) visited Toronto to promote the first Boomtown Rats album since 1984. He also deconstructed his band’s hit “I Don’t Like Mondays” in a video for Boom 97.3, which required twice the length of the song: