Breaking up is heard to do. You may have heard. And different Canadians go about passing through the blue flame in different ways. Michael Bublé: Exhibit A. Apparently, the Sinatra-come-lately had his feelings smashed to such smithereens...
Breaking up is heard to do. You may have heard. And different Canadians go about passing through the blue flame in different ways. Michael Bublé: Exhibit A. Apparently, the Sinatra-come-lately had his feelings smashed to such smithereens a few years ago (by then-girlfriend Emily Blunt, I’m gathering) that he had “no confidence” left, and he turned to the book The Power of Now. “I needed it,” he just told Vanity Fair. “I started reading it, and I believed in it.”
The Vancouverite crowd-pleaser may enjoy remarkable career success — among the top five touring acts in the world, did you know?! — but it’s the popular self-help guide he credits for saving him. Bublé, 37, goes on: “I started practising it, and it was as simple as just being in the moment and being thankful for what I had and every day trying to be grateful. … It was such a slow process, but it changed my life. Literally. If you talk to my mom and dad, they’ll tell you that I’m a different son. I’m present.”
Will Arnett, meanwhile? The Toronto-sprung funnyman, having gone through a not-too-funny divorce from Amy Poehler recently, has been working things out by … well … working out. His abs look great these days, that is to say. Talking to Details magazine this month, the 43-year-old throws his hands up metaphorically, and asks, “If going to the gym obsessively for eight, nine months was my way of dealing, then let that be my worst problem.”
Adds Arnett, the son of a former CEO of Molson: “Life is challenging, and I’d say that there is no guidebook — but there’s about a million guidebooks out there. All people have been doing since the dawn of time is trying to figure out how to live this life and be happy.”
And now you know.
OK, AND MEANWHILE:
“Conrad wanted them here,” the ever-enthralling Barbara Amiel mentioned when I ran into her the other night. She was speaking, alas, of the two giant beasts that had joined us at the Toronto book launch for Lord Black’s new doorstopper, Flight of the Eagle. Indeed, the two very furry, quite ginormous Hungarian kuvasz appeared well-trained, and rather erudite, and even a little blasé, if you ask me, in this bastion of literary society.
Barbara, as I and others noticed, had arrived at this party, held at Ben McNally on Bay, in a smart white quelque chose — one that matched the fur of her dogs perfectly. This, while her husband — on the trail for his geopolitical tract, written largely in prison — basked in his moment, accordingly. Others in the fete-flock? They included poetry-pushers Scott and Krystyne Griffin, the out-of-the-box Ivan Fecan, the ever-glam Suzanne Boyd, National Post opinion-maker Jonathan Kay and former Ontario premiers Mike Harris and David Peterson.
THIS! THAT! THIS!
• Basketball Hall-of-Famer, international diplomat, and all-around crazy person Dennis Rodman, touching down tonight at Muzik in Toronto, for a might-as-well-get-paid “birthday celebration.”
• Jason Priestley talking tannins and more at a special dinner held the other night at Hugo Boss, on Bloor Street featuring various rare wines. The heartthrob joined various other GQ-friendly oenophiles at the event hosted jointly with Men’s Fashion.
Evan Agostini/AP ImagesKatie Holmes and Sarah Polley were hanging out this week, you know, NOT talking about Tom Cruise.
• Canada’s Sarah Polley is not starting major early Oscar talk for her documentary, Stories We Tell, just released stateside — it has a combined critical grade of 93% on Metacritic — but she’s also getting cozy with her co-star from long ago. In Interview magazine! It’s a conversation between Polley and Katie Holmes (who starred together in 1999’s Go), in which they talk motherhood and Margaret Atwood and Woody Allen, but not Tom Cruise.
• Canada’s retail warrioress Bonnie Brooks looked polished and, it must be said, sexy in J. Mendel while receiving one of the honours at a much-ado benefit for Parsons New School of Design, held earlier this week in New York City.
• One of the