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.