A Canadian chanteuse has found a new fan in a former TV host

Move over, Ms. Streisand? Rosie O'Donnell, a diva devotee if there ever was one, was at every stop that Barbra made on her U.S. tour last year. The kind of Yentl's yentl who's been working on a fan film called Stalking Streisand and who's been on the record as saying that Babs has a "direct connection with the Light" and is a "huge satellite dish."

But now, could it be that Rosie has found a whole other icon to stalk, not to mention a whole other dish that she's currently receiving signals from, courtesy of one Joni Mitchell?

Ever since the Canadian senior stateswoman of song released her first album in about a decade, the TV-free personality has turned her attention, almost single-mindedly, on Mitchell. When she hasn't been printing her lyrics on her blog, she's been lavishing the singer with praise, and when she hasn't been lavishing her with praise, she's been acting like her personal publicist.

The love affair started in earnest, I gather, at Joni's launch for her disc, Shine, held in New York last week at an art gallery. In addition to woman-handling the chanteuse and beaming Roberto Benigni-like, O'Donnell took the time to tell a New York magazine reporter, "It's hard not to be star-struck by the breadth and scope of her work."

About the famous folkie, she went on: "She can articulate feelings you didn't even know you had in six or seven words that can make you weep. She's really the best artist around."

On her Web site just days ago, the former member of The View also haiku-ed it in this way: "Joni Mitchell captures it all buy her stuff like a college course ingest it year by year watch her grow change always create."

I don't know about you, but I'm getting the distinct impression that loudmouth Rosie has looked at love on both sides now and -- maybe perhaps kinda -- has discovered that she digs this Joni woman.

Of course it probably does not hurt that Mitchell, memorably inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in Toronto earlier this year, is talking on both religion and the war hawks on her new, visceral-as-ever compilation c/o Starbucks Hear Music.

A sample from the title song, Shine? "Shine on lousy leadership / Licensed to kill / Shine on dying soldiers / In patriotic pain / Shine on mass destruction / In some God's name!"

In other words, it's not exactly an Elizabeth Hasselbeck kind of album.

MEANWHILE ?

A prime minister 161 long-years gone still has enough wattage to bring out captains of industry, one-term mayors and esteemed critics, among others, to a party at Massey College.

To mark the occasion last week, and to pay my own heed, I wore a purple tie-- the shade of our $10 bill.

The man of the hour (who's also the man of the dollars) was being psychically exhumed. And the ace medium in this Random House swirl -- one that drew folks like Hal Jackman, Barbara Hall and Robert Fulford? Writer Richard Gwyn, who's just gone and banged out a bio about the First of Canada's Firsts, Sir John A. Macdonald.

"He actually looks like him," someone at the party noted to me, pointing out the creeping similarity between Richard the historian and John A., his subject.

Yes, I could see it. And, so, here's the tuna tartar for thought: Could it be that writing a biography is bit like getting married? And like those couples who develop similar facial features over time, the biographer starts to ape his page-obsession? But I digress.

Also among those out to cheer on Gwyn on the publication of The Man Who Made Us: The Life and Times of John A. Macdonald, Volume 1: 1815-1867? Droves of literati such as Stephen Clarkson, Stuart McLean, Katherine Govier, Allan Gotlieb, Steve Paikin, and Louise Dennys.

The stately author, basking at one point for a few minutes as Massey College minder John Fraser hovered close by, briefly addressed MacDonald's love of drink, his anti-Americanism and his political prowess.

Gwyn also took a moment to reverse-boast, noting that he has "no academic credentials" and that he never even went to university.

MEANWHILE, AGAIN ?

It was decidedly more blast-from-the-present at the club Muzik, near the Lakeshore, this past Saturday. That's when scruffy lovesmith James Blunt stopped in with his band.