Prompt #13 - Icons Picnics

Prompt #13 - Icons Picnics

 

Prompt #13 - Icons Picnics

 

A dinner party with 12 guests. Well, first of all, that would never happen. Thirteen at a table is unlucky and would never be permitted. I'm sure it was not my grandmother who invented the "kids' table" to avoid this problem. And you thought it was just to confine the noise to one corner!

 

Second, I'm one of those slow people, introvert and proud, who much prefers one-to-one to large group interactions. So, I'd set this challenge up as an interviewing process, and I'd get to talk to each applicant one at a time, a private screening of sorts. In order to free me to talk without having to play hostess, to serve, I'd bring a picnic basket, a "cooler" of Proudly Canadian foods to share and to honour my guests: smoked salmon cream cheese on Manitoba rye for starters, moosemeat tourtiere, rhubarb chutney, mashed potato salad, cold asparagus with vinaigrette, BC wine, wild strawberries, Nanaimo bars or butter tart bars made with dates and pecans (gifts from eastern and southern friends).

 

Choosing the Famous/Special/Iconic People to be my guests will not be difficult. The challenge will be to come up for each with one open-ended question about which I am curious. Apologies for the heavily weighted Canadian heroes and heroines, although I do hope that my questions will be relatively universal. Let's start with the women.

 

Ann Boleyn: "Five hundred years later we still talk about you. Of course, I want to hear “Anne's version” but in context. So, would you talk about what is/was the impact of your parents and their time on your life, early and later?"

 

Emily Carr: "You have made us proud to be female and British Columbian Canadian. In what ways was being born in Victoria a benefit to your career and in what ways was it an impediment?"

 

Marilyn Monroe: "Some Like It Hot is my all-time favourite movie. In what ways do you feel your personal background influenced your career and in what ways was it affected by the prejudices and mores of your era?"

 

Margaret Laurence: "You are the 'great mother/wise crone' of my life. Did/do you feel that your Canadian readers failed you, didn't get what you were doing with The Diviners? Or, with hindsight, would you have changed the way you did it?"

 

Alice Munro: "Congratulations on your well-deserved Nobel Prize for Literature. You make us all so proud. What kept you going in the early years? Were you ever tempted to abandon writing? Was there a shift from “telling” stories to “selling” stories? If so, did it change your writing? If so, in what ways?"

 

Louis Riel: "You are our Nelson Mandela. You are now acknowledged as the Father of Confederation for my home province even though when you left it and went into exile, there was a warrant out for your arrest. You stood up for your people against racial, religious, and geographic prejudice and were rewarded with the label “traitor” and a hangman's noose. Some still insist that your religious mysticism and questionable political choices indicate insanity. As if only an insane person would challenge colonial power! What really was the enemy you were fighting against? Would you do anything differently, if you were leading the Metis people, speaking to and for all Canadians today?"

 

Big Bear: "You were right, Old Man, Honoured Elder, and you are still right, and there is no one standing up and saying that, and no one willing to hear. Did you ever lose faith in your visions? What would you recommend for First Nations leaders today? What would you say to the rest of Canada?"

 

John A. Macdonald: "We acknowledge you as the Father of Canada. Without you, we would not exist as a nation. You were a man of your era, of capitalism and imperialism, Christianity and white supremacy, an immigrant from impoverished urban Europe. From what you have seen since, from up (or down) there, what are some of the negative impacts of your certainties, especially on “outsiders” or "others"? In other words, have you learned anything, Old Man? Do you repent?"

 

Thomas Hardy: "My grandmother's name was Woodland and she came from 'Wessex' too. So your stories are about 'my people'. What gave you the confidence to celebrate them, local, marginalized, hard-working, downtrodden, including strong female characters like Eustacia, Tess, and Bathsheba?"

 

Ernest Hemingway: "Determined not to be intimidated by your macho persona, I would like to say how much I enjoy your work, especially the Nick Adams stories. What would you have wished had been different in your life?"

 

Winston Churchill: "For every important event in Western history in the 20^th Century, you were there and somehow involved. When you were eight years old, what life did you imagine for yourself and how close was that imagined future to the life you achieved/created?"

 

Leonard Cohen: "Ever since I attended my first Leonard Cohen concert when I was seventeen years old, I have loved you. 'I love you in the morning, your kisses deep and warm.' What impact do you think Montreal and Canada have had on who you are and what you have created/achieved?"