TVO - Thursday, May 23, 2024 - 11:00 p.m. (ET) - Segment #4

saying over and over again how she was so glad that this was back in 1992? But anyways, when my book came out and she said over and over again how glad she was that I treated her as a comic writer rather than a grim realist. And she did that in here on county. And I said, alice, do you think of yourself as a clown? And she says always, maggie. Always. And that's better understood now I think it was james wood who said when he viewed to much happiness, there are seeds of laughter sprinkled through and between the lines of every story and I think that's all her stories. There is this depending on how you respond, on your own intimate connection with her is working, you will find yourself laughing. But that potentiality is always there and from anything, I read a story called fiction, which I concluded must be about infant death because of the allusion before I knew it I was like reading the book and it was meant to be a tragic story let's go. >> Steve: around on this final question here, how many readers and writers will remember alice munro, chanel, start. >> Chanel: us off I think because her books transcend time and generations, and I've been rereading her stories almost once every other month, I think just because there's so much that you can get from her stories whenever you read it, readers will find themselves going back to those stories over and over again no matter what age they are. I think heather mentioned reading her when she was younger, it's the same thing with me, I'm going to be reading until I'm 100 years old. >> Steve: heather, how about you? >> Heather: as maggie was saying before, there's so many things we still had to talk about alice munro. Her humour and sexuality which are things women are not supposed to have an alice munro had them and in such a wonderful normandy and I think she will be recognized all over the world everywhere I travel whenever I mention that I'm from canada, one of the first things I hear is old, you're from alice munro's country. So she's out there, synonymous and all canadian writers find a platform in ways to be recognized in the world stage. >> Menaka: when I was in wing a for a short story this is where alice is from and in the downtown strip there's always little shops like you would expect in southern ontario small town but for the festival, everyone had put papers on the windows with their favourite quotes or different quotes from the book and walking down the street was such a magical experience because he just got little snippets of all these lines from the book and I think that's how people remember her. There's something that spoke to them from the story and they hold onto those little nuggets and I think that's what i. >> Steve: katherine. >> Katherine: I think alice belongs to the world now but we have to remember as canadians that we grew alice munro. Canadians money paid for those short stories that were brought on cbc anthology and even magazines like shanda lane. There was a broad canadian public that bought into this kind of feeling of this is what we are like right inside our country, this is what we do privately at our dinner tables and our family and so on. And I think you need to keep that sense as we become global and the sense that there is something at the core canadian essence in these stories. >> Steve: last word to maggie reddekopp. >> Magdalene: I'm going to be rereading her as she is remembered because she will be reread. Not everyone invites rereading but alice munro does. Every time you see more, you see different things. Because you're different. And with that I think people will remember her incredible compassion. She's like a beckett or shakespeare she's not like one of those writers who has their sharpness, every character, those nasty little girls, the plot, that murder in other girl, it's shakespearean. She's got an understanding of every character she writes about. She lets her self into those characters, it's the breath and depth of that but she will be

remembered as I like merriam tate's comment on how she visited alice when alice was already moving into dementia and said that alice was pretending to right basically but honouring her writing desk, always there, she endured to the end writing stories and telling stories for us and I think we just love her so much. >> Steve: beautiful. >> Magdalene: and we will miss her. >> Steve: mr. Director, a shot of everyone please as I think chanel sutherland, katherine govier, minnekhada rahman williams and magdalene redekop for being on tvo tonight. >> Speaker: thank you. >> Speaker: I am george elliot mark, I'm the aging professor of canadian literature at the university of toronto. This is such an incredibly... Onerous question to have and yet, it is a question that riled and roiled poets of many different types, whether or not one is a print oriented poet, or stage oriented poet who is working with a microphone and gestures gesticulating or raking the reciting the verses allowed. They both have their strengths. You have the immediacy and spontaneity have spoken word. Of poetry recited because you can take an written poetry and recited. It has tremendous power. I remember my creator in the days of youth saying I have no pleasure. Ecclesia's is 12. There isn't necessarily a divide between print and spoken word because ultimately, call print all good print poetry should be able to be recited aloud so this is a long way, I know it's a long way to come around to but there is no... Morality except for the fact that some of us want to pretend that one is better than the other when they are both two sides of the same coin. >> Speaker: I thought of all the good farmers in my life he showed so much love to their beef. And I just had this little idea that I thought I wonder if I didn't have to kill my cows. >> Speaker: mike, thank you for welcoming us to your farm today. Tell us, how did you come to own an annual --animal sanctuary? >> Mike: I'll try to keep it a little short for you. I didn't plan on it. It was a complete fluke thing that happened and this was my farm, it was my dad's farm, I moved here when I was a little boy in the early '60s. And he was a beef farmer. And he herded cows down young street before he moved here and I am my cattle at the farmers market. I'd sell and packages and I had no plan on making a sanctuary. It just I had one spring I had a little cap barn that was months premature and was a wee little thing and I'm drink to keep this cat alive down by the pond and I worked all day on this calf and the whole day you're turn to keep yourself going and thinking about the stories of old farmers. How much love they give their little calves and I thought we give them so much love and after two years, we knock them on the head and put them in little packages. And I just ... To keep the story short I just thought it was kind of hypocritical to do that and I just happened to have a girl that at work who worked for me. >> Speaker: since I was 14 I worked for mike before we became a sanctuary I was on interment at the farm for two summers. Because I just wanted to learn how to farm and wrote sustainable food, that's what interested me. So I worked here and I really connected with the animals when I was here. I would spend a lot of time in the field just feeding the cows instead of picking vegetables so

I love this place, it was a part of my life are so long. >> Mike: I had taken her with me to the butcher shop and she had stopped eating meat products after that. I didn't take her to the kill area with all the lined up animals waiting to go and she became vegan and and I was at the farmers market that weekend I said edith, if I didn't want to kill my cows do you think we could somehow get donations or something to buy there. >> Edith: feed? When mike had his change of heart and decided to change --he asked if I was being willing to help him to make that transition because he's the farmer, not the most tech savvy, so I thought, why not? I came here to the farm and I videotaped him talking about his idea of what he wants to do and that's how it all started. >> Speaker: you a third generation cattle farmer from one instead. >> Mike: my dad's farm was on young street but my grandfather died before I knew him. I didn't have any knowledge of that, hurting cows down young street and he sold his land on young street, which we often talk about it which wished he hadn't but farmers often get taxed out. When your taxes get to how you can't make money and you move further from the city where the tax rate goes lower but we moved here, my dad always had cows and we actually used to process our cows right here. In the old days we didn't pay a butcher to do it, we did it here and in the fall. We would do hogs and chickens and we did it all here. >> Steve: as a child did you understand what the purpose of the farm was? Did you see the cows hanging out? >> Mike: yeah, to be quite blunt, it was an exciting time. I remember as a little kid, there was a big --and we'd forgot it with a stick. Like you know, that's ruthless stuff. But I was a kid. It's not something you thought about. And my mom would grind that meat and my dad would cut it up and neighbours would come and help when we'd go help the neighbours. It wasn't something we ever thought about, it wasn't until you get a bit older and a bit more ... Experience and you start getting these funny ideas. >> Speaker: how has your new view on animal altered your personal life? >> Mike: it changed it a lot because I used to be a hunter. And I can't go hunting now. I had a deer licence and I couldn't do it. I went out and just couldn't. It just didn't seem right. We changed things here, I promised I wouldn't shoot the pigeons out of my barn even when at 8 poop on the interviewer. And it didn't happen easily, it wasn't something I planned, it wasn't just a family meeting, I didn't have a lot of support. >> Speaker: tell us a bit about more of your friends and families reaction? >> Mike: I don't want to go on too much but my sons my son spat. I had neighbours and a cushion --they looked at me and made and stomped away without saying, good morning. And that breaks my heart. These people come up neighbours I've been here my whole life and I'm getting old and I know everybody. And it hurts your feelings. You know, everyone settled down now. I've got my one is, he is happily volunteered to keep it going after my demise. And he helps me when I have to take a week off or something. And it's marvellous. The neighbours, they just took a bit of education. I think it's an interesting place where we can educate people on both sides. I have a lot of people from hard-core animal rights activists that come here from all over the world and you know, it's hard to come over the gate to talk about the issues of beef cattle or being a farmer in this day and age and the difficulties farmers have to pay their bills. The animals are paid by donation so they've actually been able to pay for all the bills to feed the bees that care for them and it's all volunteer nobody making a nickel. We have a great base of volunteers that do all the dirty work and they do promoting and putting on an event like today and it's astonishing to see everyone come together to do this little thing. >> Edith: constantly having to fund raise and put on events is... It's a lot of work. It's extremely rewarding, we love it but it's the most time-consuming and challenging in that sense but also another thing I find really hard is that because we are an animal rescue a lot of people come to us with stories of animals that are in need so there's an emotional toll as well because there's a lot of animals who are neglected or just don't have a home and people would come to us again

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