I found this on Yahoo Canada (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/011019/6/camo.html.
If you click on the link, there's a photo, too.
TORONTO (CP) - Margaret Atwood and Joni
Mitchell have become the latest additions to
the Canadian Walk of Fame, taking their places
in a concrete pantheon of homegrown
international stars.
The novelist and the singer unveiled their monuments Friday on
the King Street West sidewalk along a row of immortalized
hockey players, rock stars and actors in the heart of the
downtown theatre district. Mitchell, who was a 2000 inductee,
couldn't attend an unveiling until now.
"For my star I hope if you're crossing over it, since the world
is
moving so fast and has gone so mad, that you would slow
down a little and think of something funny or something kind,
think of someone you love," Mitchell said.
"I prefer you don't spit there - curb your dog elsewhere. And
just use it as a little
contemplative place, sit there and have a private chuckle, and
that would make me
very happy, that would make it practical and useful."
Accepting a granite and brass statuette that accompanies the
concrete star, Atwood
thanked the Walk of Fame organization.
"We have a kind of running contest going on as to which award
makes the best
murder weapon - this wins," she quipped, gripping the hefty
award.
Atwood said she's pleased the organization, which has already
laid 49 of the
commemorative sidewalk stars, chose to recognize a fiction
writer.
"It's the first time that they have elected to bestow it on a
novelist," she said in an
interview Wednesday.
"Pierre Berton is the only other writer. So I'm hoping that it
will encourage them to
think in the direction of writers because when you think of
Canadians who get
around the world, a lot of them get around the world in the
form of their books."
The year's inductees also included sports heroes Jean Beliveau,
Kurt Browning,
Ferguson Jenkins and the late Harry Jerome, Inuit artist
Kenojuak Ashevak,
legendary rock band the Guess Who, actor Leslie Nielsen, polka
king Walter
Ostanek, ballerina Veronica Tennant, opera singer Teresa
Stratas, Quebec
filmmaker Robert Lepage and director Ivan Reitman.
"These are all people who have gone out on a limb and whose
families probably all
thought they were berserk," Atwood said.
"The fact that we (Canada's population) are so small makes it
the more remarkable
that we continue to turn out people who do well in a number of
different areas.
"It is something for people who really are among the most
entrepreneurial people
there are, that is they start with nothing but their talent,
whatever it may be."
With customary dry humour, Atwood said she is quite content
with a permanent
place underfoot.
"Look at it from my point of view - the parks are all used up,"
she said. "I'm not
going to get a park when I croak. So I'll have couple of inches
of cement."
To qualify for a star on the walk, nominees must have been
either born in Canada
or have spent their formative years here, enjoyed a minimum of
10 years of success
and have "a body of work recognized for its impact on our
cultural heritage."
Unlike the original sidewalk squares in Hollywood, the Walk of
Fame plaques
display not a star but a stylized maple leaf and signature of
the celebrity.
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Deb Messling =^..^=
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