Beef, karaoke and lost opportunities: Joseph Murdoch-Flowers takes Proust Questionnaire

Lawyer and food centre co-executive director reflects on his time in Iqaluit

Joseph Murdoch-Flowers takes the Proust Questionnaire in the attic of Iqaluit’s Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)

By Arty Sarkisian

If you live in Iqaluit, you probably know Joseph Murdoch-Flowers.

You might have seen him in one of his colourful T-shirts and adventurous facial hair ranging from sideburns to full beard to horseshoe moustache, possibly karaoke-singing to Nick Cave or Weird Al tunes.

“I certainly feel like I am a part of this community and this community is a part of me,” he says.

In more than 12 years in Nunavut, a university-educated chef, lawyer and linguist, Murdoch-Flowers has met many people and has taken part in different aspects of the territory’s life.

He worked as a lawyer, justice of the peace, counsel for the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and was senior adviser for Nunavut’s Department of Health in suicide prevention.

Now he is Nunavut’s ethics officer and is co-executive director of Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre.

Murdoch-Flowers recently met up with Nunatsiaq News in the attic of the food centre to sit down on one of the centre’s storage boxes and take the Proust Questionnaire.

What is your greatest extravagance?

I’d say my greatest extravagance is travelling to eat. I’m going to travel for vacation based on some food I want to find.

Whether that’s going for barbecue ribs in Kansas City or going to Montreal to eat a Schwartz’s sandwich or going to New York City to eat in a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

I will travel far and wide to eat well.

Which living person do you most admire?

My wife, Jayne. She’s everything I want.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Riboflavin. It’s vitamin B2.

I think it’s the funniest word in the English language. It feels like your mouth is doing gymnastics. Riboflavin.

And beef is another one of my favourite words. It’s a funny-sounding word. Beef.

I haven’t assembled all of my favourite words to see what’s the phonetic commonality between them all.

[On Facebook, Murdoch-Flowers has a series called 2024 BEEF, posts on beef-related subjects. As of Friday morning, the number of posts sits at 38 since the start of the year.]

What is your greatest fear?

Losing my family.

What is your current state of mind?

Right this moment, you know, I’m in an interview with you about these things about me. And I’m enjoying the opportunity to reflect.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

One thing that comes to mind, and it’s not that I dislike it, I’m amused by it. I was at the barber last year in Montreal. You know, which is already funny for a guy with a shaved head.

He shaved my head, and then asked me, “Do you want me to shave your ears too?”

And I said, “Why would you need to do that?”

And then, about two or three seconds later, I said, “OK, go ahead.”

Pardon me if it’s a personal question, but did you start shaving your ears after that?

Yes.

What’s your greatest regret?

I was thinking about it recently. I guess you would call it lost opportunities.

In late December, I went for shawarma with my son. And we were talking about the African Market, and he asked where it was.

I pointed right across the street. And then we didn’t go in.

[MAC African Market was one of the businesses destroyed in a fire at the Noble House in Iqaluit on Jan. 8.]

Once in front of God, what would you tell him?

Well, I assume that I would be dead, so I’d say, “What was that all about?”

Nunatsiaq News is borrowing the old Proust Questionnaire parlour game to get to know people who are in the news. If you know someone in your community who our readers should get to know by taking this questionnaire, let us know by email: editors@nunatsiaq.com.

 

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(2) Comments:

  1. Posted by Bill Deal from Brainerd on

    Not sure I agree with your police work there Arty – where’s the karaoke promised in the title?

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