All are private men who went outside into their society. This tension between privacy and publicity is a source of their strength, and of their complexity. Not a pretty picture. I perceive communication to be the value of Canada, a state where understanding and misunderstanding, where constant negotiation and the limits of language, coexist. We have had to learn how to contact one another over an enormous land space, across five and a half time zones, in what was a wilderness of scattered settlements.
Technology forges connections and disconnections here.
Here we see the national character, so resistant to summary, defined as a medium, not a message. In this view, Quebec becomes an opportunity for dialogue, not a province seeking political and cultural autonomy. I say it's a realistic understanding of what it means to exist in the global society, the planetary culture, where private identity must be cloaked if it's to maintain solitude, integrity, mystery. Music is the one key that helps me recall things. It's music that gives a shape to my memories.