Needed to hear/read this. I think curating your personal canon sounds like a good way to interrupt the urge to perform for an imaginary audience and instead recenter ourselves.
Lovely. I feel we might also relate to characters underlying motivations. The love this toy rabbit received broke his barrier. Perhaps we could have inferred the theme of growth and what untruth surfaces his underbelly (the ego he was living in before hand). The strangest things about children's books is... No matter how Innocent the occurrences, the messages are always profoundly mature.
I continue to wonder how an author might arrive at a theme (truism) so essential they are confident in their writing it out
This resonates so much with something I've been grappling with. I've started a list titled "Books I read embarrasingly late". While I admit, this list is a little tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating, I much prefer the idea of consciously cultivating and appreciating my own personal canon, beyond the "greats" and the "shoulds". Also, we have an eerily similar taste in shows!!
This is an awesome idea. I’ve started collecting the things that would be in a personal canon sort of haphazardly as my sons grow up. It would be way better to nail down the canon this far and then collect the things I want to share with them later.
I love this. Not only is my head now racing with ideas of works that belong in my personal canon, I've also spent YEARS wanting to make zines but always stumbled on the subject matter. Now I finally have my zine idea too! Thank you!
The moment I read the words “arrogant porcelain rabbit” (I am not used to Substack comments and this is the fourth time I’ve had to rewrite this comment, forgive me) I immediately felt seen. When I read this book in third grade it immediately became one of the first books in my personal canon. Edward Tulane changed my entire perspective on the world, and I’m so glad to find someone else that feels the same way about this book!
love your article! I have a list in my notes app with books, movies, albums etc. that I think would be useful to get to know me and that's what your post reminded me of, maybe I'll add some more to that list (which I also wrote after watching a movie from my childhood and noticing how much it impacted my taste). Thank you so much for the inspiration! :)
I love the idea of creating your own canon. I believe canons are political and whoever picked and perpetrated the "most important" works has, more or less voluntarily, left out women artists, queer artists, indigenous artists, BIPOC artists, proletarian artists etc. It s another form of symbolic violence - whenever we could find the little time to create, we were chosenly excluded.
Whatever it is that you create, keep doing it, keep sharing it and keep supporting your peers ❤️
My boys love Edward Tulane, so you had my attention. Beautifully written! You articulate the importance of knowing ourselves and knowing what has shaped us. As much as I love working my way through great book lists, I think you are right that it is probably more important to name the books, movies, shows, and essays that have made us. I want to do this now!
This is such a good post! Also, you have impeccable taste. For me, the 'personal' part is the most important because I used to find myself waiting to see what others thought before expressing my own opinion.
This was most prevalent on Letterboxd where I'd sometimes look at reviews BEFORE watching and rating a movie. I think that - because of this - my own opinions were often swayed by others, and I found myself editing the ratings of movies after seeing reviews just to conform. I thought that because some movies were rated highly that I SHOULD like them; that's not always the case.
Now when I watch movies I won't look at ratings so that I can just go wild with my own opinion, no matter what others think. And every now and then I notice that I've seen something in a completely different way to someone else. Because of this my conversations with friends are way more interesting and fluent than if I just agreed with them.
I love that we all have our own ideas and - like you wrote - our own 'personal canon'. It's great. Thanks for sharing :)
I used to do the exact same thing with letterboxd! Now I have to force myself to watch and review it before reading anyone else’s opinions 😭 It’s crazy how much you enjoys movies when other peoples opinions aren’t influencing you! Thanks so much for reading, I’m really glad you enjoyed :)
Needed to hear/read this. I think curating your personal canon sounds like a good way to interrupt the urge to perform for an imaginary audience and instead recenter ourselves.
Lovely idea! I think its important to create a canon of our own just for the sake of knowing our art better! I will do that:)
Lovely. I feel we might also relate to characters underlying motivations. The love this toy rabbit received broke his barrier. Perhaps we could have inferred the theme of growth and what untruth surfaces his underbelly (the ego he was living in before hand). The strangest things about children's books is... No matter how Innocent the occurrences, the messages are always profoundly mature.
I continue to wonder how an author might arrive at a theme (truism) so essential they are confident in their writing it out
This resonates so much with something I've been grappling with. I've started a list titled "Books I read embarrasingly late". While I admit, this list is a little tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating, I much prefer the idea of consciously cultivating and appreciating my own personal canon, beyond the "greats" and the "shoulds". Also, we have an eerily similar taste in shows!!
This is an awesome idea. I’ve started collecting the things that would be in a personal canon sort of haphazardly as my sons grow up. It would be way better to nail down the canon this far and then collect the things I want to share with them later.
i completely forgot about edward tulane, that book was so special to me thank u for reminding me 🩷🩷
I love this. Not only is my head now racing with ideas of works that belong in my personal canon, I've also spent YEARS wanting to make zines but always stumbled on the subject matter. Now I finally have my zine idea too! Thank you!
The moment I read the words “arrogant porcelain rabbit” (I am not used to Substack comments and this is the fourth time I’ve had to rewrite this comment, forgive me) I immediately felt seen. When I read this book in third grade it immediately became one of the first books in my personal canon. Edward Tulane changed my entire perspective on the world, and I’m so glad to find someone else that feels the same way about this book!
arrogant porcelain rabbit
love your article! I have a list in my notes app with books, movies, albums etc. that I think would be useful to get to know me and that's what your post reminded me of, maybe I'll add some more to that list (which I also wrote after watching a movie from my childhood and noticing how much it impacted my taste). Thank you so much for the inspiration! :)
I love this!! 🥹🥹
this post came at the perfect time, I have been working on a little project to discover my personal taste and reclaim my attention span!
love the idea of curating a personal canon list 🤍 (not like I need an excuse to create more list hehe)
I love the idea of creating your own canon. I believe canons are political and whoever picked and perpetrated the "most important" works has, more or less voluntarily, left out women artists, queer artists, indigenous artists, BIPOC artists, proletarian artists etc. It s another form of symbolic violence - whenever we could find the little time to create, we were chosenly excluded.
Whatever it is that you create, keep doing it, keep sharing it and keep supporting your peers ❤️
My boys love Edward Tulane, so you had my attention. Beautifully written! You articulate the importance of knowing ourselves and knowing what has shaped us. As much as I love working my way through great book lists, I think you are right that it is probably more important to name the books, movies, shows, and essays that have made us. I want to do this now!
Thank you so much for this, feel like this is such a thoughtful way of seeing how the media we consume shapes us and why
This is such a good post! Also, you have impeccable taste. For me, the 'personal' part is the most important because I used to find myself waiting to see what others thought before expressing my own opinion.
This was most prevalent on Letterboxd where I'd sometimes look at reviews BEFORE watching and rating a movie. I think that - because of this - my own opinions were often swayed by others, and I found myself editing the ratings of movies after seeing reviews just to conform. I thought that because some movies were rated highly that I SHOULD like them; that's not always the case.
Now when I watch movies I won't look at ratings so that I can just go wild with my own opinion, no matter what others think. And every now and then I notice that I've seen something in a completely different way to someone else. Because of this my conversations with friends are way more interesting and fluent than if I just agreed with them.
I love that we all have our own ideas and - like you wrote - our own 'personal canon'. It's great. Thanks for sharing :)
I used to do the exact same thing with letterboxd! Now I have to force myself to watch and review it before reading anyone else’s opinions 😭 It’s crazy how much you enjoys movies when other peoples opinions aren’t influencing you! Thanks so much for reading, I’m really glad you enjoyed :)