my personal canon
I traded post titles with Sylvia for this blog, and she gave me the title of 'My Personal Canon', based off of a post by Brendan. After going down a little rabbit hole and understanding what a personal canon even means, I think I've gathered it up a little.
Here's how Brendan describes it:
an encapsulation, in list form, of those things that have most shaped you. A sort of annotated bibliography of influences.
In order to understand how to begin to summarize one's life in this manner, he came up with a method.
I came up with five categories of material to include: books, media, websites, articles, and ideas.
I'm going to take out the articles from this one, simply as I feel websites will overlap too much in terms of what I'm adding.
So this is my first attempt to create my own canon. Maybe when I learn how to customize this site a bit more, I can create a more interactive way of displaying it as he did.
BOOKS
- Susan Sontag
- Notes on Camp was the first essay I ever read by Sontag, which reshaped the way I view and intake not only all media, but everything. It can be viewed almost as a manifesto, or guidelines for how to give and take creatively.
- I, etcetera is Sontag's only short story collection, and a rare instance of her fiction writing. Personal favourites are Debriefing and Baby.
- Haruki Murakami
- Norwegian Wood was a grade 12 english reading for me, and it gave me the push to start reading seriously again, beautiful story that always echoes in my mind. Murakami's imagery is unmatched, I felt like I was walking around in the Tokyo suburbs with Toru.
- Kafka on the Shore was read while I still worked at the library, pretty meta as, spoiler, a local library is a huge part of the story. Gorgeous.
- Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali was recommended to me by chance in a multifloor hectic used bookstore by the owner, a somewhat nuts old man. It reflects a lot of events in my own life, that happened to the same person (it's semi-autobiographical) 100 years ago.
MEDIA
Note: What an impossibly large category to try to consolidate. Maybe sometime I'll make an expanded one with it's own sub-categories!
- Notting Hill as rom-coms are a way of being. This one has Hugh Grant, so naturally it's here. Re-introduced me to Bill Withers through that wonderful montage.
- Three States: Rarities 1997-2007 by Dear Nora is the lyrical and instrumental anthem of my life. I still yearn for the day that Katy Davidson pulls up to the east end of Canada. Stop going to Vancouver, they've seen enough of you! Give us Ontarians a chance!!
- The Sopranos was watched with someone I used to know over a 2 year stretch, as it's hard to watch a 6 season, hour long episode series quickly when you only see it together. The pop culture zeitgeist was not kidding when they said this is the greatest show of all time.
- Playing Piano for Dad by h hunt kick started my want to move into learning improv piano, away from classical. And I love my dad too :)
WEBSITES
- veronique.ink left her zine in the library I used to work at, which lead me to this website here! I owe her and her site credit as the reviver of my little internet sharing habits. She's a fellow zine maker and I really like her point of view, and her internet/media recs!
- Bookbear Express is Ava's substack, where she writes mostly about love in all of it's different forms, trials, and tribulations. As a fellow way over-feeler (or maybe just enough feeling?), I feel very seen by her. Some favourite posts are no exit and giving up being the chill girl. (Note: I see that these are paywalled, but I read the full ones in my email newsletter. Weird! Maybe she locks them after a period.)
- The New York Times Crossword. Greatest 20 buck investment I've ever made in my life, as a lifelong crossword lover.
IDEAS
(Note: I'm interpreting this as themes and yes, ideas, that have circulated through my mind for long periods. Some I've written/acted on already, some I'm still ruminating about.)
- Fascination as desperation. When you're in love/wanting someone, something, where does the line get drawn between healthy curiosity, fascination, and a desperate attempt to have something you can't? Or to spin a narrative in a way it doesn't go?
- Always following the gut.
- Creation is the solution to everything. Even the simple documentation of a thought.
This is a very rudimentary list, and I don't think I understand how I interpret each category yet. I think this will be a project I want to expand on further, as I have talked extensively already on how much I adore documentation, archiving, especially of the self. Thank you Sylvia for this prompt, you really clocked me well!
If anyone would like to trade blog post titles, feel free to reach out!