James Tobin thinks the canon is loaded and firesoff a ranging shot:

>This suggests a standard of recognized greatness as the criterion for
>being in your canon.  If so, that leaves the problem of unrecognized
>greatness, in addition to the matter of the satisfactions of
>non-Michelin-approved tastes, which you acknowledge, and thus your canon
>may be as harmful to the interests of listeners as it is helpful.

Yeah, so it goes.  If the restaurant trope won't work for you, then let's
substitute for it that of nuclear physics.  In order to get to know it, one
must first absolve the canon--unlike in music (?).  But like music, and we
have the testimony of several postings to substantiate this, there are
persons who get great pleasure out of living at the cutting edge of a
discipline that otherwise only appalls or bewilders folks.

Denis Fodor