A few days ago, I got an e.mail from Irving Weiss. He made some nice remarks about my Scientific American blog, then said that neither “read” nor “peruse” satisfied him “for the way one sticks to looking at a work of abstract art or abstract expressionism or, for that matter, any visual poem lacking identifiable content and without a title to help the viewer. I muse: if you look long at a Pollock, Moherwell, de Kooning, what do you do with your looking mind? You have to avoid thinking of what the painting “looks like” on the one hand and going into a mystical mood or trance. It’s like, if you practice any kind of meditation you must try to avoid going to sleep. What kind of “looking at” is it you exercise while standing in front of a work of abstraction?”
Here’s my answer, to take care of this blog entry: “Glad you’re continuing to keep track of my blog, Irving! I agree with you about “pleruser,” but I do believe some such word is needed and so far haven’t come up with a better. Most excellent question you pose. I think I do a lot of different “looking ats” in front of something by Pollock, say. A kind of averbal analysis but a purely sensual absorption, back and forth, but maybe, if it’s possible, both at once? I hope other kinds of perception are going on, too. Sense of rhythms—associative glimpsing probably mostly unconscious to my own life-experiences but to other painters, other visual images. And I don’t go long without trying to think of words I could use to describe what the painting is doing for me, the writer’s gift or defect. I’m maxixperiencing it! I’m a maxixperient. Or “magniceptor,” “Magnicepting?” “a maxcipient?” My first good word for this was “aesthcipient,” but I gave it up because it was too hard to pronounce. Urp, Urp, and Away, Bob.”
Close to philogushy, but with some substance, I think.
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One bp card is worth the thousands that mean nothing.
How luck you are!
I am lucky, Conrad. Glad I can share it with visitors like you!
all best, bob