File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 391


From: "Teemu Pyyluoma" <Teemu.Pyyluoma-AT-trantex.fi>
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 21:01:22 +0200
Subject: Re: PLC: Text-pleasure [was After Irene Hossack]






Teemu Pyyluoma-AT-TRANTEXMAIN
08.11.97 21.01

Reg,

you have aestheticans on-line and atleast one who is an aesthtete as far
food is concerned. So, for goodness sake please tell us what did the salmon
souflee tasted like? Or was it the whole experience, if so what was it
like? Where you more suprised to find yourself overwhelmed by souflee than
van Gogh? I'm asking this and read George's post to which you replied with
particular interest for same reason: I often hear people talk about great
(art and other) experiences they have had. Almost without an exception they
employ superlatives and if asked to explain what was it like, reply "It
cannot be explained!" Is that true in your case? In general?

In order for this not be a one-sided query, let me  share an experience I
had.
Helsinki Central Park is quite unlike any other I've visited. Iit is pretty
much in natural state, basicly a piece of woods in the middle of the city.
I was cycling down the river that runs through the park and decided to rest
for a while on the on the riverside. The sun was setting behind  my back
and the whole opposite bank was ablaze with color, I could see the first
leaves in beerch trees shiftng colour, cliffs turn heated yellow. But it
wasn't like a surrealist painting, I could see every detail the dots on the
trees, cracks on rocks... However this isn't what made it unforgettable,
I've seen many other beutiful sunsets (anybody ever seen an ugly sunset?),
occasionaly in a rather lovely company. What did crack my mind was when I
started employing my other senses. In that spot the park is rather narrow,
I could hear the highway north from where I was sitting and a railway in
the south. When I looked up I saw an electric line high up in a sky.  And I
knew I was just couple hundred meters away from the city. This whole
presence of civilatization made me feel even more transcentended from it,
like was sitting in some sort of a box. I had sweat quite a lot cycling and
was wearing just shorts and a t-shirt, I was starting to shiver from cold,
but I hardly noticed. And like you and your sister Reg, I started laughing,
though not hystericaly. I was pushed back to reality when a couple walking
by made some rude reamarks on drunken youngsters and hastened their steps
after spotting my shivering legs, sweaty shirt, nervous giggle and aweful
expession.

I actually think that as far "relations to critical faculty" are concerned,
my experience was closer to your van Gogh experience than your salmon
souflee experience, as far as the precense of cognitive element is a
criteria. Is that what you ment?

By the buy, you were  totally right to feel ashamed for disrespecting
"grocery store, the farmer, the simple slab of butter". I am glad you were
cured of your ingorance to greater powers of the earth.


Cheers,
Teemu,
who prefesr a good chef over a philosopher. or an artist.




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