We connected via Zoom to discuss Shiff's most recent publication, Sensuous Thoughts: Essays on the Work of Donald Judd (2020).

Intellectuals love to walk in the woods. They reach a clearing and their minds clear, becoming receptive to the ideas that sprout on trees. The clearing I wait for signals the proximity of the next lake. Tall trees in my peripheral vision give way to an expanse of the most transparent lake water I’ve ever seen. The portage ends, I cast off my pack, I sit again.

Pareidolia, or the perception of patterns in natural phenomena, can be lighthearted and imaginative.