![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
"Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. ![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
Paul Cézanne. The Artist’s Father, Reading “L’Événement”. 1866. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
When I stood before this painting last month at the NGA, it happened to be the day that would have been my father’s 88th birthday. It reminded me of his devotion to reading newspapers, his pride when I [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Bob Willis'
Bonne fête Papa: A Flaneur’s Gallery
1
June 21, 2009 at 12:05am
by Mark Willis
Bob Willis · Flaneur's Gallery · politics Add Your Comment
Mahalia’s Gift: “Go Tell It On the Mountain”
1
December 23, 2008 at 8:57am
by Mark Willis
Mahalia Jackson soars in a performance photograpghed by Lee Friedlander. [Source: NPR]
Once upon a time, I ran as fast as I could to get away from Holiday Muzak at the shopping mall. One of my earliest newspaper columns railed against the psychotropic effects of hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” twenty times a day. I risk convulsions [...]
Art · Bob Willis · Café Mouffe · Flaneur's Gallery · Playing by Ear · fashionista · memoir · poetry · politics Add Your Comment
Listening To My Father: Let The Rough Side Drag
3
May 12, 2008 at 12:05am
by Mark Willis
Robert F. Willis (May 12, 1921 – November 3. 1987). The drawing was made by a Montmartre street artist in 2005 from a photograph taken in Paris after V.E. Day in 1945.
When I was working with my son Saturday I heard my father in my own voice, saying something he would say with surety at [...]
Bob Willis · Paris · memoir Add Your Comment
“Love’s Austere And Lonely Offices”
0
April 4, 2008 at 12:05am
by Mark Willis
I heard this lovely sonnet by Robert Hayden. It made me think of my father, and all that he gave me.
Winter Sunday Mornings by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one [...]
Bob Willis · Playing by Ear · poetry Add Your Comment
Café Mouffe: From Largo To Allegro
0
March 7, 2008 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
Clip 1: Dmitri Shostakovich. Largo (3rd movement). Sonata for Cello and Piano (op. 40). No documentation is available for the performance.
Tom’s response to re-reading the poem I wrote for him in 1975 sent me straight to Shostakovich. I needed to hear just this movement, the largo, from his Sonata for Cello and Piano (op. [...]
1970s · Bob Willis · Café Mouffe · Playing by Ear · Shostakovich · memoir Add Your Comment
Café Mouffe: Henry Butler & Tipitina
2
February 8, 2008 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
After looking at Henry Butler’s photography, it’s time to hear some of his music. The first clip was recorded at the Clavia booth at the NAMM 2007 trade show in Miami. Henry plays a Nord Stage, and Bruce Katz jams on a Clavia C1 organ. Too bad it ends so abruptly. I’ve [...]
Bob Willis · Café Mouffe · New Orleans · Playing by Ear · memoir Add Your Comment
Ransacking The Archive: For Bob Willis
0
November 3, 2007 at 6:43am
by Mark Willis
Robert F. Willis (May 12, 1921 – November 3. 1987)
For Bob Willis, All My Love
I remember walking through snow to Long’s Bookstore
two men not at work on Wednesday morning
with time to kill before going to the clinic.
The father says tentatively
pushing hands into coat pockets:
I don’t know what poetry is
I work with my hands
I’m awkward with [...]
1980s · Bob Willis · Paris · memoir · poetry · ransack Add Your Comment