![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 
The flaneur is pleased to hear cycling advocates at the National Bike Summit talk about walking, too. Safe streets need multi-mode travel. [Video source: Streetfilms.org]
Entries Tagged as 'foot rage'
Voices From The National Bike Summit
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March 15, 2010 at 12:14pm
by Mark Willis
The World Needs A Naked Flaneur’s Stroll
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June 18, 2009 at 7:18pm
by Mark Willis
Naked cyclists make their way past Toronto’s Eaton Centre, June 13, 2009, for the World Naked Bike Ride. Participants in Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax rode naked to celebrate cycling and the human body and to demonstrate the vulnerability of cyclist on the road and protest against oil dependency. [Photo by Tara Walton/The [...]
Ms. Modigliani · fashionista · foot rage Add Your Comment
A Cautionary Tale for Blind Flaneurs
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June 16, 2009 at 7:45am
by Mark Willis
An accident in Jilotepec, Mexico. Traffic injuries are the ninth leading cause of death worldwide. [Photo by ]Juan Garcia/AFP/Getty Images/NYT]
A new report issued by the World Health Organization confirms what every blind flaneur knows. It’s a dangerous rat race out there, and our navigation skills and foot rage will never compensate for the arrogance and [...]
foot rage · global citizen Add Your Comment
The Salamander’s Safety Patrol
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April 6, 2009 at 7:44pm
by Mark Willis
A spotted salamander prepares to cross the road in New Haven, Vt., on Sunday, March 22. [Source: AP/NPR]
What was it Loudon Wainwright sang? “You got your dead cat and you got your dead dog. On a moonlight night you got your dead toad-frog.” Well, not in Vermont, if some forward-thinking batrachian-lovers can help it. Now [...]
In New Delhi, Driving By Ear Leads To Road Rage
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February 17, 2009 at 6:23pm
by Mark Willis
Readers of this blog know that playing by ear is one of the blind flaneur’s greatest joys, and foot rage is one of his worst fears. So he is conflicted, to say the least, by this radio story by NPR’s Philip Reeves which tells how motorists in New Delhi manage to conflate driving by ear [...]
Playing by Ear · foot rage Add Your Comment
A Flaneur’s Nemesis: Suburban Patio Man
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October 21, 2008 at 9:51am
by Mark Willis
Two details from the morning news stream disconcerted me gloomily as I rode to work with my car pool. David Brooks’ latest reification of the U.S. Everyman brand reduced it to one nervous, order-seeking archetype: Patio Man. “He’s happy with the new street-scape shopping area where he and his family can stroll before a [...]
Don’t Move That Farmers’ Market!
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July 28, 2008 at 4:01pm
by Mark Willis
On Saturday mornings at the height of summer, the Yellow Springs Farmer’s Market gets as crowded, garrulous, and animated as any Arab souk. The market has thrived for 25 years at the heart of the village. It’s only two blocks from my home, and walking there is one of the best [...]
Edible Dramas · Uncategorized · Yellow Springs · foot rage · garden Add Your Comment
Americans Drove 4.5 Billion Fewer Miles in April
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June 21, 2008 at 12:05am
by Mark Willis
I’ve never heard this metric before, although the U.S. Federal Highway Administration tracks and publishes it every month. Maybe it will become a number everyone watches nervously, like the Dow-Jones average, the Body Mass Index, or the weekend movie box office gross. What we need is a comparable measure of monthly miles walked. [...]
Flaneur · conservation · foot rage Add Your Comment
Foot Rage and the Blind Flaneur
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December 18, 2007 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
As I have lost eyesight over the past thirty years, walking has been the simplest and most dependable solution to the functional limitations of my disability. When I stopped driving cars at age eighteen, walking was the mode of transportation most accessible to me. This sounds reasonable enough – a problem to be solved , [...]
Flaneur · Paris · Rue Mouffetard · Ve · Walter Benjamin · foot rage · walking Add Your Comment
Hear Voices? It Ain’t the Angels Singing
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December 17, 2007 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
When a blind flaneur walks down the street, he’s likely to be taking care of business, paying close attention to sensory cues and landmarks. The last thing he expects is to hear an advertisement coming from somewhere inside his own personal soundscape.
So a chill went through me when I heard an interview with Clive Thompson [...]
Flaneur · Playing by Ear · foot rage · walking Add Your Comment