a blind flaneur

Here’s a scene from the dinner with Lou Bourgeois that inspired last night’s edition of Café Mouffe. Every flaneur should come to rest on Friday night in such engaging company. The Pinot grigio was crisp, the seafood savory, and the conversation literary. We talked books, books, books. Lou was reading Edward Luce’s exploration of globalization in India, In Spite of the Gods. Ms. Modigliani was reading a book Lou recommended to her, Sharon Butala’s Saskatchewan memoir, Perfection of the Morning.   And I represented  the wide open spaces of the Creative Commons with Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture.

Ms. Modigliani tells me that in the background of this photo you can see through the restaurant window, across Lakeshore Drive, to one of my favorite tobacco shops in Canada. It has a walk-in humidor where you are enveloped by the nuanced aromas of shelf upon shelf of Cuban cigars, dozens of varieties displayed in open boxes. It is enough just to stand there, without ever burning a leaf. Like a certain U.S. President before me, I smell but never inhale. Don’t tell my cardiologist… or the State Department.