I walk through my blindness the way I saunter down streets in Paris: unfettered and alive, ever delighted by the raw material of the senses. Come along with me. Just don’t try to take my arm unless I ask. What’s a flaneur? Read the first post, ![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.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. 
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in 
![Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/02/charlotte_casiraghi_red_dress.jpg "Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]")
When I figured out who Charlotte Casiraghi was, I realized that I once sent a poem to her mother. 
Poet and street artist Miss Tic isn't exactly a kid in a hoodie with a can of spray paint. Maybe she can still run like hell when the police show up, but can she sprint in high heels? Well-known in international avant-garde circles, her work is exhibited now at the Venice Biennale as well as the alleys of Paris. 
6
September 5, 2023 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis Once in a lifetime was something of an anthem for me at a difficult time twenty years ago. In the space of several months, I moved out of the 1820 water mill by the river where I’d lived for a decade; my marriage ended; and my father died. In one cataclysmic swoop, it seemed, I became a fatherless child and a single father. The reassurance of David Byrne’s lyrics set a tone that steered me in a new direction:
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.
Alex brought it all back to me last week when he wrote about finding a continuity in life that dissolves the perceived boundaries before and after catastrophe: “So now I do the things that come to hand and with that unutterable joy wells up. A spring of living water.” Then he sent me his favorite Talking Heads clip, Cross-eyed and Painless:
Encore: There is only one place for that “water falling down” to go… Take Me To The River. Hearing the Heads cover always leads me back upstream to the source by Al Green.
Café Mouffe strives to return to its regular Friday schedule this week. Please drop by for a listen and a chat. Sometimes the embedded videos don’t work here due to bandwidth constraints, but you’ll always find links to video sources in the notes. Try them. If you’re curious about the Mouffe, here’s the original idea behind it’s creation.
6 Comments
#1. alex 09.05.2023
I happened to be there, this afternoon, and indeed, I had the Talking Heads playing on my iPod, but it was a rather solitary business.
http://scanr.net/mouffe/
#2. a blind flaneur » Where the Mouffe Begins: Delmas 09.05.2023
[...] dropped by Café Mouffe tonight with this photo of the Mouffe’s inspiration, Café Delmas on Place de la [...]
#3. Mark Willis 09.05.2023
I just went there, too, and brought a gaze home with me. Many thanks!
#4. a blind flaneur » If Jimi Juiced It, A Charred Guitar Isn’t Toast 09.06.2023
[...] rocking out with Talking Heads and Bob Seeger at the Mouffe, I should note for the record that a guitar set ablaze by Jimi Hendrix [...]
#5. joostburger 09.09.2023
The Talking Heads sat me on to a quest on youtube.com Loads of eighties stuff triggered a lot of memories.
The reflection on my own development, and how to deal with the development of my children is one of the most fascinating things of being a parent. The birth of F. made me think about being a child again, with strong memories of my first encounter with the phenomenon of skateboarding somewhere in the south of france..
Thissong by the knife from 2006 (live, was my favorite for a long time, and for one reason or the other I stumbled upon it on Youtube..
I was speechless when I saw that my memories where played back in the first part of the clip..
#6. Mark Willis 09.10.2023
Thanks, Joost, and congratulations again on F.’s birth.
Music has certainly been taking me back into similar memories. Music and painting the house (two inextricable processes) with my son. I painted the same house with my father in 1976. I love the fluidity of memories shape-shifting through the roles of fathers and sons. There is no end to that wonder of parenting.
You must log in to post a comment.