I make maps to understand what it means to be blind, and a flaneur . Those ideas are elusive destinations. Think of them as streets you can wander along with me. Start with 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. The café opens a day early to celebrate the birthday of my friend Lou Bourgeois. He is 91 today. We share a fondness for Duke Ellington’s incomparable altoist, Johnny Hodges, so this week’s Mouffe is devoted to Johnny and dedicated to Lou. Several years ago I gave him a CD featuring duets by Hodges […]
Entries from November 2007
Café Mouffe: Happy BIrthday, Lou!
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November 29, 2023 at 3:00pm
by Mark Willis
Lou Bourgeois · Toronto · Playing by Ear · jazz · Café Mouffe Add Your Comment
Flaneur’s Gallery: Figure
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November 29, 2023 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
Eve Koch. Figure. Acrylic, 60″x40″. Private Collection of Tom Roberts.
Tom Roberts sent me images of two acrylic paintings by Eve Koch which he found in a Santa Fe gallery in 1999. Tom writes, “Her work has a frank and poignant fascination with women’s aging bodies. Sadly, Eve died from an aggressive form of cancer […]
Tom Roberts · Flaneur's Gallery · Art Add Your Comment
Flaneur’s Gallery: Hand Applying Lipstick
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November 28, 2023 at 11:00pm
by Mark Willis
Eve Koch. Hand Applying Lipstick. Acrylic, 15″x12″. Private Collection of Tom Roberts.
See also Eve Koch, Figure.
Tom Roberts · Flaneur's Gallery · Art Add Your Comment
Forthright in Seattle: Bemsha Bob on the FCC
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November 27, 2023 at 9:48am
by Mark Willis
Free culture vs. media consolidation has been on my mind after I heard from my friend Bemsha Bob Grubbs yesterday. He sent me the text of public testimony he wrote for a hastily scheduled hearing of the Federal Communication Commission held in Seattle on Nov. 9. The testimony was delivered by a colleague with the […]
free culture · free speech Add Your Comment
Flaneur’s Gallery: Olympia
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November 26, 2023 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
Édouard Manet. Olympia. 1863. Musee d’Orsay, Paris.
Manet · VIIe · Flaneur's Gallery · Art · Paris Add Your Comment
What I Want for Christmas
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November 25, 2023 at 11:31am
by Mark Willis
[Source: NYT, Jolly nad Green, With an Agenda]
Dear Santa,
I’d love to stroll along the Seine and browse the bookstalls on Dec. 25. Will any be open for business? There is no better gift for a bouquiniste and blind flaneur than a musty old book. Any French book printed before 1900 would thrill me. AbeBooks.com […]
Seine · Bouquiniste · Paris Add Your Comment
From Gutenberg’s Exile to the Bouquiniste
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November 25, 2023 at 5:45am
by Mark Willis
For many years I carried in my head an unfinished project that I called Gutenberg’s Exile. That phrase was shorthand for the complex relationship I have with books and reading. I was cut off from the printed word, expelled from the Gutenberg Revolution. A little twist of fate in my own DNA […]
Seine · reading · books · Bouquiniste · Paris Add Your Comment
Imaging Paris: Saluiting Black Friday
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November 24, 2023 at 6:52pm
by Mark Willis
Wooster Collective. www.saw-b.be [Photo by wanshot]
Imaging Paris · street art · Paris Add Your Comment
Two Readers Are A Movement
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November 23, 2023 at 1:13pm
by Mark Willis
When I came home from Toronto recently, I found an over-sized, flat envelope waiting for me. I recognized the handwritten address without being able to read it. I knew without opening it that it would contain visual art that would catch my eye. Over the past thirty years I have been surprised to receive in […]
Tom Roberts · Art Add Your Comment
One Reader Is A Miracle
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November 22, 2023 at 3:48pm
by Mark Willis
[Photo by Ms. Modigliani]
I remember the book I held in my hands that day. I remember the feel of its time-warped, water-stained pages. I remember its murky, moldy river smell, call it the book’s bouquet, suggesting years of storage on the banks of the Seine. Had I bought it then, I could feel and smell […]
Ms. Modigliani · VIe · Ve · Bouquiniste · Paris Add Your Comment