curating an archaeology of attention
A Blind Flaneur: 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, Return of the Flaneur to Galerie Vivienne. After that, try Foot Rage and the Blind Flaneur. If you don’t find me on the street, take a look in the Fair Use Lab. Or browse the archives.
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in Not This Pig (2003).![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. Read more.
Curiosity & The Blind Photographer, M.I.T. 2007.
![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. Read more. What was it Delacroix said? “To be a poet and twenty is to be twenty. To be a poet and forty is to be a poet.” Delacroix didn’t take the trope beyond fifty, so he’s no guide in guessing my next state of being. For now, a red dress takes me back to the poetry of my misspent youth.
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s Le violin de Ingres (1924). See more from Imaging Paris.
France 24 Headlines![Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/05/delacroix_liberty_1830_2.jpg "Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]")
Fair Use Lab
Bottomfeeder
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November 10, 2023 at 4:16pm
by Mark Willis The flaneur knows that an interesting street can be an art gallery, a library, a classroom. Even the representation of a street on television has possibilities for children whose overprotective parents won’t let them walk down the real thing. So here’s a tip of the hat to Sesame Street on its 40th birthday!
When I heard [...]
Playing by Ear Add Your Comment
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August 19, 2023 at 7:22pm
by Mark Willis The blind flaneur needs to figure out how to get to London for this. via RJ Rushmore at Vandalog:
The street art exhibition I announced last week finally has a name: The Thousands. It also has a special blog where you can find regular updates about how well (or poorly) the whole event is going along [...]
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June 18, 2023 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
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June 7, 2023 at 9:19am
by Mark Willis Flânerie reaches beyond the street, as Bill Cunningham reveals when he travels to Old Westbury, Long Island for a garden party celebrating the 50th anniversary of the public gardens there. The rhododendrons were in full bloom, and so were the floral print dresses summoned forth by the party’s 1960s “Flower Child” motif. Ms. Modigliani will [...]
Bill Cunningham · Flânerie Add Your Comment
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October 21, 2023 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 [...]