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. 
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September 18, 2023 at 8:05pm
by Mark Willis ![The Finnish group Mieskuoro Huutajat, or Shouting Men, performs in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle neighborhood. [Photo by Jenny Gold/NPR]](../news/images/2008/sep/18/shoutingmen_200.jpg "The Finnish group Mieskuoro Huutajat, or Shouting Men, performs in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle neighborhood. [Photo by Jenny Gold/NPR]")
Dupont Circle is the central coordinate of the neighbhorhood I call home when I’m in Washington. It’s fertile ground for a flaneur, and I’ve witnessed some strange stuff go down around the fountain there — the bike messengers, the crack dealers, the homeless vets in ponchos and bandannas, Sarge and Pigeon Water Man, the guy with the iguana clinging to his arm — so I wish I’d been there this afternoon to hear the Finnish men’s choir Mieskuoro Huutajat, or Shouting Men. Noah Adams describes the scene on NPR:
Unannounced and unsmiling, they walk into the Dupont Circle park wearing black suits, white shirts and black ties made from bicycle inner tubes. The 23 men follow one another in single file around the fountain.
They do not sing the words — they shout them.
The founder and director of the group, Petri Sirvio, says his guys sometimes seem displeased, but they take satisfaction from a good performance.
“Of course, if you succeed in a good piece of art, you are happy,” he says.
Listen to their homage to The Star-Spangled Banner. It sounds like a surreal fable in one of Steve Kuusisto’s tall tales.
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