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. 
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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 movie,” Brooks says. “His ideal neighborhood is Mayberry with BlackBerries.” Then NPR’s Scott Horsley described John McCain’s latest campaign swing through suburban Missouri, where he avoided cities and sought out new developments in cornfields with a “retro small town” feel.
Strolling on a faux street-scape with that retro small-town feel? This might be as close as most of America gets to flânerie. It’s the kind of fake walkable neighborhood you have to drive to, then park and stroll. It could be a scene from The Stepford Wives. From this blind flaneur’s perspective, it’s a 21st-century incarnation of Henry Miller’s air-conditioned nightmare.
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