okay. in the past week, the word Flâneur has popped up twice.
first, on the project for public spaces listserve, a back and forth about the spanish translation of the term 'placemaking'. since placemaking is the theme of my thesis, and i'm still gnawing on my spanish, this was of particular interest (not to mention the implications for cultural perceptions of such activities). apparently there's no spanish equivalent, and in electronic discussion one person tangentalized, offering something akin to Flâneur, for which there is no english equivalent. the writer went on to suggest that calling one a Flâneur was not necessarily complimentary.
the second just happened, in reading on "the significance of the memory of urban spaces", the author writes, "he refers to benjamin's remarks on the tendency of the Flâneur in nineteenth century paris to "turn the boulevard into an interieur" turning public space into a living room sounds good to me.
then i looked up Flâneur, and found that simply, the Flâneur is an idler, a stroller, and an observer of street life. but there are historical and class associations with the bourgeoisie and on one site the mention of "intellectual parasitism"...it seems some pretty -ugh- stuff. i've got some more to learn here, but if we strip away these associations, at first glance i think i like the Flâneur. enough to have been one many times.
and i wonder at the role of the Flâneur in the present day. it seems like this person certainly walks in the world of another current fascination: psycho-geography. i do like the mixing of the tattered old smelly with the bleeping blipping now.
all this, and i'm supposed to be writing my thesis. isn't this it? discovery of new words and ideas and put them together, i'll stop the world and melt with you? i went to school and became a Flâneur? (oh, curses. forgive me my historical oversights, i know not how i implicate myself). but above all this bullshit, get this:
"The Flâneur is typically well aware of their slow, leisurely behaviour and had been known to exemplify this state of being by walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris"