taking the turtle for a walk (for mlle ff)

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"

knackyard

lately i've been ruminating on the nature of the davis foodie. appreciating such a creature beyond the bay area variety, beyond the candied cherry chockolate cake sophistikate. it's a different league here, and one that deserves more applause, in my opinion...more savoring, more reaping and crafting of one's own. and so this morning, i was invited to dinner by a new friend, she who had a martini party due in large part to the readiness of the fall olive harvest in davis, wherein there were perhaps ten or more varieties of olive, each cured differently by he or she, orange zest or kosher salt, and all the martinis sipped sipped sipped slowly, because that was the only way possible, with the smelliest of cheeses (oh ye fine camembert) along for the refined ride.
but tonight, bean pated and i shucked english peas, an hour of english peas, from the backyard garden right_outside_the_door, and the parsely picked, and oh, how- i've-tried-to-love-you-grapefruit, but finally, yes finally you are divine with aguacate and the perfect wine. and wine, so funny how the perfect wine to pair is german, with such a tropical treat, but it was the wine with the pink and the green that made it so delectable.
and wine, yes, how i have downed you and drowned you so many times, but tonight, how it seems so justified and apropos to open eight bottles for four persons, because each one so different, and taste, smell (smell, the oldest sense, he said, it forms in the brain before consciousness) and so we should drink down each one. this one with the olives, this one with the cheese, does chilling this white in a sink-o-fied swamp cooler do it justice? how about this red with...
the sausage.
the saugage, the pig, the pork, the free ranging pink breathing beast, wrapped in casing which just today mlle fishfry procured for art, yet we reaped the cured rewards. and oh, bite of salty and fat, you meat, you flesh. only 3 little bites, only one little round circle of muscle and wandering, snout to the ground, of carcass and smoked and hanging in the freezer, of sizzling in the pan, one two three tubes, and yes, tonight i learned to de-glaze, whether meat or onions it is the same. these bites sit long on the tongue, and the belly churns and rolls them over and over, working them and wondering, what is this? what is this hoofed somesuch? what have you given me now to digest diversify and dive into? tiny forkfull, eyes closed, for this is not a seeing thing. nay, none of this is a seeing thing