Wondering While Wandering:
Peregrinations on Flaneurs and Other Pilgrim Thoughts
I think I got all my puns out of the way in the title.
I was sitting here in the middle of SXSWi thinking about +nomad dimitri who introduced me to the word flaneur My dictionary describes them as “idlers or loungers” but he sees them as so much more, those who “wander without a map” open to serendipitous discoveries. From a description of the book he recommended, The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris
“A flâneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through city streets in search of adventure and fulfillment. Edmund White, who lived in Paris for sixteen years, wanders through the streets and avenues and along the quays, into parts of Paris virtually unknown to visitors and indeed to many Parisians. In the hands of the learned White, a walk through Paris is both a tour of its lush, sometimes prurient history and an evocation of the city’s spirit. The Flâneur leads us to bookshops and boutiques, monuments and palaces, giving us a glimpse into the inner human drama. Along the way we learn everything from the latest debates among French lawmakers to the juicy details of Colette’s life.”
Amazon Blurb for The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris
My problem is that I can never both observe and capture the moment. To capture something, I must first reflect upon it, and my mind’s eye turns inward. So I’m often in a cafe or a museum hunched over my writing lost in thought. Nowadays, however, I’m not alone in this habit. Everyone is looking down at their screens as they shuffle along. Everyone is here but no one is present.
I don’t think I’m cut out for the life of a flaneur though. I prefer to wander alone, in silence. The press of the crowd doesn’t carry me along with it. I feel apart from it even in the center of things. I cannot interpret the language of the human drama. I’m left in awe of all those novelists who can bring scores of characters to life and capture the flow of humanity: Fielding, Thackeray, Dickens, Tolstoy.
GPlus Discussion
nomad dimitri – 2012-03-15 12:45:39-0400
[finally i know how to relate to this post which has been in my mind now for days]
first, i should say that i also deserve your dictionary’s definition of flaneur (“idlers or loungers”) in addition to my own. and, somehow, this is related to the swiss-army knife / good-enough / not-best-of-class debate.
(i am with you, by the way, on being crowd-averse; but there are crowds & crowds, notably western & eastern; also notably: southern & northern; the most annoying being southern & western: think mediterranean)
back to flaneurism: to me, being a flaneur liberates me from having an agenda / an objective. from childhood, my hero was ulysses. purportedly, he spent an odyssey trying to get to ithaca. but, on the way, he flaneured wildly. my best ulysses moment: he has been through hell; he is about to pass by the sirens (who lure sailors to their death by their seductive singing); but ulysses has been tipped ahead of time: so he plugs his companions ears with wax & he gets them to tie him on the mast, UNPLUGGED. now, this is how i like to travel!
(no wonder julian jaynes calls him literature’s first conscious hero – but that is an aside)
C.J. Shane – 2012-03-21 10:17:57-0400
+M Sinclair Stevens My experience of being a flaneur happens when I go to China. At first I tried planning ahead, having agenda. It just didn’t work. I gave up and I became “stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through city streets in search of adventure and fulfillment.” I don’t sketch and I don’t keep a journal. Yet when I return home, I find the experience of just being there and wandering around comes out in my paintings and my writings in very unexpected ways. ~Shane
M Sinclair Stevens – 2012-03-21 11:07:12-0400 – Updated: 2012-03-21 11:13:41-0400
+C.J. Shane Thanks for sharing your experience. Many people have suggested that when I stop to write or photograph that I miss experiencing the experience. I can see their point. I also know that (in my case), if I look at a scene and think how would I share this with someone who is not here, that I see so much more than when I amble alone. Perhaps my introversion causes me to get lost in my own thoughts wherever I am. Trying to capture something makes me focus outward, pay attention. It is also the beginning of my synthesizing the experience. Of becoming actively involved in it and not just a passive observer.
I wish that things would filter through to my unconscious as they do for you. I know that if I don’t write something down then it is gone forever. It is like I wasn’t there. I have so many calendar notes about experiences when I lived in Japan which I didn’t expand on and now I wonder — What did I see? What did I think? What was my reaction to that?
I popped over to your profile and then onto your blog. I have you in my Writers circle but I need to put you in my Artists circle, too. Your paintings are tremendous.
http://www.cjshane.com/paintings/
C.J. Shane – 2012-03-21 11:26:00-0400 – Updated: 2012-03-21 11:26:36-0400
+M Sinclair Stevens It’s interesting to read about your experience. I consider my an introvert and I don’t like crowds either so it was a surprise to me to see this other personality emerge…one who had no agenda, who would engage in conversations with strangers, who would go down alleys to see what was at the other end. I’m reminded of a Buddhist mindfulness practice – to treat everyone you meet as a fully enlightened being who has something to teach you. I think have that attitude in China. I guess you and I really are having a different kind of experience – who knows why. Thanks for the comment on my artwork. When I have paintings in exhibits, the people who like my work the most are either other artists or individuals who have immigrated from Asian countries – specially China, Korea and Japan. I’m often told that there is a strong Asian or Daoist sensibility in my work. I believe that’s the Middle Kingdom revealing itself in the work. ~Shane
nomad dimitri – 2012-03-21 11:59:05-0400 – Updated: 2012-03-21 12:21:19-0400
+M Sinclair Stevens : i would probably be one of those people that would caution that “when [you] stop to write or photograph [you] miss experiencing the experience.” but, on the other (&, in this case, equally important hand – perhaps right hand, i am not sure) i hear very clearly what you say about being forced to notice outside oneself by the very nature of insisting in producing something from the experience. to me, this is very much an artistic sensibility.
[btw: i am very grateful to you about this discussion. please do not take anything i say critically or in any sense that implies that there is one way to do / experience anything; i stand firm with the Heraclitus quote on my profile – it is all delivered with a smile]
further: where i urge caution is towards any inner voice that insists on constant production, lest one is lazy, lest one “has nothing to show for the trip to japan (or wherever)”. i have friends that are horrified that i can just wonder in a new continent for weeks – “but what did you do? ” they ask. somehow the answer “i was in INDIA” ,for example, is not enough, as if just being in india & experiencing the world’s last remaining polytheistic culture is not enough. as if i have to come up with a New Yorker article to justify “the investment in time” [+Rajini Rao : help me out here, please]
note to self (see? i do it too!): lest this becomes an even longer comment, two items to explore in the future:
– “just a passive observer”: we never are / there is no such thing / traveling is not TV
– “if I don’t write something down then it is gone forever”: is it really? have you tested going back to the same place & having a flood of memories come back to you, memories that may have seemed gone while in austin?
– (discuss traveling vis a vis dreaming; chatwin; songlines)
[ +Tamale Chica : this is the post i described earlier about doing / being]
M Sinclair Stevens – 2012-03-21 12:38:15-0400 – Updated: 2012-03-21 12:39:35-0400
So many questions that I want to answer. I will come back to them. But an impulsive reply…and then, later a more thoughtful one.
Yes, I have tested the memory thing. In fact, sometimes, even if I write something down, I do not remember it. I’ve been known to read my own journals and say with surprise, “I don’t remember this!” only to be asked, “Are you sure you are reading your journals?”
On the other hand, yes, I have a vivid memory for conversation (internal and external) by place. If I go down a road, I’ll often remember what I was saying even if years have passed. I call this picking up my slime trail. It doesn’t work on frequently travelled roads; they have too many layers of memory, like a tape that’s been worn down by be recorded over time and time again.
This post began with my trying to unpuzzle a contradiction in my personality that you (+nomad dimitri ) made me aware of — the conflict between my J-type desire to be prepared and my N-type love of serendipity. I had solved that to my satisfaction but now we discover more contradictions. Does my writing take me in or out of the moment? In the post, I say it removes me from the moment but in my responses to you and +C.J. Shane I argue the opposite. So I puzzle on.
I would never mistake your providing a different viewpoint as criticism. “Opposition is true friendship.” Besides, I’m not trying to prescribe either. I’m curious about both of your approaches because they are different than mine. They inform me.
I have two examples where writing made me more aware. Whenever I’m in San Francisco I visit the Botanical Gardens and the Japanese Tea Garden. But the time I acted as a “reporter” was probably the time I really experienced it. For me, it’s the difference between looking and walking past unseeing. My head’s always elsewhere. Maybe this is how I trick myself into being present. I think you two are naturally more “present” and observant and so don’t need the tricks.
http://www.zanthan.com/gardens/gardenlog/?p=2541