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Comments:
raymond - 2004-12-29 13:11:48 Dream I had last night: Standing on an overpass with a wide train (20ft) going by underneath. Train made a perfect 90 degree turn in the distance. Baseball players sliding towards the corner as it turned on top of the train. Woke up wondering how a train can turn 90 degrees.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-29 13:50:09 Raymond: yes, the book jacket said she died in 1986 on her Ann Arbor Farm. It's thought-provoking to me that she and the world she knew overlapped my arrival in Ann Arbor...by one year. I'll look around to see if there's information about the location. yd, that is an odd one--but perfectly sensical in the weird world of dream-illogic ("a 90-degree turn in the tracks?--sure, why not?").* * * * * * * * * * * * Le Flaneur - 2004-12-29 15:59:27 Perhaps excessive loafing has altered Ypsidweller's perception of reality?* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-29 16:08:20 quel nom elegant, Le Flaneur--I picture you in a flowing cape and hat with a huge swooping ostrich feather, like on the repro Durer engraving I have hanging by the piano. At any rate, I personally think excessive loafing only improves one's perception of reality. Didn't numberless Chinese philosophers spend days on end out in nature, sipping rice wine, watching the moon, and writing poems? * * * * * * * * * * * * yd - 2004-12-29 16:40:13 Doesn't Le Flanuer mean cave dweller?* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-29 16:42:13 I dunno. Babelfish was silent on the subject. Perhaps it means "one who makes flan," that quivery Spanish egg thing with caramel glop on it. (Ypsidixit never came to terms with flan).* * * * * * * * * * * * yd - 2004-12-29 16:44:19 "Le flaneur" (the wanderer) passes by with a certain skill in the human rumble of the metropolis. His attitude is the opposite to that quoted above. He is fascinated by the other show performed and forgets himself. His person is not the most important, as the blase�s, but the possibility of anonymously hiding in the crowd and of abandoning himself to its fascination. "The street becomes a dwelling for the fl�neur; he is as much at home among the facades of houses as a citizen is in his four walls. To him the shiny, enameled signs of businesses are at least as good a wall ornament as an oil painting is to the bourgeois in his salon. The walls are the desk against which he presses his notebooks; news-stands are his libraries and the terraces of caf�s are the balconies from which he looks down on his household after his work is done." * * * * * * * * * * * * Le Flaneur - 2004-12-29 17:04:48 Troglodyte would be the correct term for a cave dweller, and is actually appropriate since I do reside in a hibernaculum. * * * * * * * * * * * * Dan Arbor - 2004-12-29 17:25:20 YD's definition is intriguing. It has the ring of beat poetry... ..or maybe that's just the excessive loafing talkin'....* * * * * * * * * * * * Le Flaneur - 2004-12-29 17:25:41Although I do, on occasion, wander (often to the dwelling of the Ypsidweller himself), I prefer an alternate definition of "Le Flaneur" - The Loafer. * * * * * * * * * * * * David Lee Roth - 2004-12-29 17:28:26 Ain't talkin' 'bout loaf* * * * * * * * * * * * Dan Arbor - 2004-12-29 17:29:05 Doesn't flan come in loaf form?* * * * * * * * * * * * Dan Arbor - 2004-12-29 17:38:19 (on review of string) Laura-- I love your impression of M. Le Flaneur's appearance. I strongly suggest he adopt this mode of dress immediately. And just the numberless Chinese thinkers loafed, so, too did such Western luminaries as Thoreau. That's it! I'm dedicating myself to more time away from the rat race in order to simply be! Well, and to write poetry about the moon, of course... :)* * * * * * * * * * * * raymond - 2004-12-29 19:21:17Much discussion, by the way, at Laundryland this morning with a woman I know whose mother worked at the bomber plant. A mutual friend of hers and mine came up from West Virginia to be soon born (when I was born also)where her family had never had indoor plumbing nor couldn't read-n-write. It's difficult to understand now what poor meant in the good-ol-days.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-29 19:50:16 Many sparkling thoughts here. Raymond: I love Laundryland and loaf there every spring and fall when I do my big blanket-and-coverlet wash. Dan: you are poetic yourself to note that flan does indeed come in loaf form. Also, I agree with your admiration of YD's poetic description of Le Flaneur. YD: Once again I wish you had a blog of your own so that I could read even more of your thoughts aside from those you kindly leave here. Also, if "hibernaculum" isn't yet trademarked, I'd like to maybe borrow it as a name for my house, to woodburn onto a plaque to hang by the front stoop. Wonderful word. And, of course, I forgot our most famous domestic loafer, Thoreau.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-29 19:54:36 Raymond: I agree; I think it's hard for us to imagine what "poor" used to mean, in days when satellite & cable is practically mandatory. I sometimes wonder if the fabled fall in our standard of living from our parents' days is only due to an unrealistic rise in the expectation of what a modest middle-class lifestyle consists of. Just because all that glittery stuff is out there doesn't mean we need it. I've heard the term "downshifter" used to describe people who consciously seek a simpler, less consumeristic, more austere life.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura again - 2004-12-29 20:01:48 I grew up reading the Foxfire ethnography series, which detailed the games and playthings that kids of the past made for themselves. Things like mumblety-peg, bullroarers, street games like kick the can and allee allee oxen free. Not only did such reading give me a sense of nostalgia, even when I was still in grade school, but it offers a useful comparison to the sea of prefab toys showered on kids today. [/fogeyism]. I don't get the impression modern-day kids get much useful loafing time.* * * * * * * * * * * * yd - 2004-12-30 09:18:00 If you win the rat race, your still a rat.* * * * * * * * * * * * add your comment: |