Flaneurs

I love to be out and about somewhere, whether riding the MBTA into Boston, gaping at the crowd at Symphony Hall, scarfing down dessert afterward at Brasserie Jo, or strolling up Newbury Street or along Charles, rubbing elbows with the shoppers at Copley Place. Out and about. Observing life and people. There is a word for this person, a flaneur, a detached observer of contemporary life. A good thing for a writer to be.

We observe big time when out of town. Actually, forget the Louvre, just sit me down at a sidewalk cafe in Paris and I can spend the day there, watching the world go by. The Kurfurstendamm in Berlin used to be a good spot. Now you probably have to go east, young man.

Baudelaire coined the word "flaneur" and it used to refer exclusively to gentlemen, which I hope is no longer the case since I have co-opted it.

Two absolutely disseparate restaurants that had good people watching and good food. The first is in Hagerstown, MD, which is VERY different from Boston and has a great park and a somewhat odd downtown, which is where the
Schmankerl Stube is. It's a real German restaurant, the kind you can hardly find anymore even in Germany, never mind New York or Boston. Even the Berghoff closed in Chicago.

The second is Playa Azul on Missison Street in San Francisco. We ate a wonderful inexpensive lunch there, three people with wine and lots of food for $41.00. Good seafood. Nice staff. I like to go to laundromats and watch people. There was a great laundromat in the Playa Azul neighborhood.

Go out into the world and look around.

Here are some oddball links I found while Googling "flaneur." Go out into the web and look around.

http://www.montrealfilmgroup.com/The%20Flaneurs%20Lexicon.htm

http://www.antiquecanes.co.uk/

http://www.theflaneur.co.uk/opium.html#3

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