On flaneuring

Flâneur:

A French noun referring to a person, literally meaning “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, or “loafer”, but with some nuanced additional meanings (including as a loanword into English). Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations… Traditionally depicted as male, a flâneur is an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of industrialized, contemporary life.

Flânerie has been anglicized into flaneuring, a term I first saw when Nassim Taleb described his strolls through Belgrade but which is popular enough to have had its segment on the Today Show, plugging a book that looks like something that I would never in my life touch, but hey, the concept is sound! Take a leisurely walk through the city without a destination or a particular plan. Don’t wear headphones. Do have a partner or two to share your observations.

It is exactly what we have been doing in Honolulu for the last few days and I mentioned off-handedly to my wife the Taleb post and the term. It clicked instantly, like “premium mediocre” did back in the day. What was once premium mediocre has become an unbridled luxury ⊕ To keep the Talebian theme going, this is as clear of an example of the Lindy effect as any. — thank you, inflation — so we don’t mention the phrase much, but as long as there are cities there will be flaneuring.

The non-touristy parts of DC — which is most of them, actually — would probably be in the US Top 5, which is damning with faint praise because the competition is so bad. It is a shame that it wouldn’t be the clear number 2 — with New York being the obvious number 1 — but DC is fairly small, and Chicago is even better for flaneuring than NYC for 3 months of the year. Of course, if we started taking weather into account Honolulu would soon rise to the top and overtake all; but as we are not effective altruists, let’s not.

Accompanying the spouse to a conference is always good, but doubly so when the conference is in Honolulu! There will be a more detailed report after we are back; in the mean time, here are a few murals, from delightful to bizarre.

Duvel would certainly have been my favorite beverage if it weren’t for the existence of coffee. It’s hard to come by in DC, so imagine my delight when I found it at a random grocery store in Maui.

The sun flares up the sky over Lake Mead, then at a record low (note the white strip just above the water), which was soon to be broken.

A mural from the rust belt. Obscured by the gas-guzzlers in the bottom left corner is the slogan: “Without Labor Nothing Prospers”. Indeed.

Disruption as a concept is Lindy. Each particular manifestation of disruption, on the other hand…

From the Frist Art Museum in Nashville: some very old silk fabric.

Being stuck at an airport doesn’t have to be bad. Nashville, for example, has more than one airport restaurant with live music at all hours of the day (and night). Last year we spent a few hours waiting for a delayed flight at Ole Red.

The Statue of Liberty is made of copper, which long ago oxidized into a green patina: the perfect protection against the harsh salty airs of the Hudson/Upper New York Bay. So of course there is a campaign to remove that protection and make it shiny again.

From the National Aquarium in Baltimore, a non-fluorescent jellyfish. Its glow comes from background lighting conspiring with iPhone 15’s propensity to illuminate.