Since I re-blogged a photo of Rimbaud’s grave, I thought I’d post a photo of Baudelaire’s grave which I took in Paris last fall.
-Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, October 2009
Place de la Concorde, Paris. Photograph by Willy Ronis, 1952.
(via absinthemakesyouawhore)
Rue Pavée(s) (by Kiyouyou)
I have some very fond, yet bittersweet memories of the Rue Pavée. Three girls from our study abroad program had an amazing apartment on this street, and we had some great parties there. Bittersweet, because I miss those times, the Marais, Paris-I miss it all. And, of course, bittersweet because of a (Parisian) boy-I am glad to have meet him, but sad because I never saw him again.
It’s a dumb story, really— we spent the whole evening talking, but neither of us had our phones on us, so we agreed to ask the hostess, our mutual friend for contact info, and I never did, because damn it I am too shy and have too many regrets. I doubt he ever did…
Well, it seems that Tumblr is trying its hardest to make me (more so than usually) nostalgic about Paris. I tried to be a flâneur (or flaneusse) when I was in Paris, and while I did do a lot of aimless wandering about, with a book of Baudelaire or Rimbaud constantly at my side, I think I was too self-absorbed in my own angst and feelings too truly be a flâneur.
The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, “loafer”—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means “to stroll”. Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of “a person who walks the city in order to experience it”. In French Canada flâner is rarely used to describe strolling and often has a negative connotation as the term’s most common usage refers to loitering. (via werttrew)
