An Inline Flâneur

Strange word, admittedly, but one of my favorites. The context (from Wikipedia: Flâneur in English is via French from the Old Norse verb flana “to wander with no purpose”. Nineteeth century poet Baudlaire described a flâneur this way: The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. ...

5th Wednesday night skate. Beautiful night, oddly small crowd! The new, mellow skate route was lead by Houston Crabtree (on quads! so impressive!); fellow skaters were Dror, Tania, Mark, and Charlotte (also on quads! amazing!). (The intermediate group was a good bit larger than the casual group.) Very chill group and pace - we had a good time. Embarrassed to admit I’m still skating my Rollerblades on the WNS instead of my Sebas, despite the discomfort of the boot. ...

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard about the Pari Roller — the Friday night skate in Paris. It was sometime in the late 1990s, back when inline skating was going strong everywhere. I remember reading that the crowds would reach as high as 35,000 on summer skates, an absolutely astonishing crowd. As a lover of cities and a fan of skating, I was immediately captivated and knew I wanted to participate — someday. ...