Chapter 506.
I was looking at synonyms for the word, boulevardier. I am not talking about the drink, I am talking about a gentleman who takes a leisurely stroll through town, savoring the sights and the sounds around him, an active observer. There are not as many as you may think.
I meet few fellow full-time flaneurs in my travels.
Here is what Baudelaire had to say on the subject:
“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. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.
“The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are or are not—to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas. Thus, the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.”
I have never read that before. I have apparently never had a need. I do not need to now, I was just looking for a definition to copy so that I would not have to come up with it myself. Baudelaire knew what he was talking about. This definition is accurate.
I know.
A boulevardier, the person, is a synonym for someone who is a flaneur. A boulevardier, the cocktail is whiskey, vermouth, and Campari, a drink remarkably similar to what I sip on for hours to accompany my club soda. I have never had one. I am just reading off the menu at Ralph’s-on-the-Park.
I drink whiskey and Peychaud’s liqueur. Pechaud’s is the New Orleans recipe for Aperol. I prefer Peychaud’s, and not just because it is local. Peychaud’s is a little less sweet. Aperol comes from Padua, in Italy. One tastes like one place and the other tastes like the other.
I brought a charity case to St. Anthony of Padua Church for 11:00 Mass this morning. She was very impressed by the altar.
Both Aperol and Pechaud’s contain gentian as a main component. Campari does not. I think this is why I prefer either to Campari. I love the taste of gentian violet. It is the main flavor of the official beverage of the great State of Maine. Dirigo.
I love Moxie so much that I would marry it if I were not already married to Mrs. King.
One of my favorite people in New Orleans is with me today. I do not discuss her in public. I respect people’s privacy. I am an interesting person to know because you can always learn my version of an event we shared, either in a couple of hours or the next day.
Flânerie is a much busier occupation than it appears to be. It is actually the opposite of idleness.
There are two reasons I was looking up the word boulevardier. A lady wanted to order the drink but she did not know how to pronounce it. Instead, she axked for an expresso martini.
In Italian, an expresso martini is a cocktail that tastes like a train.
Now, I am going to to put up the paywall and talk about something out later today.