Diary: Sven Birkerts

The Flaneur
Writers, at least most of the writers I know, have a great interest in the idea of the flaneur, the urban wanderer who follows an unpremeditated track of whimsy and, with his or her ability to see things anew, past categories and fixed itineraries, finds the lost key everyone has been looking for. Writers love that sense of an untethered freedom, of eccentricity, the gift for noticing and putting two and two together.