(no subject)

[featherynscale]

"In the 1950's the French Situationists developed a technique for travel which they called the derive, the drift. They were disgusted with themselves for never leaving the usual ruts and pathways of their habit­driven lives; they realised they'd never even seen Paris. They began to carry out structureless random expeditions through the city, hiking or sauntering by day, drinking by night, opening up their own tight little world into a terra incognita of slums, suburbs, gardens, and adventures. They became revolutionary versions of Baudelaire's famous flaneur, the idle stroller, the displaced subject of urban capitalism. Their aimless wandering became insurrectionary praxis."
-Hakim Bey, Overcoming Tourism

Comments

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I've often talked about the phenomena in Kansas City where vast parts of the city are "black holes" to it's inhabitants...meaningk you may know certain sections of the city well, but others are places that you have no idea what's there, how to get around, etc.

I would think that this sort of random exploration would be cool, although in this city, the majority of what you might turn up would be identical suburbs with the same stores in the same stripmalls...

But the cool stuff you might find would, one would hope, well make such adventures worth the effort.


D.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That was actually the concept that made this passage resonate with me. My knowledge of Kansas City is limited basically to the route between my home and my office and a few other select areas. I have a need to wander about and find new things.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

I've tried periodically to fill in my black holes, but I'm still missing large chuncks of Grandview, Raytown, Lee's Summit, Blue Springs (don't know how they interact)...North KC and Liberty, etc.

And way out south in Olathe.


D.