Virtual Flaneurism

“So I want to tell you about this sweet moment I had here in South Africa, this tiny little moment that I will probably remember longer than I remember anything that happens at the World Cup. But I’m just not sure I can convey it. Isn’t it just like that for the sweet little moments in our lives? Why is it that I so clearly remember sitting next to my father at Cleveland Municipal Stadium and watching him drink a beer out of a waxed paper cup (my father almost never drank beer — it seemed so exotic then) when I can’t remember the name of my sixth grade teacher? Why is it I can remember stumbling out into the white-hot sunlight after the movie ended, holding my mother’s hand as we stumbled through the parking lot looking for the car when I can’t remember what movie we saw? Why is it I can remember shakily walking back and forth in a dark nursery, whispering into my baby daughter’s ear to go to sleep already when I can’t remember my hotel room number? Why do these little memories that would seem so ordinary to anyone else — so ordinary to me even — animate the mind?”

- Joe Posnanski, Don’t Need No Starbucks