Strolling through the (post)modern city: Modes of being a flaneur in picture books

The city and the urban condition, popular subjects of art, literature, and film, have been commonly represented as fragmented, isolating, violent, with silent crowds moving through the hustle and bustle of a noisy, polluted cityspace. Included in this diverse artistic field is children’s literature—an area of creative and critical inquiry that continues to play a central role in illuminating and shaping perceptions of the city, of city lifestyles, and of the people who traverse the urban landscape. Fiction’s textual representations of cities, its sites and sights, lifestyles and characters have drawn on traditions of realist, satirical, and fantastic writing to produce the protean urban story—utopian, dystopian, visionary, satirical—with the goal of offering an account or critique of the contemporary city and the urban condition. In writing about cities and urban life, children’s literature variously locates the child in relation to the social (urban) space. This dialogic relation between subject and social space has been at the heart of writings about/of the flâneur: a figure who experiences modes of being in the city as it transforms under the influences of modernism and postmodernism. Within this context of a changing urban ontology brought about by (post)modern styles and practices, this article examines five contemporary picture books: The Cows Are Going to Paris by David Kirby and Allen Woodman; Ooh-la-la (Max in love) by Maira Kalman; Mr Chicken Goes to Paris and Old Tom’s Holiday by Leigh Hobbs; and The Empty City by David Megarrity. I investigate the possibility of these texts reviving the act of flânerie, but in a way that enables different modes of being a flâneur, a neo-flâneur. I suggest that the neo-flâneur retains some of the characteristics of the original flâneur, but incorporates others that take account of the changes wrought by postmodernity and globalization, particularly tourism and consumption. The dual issue at the heart of the discussion is that tourism and consumption as agents of cultural globalization offer a different way of thinking about the phenomenon of flânerie. While the flâneur can be regarded as the precursor to the tourist, the discussion considers how different modes of flânerie, such as the tourist-flâneur, are an inevitable outcome of commodification of the activities that accompany strolling through the (post)modern urban space.

Application of well log tomography to the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, Michigan Basin, USA

The Michigan Basin is located in the upper Midwest region of the United States and is centered geographically over the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It is filled primarily with Paleozoic carbonates and clastics, overlying Precambrian basement rocks and covered by Pleistocene glacial drift. In Michigan, more than 46,000 wells have been drilled in the basin, many producing significant quantities of oil and gas since the 1920s in addition to providing a wealth of data for subsurface visualization. Well log tomography, formerly log-curve amplitude slicing, is a visualization method recently developed at Michigan Technological University to correlate subsurface data by utilizing the high vertical resolution of well log curves. The well log tomography method was first successfully applied to the Middle Devonian Traverse Group within the Michigan Basin using gamma ray log curves. The purpose of this study is to prepare a digital data set for the Middle Devonian Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, apply the well log tomography method to this data and from this application, interpret paleogeographic trends in the natural radioactivity. Both the Dundee and Rogers City intervals directly underlie the Traverse Group and combined are the most prolific reservoir within the Michigan Basin. Differences between this study and the Traverse Group include increased well control and “slicing” of a more uniform lithology. Gamma ray log curves for the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones were obtained from 295 vertical wells distributed over the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, converted to Log ASCII Standard files, and input into the well log tomography program. The “slicing” contour results indicate that during the formation of the Dundee and Rogers City intervals, carbonates and evaporites with low natural radioactive signatures on gamma ray logs were deposited. This contrasts the higher gamma ray amplitudes from siliciclastic deltas that cyclically entered the basin during Traverse Group deposition. Additionally, a subtle north-south, low natural radioactive trend in the center of the basin may correlate with previously published Dundee facies tracts. Prominent trends associated with the distribution of limestone and dolomite are not observed because the regional range of gamma ray values for both carbonates are equivalent in the Michigan Basin and additional log curves are needed to separate these lithologies.

Barnum Ave. Michigamme City

Portion of stereocard

Panoramic view of the city of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw Co. Michigan, 1880

Publication information: Madison, Wis. : J.J. Stoner [1880}

Dexter (Mich.) businesses and residences, ca. 1874

Top: Res. of Bernard Keenan, Sec. 14 Northfield Tp. Mich. Bottom left: Frederick Jaeger, City Bakery ... Dexter, Mich. Bottom Center: Res of the Hon. C.S. Gregory, Dexter, Mich. and Evarts & Co. Propirs. of Dexter & Scio Mills ... Dexter, Mich. Bottom right: Res. and store of W.F. Schlanderer ... Dexter, Mich. Publication information: Chicago, Ill. : Everts & Stewart, 1874.

Ann Arbor (Mich.) residence and businesses, 1874

Left to right: Res. of Wm. P. Brown, Sec. 6, Ann Arbor, Mich.; J.G. Miller, Manufacturer of sash, doors, blinds, mouldings, scroll work &c. ... Ann Arbor, Mich.; Ann Arbor Steam Planing Mill , Bracket, Scroll & Fancy Sawing, cor. of North & Fifth Sts., Ann Arbor, Mich. (na8635); Marble Works & Res. of Anton Eisele, the largest marble works in Washtenaw Co. Mich.; City Market, G.F. Gwinner, cor. of Fourth & Washington Sts., Ann Arbor, Mich.; L.C. Risdon, 31 South Main St., Ann Arbor, Mich. (na8635; na6707). Publication information: Chicago, Ill. : Everts & Stewart, 1874.

Manchester, Mich. residences and businesses, ca. 1874

Left to right: Res. of Geo. W. Hoy, Manchester, Mich.; Res. of G.R. Palmer, Manchester, Mich.; Res. of J.D. Van Duyn, Exchange St. Mich.; Res. of W.H. Pottle, Exchange Place, Manchester, Mich., cash dealer in dry goods, small wares, gents furnishing goods &c.; Res. & brick yard of Wm S. Carr, Manchester, Mich.; C.Lehn, dealer in groceries, provisions, notions &c., Manchester, Mich.; Wm. Kirchgesser, prop'r of Manchester City Bakery & wholesale & retail dealer in crackers, fine ornamental cakes, confectionery &c., Manchester, Mich.; Store & Res., Bridgewater Station, by Henry Guthardt & Sons. Publication information: Chicago, Ill. : Everts & Stewart, 1874.

North half the city of Ann Arbor published by Everts and Stewart [plat] [west one-half]

Scale 400 ft. per inch; drawn & compiled by F. Krause, C.E. Ann Arbor, Mich.Publication information: Chicago, Ill. : Everts & Stewart, 1874.

North half the city of Ann Arbor published by Everts and Stewart [plat] [east one-half]

Publication information: Chicago, Ill. : Everts & Stewart, 1874.

City of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw Co. Michigan surveyed and published by Henry Hart

Cadastral map showing land ownership and buildings. Includes inset of Phoenix block of subdivision of block 1 south, range 4 east. "Miller's Lith., N.Y." Hand colored; 77 x 104 cm.