“The flaneur is not a reporter. Reporters are in the business of asking specific questions to which they require specific answers. The flaneur may entertain questions in the course of things, but overall he or she is in the business of negative capability. The flaneur must be alive to the entire prospect, to the ephemeral and perishable, as well as the immemorial; to things that ordinarily lie beneath notice, to minute changes and gradual shifts of fashion, to things that just disappear one day without anyone paying attention, to happenstance and accident and incongruity, to texture and flavor and the unnameable, to prevailing winds and counter-currents, to everything that is too subjective for professionals to credit. The flaneur must possess a sixth sense, possibly even a seventh and an eighth, must have an intuitive suss for things about to occur without warning and things that are subtly absent and things that are silently waving goodbye.”
— Luc Sante, “The Other Paris” text via http://egosumdaniel-od.tumblr.com