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epitome of incomprehensibility
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I like this. From the entry on "dérive" in David Macey's Dictionary of Critical Theory (for fun, I am reading all of it):
"The theory of psychogeography, which was never entirely serious, inspired the Situationists to make exquisite maps of cities like Paris by cutting up existing maps and reassembling the fragments [...] Although these maps are extremely beautiful, it is impossible to use them to navigate one's way about Paris, as the important sites are separated from each other with white spaces, and there are no directions to indicate how they can be crossed. The very strange walks through London recorded in Iain Sinclair's Lights out for the Territory (1997) are motivated by a similar theory of dérive and psychogeography."
Has anyone read anything by Iain Sinclair? I know I've heard the name. Oh, yes, and dérive means drift... to drift through the city and let it take you to the places you feel drawn to, psychogeography; seems like (non-seriously) the emo branch of surrealism. The idea reminds me of Louis Aragon's Paris Peasant, which I didn't finish - it would've been more interesting had I known Paris well, I think - or some parts of André Breton's Nadja.
(Nadja is another character who subverts the manic_pixie_dreamgirl type, I think. Not that it existed as such in 1928, though the idea of the woman as surrealist muse might have been a precursor.)
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