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There is something of �ڱ�â�Ա������ in Relph’s methods, or what he and Payne have called “power-dossing,” a tweak on the British slang for avoiding work by wandering around.

True to the casual, aimless nature of �ڱ�â�Ա������ — or casual idling — Elkin’s forays into street life in Paris, New York, London, Venice and Tokyo are interspersed with glimpses of the creative excursions of Virginia Woolf, Agnès Varda, Jean Rhys, George Sand, Martha Gellhorn and many other women who have dared to step boldly forth out of the shadow of comparatively freewheeling male �ڱ�â�Ա�ܰ�s.

It’s an experience specific to Baudelaire’s 19th-century �ڱ�â�Ա������ — strolling through the world as the world flows around you — but it should be familiar to anyone who’s watched a masked stranger float past their window.

There’s this – and there’s the delight of true �ڱ�â�Ա������: the ambulatory pursuit of chance encounters, overheard aperçus, and those little unrepeatable vignettes that constitute the never-ending drama of urban life.

But they provide an attractive backdrop for �ڱ�â�Ա������.