The Birth of the Flaneur

It was a cold Saturday morning in November 1928 when Mathieu stumbled out onto the rue Charlot, head still buzzing from the wine and conversations he’d spent with some artist friends in their apartment at number 54. The street was quiet, unlike Friday night when it seemed as the whole area was having a party, increasing the passion of their arguments for and against Surrealist values.

So much had been said, most of which Mathieu couldn’t recall & now he was alone on the street. He started walking.

The cafes of the Marais were slowly moving into life as the waiters unpacked the stacked chairs and prepared the tables for the few remote shadows that were roaming in the chilled air. Something felt different today, he felt apart from the world, he began analizing people as they passed by, studying their habits, their dress, their mannerisms, the speed they moved, and how they were or not interacting with their surroundings.

Mathieu took a seat at the Cafe Beaumarche and ordered a coffee, he suddenly realized what Breton had meant, the combinations of different things create the surreal, and those elements are around us everyday, you only need to step back a bit to see things in a different way and be surprised by what you’d always seen as normal is in fact quite bizarre.

He took out his notebook and started to write down what he was seeing and the thoughts he was having.

Later in his life he would note, Saturday 22nd November was the birth of the flaneur.