Fraternal greetings and welcome to The Flâneur, official website of La Société des Flâneurs Sans Frontières (Liverpool chapter).
An Open Forum for Anarcho-Absurdists, Revolutionary Sybarites, Alchemical Hazardistas and Urban Arcadians everywhere.
We hope you enjoy the site, and feel moved to contribute to it.
All articles, letters and other contributions may be addressed to
the.flaneur@XXXyahoo.co.uk (omitting the XXX).
New on the Flâneur: (Last update: 8th May 2008)
Coming soon, Earth, Wind & Fire exhibition. Click here. Gentrification of central Liverpool threatens bohemia! Rally to the Razz in its hour of need! Click here. The Flâneur calls on all its readers, members, friends, fellow travellers and allies to pledge, in whatever way they can, their full support for the Tibetans in their struggle against Chinese bullying and imperialism! Click here for our Tibet page. Boycott the Peking Olympics! Support the London Chap Olympics instead! Russia's entry for Weird Country of the Year Contest 2008. Click here. Forthcoming exhibition at Kitchen Gallery, click here. More branches of la SFSF are established- after Paris, Delhi, New York, Teheran, Tel Aviv, Dehradun, Geneva, now Ormskirk! Click here. Blucoat Chambers re-open at last!. Click here. New possibilities for Liverpolitan flanerie, click here. For reasons we cannot fathom, the Royal Court management took offence at the superlative collaboration between Retrosexual Burlesque and Homotopia on 1st November, and has parted company with the best Burlesque show in town to try to launch its own version.
But let connoisseurs of quality Burlesque be not down-hearted! A new venue is being arranged and the inimitable, ineffable Retrosexual Burlesque (click here) will dazzle again in the New year. Watch this space! An article by Paul du Noyer (one of our Spiffing Coves, see below) on William Roscoe, one of Liverpool's greatest sons, click here. New Twaddle in Opium Den
Including the Second International Talk like a Pilot Day! Click here. More correspondence from Teri T., our favourite New York flâneuse, click here. Calendrical Quiz
Every month The Rt. Hon. Sir Quincey Riddle, Q.C. sets another installment of his Calendrical Quiz. Prizes galore (winners all fixed and stitched up in advance of course - oddly enough one Quincey Riddle seems to win an inordinate number of times. Just goes to show what a legal education does for you). April installment now up. Degree in the arts of Flânerie enters its third triumphant year! Click here. Amorous Cat Bookshop re-opens on Lark Lane, see Places and Events New writing:
The Flâneur partially achieves one of it fondest dreams – if not to be a publisher itself, then at least to provide publicity for promising new publishers and writers. Visit Library or click here to see what we have found so far. Solidarity with The Beard Liberation Front!! Documents of The Society of The Crowned Heads of Ruritania come to light! Includes genealogy smuggled out from Bibliotheque Nationale. Copy to Henry Lincoln.... Duelling Cards
Stop press: Flaneur calling-cum-duelling cards circumnavigating the globe!
Huge prizes to be won! Free Tibet
The Flâneur offers its heartiest support to all organisations and movements committed to liberating Tibet from Chinese domination.
|
Altogether Spiffing Coves |
| The Chap | The webular presence of the Central Organ of Anarcho-Dandyism.
Irrefutable filmed evidence of derring-do and goings-on at the 2007 Chap Olympics, click here and here. |
| The New Sheridan Club | For sheer unadulterated style and class |
| The Last Tuesday Society | Evenings of Exquisite Loss and Decaying Beauty |
| Paul du Noyer | Liverpolitan music writer, founding editor of Mojo, co-founder of Q, Heat and The Word, author of Liverpool, Wondrous City (Virgin) [more than a history of Liverpool music, this is one of the great texts about the city itself, capturing it in all its amazing maddening glory] and all round good egg. |
| The Geovictwardians | Albion is an unforgettable sight at The Chap Olympics (see also their cinematic masterclass in top hole caddishness) |
| The Virtual Absinthe Museum | Everything there is to know about La Fee Verte (and instantly forget after the first glass) |
| Atlas Press | Purveyors of vintage Surrealism, 'Pataphysics, OULIPO and the like |
| The Arcades Project Project | Splendidly academic site (Manet cunningly disguised as Le Marquis de Vouvray) |
| Ready Steady Book | Finest literary website |
Il Dandy,
Dandysme and
Savoir-Vivre ou Mourir | Leading European sites on dandyism - allies, comrades and co-conspirators in the international struggle for wit, taste and sybaritic perfection. |
| Damnyoureyes | Lord Shuteye and his comrades at the 18th Century Society, committed against all the odds to face ”the tedious banality of the post-modern condition with the vigour and elegance of half-pay Victorian colonels" (a particularly impressive feat in the 18th century). |
By now the idea of the flaneur is well enough known in the English speaking world. The 19th century Parisian boulevardier, the bohemian, strolling the city, frequenting the cafes, digesting the urban spectacle, exemplified by Baudelaire (whose exquisite prose poem, Les Foules - The Crowds - is included, in a new translation, on this site), defined by Walter Benjamin as 'he who botanises upon the asphalt', has at last gained a foothold in Anglo-Saxon awareness.
No more need be said in explaining le flaneur and la flâneuse in themselves. However, perhaps a few words are required to explain this specific project.
In 1961, Maurice Gerodias of Olympia Press in Paris, bold publisher of such masterpieces as 'Tropic of Capricorn', 'Lolita', 'The Ginger Man', 'Story of O', 'Candy', 'Our Lady of the Flowers' and many others, launched a literary magazine entitled Olympia, a monthly publication which managed four issues in two years.
Inspired by this, a group of us gathered in Liverpool in early 1995, determined to launch our own organ, yclept The Flâneur, and to match or, if possible, even surpass Olympia's heroic record. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. In ten years not a single issue of our worthy publication saw the light of day.
Realising we were onto something, a small gathering in Arles, Provence, in August 2003, formally constituted itself as La Société des Flâneurs Sans Frontières (SFSF). In keeping with the bohemian spirit of flâneurie, we then did absolutely nothing about it for another two years, but now, finally, long awaited, The Flaneur at last makes its appearance, its top hat at a rakish angle, its goatee trimmed to perfection, plucking off its white gloves with an insouciant air.
Our aim (if that is not too strong a word), is primarily to provide a somewhat idiosyncratic guide to the cultural and artistic side of life in north west England, events, people, places and things in and around Merseyside, as Liverpool fast approaches its apotheosis as Capital of Culture 2008. Sister chapters elsewhere in Britain, as well as France and India, will be making their contributions, ensuring that, despite its principal focus on the Liverpool area, The Flaneur never degenerates into anything merely 'local'.
We offer free advertising to anyone and anything interesting, and welcome contributions - news, reviews, letters, original writing and art-work, objets trouvés, gossip, scandal, japes and wheezes, strange tales, home-made jam, etc.
Membership of this illustrious Société is determined by quality of contribution(s).
Once again, the address for any articles and contributions:
the.flaneur@XXXyahoo.co.uk (omit XXX)
De Vouvray,
on behalf of La Société des Flâneurs Sans Frontières (SFSF)
Oath of Allegiance and Rules of Membership
La Société des Flâneurs Sans Frontières Gallery
|
Showing all visitors to this site since 11th April 2007 |
