City life is a lark, a mystery, and a quest to those who are open to its energies, emergencies, and ecstasies.
Victor Hussenot uses Paris for his philosophical musings and poignant observations on its people and urban spaces.
He is a talented graphic designer whose visual images in this astonishing book are bold and poetic.
In "The Prologue," he notes that "Each of us sees the city in our own way." So far, so good. "From the rift between sleep and waking bursts of light, the mind's eye is set free … the invisible is revealed."
As we pound the pavement of the city's sidewalks our spirit becomes attuned to the presence of others and the wonders that can be seen and revered by "the mind's eye."
All cities also provide us with an incredible number of memories to revisit and to revise as we see fit.
Paris and other urban centers not only enable us to be memory-makers but also meaning-makers. The walker ask questions: "Does the place I'm searching for in this maze of a city really exist?" Has he held a particular coin before?
We are, like the walkers in The Spectators, intrigued by the unknown and the familiar, the brightness of day and the darkness of night, the thrills and the boredom of the metros, and the joy and the sadness that the city rouses in our souls and in our consciousness.
Through these picture stories, we can see that "Measured against our lifetimes, all matter – whether living or inert – is a mirror."
