Cortázar first used the word "cronopio" in a 1952 article published in "Buenos Aires Literaria" reviewing a Louis Armstrong concert given in November of that year in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The article was entitled "Louis, Enormísimo Cronopio" ("Louis, Enormous Cronopio"). Cortázar would later describe in various interviews how the word "cronopio" first came to him in that same theater some time before this concert in the form of an imaginary vision of small green globes floating around the semi-deserted theater.