The Vagabond Eventby Jack WaineAbout4The EventDepending on the criteria performed by the space onto the participant, a history arises to inform one on the purpose and context of the space. In a natural landscape, where change is contin-uos the nomad is riding a wave of green (Reiser 212). The city, a bourgeois paradise, is central and self-revolving, however it, unlike nature, offers a radical change in social landscape. The vagabond in nature is stationary, [nomads] stay still relative to the greening of the landscape (Reiser 212); the vagabond in the city, as a bourgeois outcast, must constantly come into contact with the radically changing social landscape. How can the vagabond of the city stay still while moving?Though the vagabond is not the nomad, they are the response, culturally, to the city. They are the wonderers dictated by anti-judiciary, idler, means. In a way the vagabond diverges from society and simultaneously is able to understand it. However, it is not the vagabond who inficts onto society, it is the societal pressures themselves that create disruption or impudence within the system. It is an inherint bourgeois malpractice. Thus, the vagabond is regarded as hostile. The society that the vaga-bond is apart of refects its pressures of the vagabond, which, in turn, refects onto itself: creating a reactionary system in which dictates the vagabonds path: as they are aware and enacting within the societal infrastructure, devoid of the superstructure.Critical questions and analysis regarding the landscape can be raised when accounting for the path, holistically. The city is an experimental ground and the path is a stationary one, as dictated by the progression of social and spatial contingenciesThe process will be searching for this path, the exploration of it, and the analysis of results. However, it will also focus on, not just the experience or the result, but the driving forces that made the path inherent.5The WorkThere are some very obvious connections between the class, HMS 103b-05, and this project, The Vagabond Event. The idea of vagabond has been a prevalent focus behind some of the readings done throughout the semester, Kristin Ross The Emergence of Social Space where she discusses the birth of the vagabond, and what the vagabond means for reconsidering the foundational society. Alongside, Etel Adnans work sits as a codifcation for social documentation of the traveller. Her let-ters present a deep insight onto the culture she is currently residing in, while simultaneously provid-ing herself with cognitive refection. She strongly can discuss the social qualities of a space. The event is an attempt to participate in Adnans poetics, but from a self-refective view of the space on itself; it is as if the space is doing what Adnan does to herself. The event tries to document and provide a social systemization that is apparent through the rhetoric and structure of the space, like that of the flm Sans Soleil. However, I tried to incorporate the mentality of an observer, a travel-ler, who moves throughout the space, taken events sequentially, refecting and then moving forward. The contextual build up is a structure which helps to both perform, and to understand the event. Similar to Ross use of Rimbaud, I use several different poets and works in order to understand the vagabond. It is a discussion of the parameters behind the vagabond. Finally I am anthologizing quotation and poetry in order to create this foundation. I attempt to use few of my own prejudices while writing, and when I do I attempt to make them known. This al-lows the reader to understand input of work and correlation of texts. I use a sectional method of writ-ing and layout (independent essays) so the reader is the one to draw conclusions between the essays and the referenced texts. Building Context9The Etymology of VagabondThe vagabond: an old French word stems from the latin vagary which means to wander. Bond stems from bundus which is a gerundive suffx to vagary. Gerundive meaning its in the future pas-sive participle. Vagary is a derivative form of the latin word vagari which has evolved into the modern word vague. Thus the wandering of the vagabond is vague. In Catalan vaga actually means strike as in a workers strike. This distinction between vaga as vague and vaga as an act of impudence against some authority or governing body for the acquisition of freedom appears to be based on the time of adoption. The Catalonians must have taken the word vaga from the French vagabond rather than the Latin vagari, as the meaning is similar to the cultural history of the vagabond. Portuguese vaga has a much more diverse meaning: wave, opening, vacancy. The vaga refers to the lack of or more specifcally, the freedom to as in the freedom to occupy. A certainty between all the vagas is the reference to space.To wander is an act of vague spa-tial movement or direction. Vaga is the intangible space of the free, it has no cause, no direction, no purpose; it is in the process of freedom, free space. The inhabitant of said space is without an occu-pation, is without a confne, and without sententiousness. The occupier of the vaga is not bond.Bond though stemming from bundus, is more related to bondage or bond than just being a gerundive. Bond is thought of as attached, affxed, adhered, etc and as a legal vow or oath. Bondage meaning enslavement, the vagabond is ironically the antonym to it. When thought of it psychologi-cally, the inherent bondage we form to the everyday or to the typical life could be called vague in the vagabond: vaga-bondage, or vaga-bond: a vague attachment; though the vagabond is thought to be free, in a society mitigated by bonds, both physically and psychologically, to have little sense of them: for them to be vague, is not far from being free. More insightful even is the old English etymology of bond, which comes from bonda meaning householder or dweller. So the vagabond is a vague dwell-er.A vague dweller is not stagnant; to the society the dweller is impermanent and has no offcial home. They are not particularly concerned or anxious of their current unsettled behavior, they are not attempting to inhabit, while simultaneously not attempting to not inhabit. It is unclear and un-certain, and they dwell with little reason to do so.Vega is a Catalan word meaning large plain or valley, typically fertile It could be considered the vagabond is roaming through the vega10Why the nomad doesnt move: the nomad remains stationary with respect to the gradient of greening -Reiser and Umemoto Atlas of Novel Tectonics, pg 21311The Nomad, the Gypsy and the VagabondThe nomad has a particular quality to it that is, by default, inherently opposed to western cul-ture. The nomad is an actor of the land. Playing out the choreography set by nature the nomad lives by his/hers cattle. The land must be fertile and they must live where it is fertile so that they can sus-tain their food and clothing. The fundamental disassociation the nomad has with the infrastructural world of capital is twofold: frstly, the nomad is impermanent, no market or capital structure can be founded, no jurisdiction created, as a market is static, whereas the nomad is anything but. Secondly, the nomads possessions are those of necessity. The nomad, as an impermanent dweller, carries with him/her only what is needed, no consumption or consumer structure can be erected. The only com-modity the nomad carries is that which not only dictates the dwelling pattern, but alongside is the creation of the nomad; once the cattle is matured it is used as clothing, food, dwelling, and the com-modity is used as a method to buy what the nomad is unable to make available to himself/herself.The nomad is the furthest method of living from that of the superstructure: not a city, as capital calls for, the commune, as Marxism calls for, the disorder, as anarchism calls for, or complete oppressive order, as totalitarianism calls for. The nomad lives in coalescence with nature, with what is and what is fundamental.Though the gypsy can subsequently be thought of as a nomad, I will propose the gypsy as hav-ing volition. Unlike the nomad who is a part of nature, the gypsy can act on ones own accord; work and leisure are isolated from one another. The gypsy lives within a capital structure where commodity exists as basis, thus the gypsy must therefor work.Alongside being a semi, though reluctant, work-ing class, gypsies have a distinct commonality: they speak Romanian. Thus, gypsies can be catego-rized as wandering workers who speak the same language, and traditionally come from the same area of Europe. The gypsy has a nationality, a language, and an occasional job. The gypsy is an integration of the nomad into society: one who still wants the ability to roam, but has integral characteristics of a social being. The gypsys volition is the ability to go within society whenever it need be. Thus, the gypsy partakes in the superstructure, but doesnt deem it completely essential, if anything, they try to avoid it. The vagabond is the most reactionary; the vagabond is a complete member of the superstruc-ture: nationally, socially, judgmentally, and because of this the vagabond has no volition. What I mean by this is the vagabonds action are a reaction to the system it is a part of. The vagabond is a rebel and thus is reacting to the society it is a part of. The rebel deems it necessary to enact against a certain, and the vagabond is a rebel against the capital. The vagabond wanders for no purpose other than to wander; they are very easily manipulated and dictated by the outside society. The vagabond is hyperaware of the events outside of oneself, of the system it is involved in and in order to rebel ade-quately to it. The vagabond does not have a culture or language or system of its own. It is a collection of people from a multiplicity of cultures who are all acting in the same way, against their origins; by wandering the vagabond partakes in its endeavor. 12Vagabondby Arthur RimbaudPitiful brotherthe dreadful nights I owed him! "I've got no real involvement in the business. I toyed with his weakness, soit was my faultwe wound up back in exile and enslavement." He saw me as a loser, a weird child; he added his own prods. I answered my satanic doctor, jeering, and made it out the window. All down a landscape crossed by unheard-of music, I spun my dreams of a nighttime wealth to come. After that more or less healthy pastime, I'd stretch out on a pallet. And almost every night, soon as I slept, my poor brother would risedry mouth and bulging eyes (the way he'd dreamt himself!)and haul me into the room, howling his stupid dream. Truly convinced, I'd vowed to take him back to his primal statechild of the sunand so we wan-dered, fed on wine from the caves and gypsy bread, me bound to fnd the place itself and the code.13A Short History of the VagabondThe vagabond was created by the bourgeois as a categorization of those not participating in the bourgeois ideology. This defnition could then be attributed to penal measures, created as a system which the bourgeois could infict punishment on the ones outside of the ideology. The vagabond is a member of society who attempts to live outside of the protocols bounded to said society: The right to laziness (Ross). Laziness is only in the sense of the bourgeoise. By a strik-ing paradox, laziness, remaining outside the work order, is not standing still but moving fast, too fast (Ross, 53). In Kristin Ross book The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune she analyzes the young French poet, rebel and vagabond, Arthur Rimbaud. He was arduously against the bourgeois and that of work, Ill never learn to use my hands. Then, domesticity leads to far. (Rim-baud). Rebellion is adolescent (Camus, 81) and, Laziness, for Rimbaud, is a kind of absolute mo-tion, absolute speed that escapes the pull of gravity. (Ross, 54); Rimbauds youth and his rebellion against the gravity idealize laziness as the opposite of the bourgeois. Laziness then manifests itself into the spatial. The act of moving, of freeing oneself from the city, allowes an escape of the oppressive capital society. The vagabond was birthed from the rebellion of the static. Laziness was the movement of bodies, the reconsideration of spaces, and the freedom from vocation.As the vagabond released itself from society the defnition of purpose became slack. The vagabond had a self-imposed purpose, a self motivated task: no task whatsoever, as long as it is not attenuating the bourgeois grasp. As vagabonds relinquish themselves from bourgeois enslavement, the bourgeois implemented harsher punishment to any defectors: In 1764, [Le Tronse] published a memorandum on vagabondage: that hot-bed of thieves and murderers 'who live in the midst of society without being members of it", who wage a veritable war on all citizens', and who are in the midst of us 'in that state that one supposes existed before the establishment of civil society'.Against them, he demanded the most severe penalties (characteristically, he expressed surprise that one should be more indulgent towards them than to smugglers); he wanted the police to be reinforced, the mounted constabulary to hunt them down with the help of the popula-tion that suffered from their depredations; he demanded that these useless and danger-ous people should be 'acquired by the state and that they should belong to it as staves to their masters'; and if necessary one should organize collective round-ups in the woods to drive them out, and anyone making a capture should bepaid: 'A reward of ten pounds is given for anyone who kills a wolf.A vagabond is infnitely more dangerous for society' (Le Trosne, 1764, 8, 50, 54, 61-2). (Foucault, 88)The bourgeois saw the vagabond as the threat to their way of life. As the proletariat rise, the vaga-bond does so. The bourgeois didnt want this corruption of laziness and of freedom to refect onto their society, changing the mindset of its participants, thus the judicial system became obsessed with the punishment and rehabilitation of vagabonds.14The Vagabondby Robert Louis StevensonGive to me the life I love,Let the lave go by me,Give the jolly heaven aboveAnd the byway nigh me.Bed in the bush with stars to see,Bread I dip in the river -Theres the life for a man like me,Theres the life for ever.Let the blow fall soon or late,Let what will be oer me;Give the face of earth aroundAnd the road before me.Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,Nor a friend to know me;All I seek, the heaven aboveAnd the road below me.Or let autumn fall on meWhere afeld I linger,Silencing the bird on tree,Biting the blue fnger.White as meal the frosty feld -Warm the freside haven -Not to autumn will I yield,Not to winter even!Let the blow fall soon or late,Let what will be oer me;Give the face of earth around,And the road before me.Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,Nor a friend to know me;All I ask, the heaven aboveAnd the road below me. 15The Bourgeois VagabondThe vagabond is a creation of the bourgeois as a function to isolate, defne, and punish those attempting to not partake in the system, however, as the popularity and stigma of the vagabond grew, the bourgeois started to succumb to the fashion. A sort of bunburying, the bourgeois would take ad-vantage of the popularity of the vagabond to neglect their day-to-day activities. Robert Louis Steven-sons Apology for Idlers is able to surmise the totality of the bourgeois vagabondage, or idling. It is a life for the artist to paint, to fall in love, and to have the mind kept vividly alive. And though all these thoughts were apparent in Rimbaud, as the rebel, the idler is attempting for a nobler, more presti-gious affair. As the rebel is attempting to attain something it cannot because of the confnes of an oppressive society, the idler fnds opportunity.The idler attempts to further his freedom, he doesnt feel oppressed by his society, but rather intensifes his own personal liberations that are openly given to him: ideas of love and the romantic arts: The same bourgeois magic wherever your baggage sets you down (Rimbaud, Soir Historique), the bourgeois vagabond is a tourist. Tourists bring their preconceptions and ignorance with them wherever they go.The tourist identifes race, not as the vagabond who is a collective of races, but identifes singularly, Stevenson categorizes the British, the French, Amercians, and Mexicans, Amer-icans had been greedy like designing men, and the Mexicans greedy like children (Stevenson, 100). The true vagabond is a whole and sees everyone as a whole,not as the American or the Mexican. An Apology for Idlers is an attempt to manifest the bourgeois ideals in the idler to seem logical and pur-poseful. Done with wit and humor, the bourgeois vagabond prances off to the countryside.16The Importance of Being EarnestBy Oscar WildeAct 1Algernon:Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University. Tey do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.Jack:What on earth do you mean?Algernon:You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as ofen as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's ex-traordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.17Act 2Jack:Tis ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I suppose?Algernon:Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. Te most wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life.Jack:Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here.Algernon:Tat is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.Jack:Serious Bunburyist! Good heavens!18I've Decked the Topsby Harry KempI've decked the tops of fying carsThat leaped across the night;The long and level coaches skimmedLow, like a swallow's fight.Close to the sleet-bit blinds I've clungRocking on and on;All night I've crouched in empty carsThat rode into the dawn,Seeing the ravelled edge of lifeIn jails, on rolling freightsAnd learning rough and ready waysFrom rough and ready mates.19The HoboThe hobo culture of the 1920s was a product of the agriculture industry, which was season-al and migratory. "Farmers frst planted wheat, then sought afterwards men who could be detached from home moorings to shift from brief harvest to brief harvest, migrating hundreds of miles in follow-ing the ever ripening grain" (Allsop, 331). The worker had to travel hundreds of miles to work, though they had very little money. The hobo is similar to the nomad, but is focused on income and capital rather than the actual product produced.Kenneth Allsop in his book Hard Travellin'; the Hobo and His History looks at the tramp, who is a stationary beggar, as preemptive to the hobo, prior to the tramp travellling west, to the new frontier. This act of moving manifested into the tramp becoming the hobo, the new unemployed began riding the trains they had themselves manned, or whose tracks they had laid, or whose trucks they had flled. The tramp was in a hurry, and as he began to steal his lifts on the freights he began to turn himself into the hobo" (Allsop, 129). Though the hobo is search-ing for work initially, it becomes a contentedness with the act of travelling, moving, and the mobile. Thus, the hobo as a vagabond emerged. However, the fundamental difference between the vagabond as a hobo and the vagabond as a rebel is the initial state that created the vagabondage. Unlike the social and metaphysical rebellion of the prior vagabonds, the hobo was brought into being not by free will to act, but by economic failure and destitution. Resulting from being economical driven, shanty towns and impermanent shelters began to form in many western cities, as hubs of travel and work. The city became integral to the connection and communication of people. 2021The Inner CityThe inner city is defned by the area of the city with the oldest and poorest population.A third factor is necessary to understand the actual implications of the inner city: the highest density of minorities. The three are closely related in New York City.New York is an archetype for the capital city- one where the majority succeeds economically. Currently areas such as Harlem and the Bronx have the highest population under the poverty line as well as a large population of Hispanic people. Historically areas, such as the Bowery and Brooklyn, were also areas of poverty; however, the recent gentrifcation of these neighborhoods has altered the socio economic structure of the population. As the white middle class moves into an area, for a variety of reasons, they push the prior, lower class, out. Fashionable, or trendy, or the more recent hip, are reasons for the gentrifcation of a neighbor-hood; slowly as the middle class moves in they raise the cost of living in the neighborhood. With little to no former culture left in the area, isolated, and with the inability to afford rent, moving is the only option. The inner city is, thus, constantly changing and fuctuating, brought about by the culture of its residents, but controlled by the ruling class.The Event2425The Prologue11:30 Bedford Nostrand StationI wanted to wait until I was off the G-train to write this, after I had fnished my food. I waited 20 min for the G-train, which seems appropriate, ate my mikes hangover food: 2 eggs and cheese on a bagel and a coffee with milk, read a Seamus Heaney poem:Masons, when they start upon a building,Are careful to test out the scaffolding;Make sure that planks wont slip at busy points,Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.And yet all this comes down when the jobs doneShowing off walls of sure and solid stone.So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to beOld bridges breaking between you and meNever fear. We may let the scaffolds fallConfdent that we have built our wall: Seamus Heaney being one of my favourite poets: which was on the train: Poetry in Motion.Now Im writing quickly before the A train comes. I thought a lot about this. I need a new notebook. C-train.Im going into the city to tell you about the city, though I feel like I could ride the subway telling you about every stop, in between every stop and the people there: a sort of subterranean mitigation. This has been done before.Fulton Subway StationMouse in a maze I wanted to write something while I was walking between the C train and the 4 that refected the incoherent signage at Fulton. A man walking near me felt the same way. 12:05 86 St StationGot off the 4 train, sick of looking at Rock of Ages posters and it was cold. Also, the 4 was running local. 8 min wait.26The Bronx12:25 3rd Ave and 138th StThis is the frst stop of the 6 in the Bronx and the last stop of the 6. Lame attempt at the Bronx.12:30 Alexander Ave and 138th StNYPD precinct and a Church. I turn towards the tall buildings, city?27Alexander Ave and 141st StI stopped keeping time. Apprehension at what I will get. I turn toward a school in the middle of what seems to be government funded housing. Fallout shelter to kids playground.144th St and Willis AveI decided to follow the sirens28144th St and Brook AveIm moving in the opposite direction I thought Id be moving in. A lot of gardens. The relief bus. As I passed the relief bus I became overly paranoid about the people surrounding me, I started to list what I saw. Dominican Sisters. I woop that ass. Young parents and day drinking. 148th St and Willis Ave Main intersection. I think of Bukowskis description of skid row: I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future. I didnt like what I saw down there. Those men and women had no special daring or brilliance. They wanted what everybody else wanted. There were also some obvious mental cases down there who were allowed to walk the streets undis-turbed. I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely. I knew that I wasnt entirely sane. I still knew, as I had as a child, that there was something strange about myself. I felt as if I were destined to be a murderer, a bank robber, a saint, a rapist, a monk, a hermit. I needed an isolated place to hide. Skid row was disgusting. The life of the sane, average man was dull, worse than death. There seemed to be no possible alternative. Education also seemed to be a trap. The little education I had allowed myself had made me more suspicious. What were doctors, lawyers, scientists? They were just men who allowed themselves to be deprived of their freedom to think and act as individuals. I went back to my shack and drank . . . Bukowski Ham on Rye This is in reference to the relief bus and Dominican Sisters chapter. I am walking away29149th St and Third AveReligion, god and preaching. Many young men in red, many people with disabilities, window shop-pers, parents with kids. Im following the shoppers. Lincoln Hospital, I turn as the light changes, a fenced off garden. Im in the shade, wind against me. A large sign tells me to turn. Turn again towards to kids with similar stripped shirts. Im alone.30140th St and Canal PlIESI. Industrial area, walking toward the city, the smell is awful. 138th St and Park AveI head towards the signs that say George Washington BridgeCrossing the bridge into Manhattan. It is cool and few people cross.31135th St and Madison AveIt might rain Im worried. I walk faster.Manhattan32130th St and Madison Avebornbossentertainment@gmail.com D Hov 914 860 5580Photography internI was approached by Hov while taking a photo of a school yard. He was wondering what I was up to and what I did for a living. I answered his questions then he pitched me his internship idea: youd document everything we do. Choir academy125th St and Madison AveA lot of people turn, I turn.33ParkI take a break and listen to music.From here my pen ran out, which was okay, I had my camera and this experiment doesnt need to be written, I found writing and carrying around my notebook distracting anyways. 343536373839404142Works CitedBooksAllsop, Kenneth. Hard Travellin'; the Hobo and His History. 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