Chapter 11 The original meaning of Spanish vagabonds

one Every city will have a theme, which is often represented by a central street.Zungu?Is it innovation?Is it Yishan?Is it by the sea?Is it thick soil?Is Canton? The theme of Barcelona is very clear, it is vagrancy. The street in the most important part of the city is called Street of the Vagabonds, and it is called simply and neatly.Its official name should be La Rambla, which few people know. I never get tired of shopping on this street. I would go shopping with my friends first, but it was not enough, and then I would go shopping slowly by myself.The partners also found some, and led them one by one. As a result, they walked back and forth countless times.So we made an appointment to come back after dinner to see what it looks like at night, and the worst thing is to visit it all night.

The content of this street is nothing else, that is, homeless people from all over the world are here to perform art and sell goods, show off all kinds of tricks, and use all kinds of minds. It is really beautiful and fun. I also thought about it, the commercial streets in the world are nothing more than performing arts and selling goods, which are commonplace, why is this place so attractive? First of all, there is a perfect harmony here, and there is no distinction between subject and object.There is no distinction between natives and foreigners, Spaniards and foreigners, Orientals and Westerners, all are vagabonds, and therefore there is no distinction between sellers and buyers in the strict sense.This seamless yet unfamiliar atmosphere is intoxicating; secondly, there is an artistic atmosphere here.Due to the constant flow, there will be no territory, no control, let alone mergers and monopolies.Most of the sellers are not real businessmen, they are walkers of yesterday and tomorrow, just because they are short of money today, they are making a little noise here.The main thing is not to make a fuss about funds and commodities, but craftsmanship and acting skills, so it is connected with art, glamorous and full of tricks, just like a festival; third, there is a civilized order shrouded here.I don’t know when the norm was formed. Everything that appears here must be clean, elegant, polite, and beautiful.This makes it a boundary line with our common hustle and bustle, and has the quality of international tourism, making people feel relaxed and comfortable every step of the way.

These characteristics, it seems to me, all embody the qualities of the best vagabonds in the world.Their ability to dissolve, ability to make a living, broaden their minds, and self-control demeanor materialize into a promenade of group personality, bustling with people.In fact, this is also the training school for all travellers. I have always believed that, except for a few fugitives and deceived people, the normal sense of traveler is always a relatively good group in the world.If they don't have particularly healthy emotions and bodies, why leave the greenhouse of life they have already adjusted to accept the long and strange torture of time and space?There may be accidents every day, and you need to face the unknown all the time. Many problems surpass your mental reserves, and a lot of tests are related to life and death. If you don’t have a relatively sound personality, you can only return halfway.

According to my own experience, I have almost never met a modern wanderer who likes to travel far, is extreme, stubborn, gloomy, and aggressive.On the contrary, if those study literati who talk about morality and despise the world have to take some kind of group trip, most of them can’t even pass the trivial issues such as who will carry the luggage, who will eat first, and who should pay. And scattered.Vagabond, a word that they ridicule deeply, is easier said than done!Some people confine their lives to spying on each other, guessing and harming each other, while others release their lives to the earth, the sky, the distant mountains and the sea.Therefore, in my eyes, the Avenue of the Vagabonds in Barcelona, ​​​​Spain, is also the Avenue of the Open, the Avenue of the Noble.

two The east section of Vagabond Avenue is a place where wandering painters from all over the world hold activities.Painters set up easels to paint portraits of passers-by, some were realistic, some were cartoons, and the business of cartoons was better.There are two reasons for this. One is because the comics are interesting, and they laugh out loud once they are drawn, which makes the traveling companions very happy, making fun of each other and turning it into a game; , No one is too lazy to sit on the side of the street for hours to be carefully depicted by realistic painters and judged by onlookers.

The best painters among realistic painters must be those Chinese painters.When they set up a stall there, they compared all the other realist painters around to a very embarrassing situation.In the setting sun, the black eyes stared at the drawing paper and drew the outline with a brush stroke. The strokes were precise and mysterious, which made the passers-by who stopped around hold their breath, forming a peaceful atmosphere that was not commensurate with the whole street.A few paces away, the bearded European painters, who were particularly artist-like, were completely ignored, and they glanced enviously from time to time.

This gave us an inexplicable sense of pride, and we were afraid of disturbing the atmosphere and dared not ask.After a painting was finished, our two young ladies greeted the Chinese painter softly in Chinese, expecting to feel the excitement of meeting compatriots in a foreign land, but unexpectedly, the painter just pulled the corners of his mouth lightly when he heard it, which was regarded as a return of greetings, even his eyes were closed. Did not move over.One is like this, and so is the other. There must be some reason for this, it is impossible to speculate. I only know that wandering is a kind of farewell, and the reasons for saying goodbye can be expressed in words, while others are difficult to express.Most of the real vagabonds belong to the latter, and they are forced to express themselves, but they are just prevarication.Don't want to prevaricate, of course keep silent, hold the corner of the mouth, it is polite.

three The middle section of the Street of the Vagabonds in Barcelona is a place for performing artists.Some are doing live sculptures, and some are performing comic sketches. There are real-life sculptures in many cities in Europe. Because people are used to seeing ordinary sculptures, they have formed a visual inertia. When they suddenly see that these sculptures are a little strange, they will always be surprised and excited.Later, I saw it a lot, and I was no longer surprised, but sometimes because the shape and color are really similar to ordinary sculptures, I would smile and look at it for a while each time.

A few years ago, real-life sculptures appeared on the streets of Shanghai. Some young people were experimenting with performance art, and many of my students also participated. Unfortunately, the novelty attracted a large number of onlookers, causing traffic jams and being discouraged.The real sculpture here is not an experiment, but a show.Many pedestrians will take a photo with the sculpture side by side, and the sculpture will hold hands and shoulders with you, which is quite interesting to take.When you're done shooting, you throw some money into the hat in front of your feet. Some tourists are stingy, thinking that instead of standing side by side and shaking hands with you, I just stand by the side and ask you to take a photo as a street view, so you don’t have to pay, right?Who told you to stand in my background?This kind of candid photographer often succeeds elsewhere, but it is a bit of a problem on the street of the homeless in Barcelona.As soon as the shutter is fired, the sculpture is vigilant. When it sees the back of a young lady leaving quickly, it will jump off the base to catch up.So, a golden statue of an Egyptian pharaoh is chasing and calling a red-faced blonde girl, and a white Greek stone sculpture is blocking an Asian lady with black hair and a black shirt. cheer.

Fortunately, both gold sculptures and stone sculptures are smiling, and there is no condemnation in their tone, just for fun: Miss, can I take another photo with you?Of course the lady quickly gave the money, and after accepting the sculpture, she was very polite: Actually, there is no need. There was only one performance that I couldn't understand.A gorgeous coffin, the lid was opened, and inside lay an actor with make-up in a death pose, with thick tear stains painted on his face.Hanging from the coffin was a piece of paper with a line of verse written in Spanish that I suspected was a fragment of some Shakespeare play, but which play?After thinking for a long time, I couldn't align.Sitting next to the coffin was a woman, apparently the actor's wife. There was a leather bag under her feet, which contained a lot of coins dropped by passers-by.

Judging from the actor's breathing state, he was obviously asleep.Asleep and able to make more money than the bouncing buskers, apparently because of the scenarios he set up.What is this scene?You have to read the Spanish verse to understand it. Four The east end of Vagabond Avenue leads directly to the Mediterranean Sea. After shopping and tired, I wanted to enjoy some fresh air, so I walked towards the seaside. The seaside is a square with a tall tower in the middle, reaching straight into the clouds.At the bottom of the tower, there are statues of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel. They sit in a dignified posture, with a serene expression, and they look like they are doing great things with determination.When it is said that it is the bottom, people still have to look up.After looking up, they looked up again, and they clearly saw a standing statue on the top of the tower. Who could this be?Even the majestic king and queen are guarding him and serving him in such a low position. Could it be that he is God? Clouds drifted around him, and he ignored them completely, only raised his head and looked into the distance.The distance is full of the mighty blue waves of the Mediterranean Sea, and his gaze completely crosses the Mediterranean Sea, sharp and vague. I guessed right away, it could only be him, Columbus. I asked, sure enough. I was excited when I knew it was him, and walked around the tower with my head raised.Suddenly, I found that there is a door on the bottom side of the tower to enter. Only after entering, I found out that there is also an elevator that can reach the top of the tower. The tower is not big, so the elevator should be very small. If you stretch your head, you can take two people, but they have to stand very tightly.This elevator seems to be very old, it is not a popular high-speed elevator, and it takes a long time to go up.It would be very embarrassing to stand closely with a stranger in a short period of time without talking to each other, so I hurried out to find our partner.I was overjoyed to see Wendia soon, and asked her to take the elevator up together, and her interest was even higher.It is said that it has reached the top of the tower, but in fact, the end point is still a little away from the feet of Columbus.There is a circle of small windowsills that can only accommodate people.At this moment, the wind is strong, the body of the tower trembles, there is no support around, and the solitary pole is very scary.Wen Diya is usually not afraid of heights, but today she dared not stand up or look down, so we quickly came down. Above I have seen the overall situation.This Columbus Tower is in a straight line with the Street of the Vagabonds, so this navigator has become the leader of all the vagabonds on the street.In other words, he is the number one wanderer here. In fact, it's not just here.He was the biggest homeless man in the world. In order to fight for wandering, he wandered first, looking for support among the governments of various countries. The ones who supported him were the royal couple squatting at his feet, and then he really went to sea. No one has walked this road, and he has only heard it from others.But he took "Marco Polo's Travels" with him, yearning for China. He discovered a continent and entered history.But he didn't know until his death what continent he discovered. Thinking of this, I suddenly realized what is the nature of wandering.Columbus made it clear: don't care about the feet, only care about the front. This is also the declaration of the Street of the Vagabonds. With him in front, we are assembled.The whole street became his follower, so the street also entered the sculpture, which became the performance art behind the main sculpture. five From Columbus, I understood another master in Barcelona: Gaudí. I didn't know much about Gaudí before.What shocked me was his achievements in building the Sagrada Familia. He was only thirty years old when he took on the project, and it took forty-four years to create a facade.Two weeks before the façade's completion celebration, he died in a car accident at the age of seventy-four. To this day, exactly another seventy-four years have passed, and his students are continuing to make it, but it has not yet been completed.In this regard, the citizens of Barcelona were anxious and petitioned the municipal authorities, hoping to see this church in their lifetime.So the municipality decided to speed up the pace, and it is estimated that it will be completed in twenty years. So, it has been 148 years since the church was built, and it will be 168 years in another 20 years. This time account Gaudi will not calculate, he just builds, not asking about the time. And yet, it was this weird and grandiose way of behaving that reminded me of the nature of the wanderer, not concerned with what's under his feet, only what lies ahead. As an outstanding architectural genius, Gaudí mastered and invented a variety of measurement techniques precisely and boldly, but for him, these are just specific means, not the overall itinerary.He gave the overall itinerary to time, to the unknown, and to fate.If he plans this church precisely, step by step, and completes it on time, he will be a satisfactory architect, but he is not like this. Once he starts, he will make new discoveries from time to time, and there will always be a lot of creative urges every day when he gets started. He no longer knows where his feet will take him, let alone when he will be able to take him. You can blame him for extending the construction period, expanding investment, and breaking the contract, but you can't bear to blame him if you take a closer look, because he is so focused on every step and never slacks off.His demeanor and past achievements have brought widespread trust, so people encouraged him to go as he pleases, no longer pressing the construction period, no longer asking about the route, but only admiring his tame demeanor.As a result, he also rose from an architect to a vagabond. Of course, the one hundred and sixty-eight-year project could not be completed in his lifetime.He finally passed away. If people quickly deal with the aftermath and finish the project, it seems that they have fulfilled their last wish, but they do not understand his wandering spirit.Fortunately, his students understood him, and continued to grope and sway forward after him, neither rushing nor rushing, not catching up, and it has not finished so far, which is admirable. What makes me even more gratified is that the students did not completely follow the style of the facade he had built, but completely presented another style of the times, which indicated that they wandered from the end of the teacher. When wandering again, you can't draw a straight line after the teacher's end, but you have to invest your own life a little bit of grinding.I think Gaudí would be satisfied with the choice of the students. What he ultimately hopes to continue is not the church, but wandering. I visited the construction site of that church for a whole day.As you can imagine, even from an airplane, this is a horrifying image.Surrounded by densely packed neat streets, they suddenly spread out to make way for it.Gaudí's masterpieces are like spiritual peaks, strange trees, and fairy caves.The follow-up project has been densely covered with scaffolding, continuing Gaudí's full creative drunkenness and departing from him, constructing a new greatness with straight lines and clean deformation, and completing the worship and protection of Gaudi in a rebuttal way , At the same time wrapped Gaudi and embarked on their wandering road. From this, I also deeply admire the citizens of Barcelona. It took more than 140 years for them to become anxious. This is how tolerant and patient they are.Today's anxiety is not about complaining about Gaudí and his students, but about their own limited lives. They want their lives to bear the fruits of a hundred years of wandering.The municipality responded for twenty years, also out of the same mentality.No one can tell how many years it will take. Since this city has tolerated it for more than a hundred years, it has long been used to waiting as enjoyment. With this church, with the tacit understanding of Gaudí, his students and citizens, there is sufficient evidence and reason to turn the theme of the city of Barcelona into wandering. Why don't the citizens refer to Barcelona as the city of the Expo and the city of the Olympics according to the concept of honor of other cities, but why do they call themselves the city of Gaudí?The International Exposition and the Olympic Games have already been successfully completed under the attention of the whole world, but Gaudí has ​​not even finished a church. Such a naming seems absurd, but there is no objection. In order to make up for my previous ignorance of Gaudí, this time I tracked almost every footprint he left in the city.Inquire carefully, question step by step, and if you hear something, go immediately.Finally, I have a deeper connection with this wanderer. He remained unmarried all his life, and even in his old age, he dressed his residence like a fairy tale world.Every chair, every table, every mirror, as long as it can be squeezed by human hands, he will squeeze it and never let it go.What he avoids the most is routine and stereotypes, so every time he does something, he escapes from routine and stereotypes, and even a chair and a table enter a wandering. The buildings he designed are very like honeycombs dripping with honey. I think he must have a kind of recognition of bees at this time, keeping honey everywhere and inhabiting everywhere, but everything is for tomorrow's flying.Columbus wandered in the sea, he wandered in the air. Gaudí died in a car accident in 1936. At that time, there was a lack of image media. Passers-by did not know who the old man fell to the ground, so he was sent to the hospital, but the rescue failed and he was sent to the morgue. They could not find it in his clothes room. to any sign of his identity.However, a few days later, the city of Gaudi finally found that Gaudi could not be found, so he panicked and searched everywhere. Finally, the whole city sighed and knew the truth. When people came to his former residence and looked at the beehive where he lived every day, they found that his bed was so small. At this point it seemed that everyone finally realized that this single man was going out every now and then and had to sleep in a camp bed.