From: <A HREF="mailto:bmoretti@chariot.net.au">bmoretti@chariot.net.au</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:nettime-l@bbs.thing.net">nettime-l@bbs.thing.net</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)



http://www.chariot.net.au/~bmoretti/bobo_signs.php

Bobo Chalk Signs

There is a great web site at
http://www.worldpath.net/~minstrel/hobosign.htm that documents the
secret chalk signs used by "hobos" or homeless travellers in the USA
during times such as the Great Depression. Interesting enough, but this
has been picked up by moderns, vide:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/circuits/articles/20hobo.html
Real hobos don't use cellular phones. Recreational hobos, however, are
an increasingly wired breed. Once, Depression-era tramps scratched
symbols on train trestles to pass information to others looking for an
empty boxcar and a free ride. Now so-called yuppie hobos – who sneak
onto freight trains for adventure rather than out of economic
necessity – use scanners to monitor railroad frequencies and cellular
phones to talk with other hobos. They also trade information via more
than two dozen Web sites, as well as e-mail discussion lists and
newsgroups

http://www.blackbeltjones.com/warchalking/
Warchalking Collaboratively creating a hobo-language for free wireless
networking. …we hit upon the idea of creating a hobo language for
wireless access points. Find a node, and leave a chalk symbol for others
to find the node with a minimum of all that tiresome netstumbler
business.

All very interesting, but I wondered if this use of chalk signs as
markers for a hidden network of people could be extended further? Who
would be able to make a use for such signs? The answer came to mind
quickly ~ the Bobos.

Yes, those Birkenstock wearing, organic sour dough stuffed with
sun-dried tomato and brie chomping, inner city dwellers that plague the
modern metropolis. A mix of bourgeois and bohemian these types have the
superficial trappings of 'alternative' lifestyle such as Indian fabrics,
tattoos, Tibetan Buddhism and Permaculture gardens, but dig a little
deeper and the four wheel drives, stock portfolios and private school
educations begin to surface. I used to call them 'hippy nazis' but bobo
is a much better term.

So here they are, the secret signs that the 'ayleet' (say that with an
Australian accent) use to navigate their way from cafe to organic food
cooperative in the BMW.



–
ben moretti
mailto:bmoretti@chariot.net.au
http://www.chariot.net.au/~bmoretti