TUESDAY
hello world, me and bonnie had dinner w/trebor and deb last night
we had a good time, in spite of my antisocial ways - bob and deb chill me out
bonnie had got me one of his photos that i had fell in love w/for my bday
the lighthouse one that chill me out, (we got a nice bob gates collection on the walls)
trebor is not only a lodge brother of the mystic knights of the sea
trebor is one of the most consistent readers of this blog
will comment occasionally on things ive written
offer kudos and challenges
often when im talking here, im talking expressly to him, or one of
my other few regulars that i know about - my beloved regulators
thinking trebor will like this one, this one will impress him, make him smile, etc (conscious of when he wont approve too)
samesame the other few folk that i know surf this blog w/some regularity
i like to claim i dont write to please anybody but i do have folk that are my
audience, in my head im writing/communicating with them
speaking for them, speaking to them - my beloved regulators
i be thinking of my regulators as guerilla troops, soulwarriors, covert operatives out here playing
the hoodoo board of destiny and conjuring a new reality on the human condition - regulating
look like im the one they be regulating
im feeling fey today, in a strange space with my novel
finally finished the historical section (4 years maybe?) and now im back
in the contemporary section, last 3rd of novel
but i havent systematically focused on this section for 3, 4 years now
and ive got all these unformed ideas of what to do with
- jubilation highjohns struggles as hodooo sorceror and wouldbe prophet
- the human struggle to live a meaningful life
- his/my struggle to empower the african way of god
- to save the race and his/my crippling sense of defeat and perhaps redemption
- the struggles of my characters
making them authentic endgame progressions
critical scenes/dynamics that have to be brought to life
so they speak to folk beyond consciousness, disturb and transform them
make my literary vision manifest
and all these narrative games i want to play, just what is
the relationship between reality art destinywork and conjuration
everything else been setup
the endgame is where the novel dies or becomes luminous
showtime and i look at it and im lost
got to redo my outline, figure out how to take it home
so next couple of days outline and plow thru
no way in hell i can do this in 20 days
but thats not going to stop me from trying, lord
i do my best work under pressure
in the name of o killens - the great griot master of brooklyn
(took my boys to his grave in brooklyn, they helped me tend to his ground)
worked on my holybook last couple of days, which felt good,
birthday present to myself
got to catch up w/projects ive allowed to fall by the woodshed - family, holybook, manuscripts, palf, etc etc
have you checked out the website for the pan african literary forum yet - looking good if i do say so myself
but the forum itself is still up in the air - as you well know, getting
something like this off the ground is a major challenge
and the old gray organizer just aint what he used to be
we got commitments but we aint seen a check yet
and we have made all these commitments and we got large contingents
of students coming from kenya, senegal, southafrica, nigeria, congo - all over africa
gon be an amazing experience
a seminal moment in african world lit and culture
its fa, its destiny
we got commitments from the legends of african world lit - the potential of what can be is breathtaking
and we have decided that no matter what the show will go on, that we have to establish
a reputation for doing whatever we say we gon do
if it comes down to:
jeff allen - novel
mohammed n. ali - shortstory
arthur flowers - nonfiction
some ghanian woman poet - poetry
course if the money come thru we gon have all the folk on the website and more
if the money dont come thru we pay our own way and make it happen
hope you will be part of it
gon be a seminal moment
speaking of shows going on i got to go
i got to get that new outline done today
got to get rootwork.com back online today
so many projects, so little time
my love to you all
rdoc
FRIDAY
hello world, was going to move on and start a new post
but i believe i will stay in this one and set up the 101 talismans
but today a shout out to one of my favorite conjurors in all the land
ibeshe tchula, was googling about when her name came up and
i see she has redone her website, it was always aesthetically pleasing
and now is even more so - until the water is clear is her riff
Tidings:
Welcome to until the water is clear, a website designed to convey the many facets of my artistic expression. Ibeshe Tchula, a conjurer.
I am also Anna Beatrice Scott, a cultural/performance theorist I work in various media and modes, with a special emphasis on the kinetic. I enjoy producing investigative works that provoke further inquiry and performance. My focus is multiple for these pages, but I have posted this site with the desire to book more performances.lectures, workshops and now, workings.
As a conjurer, I am very interested in the old timey ways of wrapping one's mind around a situation to produce a solution or series of possibilities. Repetition. Cycles. Circles. Tides. Calling. Responding. Coding. Ciphering. Spelling. A lot of my work is influenced by or in discussion with sacred texts from many of my ancestral lines. I am hybrid, though easily recognized as a Black woman. I have come to understand myself as (minimally) Gaelic Afro Indian. You may laugh. It is a joke.
I particularly enjoy pushing the boundaries of race, racialism, racism with radical love. No one can know what's at the bottom of the sea, so who's to argue with the parameters of our existence?
Please dive in and swim around. If you know you belong here, in the flow of her darkness as it draws upon the hind leg of clarity, then click here,
for further instructions. Good tidings, one and all.
THURSDAY
hello world, sorry i been out of the loop
still recovering from my trip to the delta
and sekous death
aint no small thing you know, shifting the world a
little bit, better get a grip
urban music by sekou sundiata
been listening to sekous work, i think
this is my favorite - urban music - i hear you sekou
what up black you still black? . . .
i know you trying to be something else in your dreams
but you just keep coming back didnt you black, and more black and more black
'i understand trouble in the mind of blackness trouble in the mind of blackness
seeking the light of anything to explain the long reign of the upside down. . .'
went to the funeral saturday, big drama, they tried to keep it tight, so there was
all this dont tell nobody going on but surely they didnt think they could stop sekous
folk from showing up - cathedral st johns divine, folk i havent seen 10 15 20 years
they done him proud
folk was showing a lotta love
i can only hope ive earned that kind of love when its time for me to go
at some point ima do up what i want my service to be - forget that sad bit
i want a throw down, i want to rock the house
make a joyous noise - rickydoc checked out, gave it my best shot
a luta continua
'i wanna tell you how much we wanted to make reovlution
and in our yearning we learned that suffering aint noble and to struggle is a blessing'
listening to sekou now, he left a good body of work, but the one i love is that urban music,
i got some lyrics here for you, but reading them aint the same as hearing them
'we dreamed you black in your madness,
made you up out of poems and lies and words to live by
we ourselves was dreamed most likely by some slaves
whenever they got a little space they climbed into their heads and be free
when they close their eyes what did they see they saw you they saw me
ima miss sekou, gotta work sekou into my mythwork, he deserves some play
and apparently thats my role, determine who of my generation gets mythworked
into the destinical narrative
i got this initiative in rest for the weary, i believe
ive spoken on it before, where i annoint 101 hoodoo haints
historical and contemporary hoodoo destiny players
to be canonized - deified
and im thinking about my contemporaries, folk like sekou and
safiya and imogunla and dorisjean and jokillens, davidearl and more to come
while not all literally literary hoodoo i believe i will canonize them anyway
they are part of this life i have known/recorded and i will include them on a personal
after i list the 101 talismans, i plan to give them attributes
mythwork, a narrative
the 101 talismans of rickydoc
- historical hoodoos
- leaders&destinyplayers
- contemporary hoodoos
- literary hoodoos
work on this during the week sometime, just dont have time right now
got pages to clock, last lap, about 30 days left before i have
to go back to the schoolhouse, go back
to being a civilian - back in the world
bunch of pressure on me to deal with the world now but all i can say is not yet
i got 30 days, world - people, obligations, everything got to back up off me
stonewall time - best not to get in the way of a desperate man
next 30 days belong to my novel, my work, my dream
whatever it cost me
i will pay the bill
once again we must seperate the writers
from the dilettantes
i just read over what ive done and got left to do and it
looks suspiciously bad, i fear im just playing with myself
and you dear regulators - doing a juneteenth on you
i fear i just dont have another viable novel in me
15 years is a longtime to have worked on something
that still has not reached threshhold viability - that bothers me
its so strange i cannot judge its viability
all i can do is keep the faith and do what i was born to do -
ive already given my life to this, i dont have options at this point, dont want them
i fear i just might not have the talent, but if determination
counts i got that
i will not accept defeat in this matter
masterpiece or farce, ima do this
if i am not a great novelist i am nothing
i fear that i am not even a decent novelist
a literary footnote whose vision exceed his reach
no matter, ima do this
win or lose ima do this
today, tomorrow, everyday i can beg borrow
or steal ima do this
woodshed you never get all you planned done
life always take its pound of flesh
frustration and despair inevitable
but i can do a lot in 30 desperate days
need to come out of this woodshed with a draft, lord
not getting no draft is
not an option
in struggle
rdoc
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