easy pickings

TUESDAY

clocking pages, closing down schoolhouse, sent in finaldraft of mlk, who got time to blog

ran up on this sister ndambi, out on stax, does that mean she a memphis woman, one can hope

listening to 'the world is a beat' now, go for it girl, stax is in the house

ishmael reed did this long piece on the marketing of precious, shoulda known ishmael would be

fired up by precious, ishmael considers himself the champion of black men portrayal in american culture

he ask is there anything blackfolk wont fall for, he take forever to say it but thats ishmael

its his willingness (and ability) to name names and specify specifics make his commentary so compelling

my position on precious been if you cant say nothing good dont say nothing

i didnt think much of it when it was push, push established saffire as a contender but it was clear

she was riding an opportunity wave, pleasing the sector of america thrilled with such an over
the top depiction of black dysfunction - so what else is new, players pushing agendas

on the backs of blacks and blackfolk willing to sell their literary souls - i hesitate to step

so forthrightly into that mess, but the truth always feel good, dont it

rdoc

THURSDAY

still giving my boy obama benefit of doubt on afghanistan but that 18 month deadline
is a joke, he didnt have a lot of choice on it but you can bet they are telling the afghanis

and the pakistanis now to not pay any attention to that, we here to stay as long as you need us

obama had two choices, cut and run or double down, much like bush he decided to go w/the surge

and so on it goes

im really shamed to see all the blackfaces that have played roles in that sahali disaster
makes it look like black folk got up in there playing dress up, like they werent ready

for prime time - ohwell

one keeps pushing, but he did not need this loss of gravitas when he has so many balls in the air

the healthbill might not be his waterloo, but unemployment might, hes taken too long to take that seriously

jumped right on helping out the fat cats and let the little folk suffer, damn near a katrina moment

ohwell, ima let obama take care of his business, ima take care of mine

finished the mlk piece, damn good job if i do say so myself

also i havent heard from jaipur lit festival, had nurtured a longshot hope they would invite me back

and so on it goes

if i cant make it i hope you can, it was magic

all my love

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

well i see tiger fessed up, thats best, trying to maintain that obvious lie was making him into a joke

live by the public die by the public,

two more classes and i will be a free man, feel bad all the mfa submission folk i didnt get to,

now im inundated in recommendations, its like about 50 balls in the air and dont want to drop a one

rick moody been doing the most interesting twitter thing, writing a shortstory 'some contemporary characters'  read it here  over 3 day period through 153 tweets for Electric Literature, which publishes new fiction (lydia davis, colson whitehead, etc) online and to folks i phones, kindles, etc

its been both victory and defeat but mostly victory, for moody the challenge of doing a story in 140 letter installments
has raised his profile and been an interesting craft challenge, but because its being retweeted or something

i dont really understand cause in spite of trying im not a twitter person, a lot of subscribers are getting
multiple submissions of each line and interspaces with a lot of reader commentary, some of which moody say has an 'uncooked quality'

one subscriber said  "somebody please stop the madness"

all in all i think its a victory though, both moody and electric lit have raised their profile

it was one of my early students here, jeff parker, that convinced me a 21st century writer has to have a presence both online and in the print world,

wallstreetjournal did an email interview:

The Wall Street Journal: How did you come up with this idea?

Rick Moody: A year or so ago, my wife started following some bloggers she likes on Twitter. She opened an account for me, as a way of explaining why it was of interest. While I didn’t seem at all interested in posting about myself, I started quickly to see the character counter as some strange, poetical limitation that would be fun to work with. It took Electric Literature to get me to follow through on the idea.

What is this story about?

It’s about online dating, I suppose, though that is a reductive description. A Twitter-ish description.

How did you come up with a plot that’s appropriate for this format?

I wanted to try to write something very up-to-the-minute, that made use of the Twitter form, instead of writing something in the ordinary way and just carving it up into 140 character chunks (which is cheating, I think). The plot followed naturally upon this wish.

What about pacing, narrative arc and voice when a story is delivered in such a halting format?

I don’t know that I have the right pacing, because part of this assignment was making it up as I went along. But my approach was to come up with the personalities first. The story follows the personalities. And at least one of the two protagonists is a Twitter natural.

When you say you’re making things up as you go, does that mean you’re composing it live, tweet by tweet?

No, I suppose what I mean is that I’m making up the form, making up how to use Twitter to advance story structure, and that there are not handholds yet for exactly how to do that. There are handholds for how to pace a New Yorker story, or how to make a short fiction collection, but there are, as yet, no handholds for how to pace a Twitter story, or how to sustain interest over the course of days. It’s a Wild West environment, really.

Other writers have released short stories via Twitter, but you actually wrote this piece with Twitter in mind. How did that shape your writing process?

I used the character counter throughout the writing process, which means that Twitter fiction, at least as I practice it, is a lot like writing haiku. Which I have done a lot of in my writing life. I really liked working with this limitation, the merciless brevity. It’s sort of thrilling trying to get the character counter exactly to ZERO.

Do you think Twitter literature has its own merits or should it be used to draw people to print?

I hope that it will lead people back to books, because I am a true believer in the book as a form. Everything else, for good or ill, has a perfume of gimmickry about it. When I settle down at night, or on the subway, it is not with my Blackberry or my Kindle. It is with a book.

Which Twitter feeds do you follow?

John Wesley Harding, Eugene Mirman, Miranda July, Will Self, Paul Westerberg, the Saccades Project (which is a really great online novel-in-progress), a few other folks. And, of course, Electric Literature.

What else are you working on?

I’m publishing a new novel next July called THE FOUR FINGERS OF DEATH. And my band, The Wingdale Community Singers, just released their second album, SPIRIT DUPLICATOR, available on iTunes, Amazon.com, and at Other Music.

What kinds of reactions are you getting to the Twitter story so far?

People have been shockingly supportive. I hope they are as supportive of contemporary fiction that is manufactured in the old-fashioned way too.

-----------------------------

i of course am insanely jealous, and so the story goes

all my love

rdoc

MONDAY

hello world, 1st let me say that i am not a fan of tiger woods, ever since he claim to be cablinasian, as in not black, my position been well fuck you too

so you must forigve me if i submit to the temptation to play the wit w/his misfortune

now what he telling us is that he left the house and ran into whatever
it was he ran into- which make the case he might have been squealing out of the driveway on the get away

upon hearing the crash his wife ran out the house and down the driveway, carrying by happenstance a golf club, which just happen to be just what she needed to smash out the back window in order that he might escape the car

climbing through i assume aforementioned smashed window

this appears to me, when added to his refusal to speak to the police about what should be a small matter,
to be an unlikely scenario - more likely she was chasing him down the driveway w/a golfclub

of all things, a golfcub, this adds insult to injury, apparently she landed a lick or two

now there been rumors that tiger been tipping, i do not know nor am i interested, but if he did i bet he wont do that again,
at least not so pubicly - expressing her opinion on the matter is one thing, a golf club entirely another

fiesty little something isnt she

okay, let me cimb on out the gutter, dust myself off - go see if i can clock some lastgasp pages
its monday and i should be preparing for class now but i been in the zone all week - its difficult to

come back to earth when i dont plan to be here but about two weeks max
everything i do got to be done in the next two weeks, then its back to the woodshed

this what i live for

i made my daily pages this week, thats a good sign, but i didnt do any mfa
submission critiques, my apologies to folk, i got squooze

rdoc

SATURDAY

just back from thanksgiving in dc, ima couple of pages ahead of the game, such a struggle to sit down and
hit it everyday, you win one day and got to face the beast all over again the next - it becomes a drudge

getting iffy on this blog - when i take away folk coming from google mostly for the imagery i dont have that many readers - but such is life in the literary lane, if it was dependent on my readership numbers i might as well quit writing

i remember doris jean once said -  what you gon do, say i will show you, ima quit writing

im going to cut back on the time i give this thing though, much better investing that time in printwork - it doesnt take a lot generally i just sit down and think on keyboard - but in the longrun it adds up and sometimes i get a little despondent as to whether its worth the investment

mostly the answer is yes i guess cause i get a lot of material from it for my printwork so its all good
i guess this more for me than it is for you, i get to work out things here that contribute to the game

bummer about those reality show folk gatecrashing obama, makes him look bad, the rightwing is going
to say he cant even police his own party, and claim its reflective of his weak security props in general

wish there was some way those two and bravo could be penalized but that would just give the obama
haters more material to work with, best just let it be and keep on pushing, obama got bigger fish to fry,

im not at all comfortable with sending more folk to afghanistan but ima give him benefit of the doubt on this
one - obama been trying my progressive soul but for me its still brotherme brotherblood brotherblack

hangtough

rdoc

WEDNESDAY

was just reading dionne in the washpost comparing obamas thanksgiving proclamation w/roosevelts
and he talked about how 'the happy warrior' took it to his enemies every chance he got,

said at one point  'i welcome their hatred',

dionne said obama in contrast always goes for the inoffensive approach, said that he will have to learn how
to throw down against the republicans if he doesnt want to be swamped by their implacable hatred/opposition

and i was thinking/wondering how much of obamas unwillingness to come on strong is because
of his almost obsessive determination to be an unthreatening blackman, reminds me of that saying

dont make me show my african on you - maybe thats what obama need, hopefully at some point he will

abandon that good negro approach and show these suckers what time it is

ann tankerlys funning - from her eyes watching god series - i believe thats teacake and janie playing checkers

im clocking pages, well, clocking hours, about 3 pages behind schedule, but bonnie made me do the family thing in dc for thanksgiving - for holidaywork a 3 pages deficit aint bad, did 5 hours this morning but my page count didnt move - bes like that sometime - in fact i believe i lost a page

happy colonialist conquerors day

(do native americans actually celebrate thanksgiving, one wonders) obama tried to parse it w/a reference

to indigenous americans helping the pilgrims survive - hard to ignore that it look like pc kumbaya didnt work that time, little did the native americans realize they were on the menu - but had they not been there would be no america and i like being american,

then again w/o slavery there would be no african americans and i like being a soulbrother, i tell you

history and destiny and all that, its a real twisty road - remind me of that taoist story about the farmers son

farmers son broke his leg and the neighbors lament how bad their luck was, farmer say goodluck badluck, who knows - then when the state pressgang came thru looking for soldiers they dont take son cause his leg was broke and neighbors congratulate farmer on his good fortune, farmer say goodluck badluck, who knows

you get the drift, good bad hard to say, just keep a steady roll, and however you read it hope i you enjoy this day - family is forever

all my love

rdoc

TUESDAY

been thinking i might abandon my feelgood approach to this blog

be a little more willing to call it like i see it
even when it challenge my constituency

thinking right now about major hasan, is it terrorism or disturbed individual, well, both, they kinda go together dont they

fbi should have flagged him when he started conversing with the iman

problem w/this observation is that the rightwing is going to try to use it to claim obama admin soft on terror because its just too pc - well, we dont have to go there but major hasan should have been jacked up - way i see it

all the folk/media coming up w/justifications that sanitize it, he was worried about deployment, etc, need to take a deep breath, cant afford to be starry eyed about this thing

this a strange conflict strategically, the west an open society, islam by and large closed - radical islam can establish beachheads the west cannot - that apparent weakness has to be turned into strength

in the longrun we hope that open society thing is the strength, but only if when the hammer called for the hammer fall

ideological orchestration, you got to work w/both hands, starry eyed need to go sit down
and not clutter up the field

that piece by my homegirl nan saville, i forget what she call it, i think journeys when i see it
i like being a little art gallery here, wil make stronger effort to give props to artists when i know them

so now the healthbill boils down to the 3 democratic holdouts determined to bring down the public option

some progressive groups pushing reconciliation, but that just doesnt appear to be feasible to me

reconciliation, you have to strip the bill down to its component parts, abandon what dont fit, redo it every 5 years - that dont really work for our purposes

better the trigger option if it comes to that, im still hoping the public option get thru - burning candles on it

gon be an interesting month, trench warfare, everybody need to do their part, progressive forces
pressuring/buying the 3, 4 democratic holdouts and wooing olympia stowe and suan collins for backup

what little pressure we go should be brought to bear on recalcitrant 3, we need a solid 60 do or die

w/o the pubic option the healthbill is just another giveaway to the insurance companies
but ive said that before, best i get busy on todays pages, didnt clock a page yesterday

if the morning gets by w/o me getting busy the day is pretty much shot - (notice if you will, the new
ratio of commentary to the metablogic/process, if i aint got no commentary ima keep my mouth shut)

you know feelgood is my default, i basically think of myself as the worlds hoodoo, the worlds
spirit doctor, i call myself tending to the worldspirit - enhancing the human condition, ennobling the
worlds cultures and taking humanity to the next step in human evolution, even better setting

up the process of taking the next evolutionary step, one that play out generation after generation - and

so forth along these lines, i just want to teach the world to sing - thats all -

in the old days the conjureman tend to the souls of his or her little community
nowdays our community is global, ima citizen of the world, even better the cosmos

ima soul doctor, i want to tend the worlds soul

i want to shape reality, shape the future of humanity, shape our generations

ambitious of me a little bit maybe but what can i say, i am what i am, im the conjureman

the vision i got clear

its the manifestation i been stumbling

theoretically the novel speak to one set of folk, the holybook to another

between them (this blog & the hand)  i should have my destinic constituency covered

im fully aware of the delusional quality here, im aware the odds are against me being what i aspire to be
but what that got to do w/the price of butter in siberia, you dont play the longgame to win, you play the

longgame because thats your bid at being historical, making your little contribution, a player

to play is to win - i will be long dead before this game come into fruition, what i got to do is

develop the cosmology, work it in my Works, build supporting institutions & social infrastructures

in my allotted lifetime - plant the seeds, develop the ground - thats all

im out

rdoc

MONDAY

hello world, tried to embed this palin disaster movie spoof but couldnt find the code, sometimes i think it would be nice if the repubs actually did nominate palin for 2012, then i think what if she really won: is that

a gamble im willing to take

btw: clocked many pages,(well at least 2) and another manuscript has bit the dust

rickydoc on a sungun, 360%

rdoc

Comments

[BuffaloSoldier]

THE INDIANS CALLED HIM BUFFALO. BuffaloSoldier salutes BlackPride Nation.
Of PostRacials and LionKings. (How's that for a possible title for a twitter short story?) I'm glad you've softened somewhat on the Tiger. See, he's in a unigue position among other postracials, (The LionKing, Halle Berry etc.) He lives and dies by merit. Meaning that political or social popularity isn't in his realm. He doesn't need %96 of the BlackAmerican vote to float his ship. He wins and rakes in the crowd. So he can say "I'm a Cablasian" The LionKing says, "I'm no BlackAmerican. I'm Halfrican." And goodbye BlackAmerican votes. Halle Berry writes a memoir, "Lessons I learned at the feet of my white mother." And goodbye boxoffice. Also, what is a Tiger to think? Golf is not the game of choice among Blacks. So they're not in those crowds in great numbers. But he visits his mother's homeland and half the country mobs him. Also, he embraced his BlackAmerican father. What did the LionKing write about his father? The father that gave him the complextion to gain those %96 of the BlackAmerican vote. Believe me, I'm no great fan of the Tiger. But no less an abrasive personality than BlackAmerican Charles Barkley has embraced him as a friend. Whew. PostRacial is nothing if not complicated. I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this message.

[arthur flowers]

just wondering man if you still defending your boy tiger

i havent softened on him, and as the bimbos continue to come

out the woodwork his little apology feels more and more canned

what im noticing too is that the women hes involved w/arent peers

they are women he can use and discard w/o real engagement - tacky

sorry buffalo soldier, cant go w/you on this one

[BuffaloSoldier]

FROM PRISON CAMPS AND SLAVERY. BuffaloSoldier salutes Aretha Franklin. Well, here we are. Two fully BlackAmericans spliting over two PostRacials. Tiger is not actually my boy in the way the LionKing may be yours. (I'm quoting you. You've said Obama is your boy) I just note that he has less to lose by coming out and stating his Postracial status than, say, Halle Berry or the LionKing. They would be hardpressed to keep their position if they were as open as he's been. As for peers,there are two outlooks. First, he doesn't have any. There's no one in any field that can match what he's accomplished. He stands alone. (I think that's a part of the problem, if I might be allowed a moment of pychoanalyism) Second, while they may be bimbos to you and certainly to me, I see an insecure kid who yearned for the attention of those bimbos all of his adolestest years. Look, insecure Wilt said he bedded 2000 women. In an earlier tome, he said Black women couldn't match White women. He was simply in the position to play out his fantasies. Like Tiger. Unlike Tiger, he wasn't married and he didn't bring his racial identity under scrutiny. Tiger is not a revolutionary, so he's definitely not my boy. See, had Tiger been as politicaly savvy as the LionKing, he would have played his Black Identity to the Black Crowd, his mother's identity to their countrymen, maybe travel to Ireland, as Ali just did, and played his white identity, as Ali just did, but he isn't savvy. He's a child in this game that Halle Berry and the LionKing and others have perfected. Because they're adults. I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this message