heroship

  WEDNESDAY

hello world, not only am i on schedule, i got cushion, its 3 am wed and im done w/weds quota - so when i take a nap and wake up in a couple of hours i should be able to do a fulls days work

be ahead of the game 5 pages, the almighty cushion,

whats more dear regulators couple of minutes ago i
did a new lick, i was talking about a mob in 1866 memphis, called them a rampaging beast of resentment

then i said  

bunch of teabaggers.  sorry, that slipped, i couldnt help myself.  where was i

then i slid back into my reconstruction scene w/o missing a beat

dont know if it speak to you, but dropping that contemporary on that historical like that was a new lick, ima try it again
see if i can control it, make it do tricks, i like new licks - and that apologetic narrator, o yeah, new licks new tricks

i love this phase - still a godawful struggle but this is when you get to play with the novel,
when you got the storyline down, you get to play narrative and conceptual games,

get to polish the poetry, this when the novel become fun -

mr fun and games is outta here, about 40 pages from closure now & clocking a steady 5, that means approx 8 days
to liftoff but might have to cut back to a 4 count because  i suspect the last 40 pages will be rougher and more

challenging than whats come before

no problem, rickydoc is on a sungun, i will not let this novel defy me

hook or crook this novel done

all my love

rdoc

MONDAY

okay, by god, im back in the saddle, and still got cushion
man it feels good to have my novel back in my head again

but it also felt good to get thru rions, boy got a helluva novel in play
okay, trying to think if i got anything to comment on and i dont believe so,

i just want to get back into my groove, seems like
all my students are spreading the news, arthur has finished rest

im hearing from folk i havent heard from in years, arthur i hear
youve finished rest for the weary -

the pressure to deliver is on

and i got all these ideas i want to work into it while im hitting it, ive kinda played with the idea of him doing a holybook (sounds familiar?) but just played around

the edges, i think im going to give it more energy this go round

i got to get some drafts done this summer, these are the drafts where i get to play, all the pieces in now i get to play
after all these years in the literary wilderness this thing got to shine, i want the literary world to be dazzled

and if they not, fuck it, i will live with it, all i want now is for this novel to exist
good or bad, masterpiece or farce, what i got is what i got

also i did a lot of internet posting this weekend

i sold a lot of wolftickets, that memphis post turned into a dialogue
with one of the ost strident south will rise again posters in that forum

where we actually engaged in some dialogue, but when it became clear that
i agreed with him and the others that the black community is its own worst enemy

and how my concern was empowering the black community rather than worrying
about racism and what the racists think, he started talking about how well i knew

my community and i told him longbow your approval is suspect,

thats the problem with wanting to speak truth to your community, the dialogue
is public and all concessions are used by our enemies to blame blackfolk for their condition

not racism, we have done all we could to help those people

what can you do, i have to speak truth to black people, i believe if we dont accept responsibility
for our condition we will never be able to finesse it, long as we sit around crying

about how its the fault of other folk we wont ever manifest self determination

and do whatever we got to do to get ouf of this historical trickbag
so once again i just backed out of it,

i suspect blackfolk on the forum were gritting their teeth but they
were the ones i was speaking to, it all started because they were

snarling with the racists, squabbling down in the mud with them, this appalled me
and i will not let struggle demean us as a people, im w/mlking on this

if you gon represent, represent - represent the best that we have to give

o ye warrior kind

i remember a book on the prophet diviners of east africa, talked about how the difference
between the diviner and the prophet diviner was the diviner work in private for self and clients

the prophet diviner also work in public for god and the tribe

also said that the way they manifested power was by becoming spiritual and
strategic advisors to the warrior bands

i got two warrior bands, i got the community activist types and i got the elites
they require different handling because they have different strengths and weaknesses

i remember when i 1st concepted this in an attempt to position myself as the fulcrum of power
to have my game encompass all of theirs by developing a vision that orchestrated all their

games and agendas

this gets really complicated and i dont really have time to tease out the nuances
here or in that forum, 

basically what you got to understand is that i really do consider myself the tribal shaman of the black world
and because of the evolutionary need to universalize your vision if you want to be a 21st century player

the worlds shaman, thats the way i think of myself, and the basic principle of conjuration
is that whatever it is you want to be in life, all you have to do is conduct yourself as if you

actually were it, and then it becomes so, ever so gradually reality adjusts itself to your conjuration

conduct yourself as you would be and you are, this is the essence of conjuration

and i have to on this blog conduct myself as if i actually were the worlds shaman
this has been a process, cause im self conscoius about claiming to be the worlds shaman

wouldbe prophet of the hoodoo way

thats why i put that wouldbe on there, o im not really claiming this you see
thats why i prefer to handle it in fiction - not really real you see

but to actually manifest it in my lifetime i have to claim it, believe it, conduct myself
as if i actually were it, occassionally on this blog i find myself acting out of that reality

and reality of course denies me, because thats the nature of reality but with all your hoodoo power
you hold the conjuration of that new reality in your mind and eventually, ever so gradually, reality

aligns itself with your vision, thats the fundemental nature of both art and ideological orchestration
and in your lifetime you cant expect reality to move but so far in alignment w/your vision

reality a tough cookie - and generally reality win, whup you all about your head and shoulders

but even the slightest realignment of reallity to your vision, your conjuration
is momentous and destinical, to affect human reality in the slightest is a major lifetime feat

thats why my novel has so many metafictional elements, because im playing w/this reality thing, both
text and context, im deeply invested in that, ima hoodooman, ima conjuror

but like i say its really complicated for me to try to explain the game to you in its entirety
its inevitable that you will have more questions than i can answer this very moment

and i do not have the time to convince you of this

and once again im thinking when you try to convey your vision in anything but
a novel there is just no way you can cover the nuances, thats part of the reason

i love the novel so, aint nothing cosmic like the worldbuilding novel can be

but i got to go, got to get back in my groove, got to climb back into the zone

im two pages down, i need another cushion, got to make a run to the delta, i need some cushion

man, that is so cool, get you some cushion and you can take care of life business

without falling behind, god i love/hate the woodshed

i love being a writer - its just the best life i could have ever chosen

for all its cost me, for all the dues i have paid, god i love the literary life

damn, this post got involved didnt it, surely this has cost me a page

at least a paragraph, im out

all my love

rdoc

SUNDAY

im kinda bummed out, the black graduates on campus have a program every year to celebrate and ive been asked to do the invocation of it a couple of times and it means a lot to me but i

blew it this time, mind like a sieve these days, i forgot about it and blew it, man that bums me out
doing the invocation for the black graduates is the kind of performance that i live for

doing my tribal shaman thing, how could i possibly have missed that, god that hurts

havent been novelworking last couple of days, phone got stolen, family and financial issues gon nuclear - i was stressed out and blew it

they probably wont ask me next year, next year ima have to approach them, beg a chance at redemption

i been following this columnist on nytimes, charles blow, after frank rich he been a favorite of mine
he didn this great piece recently chronicling the rightwing tilt in america and saying dont worry, we

losing the shortgame but we will win the longgame:

"I am convinced that the right may win the day, but the left will win the age. That’s because the right is running an intellectually bereft campaign of desperation and disenchantment, amplified by a recession. Great Recessions don’t last. Great ideas do."

that article reassured me because i have been concerned about that, i needed that article

now the times i actually read print, old habit, i scan it online but actually read it print, ie no pics
but i wanted to post this one so i went to get it online and lo and behold he is a brother

now i have to say that tickled me even more, so i count this as a double feel good
just when i needed a double helping of feel good

i recently did this post on the commercial appeal back in memphis, i guess it speaks for itself

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

im a black memphian that teaches in ny and has traveled extensively
im a writer whose novels are memphis/delta based

i love memphis and the delta, it is my heart, my family is still there, and i am a proud voice of black memphis

for me the delta is holyground

once had an interviewer ask me, how does it feel being part of the mythopoetic tradition of the delta

i told him it feels good, real good

so i keep up w/my hometown by coming home regularly and reading the ca daily

and its so interesting that the most ca comments come behind race based articles

and that the level of commentary is so abysmal

you read them like watching a car wreck, knowing you shouldnt be wasting your time, knowing it speaks to the lessor you

the comments from the hood wearing yahoos, well its interesting seeing you folk crawl out from under your rocks

hard to believe sometime folk like you still exist, but its good to know the truth of things, that you are still here

but its the squabbling in the mud with you from blacks that think on your level that really distress me, i just wish blackfolk wouldnt get down there and crawl in the mud with you

i found myself contending for a minute and fortunately i caught myself and just pulled out of that,

its not only a waste of time i could be using to address real issues, its demeaning, it lessons me

its like a bunch of folk desperate for a platform, even if its a demeaning platform

i find myself often wanting to help the progressive voices, folk that i respect, on this forum but nothing is going to change the yahoos minds, or their souls

and thats time and energy that could be used trying to effect real change

these days when i read these foums im just thankful that i escaped that toxic mentality

i often wonder if i would be as narrowminded if i had not seen more of the world than memphis has to offer

i love memphis with a passion, and i hope w/my works to contribute to memphis being a better place than reflected in these forums

memphis and the delta deserve better than this

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

i hope the black graduate folk forgive me, ask me again next year

i will have to approach them next year, make sure i redeem myself

letting the black students down who trusted me to come thru for them

they ask me to do the invocation, provide the blessing for the next phase of struggle

how could i have left them hanging like that, what kind of heroship is that

three days now i have not worked on my novel - im still on my count because i built a cushion

before i went downtime to do last manuscript - but when i dont work i get nervous and anxious

feel like im losing ground, like life is kicking my butt

now my head full of rions novel instead of mine - and i know it will take a minute to get back into the zone

ohwell, such is the literary life, rion is the future of the tradition and i got to do right by him

just got to climb out this funk, step by step inch by inch

work my way thru the blues

doc

THURSDAY

hello dear regulators, as you know i aspire to heroship
then i read about folk like this dr hawa abdi and i am

humbled in the presence of the real thing 

she has gathered some 10-20 thousand internal refugees
around her bush hospital in somalia

given them land to grow crops, treated them for their illnesses
its kinda amazing - also amazing is that islamic militants have

destroyed much of her hospital and placed her under house arrest
because they say that a woman cannot be in charge of a hospital

or anything apparently, its the thousands of clients that have kept
her safe by surrounding her - now thats what i call a hero

i am now 5 pages ahead of schedule, aint much of a hero
but it will have to do

i just hope i can keep it up, im kinda wore out tired
but if dr abdi can hang in there so can i

a luta continua

rdoc

Comments

[PaPa Gede Nibo BEY " LA KWA" ( en de name ob de " KONKER ) .]

Gullah/Gee Chi Kicking & Knocking - " FLYING " .
Photo by " Karriem Allah " .17yrs of age .
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Gullah/Gee Chi Kicking & Knocking - " FLYING " .
Photo by " Karriem Allah " .17yrs of age ...From your album:
N'Gullah/Gee Chi Military.Added November 3, 2009 · Comment ·LikeUnlike
Joe Fisher " Flying Africans "
Ebos Landing

The story that gives Ebos Landing its name is one of the most colorful and enduring tales in
Ebos Landing ... See More
Georgia's rich literary history. Better known as the "Myth of the Flying Africans," this narrative has been told and embellished for 200 years in the form of local legends, children's stories, movies, novels, and television shows. Based on an actual historical event, this remarkable tale of an Ebo (or Igbo) slave rebellion on St. Simons Island has become a powerful metaphor of African American courage, longing, and conviction.

The historical roots of the flying Africans legend can be traced back to the spring of 1803, when a group of Igbo slaves arrived in Savannah after enduring the nightmare of the Middle Passage. The Igbo (from what is now the nation of Nigeria, in central West Africa) were renowned throughout the American South for being fiercely independent and unwilling to tolerate the humiliations of chattel slavery. The Igbo who became known as the flying Africans were purchased at the slave market in Savannah by agents working on behalf of John Couper and Thomas Spalding. Loaded aboard a small vessel, the Igbo were confined below deck for the trip down the coast to St. Simons. During the course of the journey, however, the Igbo rose up in rebellion against the white agents, who jumped overboard and were drowned.

What happened next is a striking example of the ways in which African American slaves and white slave masters interpreted "history" in starkly different terms. One of the only contemporary written accounts of the event was by Roswell King, a white overseer on the nearby plantation of Pierce Butler. King recounted that as soon as the Igbo landed on St. Simons Island, they "took to the swamp"—committing suicide by walking into Dunbar Creek. From King's perspective the salient feature of the story was the loss of a substantial financial investment for Couper and Spalding.

African American oral tradition, on the other hand, has preserved a very different account of the events that transpired that day. As with all oral histories, the facts of the story have evolved as storytellers elaborated the tale over the years, such that there are now dozens of variations on the original episode. In the late 1930s, more than 100 years after the Igbo uprising on St. Simons, members of the Federal Writers Project collected oral histories in the Sea Islands (many of which can now be found in Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes). An older African American man by the name of Wallace Quarterman was asked if he had heard the story of Ebos landing. Quarterman replied:

Ain't you heard about them? Well, at that time Mr. Blue he was the overseer and . . . Mr. Blue he go down one morning with a long whip for to whip them good. . . . Anyway, he whipped them good and they got together and stuck that hoe in the field and then . . . rose up in the sky and turned themselves into buzzards and flew right back to Africa. . . . Everybody knows about them.
This account of transforming the hardships of slavery into the magical powers of freedom has been retold by a distinguished array of African American artists throughout the last century. Virginia Hamilton and Julius Lester rendered the tale for children. Julie Dash celebrated the memory of Ebos Landing in elegant visual terms with her film Daughters of the Dust (1991). Perhaps most important, Nobel Prize–winning writer Toni Morrison used the myth of the flying Africans as the basis for her novel Song of Solomon (1977).

Morrison's literary masterpiece recounts the story of a young African American man, Milkman Dead, who has been crippled by persistent racism and limited opportunities. Having grown up in the industrialized North, Milkman returns to the South in search of his ancestral roots. In the course of his travels, he learns from oral histories that his family is
Song of Solomon
descended from an African shaman who possessed the power of flight. Having regained the knowledge of his family and his African heritage, Milkman recovers his lost ancestral powers at the end of the novel and takes flight at what appears to be the moment of his death. This soaring climax fittingly captures the power, hope, and magic inherent in the myth of the flying Africans and offers an important insight into why this tale has been cherished for so long. By transforming the painful memories of slavery and racism into the emancipating power of flight, the story of the flying Africans continues to play an important role in maintaining a cultural connection to Africa and empowering generations of black Americans.

Although the myth of the flying Africans will undoubtedly be told for many decades to come, a fitting coda to this particular version of the tale might be found in the consecration of Ebos Landing in the summer of 2002. The St. Simons African-American Heritage Coalition invited Chukwuemeka Onyesoh from Nigeria to designate Ebos Landing as holy ground and to put the souls of the enslaved to rest. "I came here to evoke their spirits," Onyesoh explained," to take them back to Igboland." Participants in the memorial traveled from Haiti, Belize, Canada, New York, and Mississippi, among other places to watch and pray as elder Igbo tribesman danced and sang under the aging cypress trees hung with moss.

Sadly, no historical marker commemorates the site of Ebos Landing, which is adjacent to a sewage treatment plant built in the 1940s. The African American community, however, continues to mark the sacred site in their own, more private ways. Some local fishermen on St. Simons, for example, will not cast fishing lines or crab nets in the fecund waters of Dunbar Creek for fear of disturbing the ghosts of the Igbo. Despite the fact that the state has not yet recognized Ebos Landing as a landmark, the many stories ranging from folktales to Nobel Prize–winning novels surely constitute a kind of literary memorial worthy of the remarkable story of the flying Africans.

Suggested Reading

Michael A. Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).

Savannah Unit, Georgia Writers' Project, Work Projects Administration, Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes (1940; reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986).

Timothy B. Powell, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Published 6/15/2004
December 28, 2009 at 10:25pm ·