WEDNESDAY
im loving this totality thing, this dance thing, since verbalizing it i been doing it
just dancing throughout the manuscript fixing images and metaphors to reinforce
primary concepts in novel, im loving it but its a big mess of confusion, im just instincting it now
but my endgame is intimately hooked up with the metaphorical structure so its its time well spent
it has slowed me down but it feels critical to power of novel, ive had fundamental insights, ive fixed
fundamental conceptual holes,
but instead of hitting deadline w/weeks to spare
i will likely be working until the moment i got to walk in my classroom door
so i will likely start the semester doing catchup, happens every time,
unfortunately that knowledge does not stop me from being anxious, i fear not finishing my draft, i fear it has required so much structural changes thats its not yet a moneydraft after all, a draft isnt polished until you can read thru it with light line edits
if you still making fundamental changes that mean its not ready but im
so desperate im liable to send it on off anyway and let the market decide
uada story becoming more complicated, apparently the rightwing edited the clip so it didnt truly reflect what
was really said which was that she came to understand it was about haves/havenots instead of race
actually an interesting speech to watch in its entirety
so now it will be interesting to see how admin responds and how sherrod handles her 15 mins
this has made both obama and the naacp look bad and now instead of media attention
being on the venal play by the rightwing, glaring spotlight is on the naacp and obama
so scared of being charged with blackness they running scared of fox news et al
its unfortunate on a lot of levels, it works against the naacps bid for relevance
now instead of coming across the new and improved naacp they look like a joke
and it makes obama look week just when he needs all he pull he can get
playthell benjamin made good point that obama cant be expected to be on top of everything
but after gates fiasco it will be interesting to see how he handles this one
TUESDAY
akua put this photo montage up on facebook recently, she been putting up a lot lately, obviously digitizing her photo history, something i might want to consider - these all old comrades in struggle from rashidas loft when we were doing the black writers union thing in the 80s, thats louis rivera and zizwe in 1st shot, in the middle its akia toure, brenda miller and yours truly w/full head of hair reaching for food, and the end shot, i think thats zizwe talking to safiya holmes w/naima in her arms
safia taught poetry at syracuse, safia the one hooked me up - the black writers union was an effort to organize black literary politicos in the 80s, spearheaded by amiri and quincy, sonia, et al,, we would meet in rashidahs loft lower manhattan, organizing writers more than a notion, but that never stopped us from trying,, fully half the folk in this picture have moved on, including safiya, rest of us still kicking it, survivors of this and that, drugs, cancers and heart attacks, trying to get our work done before the clock run out - this picture moved me
okay, back to the world - naacp/teaparty tussle continues to resonate
lets take a quick look,
first the resolution by naacp asking teaparty folk to disavow racism,
the umbrage taken by teaparty folk, how dare you call us racist you racist,
then the letter from teaparty stalwart, williams, colored people asking mr lincoln to let them stay slaves
wiliams is expelled by tea party, as is his organization, the tea party express
MONDAY
going thru rough water w/nephew, i guess thats par
interesting, last post said i was trying to encompass the totatliy of the novel, since verbalizing it like that been consciously trying to do it and reaping benefit, also the insight about having to let go and dance, thats gon pay off too, another payoff of blogging i guess, the act of verbalizing things makes it so
also i try out narrative licks here that make their way into novel, guess readership is not the only criteria of blogging value, there are times when i question this obsession, but in the past my obsessions have always turned out to be of eventual literary value so ima ride w/it
it forces me to generate words of power, whats not to love
was thinking about it the other day actually, with this novel every brick got to be in place, i dont have a lot of room for wildcarding it, every word has to inexorably lead to my narrative payoff, its very structured, very rigid and demanding, whereas w/this blog i respond to the flow, to whats happening in the world, whats happening in my head, its narrative freeform, and constantly evolving on itself - whats not to love
i dont generally post whole articles but this obit on david blackwell, past master of the game, was fascinating to a elder gamesman such as myself,
didnt realize this blackman was such a major games theorist, had i known i would have hunted him down and tried to learn something from him,
just went by amazon to check out his work and its kinda thick, game i love, math i do not
ima get a copy anyway, general principles - this is the money quote:
"“Basically, I’m not interested in doing research and I never have been, I’m interested in understanding, which is quite a different thing. And often to understand something you have to work it out yourself because no one else has done it.”
David Blackwell, Scholar of Probability, dies at 91 by William Grimes, NYT
David Blackwell, a statistician and mathematician who wrote
groundbreaking papers on probability and game theory and was the first
black scholar to be admitted to the National Academy of Science, died
July 8 in Berkeley, Calif. He was 91. The death was confirmed by his son Hugo.
Mr. Blackwell, the son of a railroad worker with a fourth-grade
education, taught for nearly 35 years at the University of California, Berkly, where he became
the first black tenured professor.
He made his mark as a free-ranging problem solver in numerous
subdisciplines. His fascination with game theory, for example, prompted
him to investigate the mathematics of bluffing and to develop a theory
on the optimal moment for an advancing duelist to open fire.
“He went from one area to another, and he’d write a fundamental paper in
each,” Thomas Ferguson, an emeritus professor of statistics at UCLA told the Berkly Web Site. “He would come into a field that had been well
studied and find something really new that was remarkable. That was his
forte.”
David Harold Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919, in Centralia, Ill.
Early on, he showed a talent for mathematics, but he entered the Univ of Illinois with the modest ambition of becoming an elementary
school teacher. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1938
and, adjusting his sights, went on to earn a master’s degree in 1939 and
a doctorate in 1941, when he was only 22.
After being awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship, established by the clothing
magnate Julius Rosenwald to aid black scholars, he attended the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton but left after a year when,
because of his race, he was not issued the customary invitation to
become an honorary faculty member. At Berkeley, where the statistician Jerzy Neyman wanted to hire him in
the mathematics department, racial objections also blocked his
appointment.
Instead, Mr. Blackwell sent out applications to 104 black colleges on
the assumption that no other schools would hire him. After working for a
year at the Office of Price Administration, he taught briefly at
Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and Clark College in Atlanta
before joining the mathematics department at Howard University in
Washington in 1944.
While at Howard, he attended a lecture by Meyer A. Girshick at the local
chapter of the American Statistical Association.
He became intensely interested in statistics and developed a lifelong
friendship with Girshick, with whom he wrote “Theory
of Games and Statistical Decisions” (1954).
As a consultant to the RAND Corporation from 1948 to 1950, he applied
game theory to military situations. It was there that he turned his
attention to what might be called the duelist’s dilemma, a problem with
application to the battlefield, where the question of when to open fire
looms large.
His “Basic Statistics” (1969) was one of the first textbooks on Bayesian
statistics, which assess the uncertainty of future outcomes by
incorporating new evidence as it arises, rather than relying on
historical data. He also wrote numerous papers on multistage
decision-making.
“He had this great talent for making things appear simple,” Peter Bickel, a statistics
professor at Berkeley, told the university’s Web site. “He liked
elegance and simplicity. That is the ultimate best thing in mathematics,
if you have an insight that something seemingly complicated is really
simple, but simple after the fact.”
Mr. Blackwell was hired by Berkeley in 1954 and became a full professor
in the statistics department when it split off from the mathematics
department in 1955. He was chairman of the department from 1957 to 1961
and assistant dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1964 to
1968. He retired in 1988.
In 1965 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
In addition to his son Hugo, of Berkeley, he is survived by three of his
eight children, Ann Blackwell and Vera Gleason, both of Oakland, and
Sarah Hunt Dahlquist of Houston; a sister, Elizabeth Cowan of Clayton,
N.C.; and 14 grandchildren.
Mr. Blackwell described himself as a “dilettante” in a 1983 interview
for “Mathematical People,” a collection of profiles and interviews.
“Basically, I’m not interested in doing research and I never have been,”
he said. “I’m interested in understanding, which is quite a
different thing. And often to understand something you have to work it
out yourself because no one else has done it.”
SUNDAY
nothing like the zone, 2 days ago i was 20 something pages behind schedule
today im only 8, which is a days work, and trying to decide if i can take today off
i think while in in the zone i should stay in the zone as long as i can stand it
its interesting how my production process has changed, want to be a contender you you have to establish a production process, my life much as possible built around facilitating production
every writer has to figure out their own, i expose my students to mine so they have a little template but i tell them, critical, you have to figure out your own, you build it from understanding yourself, your life, your workhabits, your game
you constantly refining your production process, which is mostly being aware of what works for you, what dont, you constantly trying new things and refining what you do - for instance, i know my best writing time is
morning so i go to bed early, i never teach in the mornings, i dont make commitments for mornings, none
thats been consistent, but my longhand keyboard ratio has been in constant state of flux
most of my years as a writer ive turned to longhand when i wanted really rich manuscript but the
longhand keyboard ratio has over the years gradually shifted to more keyboard less longhand
this draft ive lost ground trying to do longhand when keyboard was called for
duly noted
also in flux, all decline, is how much time per day i can invest - when i was a young turk i could work 48
hour shifts easily and sometimes did 72 before i fell out, now i work a 3 hour shift i need a 3 hour nap
so, one 3 hr shift is a basic workday, two 3 hr shifts a good day, three shifts a wonderful day, four is
the zone - everyday (w/2 days off for rest and recuperation) is a workday, everyday you try
used to be i could work that whole 24 hr shift, used to be i
could work 3 day shifts when i was in the zone
now i just dont have
the
stamina i had as a young writer, but im smarter now, i get more bang for
my buck
hopefully - thats my standing goal - more bang for my
literary buck
of course the schoolhouse chops workdays into kindling but thats life, got to pay your freight
i think part of the reason keyboard working so well now is at this stage in the game im trying
to work this novel now on a level that i cant even try to encompass, i got to dance now
i got to let myself go and dance and let this novel do things even i dont understand
all this to say if you want to be a contender, you got to develop a literary production process, you have to
constantly assess it for refinement and productivity,
making sure you not only cut out daily time to invest in getting your work done,
making sure you getting a good return on your investment -
as you may have noticed dear regulators, i ponder constantly on my production process
its part of being a contender - without a constantly evolving production process, you arent in the game
man, i still cant believe, 2 days ago i was 20 something pages behind and floundering, now im back on schedule -
i cannot tell you how much of a relief that is, probably dont have to - you, dear regulator, have been along for the ride
little while back i riffed on my favorite term of literary endearment - dear regulators - riffing on
the classic dear reader, but i speculate you noticed that, thats what i like about you, you sharp
that keep me sharp, ive always liked dear reader narrations
that relationship between me, my work and my readers, thats everything,
some litcrit folk say it dont matter but its everything to me
so let me take this moment to express my appreciation to all the folk who treat me like im still a contender
us high magicians, its folk believing in our power that enables our existence on the magical plane and
the hoodoo board of destiny, thats what makes me real in the world, thats where i get my power - without
you there is no me
sorry, my bad, didnt mean to go there, meant to say those who read my works and appreciate
my words keep my books selling, read and discussed - thats what i meant to say
truly, all my love
rdoc
SATURDAY 5:20 pm: clocking pages, still going strong, the ancestors are w/me, listening to
eddy grant, living on the frontline and walking in sunshine - life is good
SATURDAY
this is my great grandmother reeves, a stern and unforgiving woman, geneva say the only thing chilled her out was my mothers presence
moving right along on novel, had to abandon longpen, go back to the keyboard
longhand just takes too long and the 2nd half of novel not ready for redpen apparently
plan now is to finish keyboarding before end of month, then spend last 2 weeks redpenning
this is of course if my nephew doesnt add any more drama into my life, this assumes i can
get a month of focus, doubtful, new crises or two already on the horizon, he been nothing but
so, reading krugman this morning, how the repubs, so concerned about deficits when
it comes to the unemployed now saying deficits mean nothing in push to keep bush taxcuts
it can be said that repub policies are what drove economy into the ground in the 1st place
so basically all repubs offering is more of same but they have the rhetoric that fakes out
the electorate and convinces them to work against their own interest, to think america
woud really put the unrepentant repubs back in power boggles the mind
this never fails to fascinate me, how well this works, been some moves by repub leadership to
come up with a what we will do if elected agenda, but why would they do that when obstructing
obama is so politically viable, hasnot stopped his policies but politically hes pretty dead in the
water, part of it is i dont believe obama really cares about the shortgame like he does the long
if he has to sacrifice dems in 2010 in order to manifest his longgame he will do so without blinking an eye
i got much of my political game as a young turk from a book called the craft of power by rgh siu,
one of the things it says is that the greater your sense of responsibility the least leeway you have
to focus on the individual human cost of your policies, obama trying to transform america,
if a couple of democratic congressman have to lose their jobs to do so so be it
if kids are dying in afghanistan its collateral damage, unfortunate but
a president got to do what a president got to do
thats what happens with the prophetic mode, trying to save humanity you lose some of your own
obama loses some of his humanity trying to guide america and the world
while a would be prophet trying to guide all of human destiny
ima let you do the math
im out
rdoc
would be prophet of the hoodoo way
interesting challenge, changing attitudes about memphis
the problem is not memphis the city, the problem is memphis the citizens,
the city itself is a complex mix of good and bad, any city is, the problem here is w/citizens who only see the bad
for instance both crime and the folk who think crime defines us are problematic
in both cases you have folk who have given up on life and what memphis could be, who have retreated into a bunker mentality -'its all about me'
always good and bad in this world/city,
always gon be folk who see only the bad, and folk who see both
folk who will work to work on enhancing the good and transforming the bad
im not saying you dont stay alert, thts basic life skilz
what im saying is folk who only see the bad in the city thats not the city thats them
thats attitude,
far as they concerned its always 'them' and never 'me' (or 'we' for that matter)
memphis citizenry need illumination on a lot of levels, we all got a part to play in determining how the good/bad mix play out, it aint 'them', its all of us
and as long as the dialogues shaped by the lowest common denominators, by folk
dont see nothing but bad no matter what, we got a problem
cause then folk dont even try
1st thing everybody need to do is check themselves
we cant afford to bunker down and let memphis go down in flames, everybody suffer in that scenario
2nd thing it will take is a longer and more informed perspective, got to understand the historical/destinical dynamics/contexts in play, got to think in generations
its that longer vision that keep you from despair, things are actually not that bad
within that context you do what you can when you can,
and you never give up, on memphis, on life
on the greatness of what can be