rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

THURSDAY, THANKSGIVING



so ive been reading both the bible and my griotic epic texts
the griotics i been rewriting them, cuting them to bone
taking out wordage and repititions, equilizing gender agency
and adding the conqueror more systematically, this is this
mornings work, still rough, still raw, wont worry about fixing
the poetry till im done with draft and who the hell knows what
a buffondo is, i wil have to research what im trying to say there
and for instance fadia in the text is stabbed in both thighs
that didnt work for me, aoll thru these things (and history too)
women get shorft shift so im addressing that as i can

all thru i decided not to be contrained by the original text
ima take full liberty with them and in the doing hopefully make them truly
mine and for folk who claim ive violated their cutural heritage so be it

also you see where i stuck the conqueror in here, weak but again this
phase i will stick him in wherever i can and worry later about refining it
and i will use the conqueror and the babajohn interchangabe
right now im thinking that the conqueror will use diff horses as necessary
folk like harriet and langston and zora and ida b and regular
folk who have escaped the ruthless gaze of history

 

so this is the tale of hammadi and sagalaire

then one night hammadi heard spirits playing a song like no
song he has ever heard before and the next morning he sounded
the great drum from kassa to kuna from denga to mondio

and all who heard it assembled in gundaka and he called
for players of the lute and the stringed instruments and last
night I heard a song like none ever heard before, it must
have been one of you, if by this time next week I have not
heard it again there will be no more musicians in this world

what is the name of it they asked, I do not know, he replied
but hear it I must and so all that week the played every song
that ever was but none would suffice to cool hammadi’s anger
the best of them all is ko biraima ko, he who has a song for
every occasion, even he does not know and in fear he does

what all must do he calls upon the conqueror who lives in

the deepest soul and so the conqueror comes, no need to ask
I know what you've come for, a song no one can hear, listen
said the conqueror and it is the  music of the spheres he hears
the songdust of exploded stars that rest in everything thing

every one all one, he hears the buffondo of the mountains peak
the glistening trill of the trees on the beat of a billion hearts
and all this and ore he hears, what song is this he asks, saigalare

said the conqueror but when he tried to play it he could not do so,
and the conqueror said raise your lute above your head and break
it and so he did and the conqueror gave him another and now the
guitar he said and so he did and the conqueror gave him another,
and then the conqueror gave him a calabash of water, wash yourself

he was told and so he did and then they played the tune over
and over and over until it was fully known, now rise and go
home said the conqueror, now it is yours, only you can play

it, even I could not take it from you and so he returned just
as hammadi was to kill all the 999  musicians in the land and
they were glad to see him, ko biraima has come, he will know
he was given milk and a kola nut while he collected himself
and tuned his hoddu and begin to play saigalare and the 999
musicians were aghast, that is not music they cried, we will die here
but hammadi was in ecstasy, yes, he said, his anger gone, that is it

and he rewarded ko with a 10 count of everything that was
but he was told that he could not play that song for anyone else
not fadia my wife or my wife tenen, daughter of da monzon
nor my sons gueladio hambodedio or ousmane hambodedio
if you play this for anyone else I will make you a cold corpse

but when fadia heard of a song no one else could hear there
was nothing for a challenge of this sort but to hear it and so

she paid him and used his affection for her to promise her
that he would play it for her when he could and the next
time hammadi went to war he put pepper in his eyes and

said he could not go and when they left him behind he
went to her and she washed the pepper out with milk of
the morning and he played saigalare for her and she
knew the blessings it brings but hammadi realizing
his griot was not there became concerned about his
battle and said he does not need to see to sing and so
he returned for ko and when he did he heard saigalare
being played from the highest tower and when he

broke into the room there they were and he stood before
them with his spear raised, can he kill both his griot and
his wife and no he cannot and so saigalare is given to them

all, and all share equally in its blessings

me and this bible

TUESDAY

so, plan was to zoom thru bible in 10 days
i suspect it will take me longer, maybe 20

no mas

i am desperate to close down research
and get back to some text

boy this is one tedious read, fortunately i
was turned on to some bible quote texts

im getting more from them than the text itself
but i figure i still got to actually read/skim

the whole damn (sorry, couldnt help myself, thought to do it, then i
thought ooo thats transgressive, then i thought isnt it though) thing

one of my research texts said its not a book, its a
library, you dont read a library like you do a novel

im hoping just the act of immersement will take
me to higher ground, i see why its been of value

to folk, a lot of good wisdom stuff but all that god
work is problematic, i got to get the power of that

without having to bow to the foolishness

so i came up with this idea while i was home, i realize now it
comes from being forced to wade thru this bible, and i was
looking thru my manuscript and its got a lot of good stuff but

there is no sense of the velocity you get from a novel, no
overarching narrative, then i think to give the narrative to

a mythological john de conqueror, a trope thats already in there but
not systemized, so i start working that out and its kinda
fascinating because ever since i was introduced to journey to the west

that idea of novel as holybook has fascinated me and i thought to make something of
that sort my next novel if ever i do one and now it appears that this night be it if i am

willing to be very flexible about what i call a novel and i dont care what the
industry or the public thinks, or even the generations, im doing it for the

generations but to make that work i got to do it for the artiste in me
this point in life i should have divine confidence in following my muse

unfortunately, by adding this layer i pretty much guarantee added months
of work, may blow out my research leave on this, i would hate to do that

right now im thinking i can split it up, half book of flowers, half rest
not what i wanted but a reasonable shot at moving both projects

so now instead of finished product im looking at a working
draft by the end of the year - bummer, absolute bummer

what is it with me and these forever projects

im feeling a little down for a variety of reasons
that i guess ima keep to myself, i try to avoid

whining in public, i get in trouble with my proteges
in the tradition, they be complaining and i be like

you just buckle down and try harder but i know
that is not acceptable to folk so i dont say it but

thats what im pushing in the hoodoo book of flowers, you
finesse the bullshit by being better than anybody else

and yes it still might not work but its the only thing that will

i aint saying dont agitate, i believe in a multifaceted
strategic posture, what i am saying is that the primary
strategy is shaping our generations, working our souls

empowerment within and without

there have been many racial uplift folk in our history
and they have not made a difference either but for
some reason i think i will, i guess they did too

but they didnt think to write a holybook, by god
and all thats holy i know what im doing (i think)

the photo is by a friend of mine, bob gates
he turned it sideways so you couldnt see
the smiley face, he thought that was too easy

artists

all my love always

rdoc

 

gotta wait for the pendulum to swing, it always does

I THINK THIS IS MAYBE A WEEK LATER?

folk starting to get used to the idea of trump
its gotta happen, shit got to keep moving forward
he has put together some of his cabinet, a
grievous set of deplorables, i was reading
somewhere the repubs will impreach him
when they can because they would rather
have a president pence than trump

so im still on hold till i figure out how to read this next phase
still in the air, we know trump will be horrible, its a question
of just how horrible he is going to be

i came here to talk about research, how much cooler
it is with google when you looking for facts and figures
i wanted the names of the 4 girls of birmingham bombing
found it like boom boom, i remember when you had to go
to the library and actually find information, now its at
your fingertips, thats got to change shit somehow

moving to the end of my research mode, thought it
would never come, finished afroam chrono and
transposing notes now

all i got left now is a couple of african epic books
and the bible, saving both these for last because
i want to be in a biblic/griotic state of mind when
i start doing the text

i got to go, got to go to a funeral in memphis in 4 hours and
trying to get thru the afroam chrono text, i will feel good . . .

its impo to feel good

arf

 

SUNDAY addendum

knew i should have stayed away from the news, just saw
a headline say trump will deport 2 to 3 million right away

well i guess its war, he making distinction that it will
be the criminal element but it feels very 1st step

to those who are nervous about his direction
in truth not on its face much different from

obama admin but its all about context i guess

 

SUNDAY

maybe her last hillary hit on snl, she went soulful

im pretty much going to withdraw from the fray
in particular the FB fray, dont even read the news

like i useta, dont want to see the hammer trump will be &
dont want to see the dems lurch to the left, which i dont

think is a winning strat, all emotion, no
strat, folk still processing the loss,

had to tell one of my young protegees who was hating on
whitefolk that we dont want to let struggle embitter us,

iching say there are two ways the superior personality
can influence the way of things, in the court (the public arena)
and withdrawal to work on self as a model of whats to come

since im supposed to be going into the woodshed anyway
i think ima call it a day, but can i legitimately do that

leave folk adrift, repub control of all three arms of gov
will do generations of damage, in particular if dems
dont respond well in the attempt to finesse the hammer

fortunately i got rootwork where i can be real
without worrying about how many likes i get

since nobody comes here unless they interested
in what i have to say, thats you dear regulators

i can say what i really feel here instead of what
will get me likes, thats my contract w/you

and that might have to suffice

speaking of the woodshed, of the many 100s id like to read, i
got 4 books im trying to have read by my deadline of nov 30 -  the bible
which by the way is one tedious read, ive finally gotten to the

wisdom texts, which is my interest but i felt need to wade thru
all that jewish history and mythology to see how they played it

boy is it tedious, then i got to wade thru the christian new testament
mythology, its a relief to have gotten to the psalms, something i can

grapple with and feel like its worth my while

for instance 1^ST psalm is one of instruction
in the way of righteousness, follow gods
instructions and you will know grace

the problem for me is that the anthro god the father/
lord does not work for me, but then you have

no one to supplicate, praise and depend on

so I have to give folk that kind of confidence in
the godlike grace of the universe

I will couch that in the mythology of the conqueror
also I notice that one dynamic of divine poetry is the 1^st

Person voice ostensibly the voice of the lord but in truth
The voice of the prophet, I find myself hesitant

To use that divine I but the passages where I do use
It are so powerful ima use it w/o reservation and

If it doesn't work I will dial it back later
like this riff on solomons wisdom psalm:

there those who ask of me riches, power
love or deliverance and even life
everlasting but it is you who ask of
me wisdom and grace and serenity

To you I will give it all

also taking notes from african american chronology by hornsby
600 pages, just finished it, got to transpose the notes
(i got gates history around here somewhere, might look at it)

and i got about 4 books on african epics i want to get thru and holding till last
to put me in that griotic state of mind for whan i pick up manuscript again

its been very hard to stay in the research mode, i am thoroughly tired of
it and im pretty much coasting at the schoolhouse, im already in a

research leave state of mind, two more classes is it basically
but ive fallen behind on my critiques, i got to focus, my students
were in a state of shock thurs after the election and their fierce

anger is what made me realize my cautious counsel will not
be well received,i notice initial trump more moderate than
campaign trump and and thats a curious blessing
dont want to normalize him but dont want the hammer either

half afraid when the repubs see he is going to play it his way
they assassinate him so pence/ryan can run wild

while the dem party is playing self destruct by turning hardleft
longrun it might work out with the millenials but i still think
we have to capture and hold the center

i understand the times and accept it, but im done,
ima wait for the pendulum to swing again

im fortunate i got a woodshed waiting, ima
use the hammer to get my work done

i will return to the fray in the fall

if you see me about dont bother saying
hello - its just my traveling spirit, the

Real me is at home, clocking pages

all my love

rdoc

a new day, a new era of struggle

MO WEDNESDAY

well, first things first, 1st we see what kind of resistance we can muster in
congress and down ballot, who survived the massacre of 2016, we got to
see what defenses can we erect, what policies can we defend, is there any
room whatsoever for offense - then we got to make sure they don't try to
extract vengeance on hillary or barack - lock her up, et al - otherwise im
not sure of the next step, gon have to be reactive, gon have to see how
they plan to play it, ima step up my political commentary/engagement - the
moment call for serious strategic calibration, increased commitment, not
withdrawal from the fray, everybody gon have to do a little more, everybody
gon have to be strategic, only players need apply, we got no room for error

 

 

 

 

WEDNESDAY THE 9TH,
HUNKERING DOWN

well, looks like we lost this one, repubs now control all 3 branches of gov,
Ima indulge myself w/a couple days of crippling depression then get back
on it, figure out how to maintain struggle and once again finesse the hammer,
been in the struggle long as I have you win some you lose some you keep
on struggling, more ruthless about getting your Work done, maintaining the
longtime, doing your part - courage my friends, a luta continua