SATURDAY the 7th
caught up on my schoolhouse grind and gone be
on road next week, the delta symposium, im the
literary keynote person, my presentation is: hoodoo
lords of the delta, pedagogy, practice & prophecy
that close to memphis i ask ekpe and cequita to hep me,
we gon brang some memphis soul stew up in there
today all this morning i been working on HBOF text
processed all my notes, now im clocking pages again
and wondering if i go full court i wonder if i can
use being down in the delta to finish a draft and
refocus for my big summer novel push, just the fact
im working HBOF text makes me feel good, finishing
a draft will make me feel better, gotta go, gotta
clock me some pages, play gods instrument
plus in terms of being nervous about this gig
if im deep in my draft i wont care, i will have
perspective, im gone, all my love
rdoc
SATURDAY the 31st
i feel so much better, ive moved into a different phase
ive grouped all those sentence or two beats into movement
categories like compassion, fate, etc and am now putting
those groupings into the text, still raw but at least its
working on text, still researching but its a diff phase, no
longer digging myself into a hole, digging out now
moving into closure, all my love
WEDNESDAY THE 28TH
this is the way i do research these days
since january i been researching 'grace'
1st i go to wikipedia, see what they got to say
make note of any interesting sources they note
then i download every sample on amazon
remotely affiliated w/the concept grace
this is say 25 books, i go thru those samples
in itself an education, often everything that
book has to say is in the outline and 1st chap
from this i get maybe 10 more books to hunt down
i wean all those down to must reads, say 10 books
if they are academic books i got to syracuse univ library
this puts me in the stacks, another 40 books maybe
i take them to a library table and scan them, lets say
20 i check out and scan more closely, goal being to
get them out of my house,, the ones i can scan thru
and extract what they have i do, the ones that have
nothing i take back almost immediately but there are
about 7 at this point i want to read closely and mark uo
back to amazon, the ones that are cheap enuf i order them
the ones that arent cheap and arent at the library i hustle
of makiing (and researching books) there is no end
i use my research fund to pay for books, just did
my list for research fund reimbursement, these
are the books my search for grace has led me to:
how religion developed
the meaning of grace
divinity and experience: nuer religion
human development, 9th edition
eternal quest, finding god
speaking of gods in narrative and metaphor
liberating grace
systematic theology
earth crammed w/heaven
minding the spirit
2666 by bolano (was talking about bolano w/a student)
remythologizing theology (so expensive i rented it for $18)
the essence of christanity
reverence: rewnewing
the faith instinct
how and why god evolved
the astronomy book
the big questions in science & religion
whats so amazing about grace
dance of the infidels
the art of spiritual direction
spiritual guidance across religions
these are just the ones i actually bought, add another 25
from library like christanity, islam and the orisha
dept sec who processes all this says you cant possiby be reading them
under relentless time constraints, im always determining whats critical
i got a million books on my phone and by the bed thats critical
i know you like who interested in another book list, arthur
but you got to understand i dont keep this blog for you
i do it for scholars of the future, my trail of breadcrumbs
(well maybe for you a little bit)
right now im reading a book called the secret teachings of the ages
the astronomy book is really digestible astronomy,, id like to finish that one
im thinking the art of spiritual direction and spiritual guidance
across religions are explicitly my interests, both fat fuckers of course
still trying to wade thru quantum physics and the laws of nature
problem is one thread leads to another, grace lead to theology
rinse and repeat whole fucking process, of making etc
picked up a book, the maximalist novel, that i ran across
i think of it and bolano as part of the Rest for the Weary push
that im trying to clear the decks for now, i want a good draft of
THBOF before i settle into that push this summer
which means i should close this post down and start
working text, which is transposing about 40 pages
of notes into segments which i then stick (raw)
into their given movements, then i work those
until they are viable passages, then a couple of
full run thrus and i will have a draft, i need to
have that done by the end of the month
i got to go, im out of here, all my love . . .
MONDAY THE 26TH
i have a really funky blues, that book on human development
has depressed me, in the aging section it talks about when folk
have to give up their youthful dreams of fame and fortune and
in my case, significance, and im very conscious that i have held
on to mine w/o much reinforcement from the world long after
most folk have abandoned theirs
but when i read my work it feels inadequate, like the world
was right all along, and that mbira, was listening to recordings
i have of recent sessions and i dont sound as good as i think
i sound when im playing - man i am depressed and i want to
just give up and quit and withdraw from the fray, im so depressed
but my identity of myself is so wrapped up in being a dreamer
that i just dont know how to quit and ima keep on swinging but
but it appears i no longer believe in the victory i guess
ive set up a persona in the world and got to play the hand out
i might, for instance, be doubting my mbira chops but i got gigs in cuba
australia, bali, vancouver, lisbon and various colleges scheduled
and i got to show up and do whatever it is i do and make it work
i feel like i been betrayed by knowledge, i think of knowledge
as my thing, contributing to a wisdom that allows me to deal
with life and finesse it with a cosmic serenity of purpose but
my recent knowledge push has instead unsettled me
im tired, im whining but i got a full days work
ahead of me, might be why im whining
all my love . .. .
PS: im taking these posts and putting them in my HBOF notes
cause its that vulnerable tone im looking for in my personalized
beats, even despair can be of use in the Craft, hang in there, rick
you can do this . . .
SUNDAY the 25th
so im reading this book, human development
figured it would help my lifeworks beats
it is truly fucking with my head, one it talks
about personal mythology when adolescents
think they arent subject to the laws that govern
mortals and thats so me back in the day and
yes life quickly disabused me of that notion but
i still feel like im destinied
i dont try to work it cause its delusional enuf
without me trying to convince folk of it but i
conduct myself as if it were indeed truth, thats
what conjuration is, conduct yourself as you
aspire to be and you are
now i find that even that was not unique to me
its a damn stage that other folk grew out of and
at one point says folk give up on magic in
their lives and settle on hard work, i do both
then in the late middleaged sections it talks about
how folk have to accept that the great dreams of
youth were just that, dreams, and the wouldbe
jazzman accepts the highschool music teacher
job as his life and me i got a good thing with
my mfa teaching gig but it dont satisfy me
i have accepted that this might be as far as i go
but that dont mean ima stop swinging
at what point does it become delusional
or rather at what point does the delusional
become critical mass, i dont know of any other
writer whose late years stuff is as strong as the
work of his or her yoouth, there may be one or
two exceptions but mostly folk lose their chops
i suspect w/this novel ive reached a point of diminishing
returns, perhaps the holybook also, i think this is the last
summer im giving to either of these projects, at this point
i fear im just stripping what power they may have, im done
time to look at other projects
time to move on
the plan was to use the summer to enrich them both
which means i have to maintain faith in them, even
if in truth i no longer have it, old
trouper just dont know how to quit
if i dont win ima die surprised
1 mo year god, spit & bailing wire
then we will renegotiate, like always
all my love
rdoc
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