THE CONJURORS TALES sun 03/26
its been shalky, hit and miss, but the last
couplke of days ive hit my groove
got thru tteaching the class on mumbo jumbo
and arranging for ishmael to zoom into it for them
no more commitments drawing me off my game
yestdey worked on both geas and the hoodoo way
the hoodoo way is easy, so far, just a read thru
dotting I's, but it always gets rougher deeper
into text, did jan yesterday, so try to do a month
a day, rick, and it reads well, which is why
im able to force march thru a month a day
and the memoir im really enjoying
doing over from scratch - means i only hit
the moree important beats
and its diff, before it was a chrono structure
now its much more associative / thematic
and before i had paragraph length segments
cause im into flash, tight tight
but those extended paras did not give the
reader time for emotional identification
or me time to work the emotional registers
my flash beats have become longer
allowing more emotional / coceptual registers
okay, just this morning i tried
something that worked
and ima do all thru this text
i have wanted to tell some beats of
my life as hoodoo wisdom tales
this morning i was writing about leaving memphis
to go to the city to get in the babajohn workshop in 1973
and i thought tell this one as wisdom tale
its a rough transition, 1st draft, i will
determine later how to frame them narratively
need i remind you, this is raw draft
i should not be showing this
but the hoodoo wisdom tale worked
folk familiar with mmy work with recognize
the anecdote, ima transform the beats of my life
that will make good wisdom tales into them,
ik could not imagine hpow that would work
the key as always is just try, fix it later
but if you dont rty you got nothing to work with
i'm so happy
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I was in Johns workshop from 1973 to when he died in 1986. Followed him from school to school, learning what in the mystical traditions is called the Unwritten Text, the extended example of the masters life. Folk ask me all the time, what did you do in the same workshop for 16 years.
OK. A point of clarity,, I want to tell certain beats of my life as wisdom tales. I have been influenced in this matter but the Sufi Wisdom tales and wanting to found a tradition of Hoodoo Wisdom Tales. It was that Sufi influence that cause me to put a prefix in front of Babajohn’s name and ritually refer to him as The Babajohn. Sufi wisdom tales are often built around historical practitioners. This historical beat I think will work as a wisdom tale:
once upon a time a delta traveler stumbled upon the great griot master of brooklyn at the crossroads of working premises and settled in for a period of study expected to be 2, maybe 3 months, which became a year, which became 16. It was often asked of the traveler, what in heavens name did you learn in 16 years of study. First, said the traveler, the babajohn taught us to write, then said the traveler he taught us to be writers, and finally, said the traveler, settling his pack upon crooked shoulders and once again preparing for the high road, he taught us to be visionaries
(PS: after ysing it in the hoodoo way i stuck it
in the conjurors tales with the image above)
FRI MAR24 3 PAGES A DAY
okay so i got a little groove on
pg 10 of memoir, avging 3 singlespace
pgs a day, old draft was 127
at 3 pgs a day we talking two months
i can live with that
started off 10 pgs a day but that
was quickly proven unreasonable
i assume i will pick up speed
that 1st week was me spinning my
wheels and moaning but i got a
sense of how its gon work now
we will see
be safe
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