Booker T & Them: A Blues

Interlude 8

Interlude eight 01 Harris text.indd 92 12/13/11 11:25 AM Polaris; Newton’s Laws 1–3; Lynching; Migration; On Uses of the Blues Think back: Say a couple hundred years. Say 2 hundred 14 to be exact. Cambridge, England, University of Cambridge, Trinity College. 1687. The desk of Isaac Newton (1643–1727). Straight up, flat out, no doubt physiological, mathematical, anthropological, philosophical, alchemical, theological genius. To be Sir (—how much thought had to go into that?). Read over his shoulder. His Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It lays the groundwork & clears the path for a world of knowing the basic hows & whys. Thumb through to the classic mechanics section. Packed with stuff about universal gravitation & the 3 laws of motion explaining why objects move (or don’t) as they do. & how the same natural laws govern the movement of objects on Earth & those of the heavenly bodies. (& giving lie to the assertion of the earth being Anglocentric rather than Heliocentric.) Newton’s 1st Law: of inertia: Says simply, more or less, every body 01 Harris text.indd 93 12/13/11 11:25 AM ( 94 ) (&/or everybody, including, the, until very recently, by law enslaved ((by recently, Oh, say can you see 3 decades & 6 or so—a more exact number of the ending of that unnatural state of being, or baring, depends on how 1 calculates the state of affairs of states’ states of mind (((specific locale, judicial & jurisdictional discretion, &c, &c, being so variable being more exact is mathematically & theoretically difficult—))) perseveres in its state of moving, or not moving, (including, in the case of the above-mentioned multitude, often having to make a way out of no way), except insofar as it is compelled to change its state (state of residence, &/or state of mind) by an unbalanced force. (Author’s emphasis.) Before we recap think: Lynchings Jim Crow Boll weevils Droughts —Hands? Yes. —Let me see if I can break it down. If something out of balance ain’t going nowhere, it’s going to keep on going nowhere until something makes it. —Correct. —& something that is going somewhere, it’ll keep doing it at the same speed until something else, maybe the first thing in the first place, speeds it up. 01 Harris text.indd 94 12/13/11 11:25 AM ( 95 ) —Right again. These are the simplest reasons bodies or somebody’s move. —Rock on. Lynchings Jim Crow Boll weevils Droughts Lynchings Jim Crow Boll weevils Droughts 2d Law. 2 things determine the speed of the moving body (or bodies): the force of the mover, & its size. Lynchings Jim Crow Boll weevils Droughts The 3d Law, Newton essentially says, is that the response to every action is a reaction that is equal, in size, and opposite, in direction. Lynchings Jim Crow Boll weevils Droughts &/so, finally, even in the South, given the perfect tempest of lynchings, Jim Crow, 01 Harris text.indd 95 12/13/11 11:25 AM ( 96 ) boll weevils, & droughts, the laws of nature, & the (Jim Crow) laws of man are no longer separate, but in contentious alliance & equal in their force on the negro body, or the body of negroes. Push has come to shove. Correct. Mass migration begins. Can’t stay here— Uses of the blues: Go down deep & stay long; walk moonlight; be that crooked road out of the woods; lighten hardships & fill hungry days; shift loads; get business straight; pick up the pushed down; heed the call when things go wrong; find lost minds; tear into foolishness like a mad dog at a rat in a lightning storm. 01 Harris text.indd 96 12/13/11 11:25 AM ...