MJJG 34-43 - small business succession issue

[Raphael Saltwood]

Becky wrote:
“In the 1972 novel, Mumbo Jumbo, by Ishmael Reed, the main character is a Voodoo priest named Papa Labas after Papa Legba.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Legba

—- which gets me humming along with Pops Staples

https://youtu.be/u21-p4sTz4w



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________________________________
From: Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 10:03:27 AM
To: Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: MJJG 34-43 - small business succession issue

“In the 1972 novel, Mumbo Jumbo, by Ishmael Reed, the main character is a Voodoo priest named Papa Labas after Papa Legba.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Legba

****
On Nov 29, 2020, at 1:07 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
> Nobody is feeding loa tray 21 - focusing on strategy, skimping on tactics?

> Occasionally - in the course of one’s life as a shopper - one might wander into a botanica and see a statue of, say, Chango, with a lit cigar in its mouth and open bottle of liquor nearby. The loa  trays are probably something like that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Voodoo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Voodoo#/media/File:Voodoo_Altar_New_Orleans.jpg
Or
https://www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/2017/05/24/third-avenue-series
???

I kind of saw the trays as being like plant starter trays where there are maybe a dozen or more little seedlings needing to be fed.  Just a vague image.

****
There SO much stuff crammed into this book!

Becky


> On Nov 29, 2020, at 1:07 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> Knockings - PLB credits Earline with, from context, a psychic sensitivity he calls knockings, chastising her for not using this intuition
>
> - sounds like some dissension in the ranks.
>
> Earline - whether she be his daughter (if so, we hear nothing of the mother, or in fact any kind of amorous interest for LaBas iirc) as he keeps calling her, or unrelated paid staff - is somewhat distraught about how to proceed strategically (science and lawyers she thinks, preferring that to PLB’s mystic spiritualism - his rejoinder “these scientists, there’s a lot they don’t know”)
>
> She brings up Berbelang and the rift between him and PaPa LaBas.
>
> The gist of which being PLB is rooting for the Jes Grew and utilizing Haitian loas - while Berbelang, honcho of the Mu’tafikah, seems to want to build with a broader base in eclectic traditions and doesn’t see Jes Grew as the main trend.
>
> It’s pretty clear Reed sympathizes with PLB, isn’t it?
>
> PLB doesn’t impose organizational discipline on Earline, but debates her seriously as an equal. He gives her credit for as much intuition as he has, but chides her for not using it the way he does.
>
> It’s a typical sole-proprietorship succession issue, in some respects. The Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral is succeeding, the goods work, the market is there, but if it is to grow - they have to make their processes scalable.
>
> That of course in capitalism means Fordism, mass production, franchising, interchangeable parts, division of labor, and inevitable competition.
>
> Which goes against the vibe, doesn’t it?
>
> (In fact it may be the same scalability problems that begin to affect Jes Grew)
>
> Nobody sees things quite the way PaPa LaBas does, and he hasn’t formalized processes, although there is that sign, “Remember to Feed the Loas”
>
> Nobody is feeding loa tray 21 - focusing on strategy, skimping on tactics?
>
> Occasionally - in the course of one’s life as a shopper - one might wander into a botanica and see a statue of, say, Chango, with a lit cigar in its mouth and open bottle of liquor nearby. The loa  trays are probably something like that?
>
> So very many references!  “A progressive knotting-into” the lore of the times.
> The Locomobile, history of Marxism, PLBs heritage, Irene Castle, Marcus Garvey, recipe for a charm to soothe an elderly lady’s night visitations...
>
> Meanwhile, back on the farm, utterly uninterested in vibrational manifestations, Woodrow Wilson Jefferson is heartily tired of animal husbandry. He takes his collection of Marx-Engels journalism and heads for the train station and New York, mocked by the townspeople - “excuuuuse me,” they say (did Steve Martin get that from  _Mumbo Jumbo_?)
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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