Downstair DJ'ing Oral Lore & Reading Traditions of Tricksters as A Poleworking Tricker

Massaged readings of "The Mist and the Rain: A Trickster Tale" + Trickster Folklore

“Polework” is the term I’ve been favoring as of late to quintessentially describe a large part of what I do for a living. It’s been difficult for me to explain to people what I “do”. It’s really been more of who I “be”. Fuck— I just got all heavy on yall again. Okay, let me back up.

Part of who I be, is a teacher; and what I teach? Well, it’s a mix of so many samplings like a mixtape. I experienced a thing and it rubbed off on me. This other thing I read rubbed off on me. And I rubbed off on this other thing. My work is like a dj’ing of the right [and redirected wrong] rubs that have gotten me to this climax of crafting things in exchange for money. Yes I’m a pole tricks teacha’, but for sure—more pointedly—I preach about using the body to trick, to work the pole. But also, as of recent, I’ve begun teaching tricks without a pole; but that will come up later and I’ll circle back. I’m all over the place.

The Thursday after election Tuesday—my coping mechanism for the pinned up overwhelm was to read. Unsettled from the discourse™ of it all, I scrolled through my Google Drive folder, found a PDF file from my list of reads and sunk my face into Chapter 16—The Mist and the Rain: A Trickster Tale.

From the introduction that I read a week or so ago, I was preloaded with the information that this literature was artistic, parabolic writing. When I saw the chapter title in the table of contents of Black Sexual Economies, I remember the word “trickster” wrapping around my eyeballs. LaMonda Horton-Stallings is the pen behind the parable excerpt; and if you know, then you know why it was a must read. Short but deep, the parable tells the tall tale of a rabbit and turtle’s mystical, turbulent dance to achieve god status. Stalling’s imagination weaves the lore until it culminates into a metaphor of downstairs dj’ing (masturbation). I’m doing my best to summarize without spoiling the marvel that unfolds as you read it. While the writing is brief, this parable does some H E A V Y whipping theoretically, artistically and metaphysically. Days later, I’m still digesting the meal. I’d like to share some of the lines that I highlighted to cite: