i’ve used roman’s brilliant image-act, hydrant fire, not as an ‘illustration’, but as a visual-act analogue, for the developing ‘theory’ of this blog. and as with all theories, they are works in progress, and thus need revisiting, which requires a certain amount of repetition. and i’ve also suggested that stein’s theory of repetition, which implies a continuous encounter with difference, is equally significant.

such is the nature/knowledge/guesses/necessities of pearodox. and of, provocation.

and, as i’ve suggested below, this blog is attempting to rethink what it’s possible to do with a blog. my ‘method’ is to resist the built in bottom-t0-top chronology, [without resorting to more sophisticated, back-end programming], by building in a circularity of references through repetition to what’s come before, and may come next. that sort of spontaneous structure is indeed, present here. not that i expect anyone to get it, or, to read this flow of posts to ‘get it.’ i don’t. but it is there if anyone wants to know. there is a rough sort of coherence to the discontinuity.

and, as an admission i’ve not posted before: this blog is an experiment for me: because:

1. i’ve written things most of my live that no publisher would publish. because it’s usually too image-heavy, too odd, too long, too academically unrecognizable, too politically rogue, or in fact, sometimes, unsavory, to get published these days. and, to be honest, i’m unwilling to cave into those conditions.
2. ‘academic writing’ is, usually, often, hopelessly conservative and anemic. but even then, it gets worse. some publisher does the numbers and kills 99% of what’s possible. thereby, dumbing down academic discourse itself. see below.
3. thus roman’s image-act: the setting fire to the very possibility of preventing fire. as a political statement, of course.
4. pearodox
5. there are historical moments only possible to represent by the phoenix. not as some kind of political theory, but as a momentary historical necessity as the only way ‘out’ to some other future possibility.
6. i’m risking roman’s view of his own work here… but i’m so glad he’s allowed me to post it… it is, after all, one of the best ever aesthetically expressed emblems of ‘democracy’ today, and our relationship to the state. not to mention it’s subtext: the demise of the global environment.