On Antagonism

"The proverb says, 'one finds what one looks for', and nothing is easier to find than an enemy, even if you do not go far to look."

(Renato Poggioli, The Theory of The Avant-Garde)

Manifesting

"Hamm: Me-

(he yawns)

-to play."

(Samuel Beckett, Endgame)

It's become rather common of late (by that I mean since the late 19th century) to begin projects, movements, schools -and even blogs with a declaration of purpose, a Manifesto. 

manifesto: From the Latin, to make public, these documents are declarations of being. They say: "this is what I shall be. This is what I am!" They are simultaneously the programme and the manifestation, a self-contained completion.

Bright flashes they are, promising everything -then dying.

History tells tale of Manifestos perptually (a brief survey of Avant-Garde movements will reveal this. Try futurism). The manifesto is like a candle which flares at the end of it's wick. It is a patient dead on arrival. It is simultaneously production and suicide.

The unfortunate truth is, to become visible or to made public, is to die. When one is revealed, unfurled, denuded -one has reached conclusion.

I write this not to establish some sort of foundation of pessimism nor to make some sort of statement about the efficacy of school or movement -it's much less ambitious than that. If I can make any vague gesture at the purpose of my blog, it is it.

This page is about manifesting. As Hamm says many a time, it is about the "Me" to play. I am performing myself so that I might begin to appear. This blog performs me so that I might catch refracted glimpses of that manifestation also. I cannot say what it or I will be. The Me to play has yet to arrive.