First, thanks for all the comments on the flower pot theory. Sorry, I
can't respond to everything right now, although I wish I could. (I am
beginning to wonder what sort of flower I have been smoking. I thought
they were just Benson and Hedges Special Filter....)

It was very useful to hear that sections could not be understood
and also to hear what could be followed. This sort of writing is often
called ficto-criticism, an Australian invention which is often put in
the experimental too hard basket but jumps out of this genre quickly,
not being a genre which is One. A type of writing that is brought into
use because there are no words to say how we feel, only thousands of
lived cliches to make up our stories. Also, poets provide the sort of
feedback and collective help that is useful. It needs the collective
intelligence of poets which exceed what would be provided on an academic
philosophy list since the writing exceeds and comprehends philosophy and
is not philosophy, if anything a non-philosophy or anti-philosophy.

Monads and Leibniz's Monadology was used by Henry James to invent his
realist point of view, that is to write from each characters point of
view since each character is a monad. (It's called third person singular
I think... someone else may be able to correct me on this, my memory of
point of view is hazy.) The Monadology was also used by Beckett in, for
example, Waiting for Godot. Also science fiction and gothic use logic
provided by the Monadology.

I did think to take up Rebecca's point and begin by explaining what a
monad is, in rewriting The Flower Pot Theory of (Hetero)Sexuality for
publication. But when I ran through this in my head, I found I really
need to begin with the queer abstract machine I invented and to explain
the logic of this machine. I also liked the Popul Vuh story, as when I
was translating the very clear abstract visual image in my head into
words the image met a sort of spongy grey through which it had to
negotiate. Australian Aborigines tell of stories which each individual
owns and what they say to white Australia is we have to make our own
stories which we can own rather then the shame and guilt of the
totalitarian colonial story which universalises across the landscape and
which is no-one's story. These may then become like a quilted collection
of stories which are the spirit of the earth, the thought that is in
rocks. The Flower Pot Theory began in a way with Alison's story of the
landscape and is in its own way a story of quilts (the AIDS quilt) which
can link up with the minor stories which make stories of the Australian
landscape that we can own as our own real stories so that we may truly
say: I love a sun burnt country, a land of sweeping plains, droughts and
flooding rains; without shame.

My queer abstract machine begins by comprehending two simple
mathematical logics, that of Leibniz, which is a mathematical logic of
folding and that of Newton and Kant, which is a logic of cutting up or
segmentation. Anyways, I must go and begin writing up how this logic
works. Perhaps some more later. If anyone knows the C programming
language, that is a logic of folding, since a computer is a mechanism
built with folding machines. The electrical circuit theory of computers
and silicon chips is a mathematical logic of folds. Electrical circuit
theory begins with the basic equation: y=f(sin x). That is a mathematics
of the circle. A Kantian mathematics of the circle, based on segmented
logic is founded on ignorance or indeterminancy.


Finally, on homophobia. I always remember a 1970s gay liberation poster
with an image of two cats licking each other with the slogan: lesbians
are everywhere. So too is homophobia. Homophobia is not just the
oppression of an object identified as lesbian or gay, but affects
everyone, straight and gay, in a bad way. It makes everyone less able to
act in the world and so is a negative feedback affect needed for
homeostatic control societies.  Lesbians and gay males are by far more
conscious of this oppression and the affect is far more powerful,
terrifying and detrimental as the image of the terrible murder of the
young gay man which shocked the USA shows us all, straight and gay. To
fight homophobia wherever you are; that is how we survive. The final
logic of homophobia is death to everyone, straight and gay. The final
solution. This is why pink triangles homosexual males had to wear
along with black triangles that lesbians were branded with in Nazi
concentration camps are the organising symbol of gay liberation.

best wishes

Chris Jones.