yes, well

Imagine Deleuze saying "Bring it on".


Thick french accent.
Cigarette smoke swirling all about.
Bring on the history of philosophy.
Not in some vaguely abstract and specialized
view-of-the-world-twice-removed kind of way.
But instead, while half smiling past some tiny spot on the wall,
he would mumble,

"It is the art of portraiture in so far as it allows
one to reach toward something. At this point, it
becomes a bit mysterious...".

And what if Deleuze were seated in the kitchen.
Ashes tumbling on the table.
Pausing for a long moment.
Mantle clock ticking atop the china cabinet
from somewhere in the next room.
Not an awkward silence.
But more like being wrapped up in a soft warm blanket.
Like coming in from the cold.

I'd wait.
Eventually puncturing the stillness
with one excrutiatingly hostly word.
"Coffee?"
To which he'd reply,

"...a kind of art of the portrait, creating a philosopher's
portrait, but a philosophical portrait of a philosopher,
a mental or spiritual portrait such that it's an activity
that belongs fully within philosophy itself, just as a
portraiture belongs to painting."

I'd lean forward on my elbows.
Letting nothing get in the way of hearing those words.
Enjoying the late afternoon light fading the room.
And even if the streetlamps were already lit outside,
I'd make no effort to turn a lamp on.
Preferring the certain intimacy of shadows shared
at that time of day. How they'd seem to muffle voices
while filling them up with (more) meaning.
Faces disappearing in the darkness
amidst a conversation about portraiture.

Bare glimpse of his cigarette-hand
lifting a piece of tobacco from his lower lip.
The curiously ideosyncratic gestures of a long-time smoker.
Coupled with some indescribably throaty noise
that would swell up to herald his words.
And after summoning his thoughts, he'd slowly recount
something vague about Gaugin's and Van Gogh's work.
How both had an enormous effect on him.

"The kind of immense respect or rather fear and even panic
they evince when faced with getting in (aborder) color."

At this point, I'd sit up a little straighter.
For the first time, being able to question what he was saying.
Knowing Deleuze was never a painter.
While also knowing my own palette.

"These painters are the two greatest colorists ever,
but in their works, they employ color only with great
hesitation (tremblement)."

My eyes would narrow. Fear of colour?...Please.
While also disliking that equation: artists equal neuroses. Regardless.
He'd continue.

"In the beginning of their careers, they used earthen colors
(couleurs patate, de terre), nothing striking, because they
did not yet dare to take on color. It's a very moving question,
as if, literally, they did not yet judge themselves worthy of
color, not ready or able to take it on and really do painting.
It took them years and years before being able to do so. When
you see the results of their work, one has to reflect on this
immense slowness to undertake that work. Color for a painter
is something that can take him/her into madness, into insanity,
thus is something quite difficult, taking years to dare to come
close to it."

I'd shake my head.
Into madness? Philosophy-as-psychoses? C'mon.
But all the while, remembering my long time preference
for the immeasurable richness of blackandwhite.
Love of the monochrome palette. Inandofitself.
How it focuses the eye on line and form.
How one can use colour arbitrarily.
While also remembering that painting
is that perpetual process of unfolding problems.
The relentless problem of formandcontent.
Art as the (he)art of problem-solving.
Even if its sensorial-tactile-kinaesthetic-alchemistic form
is performed balletically.

Like a dance.

Nonetheless.
With my certain skepticism
and the orange glow of his dwindling cigarette
nearly scorching the skin on his fingers,
he'd explain how philosophy is no more abstract
than a painting or music is abstract.

"One thing is certain: a philosopher is not someone who
contemplates or even reflects, but is someone who creates,
and creates a very special kind of thing, concepts, not
stars that one gazes at in the sky...you have to create,
fabricate concepts."

Looking up. Hearing him in mid-sentence.
And thinking how I must have missed something.

"...the Idea, the thing in so far as it is pure
(la chose en tant que pure). The reader doesn't understand
immediately what it's about, or why one would need to
create such a concept. If he/she continues and reflects on
it, he/she sees the reason..."

He'd pause to light another cigarette.
Cupping his hands. Hearing the whoosh of his flame.

"...since every concept...refers to a problem...If you
do philosophy abstractly, you do not even see the problem,
but if one reaches this problem... One might wonder why
the problem isn't stated clearly by a philosopher since
it certainly exists in his work..."

I'd interrupt. Asking why.
And also thinking it's time to stop. For something to eat.
Westminster chimes marking the hour.

"...it's because one can't do everything at once. The
philosopher's task is already that of exposing the concepts
that s/he's in the process of creating, so he can't expose
the problems on top of that, or at least one can discover
these problems only through the concepts being created.
If you haven't found the problem to which a concept
corresponds, everything stays abstract. If you've found
the problem, everything becomes concrete."

So I'd think; it is certainly how a painting starts.
With a particular problem to solve: Always becoming
something more than just the problem of its expression.

"All this is as interesting as a great novel or a painting,
but in philosophy, there are two things at once: the creation
of a concept always occurs as a function of a problem. If one
has not found the problem, philosophy remains abstract."

He'd continue. Waving smoke about.

"Leibniz arrived and invented an extraordinary concept
to which he gave the name, monad. There is always
something a bit crazy in a concept. Leibniz's monad,
designated a subject, somebody, you or me, in so far as
it expresses the totality of the world, and in expressing
the totality of the world, it only expresses clearly a tiny
region of the world, its territory, or what Leibniz calls
his "department". So a subjective unity that expresses the
entire world, but that only clearly expresses a region of
the world -- this is called a monad."

Enthralled with all things Leibnizian
and making a mental note to myself of his last word,
I'd note how, if one just reverses the m and the n,
one arrives at the (deleuzian) word "nomad".
Wanting to ask him if (while with Guattari),
the letters were deliberately switched
to arrive at the name of their new concept.
From monadology to nomadology.
And wanting to hear him say it,
but not wanting to ask him anything too obvious.
Also seeing those letters in my head,
seeing each one just as they were spoken.
Knowing how each letter always has a very specific colour for me.
And in that moment, wanting to ask him about that, too.
Remembering that he wrote about synaesthesia with Guattari
in Milles Plateaux.
But instead, just letting it all pass.

Voice caught in mid-word.

"It's a concept Leibniz created, but why state it this way?
One has to find the problem, that's the charm of reading
philosophy, as charming as reading a good book. Leibniz
poses a problem, specifically that everything only exists
as folded... He saw the world as an aggregate of things
folded within each other. Step back a bit: why did he see
the world like this? What was happening back then? What
counts, is the idea of the fold, everything is folded,
and everything is a fold of a fold, you can never reach
something that is completely unfolded. Matter is constituted
of folds overlapping back onto it, and things of the mind,
perceptions, feelings, ideas, are folded into the soul.
It's precisely because perceptions, feeling, ideas are folded
into a soul that Leibniz constructed this concept of a soul
that expresses the entire world, i.e. in which he discovers
the entire world to be folded."

Thinking how much I love the fold.
How I absolutely love Leibniz' concept of the fold.
And how great to be hearing about it from Deleuze
in a darkened kitchen.
That is probably where it would occur to me.
Having spent years apprenticing to the historyofphilosophy
(which would mark his pre-colour phase),
of course Deleuze would seek colour in philosophy.
Just as much as a painter needs occassion
to mix colours, so too, a philosopher needs to stir up
the philosophical colours of concepts.
When thinking by posing problems of a completely different context,
philosophy becomes an act of creating new concepts.
A function of posing today's problems differently.
Reposing them.
Just like a painter paints self-portraits to reposess oneself.
As if to see the same familiar face in a different light.
To own oneself differently.

Noting how he would probably start to get tired.
Offering a glass of wine as recompense.
Probably red. And watching him swirl it awhile.
Knowing how any conversation could become an occassion
for reaching some kind of evolution-of-thought.
The kind that comes from no longer posing the same problems,
but from posing them in new ways.
Amidst his urgent appeal to create and re-create new concepts.

Likewise, his insistance that historyofphilosophy
cannot be reduced to sociological influence.
That there is a becoming-of-thought; that it can be shared.
That mysterious thing that causes one to no longer think
the same way (as a hundred years ago or even ten minutes ago).
How those lovely ellipses of thought
are just like the light reflected
on the rim of a crystal goblet.

That there is a history-of-pure-thought,
which is what historyofphilosophy is.
That it has always-only-ever had one function:
to create concepts and constitute problems
as a matter of meaning.
Not to find truth or falsity.
But to forge a problem for meaning.
Practicing philosophy to constitute problems
that create concepts that move toward
the understanding of, and solution of, problems-of-relevance hereandnow.
Contingent upon now.

But what does it mean to act
as (faire comme) a great philosopher would?
To Deleuze it means not being a disciple.
But instead, extending the task begun by someone else.
He would implore this: to create concepts
related to and also evolving from someone else's ideas.
To carry the philosophical baton forward.
Deleuze-becoming-Leibniz and by doing so,
finally finding his own palette of philosophical colours.

I'd sigh.
Maybe put some bread and cheese on the table
while wondering what else could be offered.
Meanwhile,
with head-in-hands and utterly lost in thought,
he would softly mutter
"eh?".
And smile.

I'd finally turn on a light.
Allthewhile wondering
how
to paint a French accent.