Delueze, Sort of

Today while reading Deleuze, again, I was involved in a really wonderful conversation about the difference between Dexter and Breaking Bad.

The argument for Breaking Bad being better ended up being built, mostly I think, on what Dexter is not doing creatively. Essentially the argument was that since Dexter is concerned mostly with Dexter, the plot is often subjugated to that point, and hence is often neglected. I basically agree with this. However, I love Dexter, mostly because it's entertaining and I love Bautista - I mean he's the guy I want to sit next to at my local bar - and there is no higher compliment.

Okay, so this conversation led me to thinking about repetition, mostly because I'm trying to get through Deleuze's book on difference and repetition, titled exactly that. Now, I'm starting to have a weird relationship with Deleuze - I'm intrigued, seduced, but confused. So I've started what I described as my "Philosopher as Adhesive Tape" project with him. Can I use my readings of him to make sense of the world - can I "practice" Deleuze. Now the goal of course is that through application will come understanding. So here's my application of Deleuze for the day. (Coffeen if you're reading this, I need you to tell me where I fuck up.)

Okay, so let's not compare Dexter to Breaking Bad, but instead to The Wire. So they both use repetition as a trope - as my bass player would say "That's their shit." But they use repetition in drastically different ways.

Dexter repeats from an origin. Dexter has not only a beginning but a genuine origin - he's operating in the superhero genre. This suggests we can interpret his behaviors as coming from a single point. So what becomes interesting in Dexter is the hope that the point of origin will lose hold, i.e., that his Dark Passenger will cease to be his indestructible signifier. What we desire from Dexter is the postmodern - we want his signifier to stop pointing to a signfied, but instead to point beyond itself, which will mean in practical terms that Dexter can live a life that is not determined by one attribute - in the language of Deleuze he can be Rhizomic and not arborescent.

Now compare that to The Wire. In The Wire repetition is key to the show. In fact, the show's ending makes no sense unless you've already understood the argument the show is making in terms of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. David Simon says, brilliantly, that the show is Greek and the God's are the Institutions. Nobody Fucks With The Jesus.

So the end of The Wire is the beginning. The show seems so weird because it's not the psychological dramatic piece that shows one person rising above his circumstances. This show is ABOUT the circumstances - it's pre-Sophoclean drama.

Okay so what? Well here's my simple point: The Wire's repetition does not come from an origin - in fact there is no origin. There is only repetition in The Wire. So contrasted with Dexter or damn near any other show it becomes unique and pretty fucking brilliant. Most shows repeat from a center - faux Jazz - the belief that the Tune is stable, is an origin, can be redistributed. However, The Wire, and no accident that the same guy made Treme (with many others, obviously), understands that The Tune is up for grabs too. Listen to Joe Pass and Neils Henning Orsted Peterson cover Charlie Parker's Yardbird Suite. All of a sudden the melody is up for grabs too - repetition- repetition within the play. Something like that - it's all difference.