Dressed For Thought

'Why don't you get rid of that jacket?', says W. 'You've been wearing it for years. It makes you look fat. It's completely shapeless'.

W. and I are wearing our flowery shirts. 'Look at us', W. sighs, 'fat and blousy, and in flowery shirts, and everyone else slim and wearing black'.

What's wrong with us? Why are we never dressed for thought? Take my trousers, for example. They should be pulled up round my waist like those of Benjamin in the famous photograph. But they sag. They droop disappointingly. – You're a man without hips!', says W. 'A man without ideas!'

W. remembers the pictures of Deleuze from the 70s, with his flares and long hair. Then there were the trousers of Levinas, generous, expansive …

I'm getting fat, of course. Eventually, I'll have to wear elasticated trousers like the American professors, W. says. Perhaps it will suit me, that obesity. Perhaps it give me gravitas.