All sports trash talk should be done with images from The Wire.


Original images by Jake's friend, Jake, and Jamie.

The Boston Book Festival kicks off tomorrow with a discussion on The Art of The Wire. I've never been to one of these, but I'm always curious... Did The Wire just get lucky with amazingly insightful actors able to discuss race, class, institutional failure and the visual novel? These are heady topics, I wouldn't have thought actors would generally be the best to discuss them. I don't know who would be MORE qualified, though.

Kick off the Boston Book Festival with a thoughtful and timely exploration of The Wire with its cast and creators. Its creator, David Simon, referred to this powerful, gritty, and all-too-realistic exploration of urban poverty as a "visual novel." The Wire, perhaps the most critically-acclaimed series in television history, has been compared to Dickens, to Greek tragedy, even to Shakespearean drama. It is both high art and social commentary. Join several cast members and writer/producer George Pelecanos in a conversation about The Wire and issues of race, class, institutional failure, and the visual novel. The discussion will feature Donnie Andrews (the real "Omar"), Fran Boyd (the inspiration for David Simon's The Corner), Tray Chaney ("Poot"), Robert Chew ("Prop Joe"), and Jamie Hector ("Marlo Stanfield") and will be moderated by Reverend Eugene Rivers, co-founder of the Ten Point Coalition.

At a certain point, we've all wondered when the world of The Wire would cross with the world of Mad Men. The wait is over. Dominic West/McNulty will star in The Hour, a 6 part BBC drama about the making of television news hour set in 1956 London. The show is, be still my beating heart, being called the British equivalent to Mad Men. WOW. FUCKING WOW!

Via Jonah.

Add Harvard's Kennedy School into the mix of colleges and universities teaching The Wire to their students. Here's an explanation of why that was published a couple weeks ago in the Washington Post.

To D'Angelo, the formal labor market is fundamentally unfair. People are not rewarded according to their true worth, and powerful institutions regularly exploit those with less power. Social inequality is the inevitable result -- the McNugget inventor doesn't get his due. "It ain't about right. It's about money," D'Angelo tells the young dealers.

Reminds me of the The Snot Boogie Rules. "Got to. It's America, man."

(Thanks, Dave!)

If you're in New York on Saturday and want to play paintball with the cast of The Wire, you're in luck! Wait, what? Who cares, go sign up and play with Marlo, Omar, Snoop, and others. The event is a fundraiser for Marlo's (Jamie Hector) non-profit Moving Mountains. Sign up here.

Via @AndyHutchins

"Treme", David Simon's latest premiers Aprill 11 on HBO. The show and Simon got the
New York Times Magazine treatment on Sunday...

The story lines in “Treme” begin three months after Katrina, and they follow a diverse group of characters as they rebuild their lives in a city torn apart, a city in which tens of thousands of houses are abandoned, in which only 50 percent of the population remains, in which neighborhoods are still without power. The main characters in “Treme” aren’t the overburdened cops, spiraling addicts, ruthless dealers, struggling dockworkers, corrupt politicians or compromised journalists of “The Wire.” In their place, for the most part, are musicians.

The Avon Barksdale Story- Legends Of The Unwired...won Best Docudrama at this year’s NY International Independent Film & Video Festival...In The Avon Barksdale Story, the real Nathan Avon “Bodie” Barksdale tells all to actor Wood Harris, who played his on screen character in HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Wire.

Via Nah Right

++++

Can't really complain with Bill Mann's 10 best TV shows of the decade, but I wouldn't have The Sopranos #1, I would have bumped The Shield for 30 Rock and had Friday Night Lights as an Honorable Mention. What do you supposed 6 Feet Under bumps out? Stewart/Colbert probably ought to be counted as one show. What do you think of the list? What were your favorite shows of the decade?

1. The Sopranos (HBO)
2. Deadwood (HBO)
3. The Wire (HBO)
4. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
5. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)
6. Mad Men (AMC)
7. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
8. Extras (HBO)
9. The Shield (FX)
10. The West Wing (NBC)
Honorable Mention: Countdown With Keith Olbermann (MSNBC); Weeds (Showtime); Fareed Zakaria GPS (CNN); The Office (BBC version).

Here's Oliver Willis with 20 Ways To Bring “The Wire” To Your Office. My favorites are:

2. Whistle “the farmer in the dell” as you walk between cubicles.
3. Show pride in your job via bad grammar
eg. “I’se real web developer.”
3a. Lament the lameness of your office in comparison to everyone else.
eg. “I wish I worked for a real accounts payable department”
20. When in doubt, just kill someone. That always seems to work.

Plus here are 3 links about actor Michael Kenneth Williams who played Omar Little. He's in 'The Road' which appears to be apocalyptically awesome. A profile, A Q&A, and a handy post summarizing both of them.

Thanks Karmie and Kerry.

This video of the top 100 lines from The Wire is a fun trip down memory lane. I think I'm going to have to go watch all 5 seasons again.

This is documentation I can get behind, but for such a subjective subject, let's agree to drop the 'Top 100' noise, ok?



Thanks, Jake - Via Warming Glow