Wire promo:
Not much there, but I'm really excited. Meanwhile, when was the last time computers actually looked like that?
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All in the Game
09 Oct 2007 11:11 am
Comments (22)
I tried to watch The Wire, but it seemed to conflate "depressing" with "serious" and "artistic". Every sentence seemed to fall into empty air. Every friendship was pallid and chill. If there were roses, they would not only have thorns, but thrips and black spot, and would smell of cheese.
Where the hell is the Season 4 DVD release? Those of us dependent on Netflix are PISSED!! It's been a year!
supposed to be in december, i think - a long time i know.
i can't wait til jan
Jeffrey Davis, why do you hate America?
Hell, they STILL look like that at a lot of dailies .....
The Wire is probably the best thing I've gotten out of reading this blog.
Looks/sounds to me like the "computer" is one of those central word processing programs where the writer just works at a terminal. They used them when I interned at a national magazine in the late '80's but I can't imagine they're much used these days. Maybe still by the local press in Baltimore that's supposed to be the focus of this season?
"McNulty is drinking again" gave me chills.
Best show ever, man.
WHats up with the Tuesday Oct 2nd thing? Did it start last week and I missed it?
Best show ever, man.
Second that.
I'm with Marshall...what the hell has happened to the DVD release? I timed my intro to the show so that I would finish season 3 as season 4 came out...and it still hasn't shown up! Pissed doesn't even begin to cover it.
Hey, I just checked, Marshall.
Dec 4th.
A certain number of business functions might still use terminals. Airline ticket counters, for instance. And maybe police teletypes.
>I tried to watch The Wire, but it seemed to conflate "depressing" with "serious" and "artistic". Every sentence seemed to fall into empty air. Every friendship was pallid and chill. If there were roses, they would not only have thorns, but thrips and black spot, and would smell of cheese.
I'm not sure what this means, but I have found that it is problematic to try to get people into it midstream. It is, easily, the best TV ever, and should be required viewing for anyone in law enforcement, city planning, urban education, muncipal politics ... I could go on.
What are the odds that 2 of the top 1/2 dozen shows ever would center on crime in Baltimore?
"Every friendship was pallid and chill."
Freamon and Prez? Bunk and McNulty? There's plenty of warmth there. Hell, if you want pathos and affection between characters watch Bubbles with Sherrod. Or Kima with Bubbles. Or Frank Sobotka and Beatie Russel.
I'll give you "depressing," though. So's reality. And Season 4 drips with depressing reality.
So I have until January to catch up. Just finished Season One. If I try really, really hard, I think I can do it.
bobbo,
I thought that season two was the best season of the four. If you start watching season two, it will suck you in until you have caught up.
Re: the October 2nd thing at the beginning, I think that was for an ad that aired right before the wire one.
"McNulty is drinking again" -- unfortunately they didn't tell you his "drinking" consists of a glass of red wine for dinner to get flavinoids and other antioxidants in an effort to prevent cardiovascular disease.
I'll give you "depressing," though. So's reality.
from "Lapis Lazuli" by W.B. Yeats
"All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread."
Gaiety in art... Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Characters in The Wire ARE gay in the Yeats sense: Avon, for example, just plain loves being a gangsta, as do Bodie and Poot. "McNutty" loves being a cop, and he loves chasing ladies. And Bubbles, of all people, the show's victim personified, is unrelentingly positive. There are lots of people carving out little bits of joy in a depressing environment on the Wire. The bar scences in Season 2, for example, are great.
So sure, the Wire's Baltimore is depressing as hell, but it's not unrelenting grimness.
(Of course, characters in the Wire are gay in the non-Yeats sense as well, which is another reason that it's, to quote everyone, "the best show ever.")
About the depressingness: I hate movies or tv shows that are one sh*tty thing happening after the next, usually to some pathetic virtuous victim, the end, boo hoo. The Wire is not that at all. There is brutal stuff happening all right, but crazy fun and hopefulness and guts thrown in with it - and it's actually really postive, to me, as a result, because if someone rolling around in the muck can be postive too, then their message of hope [if you will, since it's unintentional as a "message"] has that much more credibility. The opposite of this is the sunny, sunny Carpenters, and look at what happened to Karen.
Comments closed October 23, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
when was the last time computers actually looked like that
Probably some still do in underfunded police departments.
Posted by larve | October 9, 2007 11:20 AM