What I’m reading: John Crowley’s The Solitudes
What I’m listening to: Angela McCluskey’s The Things We Do
What I’m watching: the first season of The Wire
What I’m drinking: Miller’s gin
What I’m happy about: the Giants reached the Super Bowl
What I’m sad about: the Giants will likely get destroyed in the Super Bowl, similar to their 2000 experience against Baltimore, which Jay Mohr characterized as “like when a white high school team from the suburbs faces a black inner-city school”
What I’m pondering: how to finish writing a post about Charles Schulz that really doesn’t support my initial thesis (that is, how Schulz and Andy Warhol exemplify certain trends in postwar American views of celebrity and art)
how far along in season one are you?
Finished 7 episodes. Stringer just had the boys rip out the public phones down at the pit, the major is trying to get McNulty’s badge, and that other detective just visited Madame LaRue…
do you find it overrated or completely engrossing?
Oh, it’s fantastic! Much more subtle and novelistic than I was expecting, esp. considering how most critics who think “TV is the new novel” don’t seem to have many expectations for novels.
It only gets better. Each season just opens up a new view on Baltimore, and characters who appear scantly in one season become major players later.
You like Omar?
Omar is Amy’s second-favorite character, only surpassed by Det. Freamon!
Lester!
What about The Bunk?
This is probably the only show that I’ll willingly go back and watch again. I love 24 and Heroes, but I can’t imagine spending time for a second viewing. The Wire, however…..
You really oughtta read “Clockers” sometime. It’s like Dickens in the era of crack.
And, while it’s not Baltimore, I’m pretty sure one the thinly veiled locations is the motel where Freddie Kutyla used to work….