my 2 cents
the wire
When something life-changing occurs it is natural to try and go back to the origin of the where and wherefore of how this event came to pass.
A reflection, if you will, on the myriad choices we make each day that propel us down the stream?infinitesimal decisions that cause us to stall in an eddy, get clogged in a clump of leaves and twigs, or to sail around every rock at an exhilarating clip.
Not to suggest that watching a television show could ever count as a life-changing event.
No, I would never suggest that.
But if I wanted to tell you about the best television show I have ever seen in my life, I might get all into the hyperbole and exaggeration to try and convey how much I love it, how deeply I have absorbed it?its characters, its locale, its tragedy.
Or, I could tell you how I have been writing a PhD thesis in my head about a television show. I know, me!, the person who will never, ever, ever, EVER again step across the threshold of academia because GOD, how much do I hate writing papers? And yet, it?s true. I have been standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and formulating comparisons between the characters of this tv drama with characters from the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare?creating well-reasoned arguments* that declare The Wire to be a modern day tragedy on par with some of the greatest playwriting of our time.
Crazy, non?
What?s more crazy to my mind is that it has been a largely ignored series. I mean, we?ve all heard of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Sex & the City?blah blah blah they?ve all been feted wildly and repeatedly at the Emmys?but The Wire? Did you see it? I didn?t.
Explain this to me.**
What I?ll say is this, if Laini had not posted about getting hooked on this show I would never have ordered up the first season of The Wire from Netflix. A gritty police drama set in the projects of Baltimore would not have drawn me in on its own synopsis. It was Laini?s passion for it that made me think, hmm, maybe I?ll check it out because I trust Laini. And yet, I still doubted that I could get hooked in.
Ha.
We are only midway through the second season and I try to stretch it out as slowly as possible because I know it will all come to an end.
And that, well, I?m just not ready for that.
*Mock at will--in my mind (especially after a few glasses of cabernet sauvignon) they are positively brilliant.
**I have my theories but they are rife with cynicism and fatalism and sundry misanthropic attitudes, so I?ll spare you all that bile.
updated: March 04, 2007
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