A week from tonight, “The Wire” returns to HBO for its final 10 episodes.To whet your appetite even further for that, check out Felicia “Snoop” Pearson on YouTube, walking through her old East Baltimore neighborhood and talking about her life. This video was made to promote her book, “Grace After Midnight: A Memoir.”
How old is she now?
ReplyDeleteI haven't checked out the show. Would I be lost if I tuned in to the new season?
I love the video. Check out her walk! She sounds like she's speaking from her heart.
The mother in me wanted to tell her to put a belt on though. :)
She wants to open up a center:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZxRKnWXZSE
at 4:34
wow. i really hope she stays on the positive track.
Tanyetta -- it's a great show, but you should start from season one. Each season is somewhat self-contained so you won't be completely lost, but they do build on one another, and the fifth will be richer if you've watched the preceding ones first.
ReplyDeleteI've been marathoning the entire series in preparation for next week's premiere. Can't wait!
Tanyetta, I started out with Season 4 -- it was completely self-contained -- I suspect 5 will be the same.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I am happy my wife and I were able to spend some great long weekends this year watching 1 2 and 3. We bought 4 and intend to catch up.
Hooray! I just set my TiVo for it!
ReplyDeleteMy testimony: I'm late to the show. I had "heard" it was about drug dealing brothers in Baltimore so I snap judged and presumed there was no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that I needed to bother with that terribly unappealing combo.
A friend eventually got me to watch an episode by touting the good looking men on it. So I showed up for the men and eventually stayed for the plot and acting...and, yeah, "Det, Sydnor."
Now I bully and shame other people into watching it.
Tanyetta, both Tina and Artlung are right. Season 5 has a self-contained plot which shouldn't be tough for new viewers to follow.
ReplyDeleteBut for viewers who have followed these characters through the past few seasons, there are nuances that only they will appreciate.
And you're right... Snoop's walk is awesome.
She has brought the magic of her inner light to the show (even though she plays a cold-ass killer). And the show has opened doors for her in return. It's a great thing both ways.
"A friend eventually got me to watch an episode by touting the good looking men on it."
ReplyDeleteYo, daughterofthedream... whatever works. ;^D
It's not entirely clear from the HBO Website, but it appears that HBO On Demand will once again be showing Wire episodes the Monday before the regular showing, i.e. six days early.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, at our house, it's "One more day, y'all..."
Yeah, that's how they're airing them. Every episode except for the finale will be made available 6days early on the On Demand service.
ReplyDelete^ Oh, man, even more reason for me to stay off the 'net the next 10 weeks. It's already hard enough avoiding spoilers, eep!
ReplyDelete[quote]: "A friend eventually got me to watch an episode by touting the good looking men on it."
Yo, daughterofthedream... whatever works. ;^D [endquote]
Don't get me started on the virtues of a McNulty and Bunk sammich, UBM :-D
^ I don't think daughter's friend had either of them gents in mind, dez. ;^)
ReplyDeleteI've been addicted to "The Wire" since season 1. I was wary at first - another show about drugs, cops, the 'hood', etc. - but from the first episode I was hooked; this was different.
ReplyDeleteA funny thing though is how some people reject it or have little or no interest in even trying to watch it. A good friend of mine, a long time activist, community leader in his hometown of Camden, NJ is a case in point. Whenever I have brought up the series, as something he may want to watch, he has rather abruptly changed the subject. Too close to home, I always figured. I respect that.
On the other hand,it has puzzled me that Ishmael Reed, who I've always admired, if not agreed with, is nothing but disdainful of "The Wire". His claim that all we see of Baltimore and its citizens (meaning African/Americans)is one-sided - all are criminals - is echoed in a fresh piece by Mark Bowden now available at "The Atlantic On-Line". (Strange bed-fellows indeed, for those who may be familiar with both.)
While part of its power lies in the verisimiltude of its locations and dialogue, it is the human condition that holds sway.
It's been compared to Dickens; I would add Balzac, Zoya, too, writers who chronicled their place and time, and did so with honesty, integrity and dammit, a great deal of anger.
David Simon, an angry (no longer young) man? I would humbly suggest that he may have his reasons.
It is not a documentary, but it does get at something rather like the truth, nu?
(One of my favorite exchanges, which I paraphrase:
Bunk and 'Nulty are on a stakeout and when a couple or three suspects leave the premises, Bunk, always impeccably dressed, sitting next to 'Nulty, who's wearing whatever he found that morning that didn't find its way into the hamper, comments on what they - the suspects - are wearing, Armani or something and Jimmy says, "You know there's a word for guys who pay so much attention to clothes"
Bunk replies: "Yeah, they're called 'grown-ups'.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200801/bowden-wire/2
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to Bowden's piece.
I really don't quite know what to say.
It's so...clueless.
I can only imagine what a review of his would say about "MacBeth".
(Not that I'm comparing the two, but to argue his case he cites some Ivy League 'perfesser'- "It's so dark!".)
Precious.
I could go on refuting this dubious 'consensus' of what 'reality' really is - the main sticking point seems to be that there are no good
characters on "The Wire (How about Bunny? Carcetti, even, as flawed as he is.) but the New Year celebration beckons.
Have a Great One, y'all!
Thanks for that link, Venator. Can't wait to read it. And I'm glad you mentioned Ishmael Reed. He has a straight-up racialist objection to David Simon telling these stories. It goes all the way back to Simon's book "The Corner."
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to interview Reed about this, and probe his thinking. Maybe I'll get around to it.
With the racialist critique, a white boy can't win. If he ignores the stories of the black lower class, he's rendering the black poor "invisible"... it's benign neglect.
If, on the other hand, he devotes his talent, intellect and passion to humanizing the black poor, without sugar-coating it... then he's a white interloper, a race profiteer.
Fuggit. Art will out.
All the way back to " The Corner", huh? Interesting...
ReplyDeleteShould you ever get that interview I'd be first in line - so to speak - to read that.
(I'm not being snarky here.)
To borrow - paraphrase - from Raymond Carver, "What Do We Talk About When Talk About Race?"
Amen to Art. Fuggit.
Sorry, it's late here on the East Coast - 10 minutes before the ball drops.
ReplyDeleteI meant to type " What Do We Talk About When We Talk About...
(Feel free to fill in the blank.)
happy new year!!! bring on the wire!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with justjudith! Happy New Year and Wire me up, baby!
ReplyDeleteI watched the first episode of Season 5 last night. I cannot wait for the rest.
ReplyDeletere reed, here's a pretty good brand new interview with him by a friendly party: http://www.counterpunch.org/reed03042008.html
ReplyDeletethey very briefly mention him having issues w/the show and richard price, and promise to dig into it in next week's installment. lookin forward to that one.