The Wire
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Donnell Loves Fran
If Omar was ‘one of TV’s greatest characters’ it was because of Donnie. The show distinguished itself by laying out a palimpsest of failed American institutions but even within that decentralized narrative Omar was singular because the outcome of his life,…
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An Interview with The Wire‘s Omar
Michael Kenneth Williams, the actor who played Omar on the highly-praised HBO series The Wire, is interviewed on Mother Jones. The show is often described as “the greatest television show ever made,” and Williams offers his perspective on why the…
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Sounds like a reasonable position
Reykjavik just elected a comedian to be its mayor. Jon Gnarr is the head of the Best Party, which took just over a third of the vote in the recent elections, which means they control 6 of the City Council’s…
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Essays on the Game
With contemporary postcolonial critique, Darkmatter offers a series of papers discussing HBO’s The Wire. With titles including: – “The Wire: Investigating the use of a Neoliberal Institutional Apparatus and a ‘New Humanist’ Philosophical Apparatus,” – “The Politics of Brisket: Jews…
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George Pelecanos’ Favorite Westerns
The Magnificent Seven (1960) A handful of professional gunmen led by black-clad Yul Brynner are hired to protect a south-of-the-border farming village from scores of bandits in John Sturges’ western adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai.
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American Apocalypse: The Wire and 2666
The name “Baltimore” can be traced to an Irish phrase meaning “Town of the Big House.” “Juárez,” when traced back to the Visigoths who overtook Spain in the 5th Century AD, means, roughly, “Army of the South.”