The Wire (Part I)

I’ve often seen The Wire described as the best television drama of all-time and for a while now I’ve been interested in seeing if that was true. The series aired from 2002-2008, but since I didn’t have HBO I had never seen the show. Luckily these days it’s easy to pick up the DVDs and quickly plow through entire seasons of shows. So this year I finally decided to put Season 1 of The Wire on my Christmas list. But then one day in mid-December, while Christmas shopping on Amazon.com, I noticed that the complete series (all five seasons) was on sale for 70% off. It was a sign. So I took a page from Mrs.’ playbook and bought myself a pre-Christmas present (and of course removed Season 1 from my list). The DVDs arrived a couple of days later (thanks Amazon Prime!) and we were off and running. At first I assumed I’d be watch the series myself, most likely after Mrs. fell asleep on the couch, but to my surprise she was willing to give it a shot and now we’re both hooked. And I was going to wait until we finished the series to blog about the show, but since I have so many thoughts and Mrs. has little to no desire to hear them, I figured I’d do a “quick” post on Season 1 & 2. Really, the main reason I post on the blog is to avoid subjecting Mrs. to the myriad observations I have on everything I watch and read. It’s a win-win.

At this point you’ve either seen the show or probably won’t ever see it, but just in case I’ll avoid any major spoilers. As a quick synopsis, Season 1 follows a Baltimore police detail under the command of Lieutenant Cedric Daniels as they investigate a drug dealing organization led by Avon Barksdale. We see the interworking (and dysfunction) of both the police department and the drug dealing operation. Although the detail is originally assigned as a way to appease the higher ups after a state’s witness is murdered and is specifically told not to dig too deep, the detail eventually sets up wiretaps and other electronic surveillance (hence “The Wire” title) in an effort to bring down the entire Barksdale operation, which may have ties that go deeper than just the street level drug world. Season 1 did not disappoint and definitely lived up to the high expectations that were set.

Season 2 took a bit of a detour and after the detail is reunited again under Daniels, they are charged with investigating a smuggling operation at the city port. The target of the investigation is Frank Sobotka, the president of a struggling dockworker’s union, who’s involved with some shady characters paying him to help smuggle drugs, prostitutes, and stolen goods into Baltimore. The “B” story still involves the Barksdale crew as they attempt to work around the problems caused by the results of police investigation from Season 1. I’ve seen Season 2 called the worst of the five seasons, but for my money I really enjoyed it. It seems the biggest complaint with the season is that a majority of the new characters introduced (mostly the dockworkers) only appear in this season and the story of the downfall of the blue-collar working class in Baltimore doesn’t tie together that well with the rest of the series. I can see this complaint, but the story was strong enough and there was enough common threads that it was still great television. But if this was the worst season, then that’s a good sign for the last three seasons. It’s probably too early for me to call The Wire the greatest drama ever, but even after just the first two seasons, it’s undoubtedly in the running.

A few other observations on what makes The Wire such a great drama:

1) The pacing of the show is excellent. It takes its time introducing all of the characters and setting up the story. Much like Mad Men this slow pacing requires a ton of patience, especially early in the season when entire shows are just setting up events in future episodes. But it’s well worth it when everything starts coming together. It’s funny how after an episode or two we’re still trying to figure out who each character is (“Wait, who’s Bodie?” “Have we seen that guy before?” “Is Lester one of the cops?”), but by the end of the season it’s like we’re old friends. And then we repeated it all again in Season 2, like “Wait, now who’s that guy?” But I’ve learned now to just trust the writers and go along for the ride.

2) Those characters that it takes so long to introduce? Those are some great TV characters, really some of the all-time greats. It’s cool how characters we just get a glimpse of in one episode end up playing much larger role in later episodes. Some of our favorite characters:

Omar Little – Who doesn’t love Omar? He’s the one larger than life character who doesn’t quite fit in. As in, there’s no way that someone out there is actually like that, right? A gay, shotgun toting, children’s song whistling, thief who “rips and runs” (you know, robs other drug dealers)? Definitely unique.

Lester Freamon – The best part about Lester was that we really didn’t know who he was at first. Hanging out in the detail office crafting dollhouse furniture, he could have been the janitor for all we knew. But he proved to be one of the best cops, with a hilarious back-story, and is always the coolest guy in the room.

“Stringer” Bell – The 2nd in command of the Barksdale operation, and one of the most interesting characters on the show. The brains of the operation, he’s still violent and dangerous, but he wants to be thought of as a regular business man. He’s taking economics classes at the local community college, running a legitimate copy services business and leading meetings of his drug dealers like he’s in a boardroom. You can’t have enough Stringer.

D’Angelo Barksdale – How interesting that the first season was bookended with episodes of D’Angelo in a court room and how different we feel for him in each. It’s a credit to the show that we first see him as a murderous drug dealer and clearly the bad guy, but by the end we've seen so much of how he thinks that we see the potential in him and are rooting for things to turn out differently.

Jimmy McNulty – The closest thing to a main character on the cop side in Season 1 (with D’Angelo being the focus on the drug side), Jimmy’s a good cop who really cares about the job, but he’s also a drunk and a womanizer. You want to root for Jimmy, but man if he doesn’t have his flaws. You also have to love that he's always willing to ruffle the feathers of his bosses.

Wallace – He epitomized the tragedy of the drug game. Born to an addict mother who clearly doesn’t care for him, and living in an abandoned house helping to raise other homeless kids. Wanting to change his life and go back to high school, but only knowing the small world of the drug game in the projects.

Bubbles – The heroin addict and police informant. How can you not like Bubs and root for him to get clean?

And I didn’t even get to Bunk or Kima or Bodie or Daniels . . .

3) I can’t say for certain how realistic the show is (having never been to Baltimore, never been on the police force, and never been involved in the sale of drugs), but it definitely feels more real than other cop shows. For one thing, the show doesn’t compromise. It shows both the good and bad in all characters. Everyone operates in a grey area with their flaws exposed, and yet we still find a way to root for most of them (on both sides of the law). It also doesn’t leave you with the best feelings about the world we live in and exposes serious problems in society. The drug war is a losing cause for everyone. The drug dealers who try to get out of the game find themselves trapped. And we see there’s often a short shelf life when you live in that world. The drug addicts are clearly not going down a good path. And the cops find that they have to accept small victories as the war on drugs that their waging doesn’t seem like it can be won. There’s only so much they can do and they know it. All of this makes for a realistic, if not depressing (yet still excellent) show.

4) But damn if it isn’t funny. Like seriously, laugh out loud funny at times. The scene where Omar testifies in court in Season 2 was hilarious, and Omar gets a ton of funny lines (amazing since he’s such a violent criminal). It was amusing when McNulty had to go buy a bunk bed so his sons could stay at his apartment, both because he had to go purchase the furniture for his bare apartment and for the fun of watching him struggle to assemble it. I also liked when Stringer asked his professor for advice on a struggling business that we know he’s using to apply to the drug trade, and how funny was it when he tries to school the drug crew working at the copy shop? – “We have an elastic product . . . and you’re acting like we’ve got an inelastic product.” And back to Jimmy, the funniest scene so far had to be in Season 2 when he goes undercover as a British businessman to infiltrate the prostitution ring, and then when Kima and Bunk bust in to make the arrest he’s in bed with two of the prostitutes – “You’re late.”

Congratulations if you’ve made it this far in the post. Just think of how much more I’ll have to talk about after the next three seasons. Stay tuned.

Read This!: Sarah's Key

(I know we have done three book reviews in a row but I promise we have some fascinating posts coming like one about our garbage disposal install.)

By Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah’s Key is a story within a story.

The primary narrator is Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris assigned to write about the upcoming sixtieth anniversary of the mass arrest of the Jewish population of Paris in July 1942. Her story eventually intertwines with the second story which is told in third person and centers on a 10 year old Jewish girl named Sarah who is one of those arrested. Assuming that they are going to return soon, Sarah locks her 4 year old brother in a secret cupboard so that he will not be taken by the French police promising to return as soon as she can.

I loved this book and highly recommend it. I couldn’t put it down.

This also counts as my second book challenge book. I didn’t realize that when I chose to read it. But, it does cover the category of “Two or more narrative modes (first person, second person, third person)”. Julia tells her story in first person. Sarah’s is told in third person.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

When I first started reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer I thought it was going to be the best book I'd read in the last few years. Between the author’s unique style (something I always appreciate) and a story that immediately peeked my interest, it really had that kind of potential. And you can probably see where this is going, but by the time I finished the book it fell short of being an all-time great. That said, I did still enjoy the story and it’s well worth recommending.

The book’s narrator is Oskar Schell, a highly intelligent, but quirky nine-year old boy living in New York with his mother and paternal grandmother (who actually lives in the building next door). Oskar’s father died in the 9/11 tragedy a year before, and early in the story Oskar finds a mysterious key in a vase in his father’s closet. The young narrator then embarks on a quest to find out what the key opens. On this seemingly impossible journey around New York (since the key doesn’t fit any obvious locks) he meets a cast of characters, but to his frustration they also have no idea what the key unlocks.

The other story in the book is told in the form of letters from both Oskar’s grandmother and his grandfather, who abandoned his wife and unborn child (Oskar’s father) many years before. The grandfather’s story is also one of tragedy as he lived through the Dresden bombings during World War II and lost everything that was dear to him. He ends up in America shortly after the war, but has become a mute. He meets Oskar’s grandmother and they end up married, but his inability to let go of the past eventually spells their doom.

I thought that the parallels between Oskar’s obsession over his father’s death and how his grandfather holds on to what he lost were interesting. The grandfather’s story shows that you have to move on or you’ll ruin the life you still have to live. Oskar doesn’t want to move on and especially doesn’t want his mother to move on (or start the new relationship she's in), but we see the consequences of that behavior through his grandparents. The other part of the book that I thought was powerful were the voicemails that Oskar’s father left on their home answering machine as he was trapped inside the World Trade Center. The book is not overly filled with 9/11 imagery, which is a good thing because it’s a topic that’s still a bit tricky to work into fiction. But the voicemails, which are slowly revealed throughout the book, bring the reader back to that day, and while incredibly sad, show us where Oskar’s mindset is as he struggles with his loss.

My main critiques of the book all come with a SPOILER ALERT. First, I thought the payoff with the key was a little weak. I think I get where the author was going, but it was less than rewarding for Oskar to discover it was just a random key that was left in a vase his father bought. I also had some problems with the grandfather’s character, who I don't think was developed very well, especially once he comes back into the picture. The whole mute thing and having to write everything in notepads was a little to gimmicky for me. And despite my comment in the beginning about liking the unique style, I did think that it began to be a little much. Like Safran Foer (do I need to use both names?) was trying a little too hard to be different.

On a related note, the movie based on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was recently nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. I find this surprising 1) because I think that many parts of the book wouldn’t translate very well to film, and what makes the book good is probably going to be lost on screen and 2) the kid playing Oskar has the most annoying voice in the previews, which means we'll probably skip this one.

Next Up: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Read This!: Cleopatra

By Stacy Schiff

First book for the book challenge!

I have been waiting out Cleopatra in paperback pretty much since it was published and it arrived under the Christmas tree at my Dad's house pour moi this holiday season.  Yeah!

I was excited to read this book so I jumped pretty much right in after receiving it.

Cleopatra is a biography of... wait for it...  Cleopatra!  Because so much relating to the last queen of Egypt has been destroyed and history is written by the victors (aka not Cleopatra), it is hard to know a lot about her that is truthful.  Schiff delves into the historical works of the time as well as what would be the logical reasons for Cleopatra's actions based on her family history, her role as queen, and life in Alexandria to create a biography that is a fair representation of her life.

Going in, I didn't know much about Cleopatra other than she was an Egyptian queen, had a love affair with Mark Antony, and killed herself presumably by an asp bite.  I have since learned not only a lot about Cleopatra but the world during her life.

I found parts of this book really engrossing particularly about the histories of the Ptolemys and the glimpses into life in Egypt.  The writing, though at times overly descriptive, was fairly easy to follow and didn't get bogged down.  I do, however, have to confess that when Schiff got into the Roman politics between Octavian and Mark Antony, my eyes glazed over a bit.  Other people liked this book as well because it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Like I mentioned in my first sentence, this counts as a book challenge book: Set in Africa.  I picked that as a challenge because I was thinking that was an area of the world I don't read much about.  And then I realized I owned this biography.  I will confess that a good deal of the action takes place around the Mediterranean not in Egypt but since Cleopatra was an Egyptian queen who lived mostly in Alexandria which is located in Africa, I am counting it.

The Super Bowl Commercials

The Super Bowl is over and we’ve made it through yet another year of advertisements. I don’t expect much from the overhyped ads, so they never disappoint me. This year was no different, as they ranged from “terrible” to “not quite as terrible, but still pretty terrible”. There’s obviously a market for the annual ads featuring the elderly embarrassing themselves, men getting hit in the crotch with projectiles, and creepy talking babies, but I’m clearly not the target audience. I saw very few of the ads during the actual game, but luckily the internet gathered them all in one convenient viewing location for me. Way to go internet.

Here are the highs and lows:

Best Ads


Skechers: Mr. Quiggly

“Is he wearing running shoes?”


Dorito’s: Man’s Best Friend

“Honey, have you seen our cat?” Good dog.


Volkswagen: The Dog Strikes Back

Really enjoyed the overweight dog working out to get back into shape. Probably could have done without the Star Wars ending. I’m obviously a sucker for a funny ad featuring a dog.


Kia Optima: Drive the Dream

A guy (with some help from a large dose of fairy sleep dust) dreaming of racing around a track with thousands of bikini clad women cheering in the stands, Motley Crue playing, and lumberjacks sawing a huge hoagie. What’s not to love?


Audi: Vampire

Yeah, the vampire thing has pretty much run its course, but I liked that he was bringing a case of blood to the party.


Toss Up


M&M’s: Just My Shell

I was ready to put this on the “worst” list, but Mrs. watched it (after Downton Abbey was over of course) and laughed out loud. On second viewing I guess it was mildly amusing. Hmmm . . . .


Worst Ads


Pepsi: The King’s Court

I’m not sure what this was all about. Elton John as King of something? Some singer who I’m sure I’m supposed to know but I surely didn’t recognize saving the day by signing “Respect”? Uh . . . no.


Pepsi MAX: Check Out

Just seemed like it was trying way too hard. Not Pepsi’s finest year.


E*TRADE: Fatherhood

I really think E*TRADE is purposely trying to make me mad at this point. I will never find that baby funny. Ugh.

Italian Wedding Soup

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Italian wedding soup and on my to-do list for a while was to find a recipe for it.  Then, Food Network Magazine had this one in their January/ February issue so Mr. and I gave it a go on Sunday.

Mr. did our weekly grocery shopping at Whole Foods so for the chicken broth, he picked up WF’s 365 brand.  

I do not like this chicken broth.  When we had campylobacter, we bought 365 brand (All chicken broths are the same, right?  Wrong.).   I was grossed out.  

I figured with all of the other things in this soup, maybe the taste will be disguised.  I was semi-right.  It wasn’t gag-worthy but I would seriously like to try this recipe with Swanson’s.  

We did not use low-sodium or low-fat broth, just regular.

We followed the recipe very closely only making the following changes: 

-  I put in twice as much as orzo as the recipe called for.  I don’t recommend doing this.  It didn’t seem like a lot at the time but that pasta took over my pot.  Big time.  I like a noodly pasta but this was a bit much.  I ended up adding more broth and water to the soup so that it was actually soup.

-  We only used 5 oz, not 8 oz of spinach.  That is because Mr. bought one bag of it and that was how much was in it.  This was a fine amount for the two of us.

-  I put 1 TBSP not 1TSP of Worcestershire sauce into the meat balls.  Oops.  I didn’t notice anything strange.  They still were good to me.

The verdict: It was decent but I want to try it with different chicken broth.  I think the flavor would be more appealing.

Love Love Love

The church we got married in sent me an e-mail saying they were having a vow renewal mass for Valentine's Day.

I forwarded it to Mr. and told him we should go.

He side-eyed me and asked why.

I said, "Don't you think it would be nice to reaffirm your lifelong commitment to me?"

He said, "I remember what happened the last time you suggested we go to that church and say some vows.  I am not falling for that again."