Friday, May 04, 2007

I know I haven't posted in quite a while. Truth be told, I just haven't seen too many interesting articles about "The Wire" being written. With "The Sopranos" coming out for its last season, all the ink on HBO has been about that. But now that that show is well into its season, I'm starting to see some stuff get out there.

First off, they are full swing into shooting Season Five right now. It's been said that the show will come back on the air "this winter." In any case, I bet we're gonna see it in early '08. "Big Love" has got to come back and I think that HBO is hoping that "John From Cincinatti" will be the heir apparent to "The Sopranos." That's all got to go first. And Burns and Simon got to get back from Africa where they're shooting their Iraq War miniseries. I also read a rumor that Spike Lee will be directing the first episode of the next season.

Back to Wire stuff. Here is a good article in the Baltimore Sun about the costume design for the show and all the brand names they keep in the closet for each character.
It's a good piece. I thought it was funny that the journalists this season are wearing Banana Republic since I'm a journalist and I wear BR stuff all the time (all right, I'm not a full time journalist).

Also the article chronicles how the hip-hop community and the show have worked together in this odd sort of symbiotic relationship to market brands and popularlize them - especially Zoo York and Phat Farm. It's a good testament to how much street cred "The Wire" has in the hip hop community and also about the importance of brand labels in the popular culture. Young, professional white women wear stuff they see on "Gray's Anatomy" and well, young teenagers will wear stuff they see on "The Wire."

A few other random bits of "Wire" news:

- You can now watch the show on Delta Airlines. No, really! I'm serious!
But you gotta pay for it.

- The show won the 2007 Edgar award for writing. It's given by the Mystery Writers of America and was given to nine writers on the show this year. Here's the brief Sun article.

- Lastly, Baltimore appears to continue to live up to its name of "Bodymore, Murderland": there have been 95 murders in the city this year through early May - more than last year. Here's a blog devoted to crime in Baltimore. Just by a cursory glance through it, you can see that Burns and Simon really are realists and don't make up the stuff we see on the show.