Apostropher, quit fooling around.
SPOILERS here too.
Ziggy annoys me more than Brother M, but I'll take no. 3, please.
I think the deeper problem here is, Stringer is an extensively developed character and Avon is not. Stringer's accent clashes with his wardrobe and his wire-frame reading glasses in a way that sums up the character's history and ambitions. His taking business classes and then, pricelessly, his conveying of his business class lessons to the hoppers, amount to a genuinely tragic storyline.
What can you say about Avon, though? He's pure athleticism and appetite, the closest thing to a stereotype there is on the show. The one time we ever saw anything about what motivates him was when he was with D'Angelo visiting their uncle/relative of some kind in the hospital, and the uncle/rosk had had a stroke or whatever, and was in a vegetative state. Avon said something about, this taught him to seize the day. But that's peanuts compared to Stringer.
So Stringer, compelling instantiation of the American dream-as-tragedy; Avon, nicely portrayed and beautifully written stereotype. (Too harsh, but it points in the right direction.) Can the show survive Stringer?
2 to the post title, not to 1.
Apostropher, quit fooling around.
As long as my wife doesn't find out, there's no harm, SB.
Haven't seen season 3, but complaints 1 and 2 are dead on. I'd like to add that, in season 2, what's up with taking umpty-odd episodes to assemble-the-team? Assembling-the-team should take one episode. Also, Ziggy's cousin always seemed a hair woodenly acted to me. And the theme music was better in season 1.
The End.
These complaints of mine are pretty minor. The show does rock, as much as any show without Yaphet Kotto can rock.
My real complaint is with Dominic West's accent.
And my favorite iteration of the theme music is the Neville Brothers version. Which last I checked was not on iTunes.
Slol, I think I disagree about Avon. In some ways, he's more interesting to me than Stringer because he turns out, despite his apparent amorality, to have a sense of honor. He means the stuff about family, and he cares about the Sunday truce, and he still respects Cutty when Cutty wants out. I think we learn something about Avon from Marlowe too, when someone tells Marlowe that lots of bygone dealers have "worn the crown" but are now dead and gone. Marlowe says, "but they wore it." That seems to me like something the young Avon would have said.
And the theme music was better in season 1.
You are so, so wrong. Nothing can touch Tom Waits.
Well, I'll have to watch it again. Which I won't mind doing. But do you really buy Avon's honor more than you buy Tony Soprano's honor?
Also, could they have picked a more Irish guy to play that allegedly Italian city councilman?
Season 2 theme music is far and away the best.
I think 10 is right in that there is a lot to Avon's character, just as there is to Stringer's. That is why I do not get ogged's point 3.
Hmph. I like the Season 2 Tom Waits theme the best.
I do worry about Season 4. No Stringer, Avon in prison, and the action probably moves the mayoral campaign and City Hall. So much of the appeal of the show is its wonderful eye and ear for the street....
But do you really buy Avon's honor more than you buy Tony Soprano's honor?
Not a Sopranos watcher, so I can't say. You are quite right about Carcetti, however.
there is a lot to Avon's character, just as there is to Stringer's. That is why I do not get ogged's point 3.
Their characters are complex and well-drawn, but their undoing in each case seems to depend on one simple facet of their personalities, no?
FWIW I think the song was originally Waits's.
I have my reservations about season 4, too, but it does sound like they know what they're doing.
But do you really buy Avon's honor more than you buy Tony Soprano's honor?
They are very similar characters. If Tony had become boss 20 years earlier, he would be Avon. In the last season, Tony tries to be like Stringer, but he cannot.
I would like to see something happen with Bodie. He has had some nice vignettes and maybe deserves an actual story.
He's pure athleticism and appetite, the closest thing to a stereotype there is on the show.
This is wrong. Stringer is tragic, in part because he's the anti-hero of the show. But Avon's a cipher. Stringer is believably his number two, and that, in and of itself, makes him interesting. That he's so close-mouthed makes him more interesting. What motivates his actions isn't apparent, but that there is motivation you don't doubt.
In the last season, Tony tries to be like Stringer, but he cannot.
Yeah, I think I got that, but I disagree with your prior point---I think the whole point of this last season (which I think also didn't need to be a whole season) was that the leopard cannot, will not, under any (even near-death experience) circumstances, change his spots.
Same goes for Avon. Sheer ruthlessness, wrapped up in charm and a lot of baloney about "honor". You find him compelling---I do---but he's no less evil for all that. I mean, you know, see under Satan.
But Avon's a cipher.
That's what I said, isn't it? I think you're agreeing with me, but you sound like you're disagreeing with me.
Well, sure Avon is evil, but I don't think his "honor" talk is just talk.
re: 23.
I agree with 23 except where you say you disagree with my prior comment. And I disagree with that only because I'm not sure what we are disagreeing about.
I feel like it would read better as "Ziggy ex machina." Any thoughts? Ben?
re: 23
Maybe we disagree on the point in 25. I agree with 25.
26: I meant I disagreed with you when you said a younger Tony would have been an Avon. And my point in disagreeing was, I don't think there's actually any difference between Tony and Avon now, i.e., I don't take Avon's honor talk seriously.
For both of them, it's a great case of Rochefoucauld on hypocrisy, right? (I think it's Rochefoucauld.) They want to be honorable, they'd like to be the standard of honor against which their fellows measure the word---but they let honor yield to need, or desire, all the time.
I don't think there's actually any difference between Tony and Avon now
Oh, I just meant the superficial differences--Tony is older and worn out and has other, more complicated personal issues that Avon is not yet beset with because he is younger. We agree.
I think the second part of 29 gets it exactly right.
23: I don't think so. I don't find Avon a stereotype. Maybe the "pure appetite" thing is right; Stringer is, somehow, a constructed man in whom you're allowed to see the pieces and joints. Avon is like Stringer grown in the wild; he's more efficient, and you don't know the algorithms that make him function, but you know they're there. (And Tony, from what I've seen, is somewhere in between. Avon's not looking for redemption. Avon wouldn't really know what he's supposed to be redeemed from.)
I think you're right, Tim. I knew "stereotype" was overstating it.
Anyway, I also think, my carping notwithstanding, that this is the best show on TV. Deadwood might give it a run for its money, though.
Avon wouldn't really know what he's supposed to be redeemed from
That's well put. You imagine he's say "you either play or get played." Bitches! Motherfuckers! Punk ass bitch motherfuckers!
Also, as long as we're sort of on the subject, I think this most recent Sopranos season was a way, way too heavy-handed and lengthy way of making that point, and softening us up for Tony getting killed in the final season. We have apparently to have our noses rubbed in it that Tony is NOT A GOOD GUY.
Seriously, what is the show about?
I'm not reading the comments because I'm still watching season 2 for the first time, so I don't know how I'll read a reply, but is season 3 available somewhere? I don't think the dvd set has been released yet.
Ogged is right about Brother Muzone. He is totally cool (in an evil superhero kind of way), but whatever one may say about whether Omar is too far across the reality line, Brother Muzone is way across it.
Omar, despite being evil and a bit unbelievable, is one of the most compelling characters on the show.
HEY EB.
Season 3 can be downloaded here. But it's coming out on DVD on August 8th, so you can probably wait if you're not done with Season 2 yet.
Thanks, ogged. I'm on netflix right now so I'll probably wait until the dvd so I can watch it on a larger screen with real non-laptop speakers.
37: Omar is completely fleshed out within the context of the show, so you come to buy his over-the-topness. Brother Muzone is just dropped on us out of nowhere, and he fits no paradigm we've seen in the series before. He's a wonderful character, but he feels like he's walked in from another show.
Deadwood might give it a run for its money, though.
There are some libertarianesque commonalities between the shows, no? In both cases, we're looking at societies without law, and how they interact and adapt to the coming of law/civilization. And you're right.
And the bit about Brother Muzone is completely right. FOI played as Terminator machines is a bit much. FOI have always struck me as a bit self-caricatured to begin with; The Wire should have stopped with that.
In both cases, we're looking at societies without law
Yeah. In Deadwood, it's de jure lawless (if that's how you'd put it) while Baltimore is only de facto lawless, but yes. Also, we know as a point of historical fact that Deadwood is heading for law and Bullock is helping to bring it, while we got no idea where Baltimore is heading.
Also, I think it's a bit much to say that Ziggy ruins season 2. I know at least two people who've lectured me on Frank Sobotka's characterological genius, and I'm almost persuaded.
it's a bit much to say that Ziggy ruins season 2
True.
Frank Sobotka's characterological genius
I'd like to hear about this. The union stuff in Season 2 left me a bit cold, but that might just be because I hate whitey.
I hate whitey
I think this is why I had to be lectured. The lecturers were both much more of the blue-collar white-man tradition than I, and they saw in Frank another tragic vision, this time of the union leader trying to protect his men in a fallen world.
Your friends are totally right. Sobotka may have been the best-drawn character on the show through Season 2. (I haven't seen Season 3.)
saw in Frank another tragic vision, this time of the union leader trying to protect his men in a fallen world
Yeah, well I got that, but it seemed like the union stuff was points 1-7 about the decline of unions and what it does to folks without those point coalescing into an interesting dramatic whole. Maybe it was the casting, or the acting, or something, but it didn't quite work for me.
It's possible, now that I think about it, that if the guy who played Frank Sobotka's brother had played Frank Sobotka, and done it in his melancholy, understated way, I would have cried after every episode in Season 2. But Frank's blustery tantrum in each episode didn't have much emotional weight.
Assembling-the-team should take one episode.
See, SB, it's all in the game. Because The Wire doesn't enjoy the accolades of other, arguably less good but still successful HBO programs, it always runs the risk of being unexpectedly canceled. So each season ends in such a way as to more or lies tie up most of the principals' narrative arch, and each new season starts with elaborate justifications for bringing them back together again. I'm convinced that the reason why this show doesn't come up for all the awards is its mostly black cast.
Also: Omar is total wish fulfillment. You can't complain about Brother Calzone unless you're willing to acknowledge that Omar is pretty much a joke of a scripted character, no matter how awesome he may be.
Episode 10 of season 2 was disappointing enough that I read the thread anyway even though I won't finish the season until next week and won't get season 3 for a while. You guys aren't very good at spoiling things.
I agree that Ziggy's pretty bad, but I take him as a sign that the show has lost faith in the appeal of its corruption plot: crazy guy who was sort of sympathetic now murders! people will watch that! no need to develop anything beyond the character! It's kind of like in The Way We Live Now where there are all kinds of complicated financial dealings going on that aren't exactly ethical, but Trollope goes with easily comprehensible forgery and burglarly in the end rather than hang that subplot on the financial stuff alone. At least Ziggy's stuff doesn't replace the rest of the smuggling the union guys are doing.
I don't know how Brother Muozone plays out yet, but the reading material bit (where's my Harper's, and pick up the Nation while you're at it?) was both funny and out of place. Omar's pretty over the top. The courtroom cross examination scene lays out a bit too explicitly, in a writing for a class assignment sort of way, the "we're both parasites off the drug dealers" point. But it's a fun scene.
Lots of corrupt people still hold to some standards of honor/morality/virture/whatever - and I don't mean adhering to some of society's rules while breaking others, I mean living by some code that may overlap with but also goes against society's rules in various places (like willing to murder in certain cases but not willing to murder indiscriminately) - rather than just throwing off all rules and doing whatever they feel like in any particular situation. I don't know if Avon's sense of honor is genuine because I haven't seen it developed far enough, but I can see it turning out to feel real to me. Slol, read the Zoto story in The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.
There's an interesting "social history of institutions" (as I see it, for lack of better phrasing) theme going on that's described quite well in the commentary to the first episode of season one. The show makes me want to write my dissertation, and in doing so makes me feel guilty for watching it. If I'm lucky, I'm going to read someone else's mail tomorrow.
I feel like it would read better as "Ziggy ex machina." Any thoughts? Ben?
Agreed.
"Way Down in the Hole" originally appeared on Waits' Franks Wild Years, with some awesome brief solos by Marc Ribot, and also appears on the live album Big Time, with a little preachin' by Waits.
Frank's Wild Years while not my favourite Waits album with Ribot features all my favourite Ribot-solos from his period with Waits.
The one in 'Hang on St. Christopher', for example.
No apostrophe, though I think the song on Swordfishtrombones does have one. Like Finnegans Wake.
Slol, read the Zoto story in The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.
Why am I being assigned c18 French novels now? Not that I object, I just want more context.
Also, you have to leaven your Omar-hating with the realization that he's essential to the theme of individuals vs. organizations. Omar:The Wire as Wild Bill:Deadwood. Only, for reasons noted above, Wild Bill gets killed. (If you think that's a spoiler I can't help you.)
I suppose this raises the point that Avon and Stringer represent two different kinds of organization-man, feudal and corporate. So there's maybe a useful gloss on their conflict.
I realize I'm the only one still interested in this.
You're really not. That's an interesting point about Omar as a avatar for individualism, but I'm not sure I see the comparison to Wild Bill, who strikes me as something closer to Jake Gittes in Chinatown: an updated version of a mythical figure that is, necessarily, much less heroic.
I think Wild Bill is important in kicking Deadwood off, precisely because he represents the white-knight version of law that is necessarily going to fade as social order comes in. The real Wild Bill was, we are generally led to believe, a hired gun specifically for the civilizing interests---stagecoach companies, ranchers, etc.; I think occasionally a marshal---and represented the law of the single, expert killer in the West. Gradually he was supplanted by the more communitarian and corporate ways of keeping order.
Omar represents a similar figure for The Street. After all, his self-chosen theme is "the cheese stands alone", right? And his shotguns under his duster read "gunslinger" pretty clearly. Is he only a character who lives in the interstices of this orderly society, only going to be a thorn in the side to the more organizational Barksdale machine? Or as order crumbles, is he going to come into his own? I think the former.
I haven't seen the third season yet--I only get The Wire on DVD--but I agree with you, Slol, about Omar. He's clearly an interstitial character; the monopoly can't totally control for sabotage...
BTW, I've understood both the Wire and Deadwood as being organized primarily in economic terms. Maybe the earlier descriptor of the shows' being "sociological" contains this economic aspect, but I want to lean on the economic relations as being determinative.
I don't know about calling Omar "interstitial." In some sense, yes, of course, he slips through the cracks in and between the organizations of the law and the drug clans. But rather than being a free agent, he seems more like the revenge of the community on the organizations that have lost touch with it. Someone at some point even calls him (sarcastically) "Robin Hood." He does rob from the dealers, avoid the police, and give back to the community. And the one thing that resonates with him is the dressing down he gets from Bunk about how the community has gone to hell, and people like Omar have made that happen. That gives him the "itch he can't scratch," as he says to Butchie.
SPOILERS, again.
I don't think you can pry apart economics and sociology in these shows, but if I had to choose, I would say there's more Weber than Marx there.
In The Wire, maybe especially in the first season, there's a clear emphasis on the police department as lousy corporation---look at the building they're in, the glass walls and the cubicles; listen to the language they're speaking, of numbers of cases cracked. Think about the bad captain, or whatever he is, walking around with his unsolved cases on index cards, and mad about which ones are his responsibility. It's all organization man, status, climbing the hierarchy. The way the PD works, with its group meetings and slide shows, its ritual humiliations and marks of status, are all about the Weber.
Then think about Deadwood. It's more important to Steve the Drunk that Hostettler is black, per se, than it is that he owns the livery and Steve doesn't. Or think about the conflict between Hearst and Swearingen, the fight through proxies in which Hearst is wounded by having his man bested, or in which Hearst is rendered incapable of rational thought by having his ear twisted. This is all again about the Weber, not about the Marx.
63: yes, well, again I think here we're looking at the difference historically between Deadwood and Baltimore. Deadwood is on an upward, more or less, trajectory to social order, Baltimore on a downward one. So Deadwood needs Wild Bill to die. Baltimore needs Omar to rise up as the institutions that replaced the Wild Bills of the world fail.
I think the show is pretty clear that the Omar model of justice is not what you'd call desirable, though.
Yeah, that's the fantasy part of Omar. It's more realistic that he would rob from the dealers, avoid the police, and spend the money on hookers and beer.
"Revenge of the community" might be too strong, though. He goes after the Barkley crew out of personal revenge; he's using the cops to get what he wants, never mind that the community will suffer more during a shooting war than under a mostly stabilized monopoly.
66 was to 63.
Slol, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that I've read more economics theory than sociological theory, not that I really understand either, but doesn't it slightly beg the question to analyse a police department as a bureaucratic institution? I would see that aspect of the show as a brilliant sociological development of a universe that was mapped in economic terms...
I see the basic distinction as being, do people act on their material interests or to improve their status. I grant that the distinction can be fuzzy. But back when I read lots of theory, it seemed to be one that mattered.
"Revenge of the community" might be too strong, though
That's true. Maybe "the community's twisted angry wail?"
Feudal vs corporation isn't always an opposition: you can see a kind of culture of honor among 19th century businessmen running some of the large corporations.
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is a bit hard to describe. It's not quite French (author was Polish, but it was written after Poland had been partitioned, other complications of textual history in the Penguin introduction omitted, etc.) It's told mostly as a series of stories - kind of Decameron-style, divided by day - told to Alphonse van Worden, a member of the Walloon Guards on his way to take up a post in Spain. Van Worden was brought up by a father so obsessed with honor that he was involved in quite a few duels.
The Zoto story is about bandits in southern Italy (and pretty early on in the novel). Part of the way through the story van Worden reflects:
[Zoto's] words had given me much to think about. He had repeatedly praised the honor, delicacy and integrity of people for whom hanging was not a severe enough punishment. His misuse of word, which he uttered with such conviction, completely bewildered me.
I'm going to lose electricity today at some time between now and 5 - they're doing repairs and maintenance - so I'm posting this not having read other comments since I don't know when the connection will disappear.
you can see a kind of culture of honor among 19th century businessmen
First of all, thanks for the clarification. But as for this, you know, I'm always skeptical. You can see a kind of culture of honor among slaveowners, too. But in the end they'll sell their slaves down the river if it profits them. Same holds for the rest of these fellas.
I think we might grant that there's almost always lip-service to some ideal of honor, but if we want to assert the existence of a culture of honor, honor has to trump material gain somehow in some large plurality of important cases.
68. Ah! That's excellent--and the distinction is truly murky in The Wire. And it explains ogged's 45: I think that a lot of the union culture depicted in season 2 depicts "status" in a way that's difficult to perceive for many of us on the outside of that world.
69. I'm still not buying it, though I see where you're coming from. The symbolism you want is there, but it's in the plot-arc, not in Omar's character, per se. He's (mostly) a libertarian, no?
Ok, my comment missed the thread-train, and now I've got to run.
You can see a kind of culture of honor among slaveowners, too. But in the end they'll sell their slaves down the river if it profits them.
That's not what I mean, though. For us honor is about those kinds of things we call virtuous, like not screwing over innocent people for profit. I'm talking about things like getting back at that fucker who screwed you over by getting some legislation introduced in Congress to aid in building something his company has no intention of building solely in order to manipulate the market by manipulating information. You'll see people who should, under a corporate organization man rational bureacratic model of behavior work tirelessly for a profit act in ways that have to do with more personal disputes rather than in ways that will maximize profit. (Most of what I know of this so far is second hand.)
You also see them evaluating each other and politicians in terms of character, trustworthiness, etc. You don't want to start working with a Senator in such a way as to make it understood that when he's out of office a few town lots and some stock will be put in his name if he can't be relied on to bring your bill up to a vote without trying to game you for more money when the legislative session is almost over.
I'm not saying they adhere to a system of honor with any more rigor than they adhere to the rules of law. Just that you can't quite separate the two ways of acting.
Consider major Rawls: yeah he's in the bureacucratic policed department working the statistics of homicide clearances or whatever. But he's also acting according to some personal rules of what personal obligations mean. It makes more sense to keep a good detective like McNulty clearing cases than sending him to the boat over a personal dispute.
Now that I'm the only one who cares about this, I missed this
if we want to assert the existence of a culture of honor, honor has to trump material gain somehow in some large plurality of important cases.
I'd agree with this to an extent. I don't think honor is necessarily in opposition to material gain - it can structure the way material is gained. And I'm using the term "honor culture" more loosely as something that influences but doesn't determine behavior.
I wouldn't ever say that the rules of honor don't apply or have been completely replaced. (If any corner of our contemporary society is annoyingly honor-plagued, it's academia.) I just don't see a culture of honor, i.e., in which considerations of honor take priority.
Rawls-McNulty is a good example. Rawls wants McNulty on the case while the case is on---remember how he chews out McNulty for feeling guilty over Greggs getting shot? But that's only because he knows he's saddled with this case, much against his will. And once he's shut of this case, it makes eminent sense to send McNulty to the boat. McNulty is not a team player. He doesn't want to close cases as quickly as possible, he fixates on challenging cases---ones in which he can respect the criminals---which take a long time to solve and don't make Rawls look good.
Also, assessing businessmen on character isn't about honor, it's about credit. Dictum meum pactum, right?
that's only because he knows he's saddled with this case, much against his will.
Dude, you can't take Rawls's one moment of humanity away from him.
That's true. Maybe "the community's twisted angry wail?"
This is wrong, and in the same way that slol's equation of Wild Bill and Omar is wrong. Wild Bill is the avante guard of civilization: he buys into our civilized belief in law and order. Omar is reacting as an individual. His acts of revenge trigger recognition of our deep-seated, uncivilized, understandings of the way the world works. Eye for an eye, and all of that. But you can't really connect him with the community, except to say that the community (since it's made up of individuals) understands his motivations.
This is wrong
Do you have the answer key or something?
Dude, you can't take Rawls's one moment of humanity away from him.
I don't think that's his one moment of humanity. Look at the way he takes charge of the scene after Greggs has been shot. Also, it's not human, his big secret as discovered in season 3? For that matter, it's not human to be a success-fixated flaming jerk?
slol's equation of Wild Bill and Omar is wrong
Tim, you ignorant slut.
This thread is mystifying when you've never seen the show. How does the culture of honor figure in the new season of Reno 911?
the new season of Reno 911
Damn, is there a new season? I've missed it.
80: As previously discussed, I edit out all the initial "Um, maybe, I think"s that usually begin my sentences so as not to sound like a complete wuss. And because native speakers can infer them.
I edit out all the initial "Um, maybe, I think"s
For the record, I did no such thing with 82.
Slol, I mean the one moment where he acts like a decent guy.
the one moment where he acts like a decent guy
Well, okay. But I think given that the Greggs shooting is his one moment, it's appropriate to think about why he's being decent just this once.
why he's being decent just this once
Fair enough. I think his judgement is certainly informed by his ties to the organization, but I took it to be a situation that he thought was important enough for him to set aside the more petty organizational concerns. I don't doubt that you can see it as acting out of self-interest, but that's not how the scene played for me; I thought it was his way of being a mensch.
I know some people who are a lot like Rawls, who do act exceptionally well in crises, or what they think are crises. I've seen it enough that it no longer impresses me as being about their having residual decency, I think it's instrumental to them in some way.
But I could be a very harsh judge of these things, too.
The power went out right after my last comment and it's only now come back on. Apparently routine maintenance and repair = shutting down street traffic, disconnecting all the wires from a pole, removing the pole with a huge crane, installing a new pole, and hooking all the wires back up.
Anyway
I just don't see a culture of honor, i.e., in which considerations of honor take priority.
I agree with this. The degree to which honor-type considerations affect many supposed rational organization men's behavior is understated, but I don't think those considerations are generally the overriding factor affecting decisions.
Also, assessing businessmen on character isn't about honor, it's about credit.
I don't think this is necessarily true, and in the case of politicians it could be less applicable. And in any case both honor and credit can involve giving one's word and fulfilling one's obligations. They're not always mutually exclusive.
I think we'd all agree that someone who votes his conscience is being honest. Someone who votes according to the obligations he's made even when they go against his conscience could still be honorable to the people who assessed his character and then chose to rely on him, but wouldn't be honest. A sudden change of mind to vote with his conscience could be seen - again by the people relying on his willingness to be corrupt - as dishonorable.
Other points:
In season 2 Rawls refuses to let McNulty onto the new murder case until Daniels finally forces his hand. It's true that at that point Rawls has already gotten the murders out of the homicide department's statistics, but it's hardly the work of a good organization man to keep the full organization - the police as a whole, in this case - from having a good man on the job. Feuding subdivisions aren't exactly a model of efficiency.
Finally, Omar expresses the complaint of the unorganized against the consequences of organization. Stringer Bell's attempted reforms of the Barksdale operation represent the ambition of the new middle class to fulfill its destiny through bureaucratic means. Or something.
Omar expresses the complaint of the unorganized against the consequences of organization.
Omar carries a shotgun, is widely respected and feared, and is able to calculate his risks and advantages on a dime. His position in the economic order makes a great deal of sense: he's a non-organized parasite on a quasi-monopoly. That he's a good guy in this plot is almost incidental to the sociological/economic system the writers have created.
The entire last paragraph is actually a historiographical joke, but I guess slol is not around.
could they have picked a more Irish guy to play that allegedly Italian city councilman?
Now that I've looked it up and seen that the guy was born in frickin' Dublin, I think we can definitively say "no."
So I'm just collateral damage in your attack on Hobsbawm?
Ogged, that was not directed at you.
I watched Disc Four of The Wire last night, and I'm lovin' Avon Barksdale. I'm convinced he should be our next Secretary of State, with Marlo as SecDef.