For anyone who has been living on the television-viewing equivalent of a raft off the coast of New Zealand's Stewart Island, here is just one of the many reasons you should be watching The Wire. His name is Omar Little (Michael Kenneth Williams).
State's Attorney: Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?
Omar: Day at a time I suppose?
Currently kicking ass -- Season 3 that is -- at Whitebait's house.
The downtown I remember - drab, Calvinistic, with white men in dark overcoats marching in lockstep on the sidewalks, interspersed with the occasional woman, in regulation high heels, gloves and hat, clutch purse under the arm, eyes front - is simply gone, but then it's been gone for some time. Toronto is no longer a Protestant city, it's a mediaveal one: the crowds clogging the street are many-hued, the clothing vivd. Hot-dog stands with yellow umbrellas, pretzel-sellers, hawkers of ear-rings and woven bags and leather belts, beggars hung with crayoned Out of Work signs: among them they've staked out the territory. I passed a flute player, a trio with electric guitars, a man with a kilt and bagpipes. At any moment I expected jugglers or fire-eaters, lepers in procession with hoods and iron bells. There was a blare of noise; an iridescent film clung to my glasses like oil.
This passage comes from Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin (2000), which Whitebait feels like he has been reading for eons. Not, mind you, because it is a dull book - quite the opposite he thinks; but he simply hasn't been that successful at sitting down lately and reading fiction in a sustained way. So it goes. Whitebait has read most of Atwood's fiction and a also a bit of her poetry. What this novel reminds him is that among her other skills Atwood has a wonderfully forensic writing temperament; for example, characters/narrators are often stopping to question why we use a particular, well-worn phrase when if you stopped and though about it for a moment it would be revealed for the peculiar convention it is. Or she just notices banal things that resonate with Whitebait - he can't find the quote but at one point a character points out to his lover that anyone can tell that of all the fruits, bananas are clearly the ones most likely to have been introduced to Earth by extra-terrestials.
Whitebait's other forensic fix has been season 1 of the HBO series The Wire, which his work library has had the good sense to purchase. Set in the secondary city of Baltimore, which the show has some nice incidental gags about, its terrific because it is a police procedural with some space (ie, 13 episodes) to breathe in terms of plot and character development. And it seems one of the more 'accurate' shows he has seen in capturing the, erm, 'range' of personalities and intelligences that end up in institutional organisations like the police force. Watch it and you'll see what he means.
And an extract from the wikipedia entry for those who don't know the show:
The plot of the first season centers on the ongoing struggles between police units and drug-dealing gangs on the west side of the city, and is told from both points of view. Subsequent seasons have focused on other facets of the city. The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon [writer/producer and former police reporter] has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how... whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to."
Recent Comments