The Wire

October 22, 2009

Why are the drug gangsters and the characters from the projects hands down the most compelling in this series? One, because the stakes are higher. Though people go down in all the other ecological niches – police, the dockworkers union, politics, schools, newspapers – the percentage of deaths is miniscule compared to the projects. Two, and as a writer this is the most interesting, because of the language. The gangsters speak with the most immediacy, the most creativity, the quickest line from the mouth to the heart. Mos def. My hero, Omar, is the best spoken character outside of Shakespeare, you feel me? And the death of Wallace is one of the most tragic scenes in modern storytelling.

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