It’s official, I’m calling an end to the 2010 Cultural Immersion Experiment. To be honest, I’m not really clear on who the protagonist is. Maybe The Wire is using it’s “realism” to make a statement about the unrealistic nature of protagonism in general but I can’t bring myself to care about any of the characters. I’m not rooting for anyone. I can’t identify with any of the characters and hence, I don’t care about their fate. The wire abandons a key component of the narrative (the protagonist) in order to make a point. Unfortunately that point is only a tired critique of the drug war and police corruption and are only novel because of their appearance on television.

The Wire is so close. If it only reined in it’s character count to allow some development.

All of this rich tapestry of story and characterization stuff aside, I’m just not entertained. Last years Cultural Immersion Experiment had me reading The Twilight Novels. I’ll willfully admit that Meyer is not a literary savant but knows how to reel them in. She is at once ham-handed and enjoyable. The Wire, on the other hand, is not entertaining. True the country in general, and Baltimore in particular, are still deeply fucked up so these critiques deserve a wider audience.

Anyway, June 5th will bring a Twilight novella which I am excited about. It will be quick and enjoyable like the candy that it is. If I’m stuck somewhere with nothing to read, I may check out the rest of the Harry Potter novels. I’ve seen bits of the movies that I found enjoyable. Reading the books may just piece that narrative together. The cultural consensus is that the DaVinci Code sequel The Lost Symbol is mediocre at best. I am officially abandoning The Wire, if only because finishing it means another 30 hours of investment that doesn’t seem like it’s going to pay off.

I’m currently watching the fourth episode of the third season of The Wire. It is incredibly boring. The first season is paradise compared to this. I’m considering aborting this attempt at cultural immersion and perhaps listening to audiobooks of the Sookie Stackhouse series or watching madmen.

It only took me two seasons to burn through four months of backlogged task minutae and now I’m just organizing my music. This is bad.

He just put up a shop as well. Cool stuff available
http://www.marcscheff.com/shop

Sugarpill – post a damn thing (sugarpill’s glitchbass REMIX) by sugarpill

Thus far, I have gotten nothing from The Wire other than the totally inappropriate tendency to convivially refer to my friends and associates as “nigger.” Despite deserving it, I haven’t been punched in the face for sounding like a bigot (yet). As for the show itself…the characters are all drawn from traditional cop show cookie cutter archetypes and spiced with “gritty” realism of the Baltimore streets. Thus far, the wire is the exact same cops and bad guys show that’s been on television for years but with more titty shots and heroin dealers. True the story is more complex but not interesting enough to form a compelling narrative. I also think there are too many characters to have any sort of serious development. The second half of season two has picked up a bit but nothing worth noting. So far, I would rate The Wire as firmly “boring.”

However! The major benefit of watching the wire is that I have optimized a previously unproductive area of my life. There is a class of tasks which is not interesting enough to enjoyably focus on exclusively but too complex to do totally mindlessly. Traditionally, I procrastinate on these items because they usually aren’t time sensitive or important. BUT I can accomplish large swaths of these tasks while watching television. It’s fantastic and makes me feel grand.

I will watch the Wire at least through season three because that is when it purportedly gets good. I am officially logging my thoughts on that point as “skeptical.”

I engage in my yearly pop culture endeavor primarily as a means to relate to other people. It’s nice to be able to talk about Harry Potter, The Twilight Novels or The DaVinci code if it comes up but those books were at least enjoyable. So far I’m just logging episodes of the wire and popping points off of my massive to do list.