The Wire on Vimeo
"I animated this piece as an homage to my favorite show"
"I animated this piece as an homage to my favorite show"
The Wire - Characters Saying the Opening Quotes https:/
I watched Fred Zinneman's <em>Day of the Jackal</em> (1973) last night, and Paul Bond reminded me of this bit from <em>The Wire</em>:
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#sogood
Wire 106: Week 16 – Game Over http:/
#Wire106: Week 15-Time to Get Real with the Final Projects http:/
Wire 106: S04E04 – “Refugees” http:/
Wire 106: S04E03 - "Home Rooms" http:/
Wire 106: S04E02 – “Soft Eyes” http:/
#wire106: S04E01 – Boys of Summer http:/
#Wire106: S03E12 - 'Mission Accomplished' http:/
New blog post: "Inspired: The Wire Scrolls" http:/
Wire 106: S03E09 - "Slapstick" http:/
Wire 106: S03E08 – “Moral Midgetry” http:/
#wire106: Week 10 - "Let's Go to the Videotape" http:/
#Wire106: S03E07 - “Back Burners” http:/
New post: "Inspired: Wire 2600" http:/
New blog post: "Wire 106: S03E06 Homecoming" http:/
New blog post: "Inspired by Wire 106" http:/
#Wire106: S03E05 “Straight and True” http:/
Wire 106: Week 9 -Get Inspired! http:/
#Wire106: S03E02 “All Due Respect” http:/
Wire 106: Week 8 - Radio Days http:/
New blog post: "NYC and the Visual Design of Season 2 of The Wire" http:/
#Wire106: S03E01 "Time After Time" https:/
#Wire 106: S02E12 "Port in a Storm" https:/
#Wire 106: S02E11 “Bad Dreams” http:/
Wire 106: S02E010 “Storm Warnings” http:/
Wire 106: S02E09 “Stray Rounds” http:/
"Wire 106: S02E06/E07/E08 “All Prologue,” “Backwash,” and “Duck and Cover” http:/
"Wire 106 Radio: S02E03/E04/E05 “Hot Shots,” “Hard Cases,” and “Undertow" http:/
Joe Murphy on Twitter: "Is there enough creativity in making a pop culture D&D alignment chart for a #ds106 create? #wire106 version: http:/
Imran discovered this on Yik Yak and sent it my way and I was like "What is #wire106 chopped liver?" http:/
"Wire 106: Week 6 - The Design of Things" http:/
New blog post: "From Radio to Television to Wire 106 or, Why I teach" http:/
Love this graphic representation of <em>The Wire</em> Paul Bond pointed me to here: http:/
New blog post: "Wire 106 Twitter Watch Along" http:/
Wire 106: Week 5 - Taking a Closer Look http:/
New blog post: #Wire106 Listen Along on ds106radio (#4life) http:/
Wire 106 Week 4: Listening to Audio http:/
This is the interview Paul Bond and I had with sound editor Jen Ralston about her work on The Wire and more. She has a series of brilliant insights, and does a few close readings of scenes from season 1. It's an excellent resource for thinking more deeply about sound, which is appropriate given we will be introducing sound in #ds106 this week.
Alternative link:
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I was at Westmoreland State Park with my family today and I saw a pay phone by the visitors center and immediately thought of The Wire Everywhere assignment for ds106. It's interesting how the pay phone is becoming a vestigial technology in a society where a majority of folks carry one in their pocket (in addition to an extremely powerful computer).
I love the aesthetic of the pay phone, and it's a staple of The Wire season 1, so I figured I would capture just that. It's interesting how something as ubiquitous as this technology 25 years ago has vanished in the wake of the mobile revolution. The idea of vanishing technology like the pay phone is fascinating, and the idea that Grant Potter set it up so that you could broadcast to #ds106radio from a pay phone back in the day was one of the most interesting marriages of old and new technologies I've ever seen.
Archive of discussion w/ @phb256 and @awallac2 of S01E13 of The Wire "Sentencing." http:/
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This is my attempt at the "Summarize A Wire Episode In GIFs." I chose to pull six (actually seven) animated GIFs from episode 5 of Season 1 of The Wire: "The Pager." It's one of my favorite episodes because the theme of being watched and a more generalized sense of paranoia creeps into the episode constantly.
This is one of the earlier, if not earliest, episode where we hear the refrain: "Omar's coming!" As we all know, "the cheese stands alone!" ---and he'll be coming for Avon soon.
Are you trying to get The Wire episodes for GIFs? There's a solution I emailed folks earlier this week, did you check your email? Also, a bit late in the game for issues with GIFs and videos? No leaving yourself much leeway for error.
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"Scenes from the Wire" http:/
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After returning to teach ds106 as an online course at UMW for the first time in over a year, I decided to experiment with an idea Mike Wesch mentioned while in Irvine this summer preparing for Connected Courses. He noted that he goes out to lunch with a different student of his every day. I loved this idea. And given that most of the students taking the wire106 version of ds106 this Fall are residential students, I decided to organize group lunches for anyone interested. Today was the first one, and it was pretty awesome.
Maggie, John, Ien, and Meredith joined me at a local eating establishment to get to know each other over lunch. After working through the expected initial awkwardness, we sat down, ordered food and started talking about The Wire. And, interestingly enough, we all got into it. They confessed to binge watching, admitted using ds106 to procrastinate doing other class work (a badge of honor), and generally acknowledged they were hooked on the series. Needless to say, I was fired up. We talked about Wee-Bey's exotic fish fetish, the tragedy of Wallace, the existential angst of D'Angelo, Greggs as natural police and much more. It was fun.
On top of that, we came away with some idea for class activities, assignments, and projects that Meredith was kind enough to capture at lunch before they slipped away.
Live Tweeting Episodes
It even produced some ideas for both wire106-themed assignments and possibilities for coordinating activities for the class to come together. For example, watching episode 1 of Season 2 together by starting it at a predetermined time and live tweeting out our reactions. This is something we need to make happen.
Opening Scene Episode
Take all the opening scenes from the 13 episodes of season 1 and edit them into a video wherein they play one after the other chronologically to see how it would flow as it's own episode.
Beginnings and Endings
Juxtapose the opening and closing scenes of each episode in season 1, noting how much they play off each other in a number of episodes. One good example to start with is episode 10, "The Cost."
Wire Colors
Another assignment that came up was doing an analysis of the use of color in the series. And we're still thinking about how we would frame that as a compelling visual assignment. Ideas?
Wire 106: Messing with the Macguffin
John suggested an assignment that would have a character saying something that changed the nature of the episode, if not the series, all together. Like, for instance, Deputy of Ops suggesting a Bust and Buy on a case with a wire would be out of the question. Poor Kima. Kinda like a Wire 106-themed "Messing with the MacGuffin" assignment.
OG Technology
If you were to change the technology in a scene, how it would be different today. Could there be a season 1 Wire without pay phones?
Where are they now?
Playing off the fact many of the actors in The Wire have gone on to successful careers, do a where are they now assignment that plays with the before and after. Perhaps even creating a fiction story around the changes. This could be very interesting for Wallace, Stringer Bell, Snoop and more.
Clothing Change Ups
A design assignment that has you photoshopping one character’s set of clothing onto another character.
Putting Words In Their Mouth
Giving a quote that one character said to another character.
Wire on the Twitter
Create a twitter account for each character in an episode then tweet the dialogue of that episode. This might be a group project later in the semester, it would take some interesting coordination, and the tweets might be an awesome subtitle to a live projected episode at the end of the semester.
Audio Commentary
Provide a polished, rehearsed audio commentary to an episode. Make it a special feature anyone can download and play as part of their watching of the series.
The idea of coming up with fun assignments over lunch is a really appealing focus for these sessions, at least for me. And it could be one approach we take to these get togethers. But the real goal is to simply get to know each other. The idea of residential online learning that Mike Caulfield has written about is still very appealing to me. An hour and a half lunch with four different students twice a week, over 13 weeks, means I could spend almost 5 hours with every student for focused, relaxed, and personalized time to get to know them, have a good meal, and get creative about what we can do with the class. That to me is what online makes available for a community like UMW. More time to get to know each other, have fun, and re-imagine how we learn together. And what better venue that #ds106!
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Paul Bond and I discuss Episode 10 of Season 1 of The Wire: "The Cost." And as you may have guessed, this episode is all about, well, the cost of it all. Also, Wire 106 internaut Maggie Stough provides and awesome look at light and color in this episode, and Paul Bond is up to his usual flights of fancy analysis. We're are all getting pulled into the inescapable gravity of this "Russian novel" of a series.
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Wire 106: Week 2 "Building the Community" http:/
Wire 106: S01E09 “Game Day” http:/
Wire 106: S01E08 "Lessons" http:/
At 5:15 PM (EDT) this evening we'll be discussing S01E07 of The Wire: "One Arrest" http:/
Here we go! #wire106 officially underway! Week 1-"The Setup" http:/
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The title of this episode, "The Pager," highlights a throwback technology---even in 2002---that underscores a broader cultural critiques happening in The Wire. We already discussed the surveillance society everywhere apparent in this series, and this episode starts to evidence the concomitant paranoia that necessarily accompanies this enw reality. In fact, being watched is not a conspiracy because everyone in this show is already being watched, and we have regular evidence of that. Technology, surveillance and paranoia is a theme that I'll be returning to again and again this semester, and in our current post-NSA climate, it's almost a given we're being watched not only by ubiquitous cameras in the built environment, but everywhere we go in virtual space as well.
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In this discussion of episode 4, "Old Cases," Paul Bond provides a clinic on examining this episodes use of color, visual rhyming, the noir aesthetic, and more. His post here provides some excellent notes for this discussion, or even a great resource on its own. This discussion provides close analysis of the visual themes at work in The Wire that you might miss on the first run.
Another part of the discussion covers this idea of institutional noir in The Wire. In the 1940s film noir provided a vision of a violent, criminal post-war America. Noir was defined by ethically borderline characters that often stood outside institutions. In Simon's series, the institutional power structure are now producing these shady characters. A post-industrial, institutional reality reflecting the dehumanizing horror of late capital. An institutional noir filled with cubicals, high-rises, burnt out projects, and abandoned row houses. A word dystopian world of haves and have-nots that isn't scifi.
And there was even more, so check out the video, follow the links to the posts, or get blogging your own ideas, hippies!
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Could for an interesting class project ;)
The Lego Wire from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.
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While walking around the new building I now work in at UMW---I realized I was seeing The Wire everywhere. Specifically, in the carpet.
The carpet is a constant reminder, at least for me, of the iconic image that is associated with the series on its main Wikipedia page.
So I took a picture of the rug and then add a quick title (still working in PowerPoint ;)) and took a screenshot.
You can see a comparison here.
I would give myself one of the two stars I attributed to "The Wire Everywhere" assignment I created for this semester's ds106 visual assignments. For it to be awesome, I would need to use Photoshop or GIMP to make the colors of the rug match those of the series icon. I'll revisit this, but for now consider it yet another star, and a new #wire106 assignment to boot :)
New blog post: "Triple Troll Wire Epigraphs" http:/
New assignment for #wire106 inspired by the Troll Quotes. Take an epigraph from one of the episodes and attribute it to another, related figure. Finally, adorn the quote and author with an image of a third, different character from the series. This way, nothing about your image is correct, and you’re trolling fans of The Wire with all three characters at once.
New blog post: "Wire 106: S01E02 'The Detail'" http:/
New blog post: "Wire 106: Welcome to Hamsterdam" http:/