Omar Little: An Introduction to The Wire

This post is a shout out to my favorite character in maybe my favorite TV show, that show being The Wire.  This is the first post I have made referencing it, but it certainly won't be the last.  I would rather focus on movies than TV shows because as an art form combining writing, cinematography, and storytelling I think they are a far superior medium.  TV shows have to end after either ~20 or ~40 minutes, however movies can be over 2 hours.  Shows allow for more character development over time, but as a medium, movies compare more favorably to other art forms as "true art", however The Wire breaks a lot of the rules.

Once more with feeling! (pt 1)

There are a lot of great technical singers out there, but that isn't what makes someone great.  Some of the best musical performances are not done with precision but with pure, raw emotion.  There are some music purists that say "oh, emotional music, that's just emo".  Well, they're wrong because playing with emotion has been a part of modern music for decades and some of the greatest artists and singers in history have gone on pure emotion.

The Beatles: And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make

Where can you start with the Beatles.  Easily the most famous group in the history of music, they tend to be quite polarizing.  More than most bands out there, you love them or you hate them.  Generally, those who dislike the Beatles tend to do so because of a feeling that the Beatles are overrated.  I however disagree.  When I see the Beatles, I see a band that on their merits of the quality of their work, easily deserve their place as one of the best (if not the best) group in history.  

Separating the Actor from the Character

I have been on vacation, which has made it hard to keep up a blog, but while on vacation I started thinking about a subject I found quite interesting.  Oftentimes, people have trouble separating the character from the actor playing that character, especially if that was a "breakout role" for that character and they are not known for a ton else before it.

The Clash: More Then They Seem?

I was looking through my iPod for something to listen to and settled on The Clash recently.  I figured "hey, I haven't listened to them in a little while".  I started listening and was thinking that they didn't sound all that much like what I know to be punk.  People refer to them in the same vein as The Sex Pistols and The Ramones because they were the forerunners of Punk Rock.  However, The Clash has a sound that is much more.

The Concept of Drama.

An Idiot commenter got me thinking about drama recently.  It was on an AV Club article about how Attorney General Eric Holder wants there to be more episodes of The Wire.  Someone commented that they couldn't sit through the pilot because it didn't have enough action.  It got me to thinking, have the action movies of our day diluted people's views of drama?

Poem or Song? Part I

Poems are lyrics and lyrics are poems.  Take many songs out of the context of music and they sound like true poetry and set poetry to music and they are fantastic lyrics.  Some of my favorite music is where the music has a story to tell, a poetic story, and it does it through the medium of music.