Fiction is better than reality in The Wire
With all of the reality shows cropping up on the set these days, I rarely get sucked into anything. But when I saw the first season of David Simon’s The Wire, I realized there may be hope for TV yet — mostly because I forgot I was even watching a show. Tackling every urban institution, from schools to police to news media and cops, there are truly no ‘good guys’, and after having lived in Baltimore myself on and off for ten years, it broadened my perspective on this city’s and other cities’ issues that lie beyond the newsfeed. In my opinion, it is hands-down the best-scripted and acted show I have ever seen. And now all seasons are available on DVD.
Tagged: tv shows
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This guy is a legend in my eyes; up there with the Tom Waits’ and Dr Johns’ of the zimmer-frame generation. My only hope when I hit my late 60s is to still be rocking it as convincingly as Mr Steve, perhaps strutting a pair of denim dungarees and having perfected that deep, deep Southern drawl. He’s still giving as good as ever, make no bones about that. Watch him laying waste to a whole history of one-man band performances with this little rendition on his Three String Trance Wonder and the Mississippi Drum Machine (or MDM for those in the know).

Since vanity albums seem to be back in style, Leisha Hailey’s Uh Huh Her released their Common Reaction debut on August 19 through Nettwerk. Uh Huh Her is a collaboration between former Mellowdrone bassist and keyboardist Camila Grey and Hailey, who’s better known as Alice Pieszecki on the Showtime television series, The L Word. Their eleven-track disc was produced by Al Clay (Blur, Pink). The band recently shot a video for their single Not A Love Song, which you can preview along with Explode [audio below] and a remix of Say So on Uh Huh Her’s MySpace page.
Also by JOHN MALLOY

After hearing a year’s worth of speculation that this film might not see the light of day, the new Dave Eggers [McSweeney's] and Spike Jonze adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s vividly imaginative story Where The Wild Things Are is finally hitting the big screen. And I can’t wait! The subtle use of CGI on the faces makes the creatures even more eerily believable. Read more

Dublab’s Into Infinity project
I was kindly invited by one of my longtime favorite radio stations, Dublab to create a piece for their upcoming open-source exhibition, Into Infinity and Beyond. During the online exhibition, other artists will be able to manipulate, remix, and re-submit the work. The exhibition will also feature music that will be available for remixing, as well.

The David Bowie issue of Lemon magazine
I recently had the honour of doing the cover for the comic’s section in the upcoming Lemon Magazine David Bowie issue, in addition to translating interviews with Battles and These New Puritans into comics for the same issue, each based on one of Bowie’s songs and periods in his career. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (2)
Rob said | 31 August, 2008
I’m totally with you on this. I’m loving this series. All the HBO shows ive seen Sopranos, OZ and Big Love are good but I have to say The Wire stands out above these and in comparison to the other mediocre dramas that pass for standard television these days it comes accross as really clever yet entertaining. Gota love Omar and McNulty the perfect examples of the flawed hero.
HAVE YOUR SAY
My friend Paul Pope is back hurting my mind again with his killer stories and even more incredible illustrations. DC Comics has debuted its Wednesday Comic series with a twelve-part episode of Pope’s Adam Strange story. Coloring by the amazing Jose Villarrubia. They are off the shelves quick so keep an eye out. Read more
Aesop’s signature space in Fitzroy, Melbourne, looks amazing, we’ve got the word on how and why. Why was Gabriel Garcia Marquez chosen as the featured author? ‘There are literary giants and then there are writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose talents redefine not only the genres they choose to work within but what’s possible in literature as a whole. The fact that his work has transcended his own language and culture has also prompted our decision to pay homage’. Read more
Clara Kraetsch and Doreen Schulz are the designers behind the hot Berlin design label C-Neeon, which hit hard onto the fashion radar after winning the Young Designers competition at the Hyeres Festival. Read more
If anyone ever asks you to define the word “schadenfreude,” show him or her these pictures of a poor skier hanging from a ski lift with his junk exposed to the alpine chill. If the person viewing the pictures laughs, he or she now understands the particularly useful German term.
A Paper Tiger is a new venture that launched in January of this year selling exclusive prints by some of my favorite artists such as Jack Long [shown above]. Read more
Films involving characters faced with an impossible choice never make easy viewing, an example being the Nick Cave Australian gem, The Proposition. A nightclub manager, played with understated power by Joaquin Phoenix, is the victim here, and you actually feel truly uncomfortable as his predicament unfolds. Set in the 1980s, We Own The Night shows a real nostalgia for that period — particularly in the costumes. Read more
Strip away the cookie monster vocals and downtuned, distorted guitars, it’s hard to imagine death metal still reading as death metal, but 8-bit duo Dr. Zilog manage to do just that. The Floridian sound-card tweakers make some pretty amazing original, NES tunes that are strangely compelling, catchy, and actually quite metal.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST

Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more

Alex Passapera’s dizzying pen and ink drawings are cascades of images melting into one another, often looking like contorting, mutating creatures spewing blood-like ink splatters. Read more

With the recession still biting, it may be time to whip out the glue and the cardboard and make your next pair of cool kicks. Don’t know how they’d manage in the rain though? Read more

Our celebrity-saturated culture makes many of us irrationally hateful of the faces we see on our TV screens and magazine pages. Good thing there’s Celebrity PunchOut to let off some of that steam.

Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
This beautiful archival pigment print by New York-based illustrator, Fernanda Cohen, is called Fashion Ruined My Life. And it speaks for itself. Just look at her face! We have it for sale for just $75 in the Lost At E Minor online store. Read more
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Paul Ryan said | 29 August, 2008
Couldn’t agree more. The Wire is right up there with The Sopranos in terms of plot/character development and multi-layered nuance. In many ways, it’s more rewarding. I’m half way through the third season and it just keeps getting better.
HBO shows are a great example of the kind of sophisticated art that can be created when mainstream advertisers are denied deity status by networks.