Wire 106 – Page 3 – It’s all in the course, yo

Inspires

Ien Harris’ ds106 emergency alert

This was posted right around the beginning of the semester. It was an omen of things to come. I think it captures an intuitive understanding of the ds106 ethos.

Melinda Albrycht’s poem “The Wire”

Melinda’s poem is a great meditation on the themes of The Wire. While it is an example of excellent writing, what I found really inspiring was the reading of it, and the rhythm of it. That inspired me to remix it with the opening theme music.

dkernohan’s Daily Create: Text from the cover of a mid-price DVD re-issue of seasons 1-7 of “Jimmy McNulty and the Barksdale Gang”

I just love the idea of The Wire re-envisioned as a Saturday morning cartoon – Hong Kong Phooey meets Scooby Doo. I guess I’m not the only one, since this image is out there:

Inspired by Un-Cropped Signs

One of the nicest surprises of ds106 this Fall has been the Daily Creates. I am consistently blown away by the awesome work people are doing for these creative exercises. The community owes a huge amount of thanks to the impeccable work of Mariana Funes who has taken over the gardening of this branch of ds106 from Alan Levine—who kept it alive for the last two years.

Many of the daily creates have been just as inspiring—if not more so—than fullblown assignment posts, so I figured I would share a double-feature for the un-cropped sign prompt back on September 23rd.

I loved Jessica Reingold‘s “Falling” Rocks:

And Nicky Memita’s Popper Scooper or, “construction” will never be the same again.

Inspired: The Game Supercut

This video is a supercut of all the mentions of “the game” from season 1 of The Wire. It’s pretty amazing what John Johnston is doing with the software he found that automatically creates supercuts from video files based on the subtitle time stamps of dialogue. Brilliant stuff. I’ve already blogged about this awesomeness, but I how couldn’t this be an inspired post?

Inspired: “It’s a Kodak Moment in the House”

I was inspired by so many of the student radio programs, they were amazing. But that’s fodder for a whole ‘nother series of posts. For now I want to focus on one commercial from the brilliantly conceived and executed WireBuyers radio show: Jessica Reingold’s “It’s a Kodak Moment in the House.” I’m already deeply compelled by the technology theme in season 2 of The Wire, and when you mashup Ziggy’s highlighting the features of stolen digital cameras with a Kodak commercial you get some magic. What’s great about this one is the music bed remains consistent so you are never jarred out of the illusion that this is anything but a commercial for Kodak.

Inspired: Vulcan Mindmeld Incoming…

Yet another inspired work from ds106 this week, this one from Mariana Funes. What I like about this work is that it was itself inspired by Kris Hooks’s suggestion that I looked like I was doing the Vulcan Mindmeld in the screen capture for the video of the discussion we had last week:

#ds106 #wire106 Vulcan mindmeld incoming… @jimgroom #superpowers pic.twitter.com/xQPj9LZB6r

— Quinntero (@Green_Canoe) October 20, 2014

Mariana riffed on this and had some fun with it. This piece is a brilliant example that ds106 is at its very best when we are riffing on each others work. Mariana has been ruling in more ways than one this semester, but I’ll get to that.

Wire 106: S03E07 – “Back Burners”

This marks the 32nd episode we’ve watched and discussed so far this semester. We’re not playing games here.

In this Wire 106 video discussion, Paul Bond and I looked at season 3, episode 7 of the The Wire: “Back Burners.” There are a few moments that are interesting in this episode—the mirroring of loyalty and taking care of the young between Sergeant Carver in Hamsterdam and Marlo with his pigeons. There’s also Freamon’s discussion of how the burner phone networks operate, which has some interesting parallels with the overarching allegory of the Iraq War that’s playing out in this season. In fact, the description of the burner network was similar to how a terrorist cell network operates, making the ongoing allegory subtle, complex, and often embedded within the technology of control that is everywhere present in this series.

Inspired: Never Been a Paper Bag for ds106

Of all the amazing moments in The Wire, possibly my all time favorite is Bunny Colvin’s a paper bag speech which sets the stage for legalizing drugs in Hamsterdam during season 3. So when Paul Bond took this monologue and put it to the end credit music I was inspired. It’s a simple, but very effective pairing, and it almost reminds me of the late Gil Scott-Heron‘s poetry. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed, and might even be inspired to make some art, dammit!

A great moment of civic compromise, indeed! And it was the first thing I thought about when it came to adding a ds106 community member’s work to the Inspire! site (read more about Operation Inspire here). You can see Paul’s work memorialized here.

Wire 106: S03E06 “Homecoming”

In this installment of the ongoing video discussions, Paul and I were joined by Syd Bauman and Travis Peed for a really stimulating and far-ranging conversation on season 3, episode 6 of the The Wire: “Homecoming.” Travis and Syd came with their A-Game, and this back and forth proves why a conversation around a specific episodes brings forth so much fruit. I’m also loving how these ongoing hangouts provide a very focused way to convene with the wire106 internauts and share our ongoing ideas of the show through the lens of one episode.

Some of the themes we covered, though were the presence of Westerns in The Wire; the struggle for community in West Baltimore; the ongoing challenge of leaving the game; early American references to “wilderness” a la Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s work—to name just a few. This was a fun discussion, and kudos to Travis and Syd for showing up and being prepared to engage in some deep exploration of this episode, and by extension the series.

Below are a series of screenshots we shared during the discussion in no particular order.

Wire 106: Week 9 – Get Inspired

This week will be dedicated to going back and looking through the work that’s been done in wire106 that has inspired you thus far. And if you have been operating in your own private Idaho, well then consider this the opportunity to break out of your own world and get inspired.
Continue reading →

Wire 106: S03E04 – “Hamsterdam”

In this video discussion of episode 4 of Season 3 of the The Wire, “Hamsterdam,” Paul and I were joined by Kris Hooks—who always brings her A-game! This episode, as well as a good part of the discussion, focuses on Hamsterdam: Major Colvin’s social experiment to legalize drugs in West Baltimore. One of the themes Kris noted how much is in flux in this episode: the street technology is changing to burners; Stringer’s trying to become a legitimate real estate developer; Cutty’s battling the street demons; Colvin is entertaining an offer from Johns Hopkins, at the same time legalizing drugs. That said, McNulty remains a pain in the ass, and Fruit laments the fact that Herc and Carver are messing with the program.

There’s a lot in motion in season 3, and we might take for granted just how tight it is given we become used to such a high standard from this series—but to keep knocking out episodes of this quality one after another without jumping the shark is phenomenal. We are at the height of The Wire‘s narrative powers, enjoy it.

Below are some screenshots from this episode that we focused on in the video discussion.