between the mountains

If this was fiction no one would believe it! A drug ring in Queens copied "The Wire".

Call it a case of crime imitating art imitating crime.

That's what the police say happened with a drug ring in Queens whose members honed their trade and learned to evade arrest by watching the HBO series "The Wire," a gritty, realistic police procedural about a crew of drug dealers in Baltimore and the police and prosecutors who use wiretaps to try and take them off the street.[...]

"Believe it or not, these guys copy 'The Wire,' " said the sergeant, who is assigned to the Organized Crime Investigation Division. "They were constantly dumping their phones. It made our job so much harder."

The rest of the article here.

Hmm..not much posting lately - but I'm currently trying to finish a paper and watching season 4 of The Wire.

I'm on episode six now and I must say that this season might become my new favourite, right next to season two. ( cut for s4 spoilers )

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And then for something entirely different:

taken from appplegnat and finnygan - The ten things a reader of this LJ should know about me. Possibly...
( spoilers for me? )


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And some links for last:

schionutlander has a fascinating post on the art of Otl Aicher. It is based on the life and theories of the medieval philosopher Wilhelm von Ockham, and is a modern interpretation of medieval art. Very interesting!

mr_kit has made some nice and creepy icons of Kittelsen's Old Mother Plague illustrations. (which I wrote about here)The icons capture the mood and the composition of the illustrations, all while being clear and a bit frightening. Highly recommended.

For all those of you who love The Wire I urge you to head over here and read the_grynne's wonderful and thought provoking post about The Wire and Greek Tragedy


And for all those of you who haven't seen "The Wire" then please use this as another incentive to check out the show. There is nothing out there quite like it.

ps. applegnat? I've mentioned "The Wire" to you before - take this as a hint that you would probably love it. ;)

Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten.


There are some experiences I can pinpoint exactly the first time they happened. Some things that made such an impact that I can point to a before and after, and one of those landmarks is the 1980’s series Robin of Sherwood.

I was eleven, I had the chicken pox and my very beloved grandmother, knowing I loved all things mythical and medieval, pointed out to me that they were showing a Robin Hood series on tv. Since I wasn’t going to school the next day at any rate, I could stay up and watch it. To say I loved the series would be an understatement. In my experience 11-year olds don’t just love a series, they become obsessed. So that chicken pox night started a life long love affair with Robin of Sherwood.

Robin of Sherwood is perhaps not the greatest show ever, but at times it was pretty good - and oh how I love it. How I still love it. This then is a post all about this love.

( this way to quite a lot of pictures and one song. Also some none sense text )

Another link from Jason Mitchell’s blog – this time about The Wire

I especially liked this part:

For many critics, bloggers, fans, and even creator David Simon himself, The Wire is best understood not as a television series, but as a "visual novel." As a television scholar, this cross-media metaphor bristles – not because I don’t like novels, but because I love television. And I believe that television at its best shouldn’t be understood simply as emulating another older and more culturally valued medium. The Wire is a masterpiece of television, not a novel that happens to be televised, and thus should be understood, analyzed, and celebrated on its own medium’s terms.

I think it touches upon something I’ve been pondering myself. Because recently a lot of the Norwegian media have started to discover The Wire and several (so called) intellectuals and writers have gone out and said "Oh, this is more like a book than television" or "This is so much more than television". All of which has really bugged me. Mostly because of the reasons Mitchell mentions above. For The Wire’s storytelling isn’t simply done by dialogue or acting, but also in the filming, the use of location, colour and shade and in the use of music and camera panning. All of which are audio-visual tools that novels cannot use.

Granted I'm also guilty in saying that The Wire can resemble a novel, specifically in how it is plotted and thought out. Yet I feel there is a difference in saying the storytelling can resemble a novel, and saying it is a visual novel – or "more than television". (Or you know – this might be me just trying to cover my own tracks. ;D)

I suspect the attitude that The Wire is more akin to novels or more than television harkens back to television’s status as the unruly youngest child of the cultural arena.

At any rate the essay, though long, is highly recommended. But please note that the essay is a little spoilery for all four seasons.

I am still going through this nostalgic tv-show thing. The last thing that has touched my sentimental heart is the tv series based on Astrid Lindgren's book Ronia-The Robber's daughter.



On the night that Ronia was born a thunderstorm was raging over the mountains, such a storm that all the Goblin folk in Matt’s Forest crept back in terror to their holes and hiding places. Only the fierce harpies preferred stormy weather to any other and flew, shrieking and hooting, around the robber’s stronghold on Matt’s Mountain. Their noise disturbed Lovis, who was lying within, prepared to give birth, and she said to Matt, "Drive the hell-harpies away and let me have some quiet. Other wise I can’t hear what I’m singing!"
The fact was that Lovis liked to sing while she was having her baby. It made things easier, she insisted, and the baby would probably be all the jollier if it arrived on earth to the sound of a song. - from the English translation of the book

( this way for the rest of the story, its pictures and music )

Five reasons I love the things I do - the second.

Being a continuation of our heroine’s account of her favourite things + lists are made + numerical standards are broken+ and book passages are quoted

( Tolkien )

( Band of Brothers )

( The Wire )

( A Song of Ice and Fire )

Five reasons I love the things I do:

Being a full and honest account wherein our heroine (?) lists the things she loves about the things she loves. + also a list which is possibly connected to her trying to finish a paper and being very clearly stuck + resulting in lists whose numbers should not be read as priorities, but mere ordering of facts :

( Star Wars )

( Rome )

( Deadwood )

( Babylon 5 )

Coming up will be "The Wire", "ASOIAF", "Tolkien" and other things that at the moment escape my articulation.

I don't know why but summer always makes me rather nostalgic. Last year that resulted in listening to a lot of old music, this year I've apparently turned my head towards tv shows I've loved. Be warned etc...

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:..or if you will:
Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel,
Tři oříšky pro Popelku,
or Tre Nøtter til Askepott

Granted she does wear beautiful dresses and gets her prince, but the Cinderella of my youth was also a cross-dressing, crossbow shooting girl who rode to her ball instead of doing that whole carriage thing. That’s because my Cinderella was the one shown in the Czechoslovakian and German production "Three Wishes for Cinderella".

( This way for all the images and nostalgic musings )

To lay all the cards on the table – I’m not sure what I think of this episode. I loved the Pullo, Vorenus and Mark Antony parts – but the Octavian plot…um, well it bored me.

But to take the love part first (and that is the biggest part I swear!):

( Quick thoughts on Rome  )

But all in all: YAY ROME! And I cannot believe that the next episode is the last. I've seen the preview and it fills me with dread. And what will I watch after Rome!? Well, possibly Friday Night Lights - but wha! I will miss my beloved sword and sandal epic.

ETA: Also any thoughts on the episode title? Who does it refer to? What does it mean? I guess it has something to do with desire and/or revenge? I obsess about titles, I know...