Department of Clarification

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I enjoyed this <a href=” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/22/071022fa_fact_talbot”_blank”>article.</a>

But one clarification. When it says that George Pelecanos and David Simon “met” at a funeral, some readers might infer that was their first meeting. They had known each other for quite some time by then.

And, more important to me — the funeral was for Paige Rose, co-owner of Mysery Loves Company. Paige adored George — I always thought he was her second favorite writer, after Evan Hunter, with Sujata Massey and me tied for third place — so I always like to throw her name around when possible. She would be very, very pleased, I think, to be included in a New Yorker article, if only as a “friend.”

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23 thoughts on “Department of Clarification”

  1. Since we get our New Yorker more often than not on the following Monday (last week’s came today) I have printed off the article so we may read it NOW. Nance, consider yourself lucky. At least you get your copies in time to enter the cartoon caption contest. Repeated complaints to the P.O. rectify the situations for about a month and then–here we go again.

    Back to the topic. Laura, I’m curious as to how you and David feel about the article, both from reporter and personal angles.

  2. I admit it, whenever I see David mentioned, I right away look for <i>your</i> name. This happened yesterday NOT on this article but because Stu came home with The Big Bags Full of Sunday NYT – we have friends who subscribe and save it for me. And whilst (like that?) flipping through the section that has wedding stuff, there was a <i>different</i> story that mentioned David. (ok it was about a wedding ok? But it was truly a fascinating one.)
    Two degrees of separation – we don’t never need no stinkin’ six degrees do we?

  3. It left the personal out, largely, which is very much to our liking. It’s about David’s work and I was asked about David only in that capacity. I talked about the Baltimore Sun as it was in the 90s.

    I got there in ’89, but it’s insulting beyond belief that editor John Carroll says the paper was considered a “fallen angel” “elsewhere.” From 1979 through 1985, the Sun and Evening Sun won three Pulitzers. From 1991 to 2003, it also won three Pulitzers. Now that’s not my yardstick of a good newspaper, but it seems to be Carroll’s, so I find it hard to understand how leading a newspaper to the same number of Pulitzer wins over the same number of years, give or take, props up the fallen angel.

    Bear in mind, my father worked there from 1965-1995 and IMHO deserved a Pulitzer for commentary. My dad’s column was extremely short, fewer than 600 words, a very difficult form. He won the ASNE in the 1980s and if the Sun archive went back that far, I’d cut-and-paste a copy of his column “God on Trial” here. So, in a sense, John Carroll is talking smack about my father and that does not play in Baltimore.

  4. Laura, my question referred to your opinions on the quality of Margaret Talbot’s reporting and whether the two of you thought she had captured the essence of what David has been trying to do. Didn’t you feel that John Carroll’s comments were more like sour grapes? After all, you and David have achieved far more with your talents than he has.

  6. I have to say this is a great article, but my favorite part is David’s caricature (sp?). Hits the nail on the head, as dey say.

    The Wire should go down in history as the FIRST TV show in the history of television NOT to back away from reality. “Rality” shows give me heartburn because they’re anything but.

    REAL reality is telling it the way it really is, everywhere, not the sugar-coated version most folks want to see. Well, get over it people. Real life is dirty, smelly, angry, hurting, loving, feeling, and all that other stuff.

    I’m working on something new now, and I’m not sugarcoating it at all. Anytime it starts getting smarmy, I pull back and tell myself…get REAL, here beck…BE real…don’t hide. Be real.

    And David and all the rest of the staff of The Wire, and you in your novels and stories and newspaper reporting, keep it as it really is.

    Sometimes life just sucks…and you can’t pretend it doesn’t.

  7. I’m saving myself for the dead-tree version, which should arrive in the Midwest by Saturday. Quite a year your co-prosperity sphere is having, Laura. It’s nice to be rewarded for hard work, eh?

  9. Yes, but apparently I am one of those — what did Clark call us, dead fish faces?

    Clearly, I should have told Clark that I am a proud alumna of Harand Camp of the Theater Arts.

    Ah well, I get to turn the tables next year with ANOTHER THING TO FALL.

  12. Ah ha! Sounds like it hits close to home! Great! Sounds good to me being the recent movie star (extra) in an Eddie Murphy movie that just finished filming the Denver portion. What fun!

  15. Probably what’s going to happen is that I’ll see one episode of season 5, get totally hooked and bankrupt myself buying the other four seasons all at once.

    I love HBO shows (well, I love Big Love) but they’re insanely expensive. But ultimately worth it. :)

  17. Well, I count myself as one of the lucky 17 who are watching. I like The Wire so much, I watch again and again using On Demand, then tape the episodes for my son who doesn’t have cable. There are some people I work with who are uneasy with the show, saying “I grew up with that so why do I want to watch it?” Take that as an unintentional testament to how well written/acted the show is. And maybe being so real, it is also a painful reminder of the reality of their past and their current lives.

    And, um, having priced the boxed set in Best Buy, um like where exactly are the bootleg DVDs being, um, you know, sold?

    I can hardly wait for Season 5 to begin!!!!! (You should be so proud of your hubby).

  18. Thanks to Nance, I followed a link to the New Yorker piece, and I thought it was interesting. I’ve seen probably 3 or 4 episodes of The Wire, and found it to be intense; very movie-like. But with a movie, you invest 90 minutes or so, and (no matter how nerve-racking the show was) you can leave the theater (and the movie) behind.

    But with an open-ended series, the viewer cannot escape a protracted sense of foreboding – which isn’t for me. Leaving that aside, one can see why the show would engender such a rock-solid loyalty amongst its viwership…when a person succumbs to it’s dangerous allure once too often, and gets pulled into the ranks of The Wire’s cognoscenti

  20. I think it’s okay to covet hats. I’m pretty sure there’s something in the Bible’s fine print.

    (BTW, Jack had a review in the New York Times Book Review Sunday.)

  21. One thing that article reminded me of is how great Clark Johnson is. I miss him as an actor. And I always envied his hat on Homicide. Waiting for the 5th season is hard! As for Kelly’s question, we know some people who started with Season 4, but I think beginning to end is the way to do it. And like the article says, it may take you five or six episodes before you’re immersed. That’s part of the great pleasure of the show, watching it unfold and unfold.

  23. Or so my friend Ruby refers to me in her blog. Laura, love your books, for sure, but I grew up on your father’s column and to this day when someone mentions “that writer named Lippman”, it’s your father I think of. I’m with you that he deserved a Pulitzer and every other award out there.

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