6 ms·

You're talking about the Creator of "The Wire", one of the most anointed TV series of all time.

by dralley 8y ago

andrewingram 8y ago
And Homicide (the book) is immensely readable, one of my favourites.
- scott_s 8y ago
  His followup, The Corner, is one of the most devastating books I have ever read. The show The Wire also pulls from it.
motohagiography 8y ago
Good, then he can take it. Great writers write terrible things and it is valuable to them, and to everyone else when people call them on it. - Read Ian McEwan before and after he became a national treasure and people stopped editing him. - W. Sommerset Maughm's "Of Human Bondage," was an indulgent landfill of discarded ideas compared to his edited work. I could go on, but writing in the service of others vs. the onanism of intellectually retired artists are very different things.
- parksy 8y ago
  Can you at the very least expand on why it's so terrible, maybe a couple of examples so we can understand where you're coming from. All we really have is "Good God, my eyes" and similar epithets implying your stance that this is simply intellectual masturbation and hubris, but no real substance into what exactly makes you feel this reaction to the article. I am genuinely curious because I thought for what it was worth, it conveyed its point pretty well regardless of whether the guy is some big shot writer or not.
  - motohagiography 8y ago
    At least two cliches per paragraph, buried lede some 500 words in on what "packaging," actually is and why it's bad, voice changes mid paragraph (first, second, third), to start. If these didn't merit a "Good God, my eyes," by themselves there are some great resources online about how to write. For a topic like the ethical (fiduciary?) obligations of agents to the people they represent, the issues above raise doubts about whether the writer can think clearly enough to represent a credible and honest case. To triple down, when you are a pro writer, producing ostentatiously poor work is a forfeit and an expression of contempt for readers.
    - dralley 8y ago
      >buried lede some 500 words in on what "packaging," actually is and why it's bad, His primary audience is not HackerNews. I assume that most of the people subscribed to David Simon's blog are probably working in Hollywood and thus do not need so much explanation as to what Packaging is. He even explicitly calls out the fact that we are not the intended audience for his rant in the first substantial paragraph of the piece, and implicitly through his repeated references to the Writer's Guild of America. So I find this criticism rather unfair. Imagine a Facebook group for bird watching complaining about how a Medium post ranting about the evils of object-oriented programming didn't sufficiently explain what it is to people with no experience in programming.
    - clucas 8y ago
      Are you seriously arguing that because he buried the lede and changed voices, you doubt his ability to think clearly enough to opine on fiduciary duties? I appreciate fine writing as much as the next person, but the standard you seem to be applying is hardly correlated at all with clear thinking - it's correlated with lots of training and taking care to write in that style. On a tangent: your original comment is missing a possessive comma. But I would never make the argument that such a lack of attention to detail brings your entire line of thinking into question. I'll take issue with the content of your post rather than the form.
      - motohagiography 8y ago

You're talking about the Creator of "The Wire", one of the most anointed TV series of all time.

andrewingram 8y ago

And Homicide (the book) is immensely readable, one of my favourites.

scott_s 8y ago
His followup, The Corner, is one of the most devastating books I have ever read. The show The Wire also pulls from it.

motohagiography 8y ago

Good, then he can take it. Great writers write terrible things and it is valuable to them, and to everyone else when people call them on it. - Read Ian McEwan before and after he became a national treasure and people stopped editing him. - W. Sommerset Maughm's "Of Human Bondage," was an indulgent landfill of discarded ideas compared to his edited work. I could go on, but writing in the service of others vs. the onanism of intellectually retired artists are very different things.

parksy 8y ago
Can you at the very least expand on why it's so terrible, maybe a couple of examples so we can understand where you're coming from. All we really have is "Good God, my eyes" and similar epithets implying your stance that this is simply intellectual masturbation and hubris, but no real substance into what exactly makes you feel this reaction to the article. I am genuinely curious because I thought for what it was worth, it conveyed its point pretty well regardless of whether the guy is some big shot writer or not.
- motohagiography 8y ago
  At least two cliches per paragraph, buried lede some 500 words in on what "packaging," actually is and why it's bad, voice changes mid paragraph (first, second, third), to start. If these didn't merit a "Good God, my eyes," by themselves there are some great resources online about how to write. For a topic like the ethical (fiduciary?) obligations of agents to the people they represent, the issues above raise doubts about whether the writer can think clearly enough to represent a credible and honest case. To triple down, when you are a pro writer, producing ostentatiously poor work is a forfeit and an expression of contempt for readers.
  - dralley 8y ago
    >buried lede some 500 words in on what "packaging," actually is and why it's bad, His primary audience is not HackerNews. I assume that most of the people subscribed to David Simon's blog are probably working in Hollywood and thus do not need so much explanation as to what Packaging is. He even explicitly calls out the fact that we are not the intended audience for his rant in the first substantial paragraph of the piece, and implicitly through his repeated references to the Writer's Guild of America. So I find this criticism rather unfair. Imagine a Facebook group for bird watching complaining about how a Medium post ranting about the evils of object-oriented programming didn't sufficiently explain what it is to people with no experience in programming.
  - clucas 8y ago
    Are you seriously arguing that because he buried the lede and changed voices, you doubt his ability to think clearly enough to opine on fiduciary duties? I appreciate fine writing as much as the next person, but the standard you seem to be applying is hardly correlated at all with clear thinking - it's correlated with lots of training and taking care to write in that style. On a tangent: your original comment is missing a possessive comma. But I would never make the argument that such a lack of attention to detail brings your entire line of thinking into question. I'll take issue with the content of your post rather than the form.
    - motohagiography 8y ago