Manda, the nurse manager in our clinic, innocently dropped this little news bit on us, perhaps not realizing how shocking and exciting it would be. Let the title from the Times-Picayune's article speak for itself:
'The Wire' creator sets his sights on New Orleans
"Simon wants to use the premise "as a way to examine cities, and why cities matter," he said. "From my point of view, having been to most large American cities in my life and having become acquainted with a few of them, they're all valuable. You may not have known it from 'The Wire,' but it was on some level a love letter to Baltimore. A very angry love letter, from somebody who might be a little bit conflicted in their affections, but no way were we arguing that Baltimore could not or should not be saved.
"The one thing that New Orleans offers in making that kind of argument in a narrative form -- what's valuable about New Orleans, (what's) so unique, so unlike anything else the United States -- (is that it's) so visual and musical that it can be depicted and ought to be depicted in such a way that people understand innately what is possible in this city.
"Cities are kind of demonized in television culture, and in a lot of storytelling. We have very idyllic notions about the country and a very conflicted sense of what we are as an urban people. But we are urban people. Americans, the vast majority of us, live in and around large cities. Yet how we feel about them is really sort of ambivalent. I'm fascinated by that."
Ummmm...from the horrendous depths of the terrible K-Ville to a greater understanding of US cities through New Orleans? An homage to New Orleans without, hopefully, self-parodying and self-pitying over Katrina? A city whose beautiful people live splendid lives in the wards outside the French Quarter, where few travelers (except people like EA, who makes it his mission to go to Domilise's every day he visits) venture.
Maybe. Simon produced an amazing canvas of Baltimore through the Wire. Hopefully, he can capture some of that same editorial brilliance with this city.
It's not a stretch to say that New Orleans differs starkly from the 'normal' American city. This difference, in fact, punctuated the sorrow that the destruction of Katrina bore. But it's important to note that Simon started this New Orleans project before Katrina and the differences the city wore pre-K can actually contrast the idea of a generic American city to New Orleans to better understand the furthest dimensions of each.
Good luck to him.
Second-line picture from flickr.com user Victoria Law.
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