It rained all day but the exhortations of the weather people to be careful, for god's sake be careful, sleep in an interior closet under a heap of fluffy, projectile-catching pillows tonight and dig yourself a storm shelter tomorrow; yes, dig it with your bare hands if you must and drag all your cats and kids and important papers down there and sit in there all day blinking in the dark hoping it won't flood, do it just in case were a tad on the alarmist side. I heard two growls of thunder and that was it.
Eric and I saw a talk with David Simon in the ACL studio tonight. He was good, funny and relaxed and personable, although anyone who has watched The Wire in its entirety and read even a few interviews with the guy probably didn't hear much they didn't already know.
One thing I thought was interesting was that the host of the talk, some UT journalism professor who must have come in after my time there, was very concerned about the possibility that people who hadn't seen the recently-aired last season of The Wire might hear spoilers during the Q&A portion of the talk.
At first that seemed courteous. Then, as people either tried very hard to word their questions without giving away plot points, or didn't care at all and let everything fly, it seemed monumentally stupid. How are you supposed to talk about the intention behind someone's work if you can't, you know, talk about it?
I try very hard not to spoil things for people if they haven't seen something, no matter how long that thing has been out, and I hate being spoiled myself. But when is it acceptable to talk about a show in public? After the series has aired? After all the DVDs have been out for a year? Five years?
How about when you're in a room full of self-selected fellow fans, the creator is sitting 20 feet in front of you, and you have the opportunity to ask him in person why he made the creative decisions he did? Is it okay then?
Apparently David Simon thought it was, because he kicked off his talk by mentioning that he expected lots of questions about one of the most shocking things that happened last season.
Apparently some audience members did not think it was okay, because a number of them left the room after making a big show of plugging their ears whenever anyone talked about what happened in season five.
I suppose it sucks to have something ruined for you like that, but what on earth did they think people were going to talk about tonight? Macrame and its influence on 20th-century interior design?