A friend of mine recently said one of his favorite novels ever is "The Wire," a sentiment I totally agree with. I've only seen the first season of "Treme," but between that and "The Wire," I love that Simon and his cohorts emphasize breadth and context over plot to develop their characters.

Francisco, funny you say that because a few months ago, I found this, where someone had 'translated' "The Wire" as a serialized Charles Dickens novel.

there were also gems like The Corner and Generation Kill, which in my opinion, was the most episodic-like of his shows.
part of a lot of people's discomfort with Simon is his insistence on breaking away with the episodic format and those beats and arcs in his storytelling - people do change over time, in a dramatic way, but not in a melodramatic manner, if that makes any sense. he's got some pretty passive heroes, who are basically witnesses to the madness, and don't act in the way tv watchers are comfortable with. at the same time he's not being gus van sant who really wanted the viewers to know how rock'n'roll he was being with traditional narrative. Simon is still a compelling storyteller, just reminding us that you don't necessary need to follow the Golden Rules for a compelling story.

I've got a huge writer's crush on David Simon. Between guy's like him and Matthew Weiner and Vince Gilligan -- they've elevated television to a high art form.

I'm convinced all the great questions we have are fundamentally about the simple fact: We live, we die. How to reconcile that? How to live with that? How to make sense of that?

In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.
- Dag Hammarskjold, _Markings_, 1965

For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it – even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss.
- Carl Jung

Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.
- Sogyal Rinpoche

@RonC: You might want to check this out. Started by a guy who got cancer and discovered that the prospect of death transformed his life.