Check It Out

On his radio show yesterday, Tony Kornheiser raved about The Wire. He had never seen it and a fellow writer, Jason Whitlock, gave him a copy to watch. It got me thinking about something that I posed as a question on the best blog in all the land, Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog at The Atlantic. What is the one book/TV show/movie/album that you love and it bugs you that your friends either won't read/watch/listen to it, or the one that would bug you the most if they wouldn't. I got a lot of answers about various things that I took as suggestions.

Here are mine. Feel free to add your own.

• The Wire -- People preach about its greatness so much that it probably seems overhyped. Words can't do it justice.
• Freaks and Geeks -- One quick season of comic/poignant genius. The ultimate "brilliant but cancelled" show.
• Undeclared -- More straight comedy than Freaks and Geeks. The Jason Segel/Kyle Gass/David Krumholtz trio was only in three episodes, but it stole the show.
• Y Tu Mama Tambien -- My favorite foreign film and maybe the artsiest film I like, but it's not art in an unwatchable way.
• High Fidelity -- The book, not the movie. It's perfect. All of the male psyche laid bare.
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay -- Simply, the greatest book I've ever read (or maybe tied with Huckleberry Finn). I can understand if someone couldn't get through, say, Everything Is Illuminated because it is written in such difficult prose. Chabon writes Kavalier and Clay as straight-forward as he can and blows everything else away.