"We write a television show." So, humbly, begins the Time magazine essay by David Simon, the creator of HBO's The Wire, and his fellow series writers, as the show they created comes to a close this Sunday. In the essay, the writers offer a call to action against the public policy debacle that has been at the core of their show over five seasons: the failed drug war and its pervasive, destructive consequences. They propose a real-world solution to the ills they've depicted so powerfully in their fictionalized TV drama.

London's Wigmore Hall has just announced that Brad Mehldau will curate an annual four-concert jazz series at the Hall during its 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons, with Brad appearing in at least two of the four annual concerts.

The Magnetic Fields are gearing up for the last two stops of their Distortion tour, with shows at Seattle's Town Hall set for Thursday and Friday and a six-show residency over three nights at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music the following weekend. In the review of Sunday's show in LA, the Los Angeles Times sees Distortion as a "delightful anomaly in the Magnetic Fields' catalog" for all its distorted fuzziness. At the same time, he says, the "tidy chamber-folk" arrangements the band performs in concert allow the audience "to admire Merritt's watertight song craft."