Richard Price

For Seattle fans of HBO’s brilliant crime series The Wire, a tutorial from writer Richard Price is like having Obama campaign manager David Axelrod come talk politics. A novelist (Clockers) and screenwriter (The Color of Money), Price didn’t create The Wire, but he wrote some of its best episodes, including season three’s “All Due Respect,” which he’ll screen and discuss tonight. To refresh your memory, Officer Ken Dozerman (Rick Otto) gets shot, which leads to a discussion as to whether heroin should be legalized. It’s not such a preposterous notion coming from such a complex and nuanced show. Or from a writer who’s freely copped to his cocaine habit in the ’80s. He sees both sides of the issues, with sympathy both for the flawed Baltimore cops and occasionally righteous dealers. Then on Tuesday, presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures, Price will give a talk called “True Bones” (Benaroya Hall, 7:30 p.m., $25-$70), on the autobiographical roots of his fiction, with stops in the Bronx and Lower East Side. LAURA ONSTOT
Mon., Nov. 30, 7:30 p.m.; Tue., Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m., 2009