It's no secret around here that we're huge fans of HBO's THE WIRE. And thanks to Harvard University, we've had a chance to see the creators and actors up close: back in 2008, we brought you video of series creator DAVID SIMON showing up at the Kennedy School. And in 2009, we brought you the only recording of the time KIMA, BUBBLES, and OMAR showed up to rub elbows with WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON

Every time I consider cancelling HBO, I'm stopped by one thought: "Isn't that David Simon show about New Orleans supposed to start soon?" And now that HBO has released a trailer for Treme (above) . . . there's just no way I can get rid of it now. Treme premieres on April 11, and stars Bunk, Lester Freamon, Khandi Alexander, Kim Dickens, Steve Zahn and John Goodman as various residents of post-Katrina New Orleans.

Photo via the Harvard Crimson

As the audience was filing into last night's "The Wire at Harvard" panel, Professor Lawrence Bobo leaned over and spoke to Bubbles.

"You saved it for me," Bobo said.

"I saved it for you?"

"In the last show, when poor Duquan went down," said Bobo. "I said, 'At least I got Bubbles.

UPDATE!: Download a podcast of the entire forum, "The Wire at Harvard," featuring Kima, Bubbles, and Omar

William Julius Wilson, the legendary Harvard sociologist and a giant in the field of African American studies, has a thing for The Wire. "Superfan" doesn't quite capture it. Last year, on the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, Wilson welcomed The Wire creator David Simon to Harvard for a public forum bringing together cops, community activists, and academics to discuss the show's impact.

Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that HBO has ordered the first ten episodes of David Simon's Treme, about life in post-Katrina New Orleans. It will center on the jazz music scene, but it's probably safe to guess that Simon and co. will take a look at the various ways in which numerous agencies have let the city down.

It could not be more perfect that Idris Elba, who so memorably portrayed Stringer Bell on The Wire for three seasons, will be starting his arc as the new suit from Dunder Mifflin's corporate headquarters tonight. After all, Stringer Bell went to business school, founded a co-op for Baltimore's drug dealers, and conducted meetings according to Robert's Rules of Order.

With The Wire's fifth and final season in the can -- we'd talk more about it, except that a couple of our slacking staffers are still plowing through seasons one through four -- creator/mastermind David Simon stopped by Harvard to accept we're-not-worthy genuflections from a few serious social-science superstars. Leading off was William Julius Wilson, whose landmark When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor was namechecked by Simon as a strong influence on the dockworkers' plot in Season Two.