Havent' seen TREME, yet? You crazy? Watch it!
Two trailers for new HBO's new show "Treme."
Just now saw first episode of "Treme,"(pronounced "treh-may") and I'm telling you the show is AMAZING. Set your DVR's, folks.
"Treme" is a great example of how art can play an important role in our society getting us to care about the right stuff. Art should always throw serve to throw a spotlight on subjects of importance: And in this case, the subject is New Orleans.
And I love the context of the telling of this story, starting three mos. post-Katrina. Brilliant context.
"Treme" manages remind us why New Orleans is still the crown jewel of America's best cities. And by doing so serves to both archive and reveal some of it's lesser known, quirky treasures. Things not everyone even knows, yet.
New Orleans's survival is connected to it staying on our radar. It needs artists and story tellers to keep reminding us that it's still there and needs our help. Appreciation for New Orleans has to be actively nurtured and revered or it may just wash away in the next hurricane. Perhaps if more people understand why New Orleans is so valuable, there will be more preservation and more funding to save it? I hope.
And the music in the show? Now, that's MUSIC. Love how they don't even try to educate the viewers who's who musically, they just throw it out there and give it to you. Either you fall in love with the different sounds and musical diversity, or you don't. It just is. Get it. Love it, or don't. But, this is what New Orleans is, folks.
I'm hoping that the way the characters in "Treme" view each other is a sign of times to come in other American cities:
Not as "them" vrs. "me," but as an "us." I'm hoping the rest of America becomes as color blind as N. O. appears to be in this post-Katrina first episode of "Treme."
It seems like the survivors there very much work as a team. But, perhaps I'm wrong about this perception since I haven't been back in over 20 years.
*Please indulge my own "New Orleans" Digression:
I was born in New Orleans and lived there till I was in second grade when, sadly, everyone in our family migrated away from the place. But, New Orleans has always served as the backdrop to my all my earliest memories about family, food, music, cities, and most of all, people. I have such vivid memories of it's sights, sounds, smells and tastes.
Memories: I remember the sounds of the peacocks screaming in the distance in Audubon Park. The way the afternoon rain would come steaming up off the sidewalks, which were always in huge broken slabs up and over the oak tree's roots. The painful, hot crunching of endless bleached white shells in the driveway of my grandparent's house in Slidell.
The taste of lake pontchartrain in my nose and mouth.
Surviving swimming in that vile water. The rattle of the street car and how beautiful and old the wood and polished brass was.
Mom letting me pull the line to signal our stop. The smells of the French Quarter. We went every Sunday to Caf du Monde and I had a tiny box of chocolate milk and beignets. Aways spilling the powdered sugar over me.
I miss it deeply even though I know I can never return to that place ever again.
Another personal "six degrees" connection for me about "Treme" is that it stars actress, Melissa Leo. She also attended the same small private school in Vermont, that I did, back in the seventies. Vermont being the place that my former New Orleans parents "migrated to" after New Orleans.
Even in this tiny, bohemian school as kids we all knew Melissa was going to do something amazing artistically because of how much integrity she put into her work. She was always intense, private, focused and so powerful. I could not be a bigger fan of hers, so I'm thrilled Leo's part of "Treme's" great cast, too.
Oh, and the food side of "Treme?"-- The writers GET New Orleans! That's all I have to say.
Just one show in and now I just want to cook and eat....and drink. (Neil Ravenna, are you watching this show, yet?)
What can I say? "Treme" is one big, fat slice of Big Easy pie, and I'm loving every minute.
Just now saw first episode of "Treme,"(pronounced "treh-may") and I'm telling you the show is AMAZING. Set your DVR's, folks.
"Treme" is a great example of how art can play an important role in our society getting us to care about the right stuff. Art should always throw serve to throw a spotlight on subjects of importance: And in this case, the subject is New Orleans.
And I love the context of the telling of this story, starting three mos. post-Katrina. Brilliant context.
"Treme" manages remind us why New Orleans is still the crown jewel of America's best cities. And by doing so serves to both archive and reveal some of it's lesser known, quirky treasures. Things not everyone even knows, yet.
New Orleans's survival is connected to it staying on our radar. It needs artists and story tellers to keep reminding us that it's still there and needs our help. Appreciation for New Orleans has to be actively nurtured and revered or it may just wash away in the next hurricane. Perhaps if more people understand why New Orleans is so valuable, there will be more preservation and more funding to save it? I hope.
And the music in the show? Now, that's MUSIC. Love how they don't even try to educate the viewers who's who musically, they just throw it out there and give it to you. Either you fall in love with the different sounds and musical diversity, or you don't. It just is. Get it. Love it, or don't. But, this is what New Orleans is, folks.
I'm hoping that the way the characters in "Treme" view each other is a sign of times to come in other American cities:
Not as "them" vrs. "me," but as an "us." I'm hoping the rest of America becomes as color blind as N. O. appears to be in this post-Katrina first episode of "Treme."
It seems like the survivors there very much work as a team. But, perhaps I'm wrong about this perception since I haven't been back in over 20 years.
*Please indulge my own "New Orleans" Digression:
I was born in New Orleans and lived there till I was in second grade when, sadly, everyone in our family migrated away from the place. But, New Orleans has always served as the backdrop to my all my earliest memories about family, food, music, cities, and most of all, people. I have such vivid memories of it's sights, sounds, smells and tastes.
Memories: I remember the sounds of the peacocks screaming in the distance in Audubon Park. The way the afternoon rain would come steaming up off the sidewalks, which were always in huge broken slabs up and over the oak tree's roots. The painful, hot crunching of endless bleached white shells in the driveway of my grandparent's house in Slidell.
The taste of lake pontchartrain in my nose and mouth.
Surviving swimming in that vile water. The rattle of the street car and how beautiful and old the wood and polished brass was.
Mom letting me pull the line to signal our stop. The smells of the French Quarter. We went every Sunday to Caf du Monde and I had a tiny box of chocolate milk and beignets. Aways spilling the powdered sugar over me.
I miss it deeply even though I know I can never return to that place ever again.
Another personal "six degrees" connection for me about "Treme" is that it stars actress, Melissa Leo. She also attended the same small private school in Vermont, that I did, back in the seventies. Vermont being the place that my former New Orleans parents "migrated to" after New Orleans.
Even in this tiny, bohemian school as kids we all knew Melissa was going to do something amazing artistically because of how much integrity she put into her work. She was always intense, private, focused and so powerful. I could not be a bigger fan of hers, so I'm thrilled Leo's part of "Treme's" great cast, too.
Oh, and the food side of "Treme?"-- The writers GET New Orleans! That's all I have to say.
Just one show in and now I just want to cook and eat....and drink. (Neil Ravenna, are you watching this show, yet?)
What can I say? "Treme" is one big, fat slice of Big Easy pie, and I'm loving every minute.
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