I watched the first season of Treme

Never Done: I watched the first season of Treme

I've only been to New Orleans once, with my wonderful friend Ellen, for (as I recall) about 24 hours. 24 hours is long enough to eat really good gumbo, and to fall in love with the second-floor terraces. That's pretty much all I remember from our time together, except for the emotional content of what was happening there, which was high (not between me and Ellen -- in fact, I think that the calm emotional content of what was going on between me and Ellen helped the high emotional content of what else was going on.)

It was before Katrina. Just before. I had been wanting to go to NOLA for years, and after seeing it for such a short bit, I have wanted to go back since. And now I feel like I have.

Before Kathleen and I went to Germany, I downloaded some TV series, in case we had flight delays, or even if we just needed some TV down time. Then it didn't all fit on my computer (running out of disk space) so I chose one thing, and brought it: Treme. I'd heard mixed reviews, but I wanted to watch it because I'd heard it was one of the best musical TV shows ever created, and because I'd heard that it did not shy away from race issues.

I've now watched the entire first season. Music? Check. Race? Check. Oh, and so much more that this white northerner knew nothing -- I'm saying nothing -- about. Mardi Gras Indians, people being shut out of perfectly liveable homes after Katrina, and just details. Details about what it meant to live in NOLA after the flood. Like blocked gas lines, and lost instruments, and tiny acts of desperation.

I usually think of film as the medium that helps me learn about the history and culture of the broader world that's outside my purview, but these 10 episodes were just as informative as any PBS documentary, and more entertaining than some. (I am NOT dissing PBS documentaries here. I love PBS documentaries. I hope to someday make a PBS documentary. I am just saying that some cable television is as closely observed as a good documentary film, and sometimes more entertaining.)

I wonder if I observe anything in my world(s) as closely as Overmyer and Simon observed New Orleans. If I look around right now, what details in my environment would I pick to describe something significant about me? A running bra on the coffee table next to the New York Times, a ChiRunning video, and some Tintin comic books I meant to send to a young friend two days ago. A water bottle next to the orchid I am housesitting for my landlord. Props from the immigrant rights/environmentalism video shoot still on the floor in the living room, but I don't know what that would mean to someone looking without context (although the matching WWW.IMAGINE2050.NET on the mantle might help with context.) A custom-made grass green and cow-fabric hoola hoop against the fireplace and old dried-up plants in the fireplace. 14 plastic boxes of papers on shelves all around my desk and stacks of video tape on my desk. An unfinished knitting project that I meant to finish for my friend's birthday back in March. Probably the most misleading of all: six bottles of booze on the shelf next to the television (misleading because it's been out and untouched since the Oscars party in February, not out because it's in constant use.) Play-Doh, Twister, Banagrams. A sheepskin rug. A paper cut-out of a menorah on the window.

Does it add up? Does it say rural New Englander living in Brooklyn? Writer-filmmaker-aspiring triathlete? Order-freak who lives in a too-small space? Busy, fun-loving radical Jew? What if I would look further -- into the pantry area full of empty Ball canning jars -- would you know I started a Soup Swap? Of course not, but that detail could be revealed in episode three of the first season. If you closely observe your space, does it fit your image of yourself? Do you feel like a stranger in a strange apartment? I feel a little of both, and I think my next move will be to meditate on the mide (middah) of Order: All actions and possessions shall have a set place and time, and see what I need to remove from and bring into my living space, to make me feel like I am acting in a premium cable television show about the life I want to be living.