Once again, it is possible to immerse oneself into the magical synthesis of language, people and artifice that is the David Simon city-fiction.  What worried me, before seeing the 80 minute pilot of Treme, is that Simon would stray from the “write what you know” rule — it’s inarguable that he is a master of all things Baltimore, but tackling post-Katrina New Orleans?
 

I have never been to New Orleans myself, so I can’t even guess at its accuracy.  Simon has already defended his factual errors and makes a pretty good case for the liberties he and co-writer Eric Overmyer have taken.  It only took me a few minutes into the episode - probably at the sight of Wendell Pierce raising his trombone to his lips - before I realised that I didn’t care about how realistic the city’s portrayal might be.  

I’ve been enjoying the Felt albums that were recently posted on Map Ref 41’ 93W, and during some web-based procrastination I read that Lawrence named the band after the word specifically as it is emoted by Tom Verlaine in ’Venus’.  Television stirs in me a whirlwind of adolescent feelings, managing to catapult me back to the late 90s every time I listen to them.  ’Venus’ in particular conjures visions of roaming the streets at night, though for me I perhaps mis-associate it with empty, late-night solitary experiences rather than something alive that ’flap[s] / like little pages’.


I just tried to attack my weird sleeping patterns (not insomnia, as I’m getting my full quotient, but in randomly-spaced chunks) by going for a 4 AM bike ride.   I forgot how much I love doing this.  I didn’t think to bring my good camera and turn this into a sappy blog post so the usual shitty mobile phone pics are presented here, but without apologies.