I Can Sing Like a Girl

Y'all know TREME is back on, right? Most of the time you are excruciatingly nervous, like, WHAT IS DAVID SIMON GOING TO PUT THESE PEOPLE THROUGH? REALITY? (He wrote tonight's episode.) Your terror gives way to melancholy, eased along by sweet music (real music AND the music of the editing - there's something symphonic and daring about the editing on TREME, a musical logic). Take these lines from the Clarence "Frogman" Henry song that closes tonight's episode, my favorite lyrical boast: "I can sing like a girl, and I can sing like a frog." By the end of the show, that song takes on surprising weight. And I should say the scenes set in a New York restaurant kitchen with a maniac chef (pictured) are perfect nightmare comedy. TREME sings like a girl and it sings like a frog. It really has it all! Melancholy, creeping terror, music, and nightmare comedy. That's everything, right? I think that's everything.