You cannot spend any time at all in Texas without learning this immutable truth: Texans like to drive. We drive to work. We drive to play. We drive to eat. We are transported by our transports. I’m not sure why all of this is. Perhaps driving is simply the extension of our souls against the backdrop of our lives, a function of that perpetual restlessness that’s rooted deep within the heart of every Texan. Or maybe it’s something less poetic. Like the fact that there’s a gas station at every exit. You simply cannot run out of gas in Texas. It’s impossible.

It’s not like that in New Jersey. In New Jersey, if you don’t watch out, you’ll find yourself stranded on the side of the turnpike at 1AM, stuck, with only a light sticking out the back of your head. I was driving through New Jersey once. Well, I wasn’t driving. I was in the back seat. Which I guess may have been the first problem.

I don’t like being a passenger. I like being in control. I like the feeling of observing the road ahead, of seeing what’s coming next, of making the right decisions. I can weave through traffic like nobody’s business, accelerating, shifting lanes, maneuvering through like an expert racecar driver. But in New Jersey, all of these facts don’t matter. In New Jersey you’ve got to concentrate just to stay alive, to find that last oasis of oil in the desert of suburbia. We almost didn’t make it.

The first place we tried was dark, so obviously closed. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. In Texas, you can pump your own gas. But not in New Jersey. In New Jersey, when the gas station is closed, the gas station is closed, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But finding it this way didn’t faze us. Surely we’d find another gas station soon. I was used to Texas. But Texas this was not.

Finding the next place was hard enough. No access roads. Everything’s just sprawled everywhere with no sense of structure, nothing to keep one aligned. We finally found another place, and then another. Closed. Closed. We were almost out of gas. Finally, with just a few miles left before we were extinguished, we saw an 18-wheeler parked on the side of the expressway. We stopped the car, and looked at the vehicle parked in the rearview mirror. I just sat there. The driver got out of the car and started walking towards the truck. It was cold out and we just sat in darkness not saying anything. Finally he came back.

“We’re just going to follow this guy to the gas station,” the driver said. He got back in the car and so we followed. We finally found the place with just a few miles to spare. We were saved. And yet, I was tired of being led around. I was tired of being trapped. I wished that I could just get out of that car and get into mine. I wished I could start my ignition. And just drive.

I first started drinking, really drinking, my senior year of college. That’s not to say that I didn’t engage in that most stereotypical of university activities before then. It’s just that I had never quite managed to reach those stereotypical levels of consumption which students are known for, until I was almost already graduated. At least, not frequently. But all of that changed senior year.

Of course, this change didn’t occur overnight. My senior year began like any other, without excess. Worse than that in fact, I began that year hard at study, putting all of my efforts into a Philosophy paper which I hoped would land me a spot in one of the graduate schools of my choice. Ironically I think it may have been this studious start to the year that really kicked off my habit, providing me with the excuse I needed to drown away my anxieties and reward myself for my efforts. But perhaps this blame is misplaced. I should really focus on the true culprit, Shiner Bock, and all of her confederate beers.

Shiner was just too tasty you see, too affordable, and too easy to obtain. Shiner became the staple beverage at my roommate’s and my apartment, valued as much for the attributes just listed, as well as for the fact that buying Shiner meant supporting a true Texas beer, making me a true Texas patriot. We enjoyed Shiner at barbecues, while playing board games, and while contemplating life on the metal fire escape stairs that hung off the back of our building. It was Shiner that provided my slow descent into debauchery, or at least, that descent into everyday drinking.

At one point I began to ask my friends, as I do often when faced with some serious question of importance, their opinion on my most recent affectation. “Does drinking every day make you an alcoholic?” I would ask. “I don’t think so,” they would reply, beer in hand. “Excellent.”

Since those final days of my undergraduate career my drinking habits have changed somewhat. I’ve diversified, refined my choices, found new favorites. But I’ve always kept a place in my heart for Shiner, which is why I was excited to get to visit their brewery in Shiner, Texas last week, with my old roommate no less. We began the drive out there from Austin, passing an amazing little courthouse in Lockhart, Texas, and then continued on to Shiner in no time.

The factory itself was small, but the whole experience was rather charming. The lady running the tour had an accent as thick as her hospitality, and there was an old Czech/German couple with us on the tour. And there was free beer. After the tour we had lunch at a charming little sandwich shop in town with a couple of people we met on the tour, and then headed back. It was a nice little day trip that reminded me why I loved the beer in the first place and how it brings people together.

All I can say is, shine on.

In any case I suppose this method stuck with me somewhat because I decided somewhat randomly to try this method on something other than a newspaper article and to use it for a particular purpose. I have a friend that I made while I lived in Italy a few years ago who I write letters to, and we tend to try to expand the letter writing medium by composing our letters in various creative ways.  This time I decided I would write her a letter in the form of a poem by scratching words out of this Indiana Jones Children’s book that I found in the climbing heap of old things at “Out of the Past,” an antique shop off of Burnet Road. I’m not sure if it was finding the book which was the spark for doing this or if I approached it from the standpoint of finding some stack of words from which to chisel away a letter, but whatever the case, I think the final product turned out quite well. I was tempted to just post the poem in word document form here first before showing you guys where it came from, but I couldn’t quite get the format right in WordPress. In any case if anyone wants a copy of the word document version of the poem just e-mail me. I think that version actually has an interesting feel in its own right, and I really want to show someone that version first before telling them how I created it. In any case I hope you guys enjoy the poem:

I only filled out half of the book because I’m hoping she’ll fill out the other half to complete the poem. I’ll post it here if that ever happens.

There are basically two kinds of films about Texas, and they both shine from opposite directions on fundamental aspects of both Texas and the Texan character. The first kind of film is character and dialogue driven, and these films are typically dramatic or comedic, the comedy being often dry and/or situational. Characters aren’t hamming it up or getting into ridiculous circumstances for comedic effect; instead, the humor is more nuanced and typically comes from subtleties in the dialogue and the relatability and lovability of its central characters. In these kinds of films nothing very serious typically happens, and the main characters mainly just talk to one another about life the entire movie, imbuing small events with a kind of importance people only ascribe to, say, events in their own life and perhaps the lives of people they care about. Since nothing very much out of the ordinary happens in these films, a plot synopsis given to your friend about one of these films probably wouldn’t capture her attention very much. Nonetheless these films are a joy to watch and re-watch precisely because we do care about the characters in these films. The mundane becomes meaningful because we are convinced the characters really do care about their lives and so we want things to work out for them, just like we want things to work out for ourselves and our friends.

The second kind of film is image and action driven, but these films often feel a lot slower and more deliberate than the first kind of film. Where there is typically a kind of speed created by the quick delivery of pithy dialogue in the first kind of film, in the second kind of film people take their time, even when they’re undertaking an act of great significance. This kind of film usually takes place somewhere in West Texas far from civilization and deals with timeless themes of character and human nature. Murder, betrayal, adultery, death, and sin are writ large against an incredibly freeing blue sky and an endless uncaring brown landscape. Life is rough and unforgiving and every man is isolated and alone, completely free to make whatever choices in life he sees fit. Characters are less fully fleshed out as people than they are as archetypes, everymen and women for whom each decision is both fully their own and fully important. These films are great because they feel so timeless in a kind of cosmically giant way, their events filled with meaning regardless of context or whether we care about these characters. We are forced to care because these characters represent us in some kind of ultimate Jungian way. Interestingly both kinds of films are at their roots basically about the same thing, life and people. Each kind of film merely goes about illuminating these things in a different way.

Whew. Done with the context, now on to the film at hand. Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing “The Happy Poet” written/directed/edited/starred in by Paul Gordon at the Marchesa Hall and Theatre, a strange venue in a strip mall which looks like some kind of Roman parking lot. “The Happy Poet” has its feet firmly in the mold of the first kind of Texas film and as a comedy provided me with many more laugh-out-loud moments than I was expecting. The film reminded me a lot of “Slacker” and “Bottle Rocket,” two other Texas films I sincerely enjoy, with its cast of characters some of whom could only be plucked from Austin, and one of its central themes being a friendship under threat by betrayal. Overall though it was very much its own film with its own characters, particularly the protagonist, whose style of dry delivery almost never failed to make me smile. At one point in the movie Bill, the Happy Poet who rarely actually smiles, delivers probably the most awkwardly sexually comedic poem I have ever heard with a delivery that had me and everyone else in the theater howling with laughter. Funny also is his friend Donnie, whose gratuitous use of “Dude”s and “Shit”s contrasted nicely with Bill’s straight-man persona.

Another aspect of the film which I thought was really cool was how well the movie showcases Austin as an awesome place to live. The Happy Poet’s food stand is planted in the center of Auditorium Shores overlooking downtown, and there are many, many other scenes which take place in familiar locales. Several shots in the film are mobile shots following Donnie around on his scooter which make the cityscape look incredibly beautiful as he jets by. Also good was the soundtrack whose unobtrusive notes of piano added a nice punch to scene transitions while not overtaking the film’s friendly indie feel. One aspect of the film which I didn’t like as much was the ending which sort of jumped a little bit out of nowhere (there’s a flash forward), and seemed a bit over the top. I’ve read that the ending is supposed to be a satire of the typical Hollywood ending which might explain this somewhat but when I was watching the film the satire didn’t jump out at me as much as I think satire should, and I also thought it took away a little bit from the realism of the film.

Nonetheless I thoroughly enjoyed “The Happy Poet” and felt that it was a very Austin film. There is something very enjoyable about watching a film which takes place in a certain city while being in that city, something which New Yorkers get to experience far more frequently than Austinites, but it’s always nice to have that feeling in a city which is not featured in films incredibly often, especially a city which is your home. So far I’m not sure when this film is going to get a more general release or come out on DVD, but if you happen to be in New York on June 25^th you should check it out. Overall the film was one of the funniest movies I have seen in a while, and a worthy addition to add to the canon of great Texas films.

So I had another one of my epiphanies that seem to be coming so frequently lately, you know, the ones where I wake up at some random hour of the morning and can’t fall asleep because my mind is so buzzing with activity that I have to exorcise my thoughts onto paper? Maybe you don’t know. The last one I had concerned the biggest nightmare I’ve had in a long time.

It was quite disturbing. I was surrounded by some bizarre carnivalesque backdrop that kept changing but somehow kept feeling the same. And it wasn’t a good feeling. Insane made-up creatures kept following me around as if I were slowly going mad, but the world itself was some version of the real world despite this. One of the creatures was some sort of bloody bird-man with scissors jammed through his penis. I know. Fucked up. I was stuck in some kind of half dream-world half-reality, and I kept waking up in my dream thinking that I’d gone back to the real world when in reality I hadn’t. New horrors were just around the corner. Tragic events from the real world haunted me: plagues, famines, global warming, cancer, and evil, serious evil. These events poked into my mind and images of the sick and dying would appear as incredibly vivid dream-world images. I was haunted by this twisted half world that made the real world seem ever more scary. And then I woke up. But the scariest part was, I still wasn’t completely sure I had woken up. Maybe I could never be sure. Maybe I’m still asleep now.

When I woke up from this nightmare I was pretty surprised, surprised that I had had a nightmare, but also surprised by its themes. For some reason I was incredibly inspired by this and I tried to push it out of my head but couldn’t. I grabbed my iPhone and started typing in the notes section ideas for a screenplay this nightmare had given me. An incredibly terrifying screenplay. Having this nightmare made me contemplate a bit about horror, and about what kinds of things are truly horrifying. Is banal reality with its true tragedy more frightening than these false specters that appear only in dreams? Is it more frightening to know you live in a bad world, or to not know whether anything in this world is truly real at all? I have never really been a fan of horror films, but having this nightmare definitely made me want to investigate into what about horror appeals to people and the kinds of horror films which are considered the pinnacle of a certain nuanced aspect of horror. In any case, I’m definitely going to think about this more. Where does our notion of horror come from and for that matter, where did the content of my nightmare come from? I’m not sure.

A few days after having this nightmare I remembered a movie from my youth that had also incredibly scared me with similar effect: “Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.” Perhaps this movie is even the root of this most recent nightmare in some way. The movie follows this kid who has these frightening dreams which slowly bleed into his reality so that he can’t tell when he’s dreaming and when he isn’t. He has to fight the incredibly terrifying Nightmare King in order to end his nightmares and save the dream world. Now why would anyone show this film to kids? Kids already have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. They fear there are literal monsters under their bed. Why would you feel compelled to show them a movie with a premise ten times more frightening than any Cartesian evil demon scenario?

I’ll continue next post with another one of these midnight epiphanies, but until then here’s a clip from Little Nemo in which good King Morpheus gets gobbled up by the Nightmare King. Now tell me this isn’t frightening:

My foot nearly slipped as I made my way down the steep hill. I gripped tightly onto a nearby tree preventing potential disaster, as my shoe sole struggled to find traction on the wet rock. So far so good. My friend and I continued down the path I’d chosen with a few more near missteps, before finally arriving safely on the flat ground below.

We walked just a few more feet and then suddenly arrived at a clearing between the trees. Behind them a creek bed was slowly flowing. It was a muggy day and slightly drizzly, and I felt like we were explorers on some kind of Amazonian temple trek. I deliberately stared past the trees at the water flowing along. The sound of the water was almost loud enough to obscure the noise of highway off in the distance, one of the only signs that we were still surrounded by civilization.

I noticed another path, less forged than the one we had previously been on, and I led the way once more. Just a little ways in I found another clearing overlooking the creek, but this time there was a large section of rock which was tall enough not to be submerged by the moving water. I hollered to my friend and moved out onto the rocks, staring at the green reeds poking through the clear surface and the darting bugs who’d made it their carpet. My friend joined me on the rocks and in my deliberate staring. That’s one of the nice things about nature. You have time to be deliberate.

We continued on down the trail for a bit and passed some shirtless wanderers. We heard their tribe in the distance. There were many more of them now, all gathered in large pools of water which had obviously been formed here long ago. All of them were wet and naked and scruffy, and they were drinking beer and beating drums and singing songs. They looked out at me as I marched across the middle of them, as I looked triumphantly in both directions. I was out of place in my black shoes and dark jeans and black shirt and dark hair, but I felt like I had some power over them. Like I was an otherworldly priest they relied on to provide them with spiritual guidance. But I didn’t make them do anything other than what they were already doing.

Further on we saw a wall of vines and then later a series of caves, which we climbed up to and inspected, looking at their insides. The view from there was amazing. Our last destination was some kind of altar rock lying under a tree, past which rode a colonnade of more trees which provided an infinite stretching canopy, as far as the eyes could see. A dog ran up to us and around our feet, and I noticed a mark on the large tree, obviously made by man. We sat there for a minute at this simple stopping place and I remembered the barbeque I had recently eaten and my car parked back by the road. And then we went home.

This Friday, after my sister graduates from the University of Texas (congrats, sis), I’m driving up to Dallas, the place I spent eleven years of my life before moving to Austin last August. I’ll be attending one of my friend’s weddings, and I’ll get to see all of those old Dallas friends that I haven’t seen in about a year. This should be interesting.

Ever since I’ve left Dallas, not a day goes by that I wish I could live there again. That is to say, I love my new home Austin, and I think that Austin is better in almost every way than Dallas. Nevertheless, I don’t hate my old home. At least, not in the way that so many Austinites seem to, with a passionate self-righteous contempt that vilifies Dallas as the antithesis of everything good Austin is trying to create. I think that picture is a bit unfair. Dallas is different, weird even, in a way that Austin could never be (and never would want to be.) But Dallas is not evil. She’s just not particularly good.

The last time I was in Dallas was this past New Years. I was meeting some friends up there, one of whom was about to go away to Marine’s Officer Candidate School, and I wouldn’t see him for awhile. We spent New Years mostly in Uptown, the epicenter of Dallas douchebaggery, at a place called “The Idle Rich Pub.” For those of you uninitiated in the Dallas stereotype, where we spent New Years tells you everything you need to know. When we walked in (after paying a cover of course) I immediately noticed that I was the only one in the bar who was wearing jeans. Unlike Austin, Dallas revels in displays of wealth and faux sophistication, as if the entire city were just some bad dream Patrick Bateman might have. I say bad dream, because while Dallas tries to do sophistication she doesn’t always succeed.

Case in point, New Years Eve, 2009. A few years ago Dallas completed Victory Park, a bizarre display of Orwellian nomenclature and hypertech setting that makes you feel as if you’re living in an actual dystopia. I guess in a way, you are. Victory Park is a park like none other. Instead of being made of earth and trees, Dallas decided concrete and streetlamps were more pleasant. At the head of the park sits the American Airlines Center, where the “Dallas Stars” play, and flanking the park sit two large buildings lined with four gigantic moving videoscreens which move along a rail rotating and combining and catching the eye with sharp flickers of light and metal. Behind you is the new W hotel, which etches out into the sky like an arrowhead and at whose base lies GhostBar, one of the most exclusive and exclusively douchey clubs in Dallas. This was the setting my friends and I decided to endure that New Years. Why? I’m still not sure.

We got there a few hours before midnight, and it was fortunate that we did, for the park itself had been roped off. Only a certain number were allowed in which required either a VIP badge, which I certainly didn’t have, or a bit of luck, which I’ve been known to fall into if I’m lucky. As the time ticked ever closer to midnight the people behind us grew more and more restless and more and more violent. People began to push and shove to get to the front, seemingly unaware that we were being held at bay by Dallas’ finest. One very drunk woman started shrieking at one guy who pushed past her. “Please bitch,” the man said, “I probably make ten times what you do.” It was the kind of insult I could never imagine being uttered in Austin. And people think Texas is all alike.

With luck my friends and I finally made it into the park itself where we could better witness the utter flashiness of women’s blouses and men’s haircuts, while observing the kind of Sodom and Gommorahesque levels of conspicuous consumption taking place. All of this while listening to one of the most comically awful bands I have ever heard in my life, whose idea of culture was playing “Sweet Home Alabama” while improvising the line “You might be a redneck” during the musical sections. This is still an inside joke to my friends and I to this day.

Okay, so Dallas might be evil, but she was my home, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to say she has no redeeming qualities. The Dallas Arboretum is the best I’ve ever been too, and Dallas has no shortage of good independent movie theaters. She even has a couple of good neighborhoods, and Northpark Mall, a place so quintessentially Dallas, is actually kind of cool. I’m just saying the place is not a total drag. I had fun while living there, mostly due to the people I met rather than the place, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of my friends again.

Actually if you ever go to Dallas, especially if you’re arriving at night, you should time it so that you’re listening to the “Blade Runner” soundtrack when you first see the neon lights of Dallas rise out of the ground in the distance. It’s actually quite cool.

I woke up later than usual Sunday morning and packed the car for my drive home that night. Why I’d thought it was a good idea to try to make the drive back to Austin at such a late hour is beyond me, but that was the plan. Since the first film wasn’t showing that day until 1:00, and I wasn’t sure I needed to see it anyways, I had considered driving to Big Bend, but decided that instead I would just enjoy a leisurely afternoon hanging out in Marfa writing. Besides, I could see Big Bend the next time I visited.

I rolled into town around 11:00 and immediately sensed a change in my environment. The hustle and bustle which had been consecutively building up since I’d first arrived had almost completely subsided, and the streets were vacant once again. I pulled into my usual parking spot (yes I have a usual parking spot), and walked over to Frama, a coffee shop which is tucked away next to Tumbleweed Laundry (seriously, why is this town so cool?). I got myself a cup of coffee and wrote a little bit, then went back to my car to grab some food for lunch. I’d just missed the first film showing at 1:00, but I wasn’t disappointed. It would give me more time to myself. I attempted to go back up to the top of town hall, but I found the door was locked, so instead I seated myself under a shady tree out front, and looked out on the lazy main street while doing some more writing.

At 3:45 I packed up and headed over to the theater to catch the two films screening at 4:00, “Live Projections,” a short, and “Vital Signs,” which was feature length. On my way to the theater I could really see how dead Marfa was now. Street vendors which had been in town all week were packing up, and I only saw a few festival goers on my walk over. Inside, the theater was no different. Ralph McKay, one of the film programmers for the festival, said it felt like the crowd was back to its usual numbers for Marfa. That was really cool actually. Watching the next two films with such a small audience, disturbed only by a quaint Q & A with the director of “Live Projections” Ethan Vogt, I was overwhelmed with a great sense of familiarity and friendliness. It was as if I were watching the films with my family, or hanging out with old friends. The charm behind the original concept for the festival, that this was just a small affair for people to come together who really enjoyed film, struck me fully. I was glad to be there, and I could sense that everyone else who was there was glad to be there too. It was a nice moment.

Afterwards we were briefly kicked out, as they had to prepare the place for the showing of the final two films, the last of which was “Red Shirley” Lou Reed’s entry. When I came back to the theater, about thirty minutes before the films were supposed to screen, I could already see that a crowd was gathering. Everyone was here to see Lou, and to see how his immeasurable talents would translate into this latest medium. Since I was early I was still able to get a good seat, set centered and towards the back of the theater. It turned out to be an ideal vantage point. From there I could easily observe everyone who filed in, and notice how these new theatergoers steadily obliterated the sense of quiet intimacy and smallness which had dominated the previous screening. This new crowd was different: sleeker, cooler, richer, and steeped in more holy hipness than I’d ever seen in my life. There was the cackling aging hippie seated directly to my right and the beautiful twentyorthirty-something whose grace was punctuated only by the tattoo on her shoulder and the flighty smile she used to disguise her insecurities. There were the young and the young-looking, and there were those whose age had clearly been dignified by all the comforts money could buy. They were all fashionable and they were all here, assembled as they were almost like the pieces of a sculpture whose only raison d’être was to be as cool as possible. I felt separated from many of them but, truthfully, we were all here for the same reason…because Lou Reed was going to be here.

Ahead of me a few rows a piece of tape was guarding several seats, obviously preserving a place for the star of the show to sit. We all waited for him to arrive, and finally he did. He moved in slowly, almost feebly, but his presence yielded an essence which impressed the crowds from coming too close. People all around him were looking at the back of his head, and so was I. “So that’s Lou Reed,” I thought. He just sat there quietly, waiting for everything to start just like the rest of us. Robin Lambaria, founder and film programmer of the Marfa Film Festival, thanked Lou for coming and then the first film began. Throughout it I was impatient, and I suspect everyone else was too. I was just itching to see the next one.

Finally Lou’s film began and I soaked it in. “On the eve of her 100^th birthday Lou Reed sat down with his cousin Shirley for a tête à tête” the opening titles proclaimed (or something to this effect). I was immediately a little put off. A “tête à tête,” really? It wasn’t a conversation, but a “tête à tête”? Okay. The film basically tracks Shirley as she tells Lou about the milestones of her life beginning with where she was born (Poland), then on to her move to Canada, and then to America, how she worked in the garment district in New York City, her work with the labor unions, and finally her front row viewing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech in Washington D.C.

To be perfectly honest the film was boring. It was like watching someone else interview their great-grandmother, a great-grandmother who is not a particularly good story-teller. Shirley narrates the events essentially as I have given them above, as bland statements of fact, and the whole time I was puzzled as to why Lou chose this subject matter. There seemed to be no reason to actually make this into a film. Adding to this feeling was the fact that the film ended somewhat abruptly, so there was nothing I could really grasp onto which might act as a kind of bow being tied around the whole film, something which would give me a clue as to the overall structure holding everything together.

After the film Lou and Ralph Gibson, who actually shot the film, went down to center stage for the Q & A. Immediately everyone was made aware that this Q & A would not be like all the others we’d seen at the festival. First of all we would not be able to ask questions directly. Instead we were to write our questions on index cards which had been provided for us, and the producer would decide which questions were worth asking. I thought about writing down “Why did you think this subject matter would make for an interesting film?” but decided against it.

The first question the moderator asked was a technical question about how the film was shot, about the use of both black and white and color footage in the film. After she asked the question there was a slight pause and a disinterested look from Lou, and the moderator quickly retracted saying “or we can talk about something else if you want.” It was a moment of absurd deference. Breaking the silence Ralph decided to answer the question with some deference of his own. “Having both black and white and color footage was Lou’s idea. I also really want to bring home the point that even though I shot it, this is Lou’s film. I’m just so privileged to be working with Lou.” Lou chimed in here assuring Ralph of his value, but it was the kind of assurance that can only come from someone who is already so assured of his superiority, the kind of assurance a noble might give to someone of a lower class.

“I just want to say that we knew about every rule that comes with making a short film and we broke them all,” Lou offered, not answering anything which had been asked of him. Wow. Throughout the rest of the Q & A Lou struck me as being very defensive, both of the film, but also of Shirley. He wouldn’t respond to a question posed to him about other stories Shirley might have mentioned, saying that the film ought to stand on its own. He also took great pains to mention how wise Shirley was and how great of a subject she was for something like this film. I almost got the impression that Lou had asked to film her, judging that his personal interest in her would translate into an interesting film, and then couldn’t back out when he realized the results were less than satisfactory, out of respect for Shirley. Of course that’s all supposition.

The really interesting thing about this all though was the kind of power Lou’s celebrity seemed to bring. Everyone seemed to feel that they had to kiss Lou’s ass the whole way, and assure Lou at every moment that the film he’d made was as brilliant as anything he’d ever done. This was kind of sickening actually, and very bizarre. I mean, it’s true that Lou Reed is arguably the greatest rock n’ roll musician America has ever produced, but he’s not God. He’s just a man. And he shouldn’t get a free pass just because he’s Lou Reed. I mean, is this really what we want to promote as a culture? That once you’ve passed a certain threshold you ought to be treated like a god and are immune from criticism? That’s not right, and it’s not American. We’re supposed to be the people who are ultimately free. We’re not supposed to be so easily fooled or enamored by status that we become the lapdogs of those we admire. But here it was.

I wondered to myself what it must be like to be Lou Reed. To be surrounded by all of these people who are constantly affirming him, constantly telling him how great he is and how great everything he ever does is. What is it like to live in that vacuum of assurance? I’m sure it’s odd. But it also means that his behavior may not be as much his fault as one might think. After all, it’s the people around him that have created this world, that have created this bubble for him to live in, safe from criticism. A bubble where he’s always right. Before the films began, the moderator introduced them with two poems, one from Whitman, and one, from Lou Reed.

“I’ll be your mirror, reflect what you are, in case you don’t know.”

How ironic.

Immediately after the Q & A I left and finally made it to Austin at 4:00 AM. It was a long drive, but it didn’t feel so. The Marfa Film Festival had been everything I’d hoped and more. It surpassed my expectations in every detail. I was surprised how few films I disliked and how well the program’s films had been organized so that they ran together thematically both in individual sections and across the entire film festival. Robin Lambaria and Ralph McKay, along with everyone else who worked on the festival, truly did an extraordinary job and I’m looking forward to hopefully attending next year. But I’ll probably be back to Marfa before then. There’s still so much to see.

Saturday the weather turned a bit grayer and a bit cooler. I’d about had my share of picture taking from the previous two days, but there was one place I kept noticing and never going in that I was curious about, The Filling Station. The Filling Station was a lounge for those enough fortunate enough to have a high enough pass level to get in. I’m not sure if I was supposed to be allowed in, but I just waltzed pass the hipster security out front and no one decided to stop me.

These pictures give you a good sense of what this place was like, as well as what some of the hipper Marfa Film Festival attendees looked like. Overall it seemed a little exclusive and pretentious for my taste, but it was cool nonetheless.

“Fanny, Annie & Danny”

I had gotten to the theater too late once again, and I was forced to sit on the side to see “Quadrangle,” the film which was playing right before this one. “Quadrangle” was an enjoyable short doc about the director’s unorthodox family situation. After it was over some seats opened up in the center of the theater, and I quickly pounced upon one. One of the people I was sitting next to turned to me and asked if I was a filmmaker. I told her I was not and asked her the same question. She said she was and that she had a film being shown later. I told her I would check it out.

The movie started pretty quickly after the first film ended and it took me a little while to get into it. The story of the film centers around one Christmas with a highly dysfunctional family, and how each of the characters respond to this dysfunction. I was very uneasy throughout the film, as there is a slow build up of more and more meanness and manipulation that occurs amongst this bad family unit until the surprising and open-ended conclusion, but it was a good uneasy (if that makes sense).

The dialogue in this film was absolutely top notch, and moved along at a quick pace. Just like “The Year of the Carnivore,” there was never a dull moment. Since the action in this film almost entirely has to do with the dialogue and character interaction, this is a very good thing. Another extraordinary thing about this film was how well the ensemble cast worked together. They were entirely believable as a family, and each character in the film had very distinct personalities which were coupled with distinct neuroses as a part of living in this family. Despite the number of characters, the film did a very good job balancing between them all and making sure they all had parts to play in the sum of the family.

After the film was over I turned to the filmmaker I had just met, Kelly Sears, and asked what she thought of the film. She said that at the beginning she didn’t think she would like it, because she hadn’t liked the font used in the intro, but she’d ended up enjoying it by the end. I thought this was an interesting thing to notice and it demonstrated to me the different kinds of things people pay attention to while watching a film.

One of the shocking things revealed in the Q & A was that the writer and director of the film, Chris Brown, is an only child. How he was able to so believably portray complex sibling relationships amongst a broader family backdrop I’m not sure, but the result was amazing. Overall the film was very intelligently executed and quite hilarious.  I’m excited to see Chris’ next project.

“Gasland”

“Gasland,” is a documentary about natural gas drilling, and while I know that sounds incredibly dull, this was actually a very rousing film. The film follows Josh Fox, the film’s director on a quest to discover what he can about natural gas drilling, when he finds out that the drilling may be moving into his backyard. This personal kick-off at the film’s beginning worked well and provided the film added emotional weight, effectively bringing the man behind the camera to the front of the camera, and thereby helping bring us as the audience in front of the camera as well. The film nicely shows that this natural gas drilling is occurring all across the country in settings both urban and rural, and that our own communities may be the next in line if we don’t decide to stop the drilling.

Although the film features interviews with the usual evil suspects, corporate drones who seem not to care/make excuses for all of their actions, some of the most compelling footage of the film is Fox’s interviews with people across the country about how these corporations have treated them, the negative effects they’ve experienced at the hands of the drilling, and the seeming immunity of these corporations from public scrutiny. Fox spends enough time with his interview subjects to allow the audience to empathize with them, but additional horror also comes from seeing the immediate effects of the drilling: dead animals, chemical cesspools, toxic air on public land, and water being literally lit on fire because of natural gas seepage.

This film was certainly a spectacle, and a packed house was simultaneously enthralled and appalled by the film. This film, along with a series of other films at the festival about environmental issues made me increasingly worried about the state of the world, and the effect our actions are having on it. The fact that natural gas is being presented as a green alternative to coal adds to the irony once you’ve seen the costs and certainly makes one wary of being drawn in by green rhetoric before the research has properly been done on these alternative energy sources. I highly recommend seeing this film to anyone who cares about the world remaining in relatively good condition.

“Voice on the Line”

Apparently I’m not a fan of shorts. At least that’s what you might gather from my blog entries about the festival since I’ve neglected to feature any shorts so far in any of my entries. To be honest I did think the quality of shorts displayed at the film fest was overall weaker than the longer entries. I’m not sure if this was simply because I’m naturally disposed not to like shorts (I don’t feel you can say as much with a short film), or because this just happened to be a particularly weak batch of shorts. In any case, one exception to this was “Voice on the Line” the short submitted by Kelly Sears, my recently made filmmaker acquaintance.

“Voice on the Line” was a short about telephone operators and a secret government program to listen to people’s conversations with these operators and attempt to glean information from these conversations. Visually the short featured a collage of clips of old telephone operators partially severed from their backdrops as if they’d been cut from a moving magazine, and then superimposed over a paisley psychedelic backdrop. The effect was very striking and interesting to look at, and the moving background behind the pans of people working created a sense of something important happening, of something new developing hidden between the lines.

The other thing that was particularly intriguing to me though was the sense of promise which developed throughout the film, a building effect from the content which stated that something would come of these listened to conversations, that their impact would echo on into the future as people used these telephone conversations to spark other conversations which would carry on into something revolutionary. This was what I most liked about the short, that it made me think or elude into something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on, the ghost in the telephone wire. In any case here was a short I really enjoyed!

After seeing all of these films from the past few days, only Sunday loomed ahead of me, a shorter day of films ending with Lou Reed’s debut “Red Shirley.” Tune in on Friday to hear a story which may include murder, sex, intrigue, romance, danger, or snakes, but which will at the very least include my thoughts on Lou Reed’s film! I know you can’t wait!

Friday was another gorgeous sunny day, and the crowd had increased considerably from Thursday. In between films I walked around the town a little bit more, and took a few more pictures. Sometime during the middle of the day I climbed to the top of the Marfa Town Hall and looked around at the town. The view from there was amazing. You could see the edge of the town in every direction, and the landscape beyond that stretching as far as the hills in the distance.

“The Unreturned”

One of the films that really impressed me on Friday was this documentary about the displaced middle class of Iraq. I hadn’t heard much about this before watching this documentary, and my impression was that not very many other people had heard a lot about it either. This fact once again impressed upon me what a sorry state the American media is in now given how little attention has been given to an event which is large enough to cover in its own right, even notwithstanding the fact that this disaster was both caused by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and its solution is key to our efforts to rebuild and stabilize that country.

The film focused on a few individuals and families living in Syria and Jordan who have been displaced by the war in Iraq and subsequent circumstances, focusing on their struggles and their views of America, which are thankfully nuanced despite their desperate conditions. Many of these individuals, who are just a few amongst the millions who have been displaced, find difficulty getting work, especially the kind of skilled work they enjoyed in their previous occupations. Some of these people who are unable to get jobs are currently running through their life savings just to get by.

One of the sad facts of the situation is that Syria and Jordan, which are neighbors to Iraq, have taken in the bulk of these refugees, 1.5 million and 750,000 respectively. The United States on the other hand has taken in only about 40,000 so far, though it has pledged to take 60,000 more this year. One of the most compelling points in the film was when one of these displaced refugees was taking a cab in Jordan, and the refugee got into a discussion with his Jordanian cab driver. There was clearly some animosity and frustration from the cab driver who asked his passenger, “What are the consequences of 750,000 refugees living in an already poor country?” This question was met defensively by the refugee who argued that Iraq had helped Jordanian citizens out in the past, and that whatever the case, he was a person sitting before him who deserved to be seen. I was glad that the film highlighted the fact that the presence of the refugees was a burden not only on the refugees themselves, but also on those communities they had been pushed into. Overall the film was very informative in covering a story that has up to now not received the attention it is due.

“Echotone”

I almost did not get into this film at all. The theater was so packed I had to sit at the very side of the theatre, my view of the screen partially obscured by a plant, but fortunately I was able to see this film. “Echotone,” made last year amidst Austin’s rising sea of rising highrises, explores Austin’s culture of music and most famous moniker “The Live Music Capital of the World,” and what this means as the city continues to grow and musicians and venues struggle for the right to thrive in Austin.

The film explores this theme with a nice juxtaposition of facts about the changing city along with the stories of real musicians living and making music. The resulting film was a joy to watch, perhaps because it provided an interesting lens into a particular moment in the city which, while being particular, is nevertheless highly representative of decades of sentiment in Austin: the lament of the city growing and changing, and the feeling that much of the city’s soul is being lost in this change. Louis Black had an excellent line in the movie which certainly invokes this feeling: “Everyone I know who’s moved to Austin thinks the day after they moved in was the day the city’s gates should have closed.”

It is interesting how prevalent this attitude is in Austin. There is definitely a large amount of nostalgia in the city for previous days, when things were supposedly better in a lot of ways than they are now. Since I’m a new resident to Austin, I can’t really verify these changes, but the film itself seemed to run counter to this attitude, and seemed to expect this creative culture to continue to thrive despite having to struggle against continuing challenges. Nevertheless one of the central themes of the film seemed to be about values, and about what we as a people choose to value. Should we choose to value commerce above all else and not to value creativity, we will certainly lose aspects of our culture that are worth saving.

One of the more interesting insights the film provided concerned the relationship between business and commerce. While most musicians make for poor business people and care more about creative control than making money (at least ideally), Austin’s music scene does attract a lot of people to the city and has made the city a lot of money. If the city refuses to take steps to preserve this creative culture in order to make quick cash, they may lose out in the long run not only this culture worth preserving, but also the dollar they so long for.

A lot of the bands from “Echotone” showed up to the film festival for Q&A and also to play at Padre’s, the only bar in town, right after the show. This wouldn’t have been a problem except that one of the film’s I most wanted to see, “The Year of the Carnivore,” was scheduled right after “Echotone.” Of course, I could always end up going to see the rest of the bands play right after the film and only miss some of them, but the musician I most wanted to see, Dana Falconberry, was the first one playing. I’d never heard about her before seeing the film, but hearing her play in the film frankly blew me away. Her sound was exquisitely beautiful without being too fragile. Her eyes and lyrics conveyed a kind of emotional depth that is incredibly uncommon. Needless to say, I loved her sound and wanted to hear more of her music. It was a moment of struggle but I finally decided that I was here for the film festival and I could hear her in Austin next time she played so I decided to go see the next film.

“The Year of the Carnivore”

And I was glad I did. “The Year of the Carnivore” was perhaps my favorite film at the festival. The film is about a 21-year old girl who is woefully bad at sex, and after an incredibly awkward first time with the guy she likes goes, well, poorly, she ends up going to various lengths to try to become better at sex through more experience. The film was incredibly quirky, and the pace the film moved at was quick without feeling rushed. It was very entertaining to watch.

The film progresses through a series of escapades and sexcapades (I swore I would never use that word) as Sammy, the protagonist begins a massive transformation both in her physical appearance, and in her persona. She is played brilliantly by Cristin Milioti, who somehow knows exactly how to make the transition from the awkward, clueless Sammy at the beginning of the film to the commanding, knowing Sammy at the end of the film seem entirely natural. I haven’t seen her in anything else, but I’m excited to see what project she takes on next.

Sammy’s adventures and experiences in the film are contrasted to those of her friend and love interest played by Mark Mendall, who has more experience than Sammy but who nevertheless undergoes a transition himself, as he begins to feel detached and upset at the disconnect between the sexual experiences he’s having and the music he makes with his band, and the music and sexual experiences he wants to have. His character was more obvious and less interesting than Sammy, but he did provide her with a nice foil.

By the end of the film the character’s finally move together towards a balanced center, much like in “Obselidia,” and they both embark into new territory together, their collective total sexual experience rendered worthless in the face of the real thing. I thought this film was a very earnest, and intriguingly complex and realistic look at sex despite the uncommonness of some of the background situations Sammy gets involved in. The screenplay writer and director, Sook-Yin Lee, seems to know how to get exactly enough leverage in each scene of the movie, while steadily building segments which become increasingly deep in terms of emotional impact, providing a lot of food for thought. Kudos.

Padre’s

Following the film I headed over to Padre’s to check out the remainder of the bands playing. Sure enough I’d unfortunately missed Dana’s performance, but she was still hanging around the bar. I wanted to go tell her how interested I was in hearing more of her music, but I decided not to because I’m so bad at talking to musicians or filmmakers about liking their work. If it’s a girl I always feel like they’ll think I’m hitting on them (and Dana was pretty cute), but if it’s a guy it’s even worse because I feel like they end up thinking “Why is this guy kissing my ass about how great my work is?” In any case, I don’t know what to say to these people so I decided not to say anything.

Padre’s itself was pretty cool. Like everything else in Marfa it was sophisticatedly understated. I also noticed halfway through the night that there were a series of chambers and patios connected to the front room where I had planted myself. The first band I saw, who embarrassingly I can’t even remember their name, were on for a full hour before I realized they were playing. I later found out it was their first live performance. Their music was some kind of static electronic feedback wash and it sounded pretty cool. I was standing there drinking my beer and thinking how cool this sound was when I noticed some girl up front recording them “setting up” with her camera. Fifteen minutes later I realized they were playing. The remaining bands I saw were pretty cool, Silent Land Time Machine and Sunset, though I didn’t really focus on the later too much because I was talking to a girl. Anyways, Friday ended up being extremely enjoyable. I’ll leave you with a clip of Dana from Echotone: