Tuesday Evening, May 23. NewMexiKen is looking at an Oscar — and a Golden Globe. They’re sitting on the mantle above the fireplace at the Lonesome Dove Inn in Archer City, Texas. That’s novelist, essayist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry’s hometown of Archer City — the real town from The Last Picture Show.
The Oscar I’m looking at is McMurtry’s for co-writing the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain — with Diana Ossana, based on the story by E. Annie Proulx. McMurtry has left the award to the safekeeping of Mary Webb, operator of the Lonesome Dove Inn. It fits nicely with the theme of her Bed and Breakfast — the Terms of Endearment Room, the Cadillac Jack room, Hud’s Library, and so on, all named for McMurtry works. (Lonsome Dove was McMurtry’s Pulitizer Prize-winning novel.)
In addition to the Inn, Archer City features McMurtry’s bookstore Booked Up. Actually it features Booked Ups 1 through 4 with several hundred thousand used books, including many rare and collectible volumes. The stores occupy four separate buildings near the town square — Booked Up 1 was once the Ford dealer.
Archer City appears much as it did in the 1971 film The Last Picture Show. A town of about 1,800, there is still just the one stoplight. When NewMexiKen tried to wait this evening to let cars continue before I sauntered across at that, the only controlled intersection, I was encouraged by a driver to go ahead. And after crossing I was told to “Have a nice eve-nin.”
I was having a nice evening. It was a gorgeous, warm star-filled night, perfect for a walk in a storybook place.
That’s funny, I was just thinking about Archer City the other day when I was in Hay-on-Wye, its Welsh equivalent, for the Hay Festival. The guy who started the first bookstore in Hay as well as the festival was talking about McMurtry, and I had the impression he might be visiting.
But I was eavesdropping, so didn’t hear the whole story. Enjoy Archer City. I spent an hour there a few years ago.