Horsemen, Goodbye

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Thursday, January 31st, 2013, 7:44 pm
Michael says:
If there’s anyone whom this article will hit in the head like a two by four, it’s the good people of Dallas. I won’t consider Austin. Austinites stopped reading the article the moment he called Houston a great city. Their ego is beyond the stratosphere; they think they are the icing of the Texas cake and Houston and Dallas the batter that fell on the bottom of the oven. But Dallasites, who are not so proud that they won’t even consider Houston, still are innocently blind of the fact that there is anything there but humidity. Ask a Dallasite what they think of Houston and, after stroking their hair, they will reply, "Well... it’s pretty humid there." The problem is that most of their knowledge of it comes from driving down I-45 on the way to Galveston (not the best introduction), and they’ve assumed everything else is the same messy repetition of those seedy businesses on that hot humid afternoon driving back from the beach. My take on it is that Dallas is the sprawling successor of St. Louis, and Houston is the sprawling successor of New Orleans. One well-regulated, respectable, middle-American; the other chaotic, international, seedy and sometimes aesthetically brilliant. I don’t know why McMurtry likes Houston so much more; the two cities are not so different, and if it weren’t for pride, each could enjoy the other a lot more. But I think Dallas would have more pride to swallow than Houston would, and not rightly so.

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013, 11:57 pm
Collin says:
After seeing the cover of this copy of TM, I girded for a description of Dallas as "fake" or "not really Texan". Still, it came as an unpleasant surprise to discover that my hometown is "a second-rate city". Even more surprising (although not so much after researching the history of the perpetrator) was that the predicate came not from some Amon Carter acolyte, but from the Melville of Texas himself: Larry McMurtry. Why McMurtry would stoop to such a low is beyond this feeble mind. Perhaps he wished to avoid puff status, which befalls too many writings of the Monthly. Maybe he had a bad experience on Dallas roads. Surely not, given the fact that he praised Houston as "a great city." He mentions a closed bookstore in Deep Ellum, so maybe he feels Dallas is a city bereft of quality retailers. Impossible. Half Price Books exists as an unlikely bastion against the inevitable digital demise of ole-Lar’s favorite business. And it’s accessible; not one of those dusty places that only true bookworms feel comfortable entering. This degradation is not unique. For years I have wasted my breath defending this "fair burg" from smarmy attacks from friends of mine who call Austin home. Their predominant line of attack labels all dwellers of this city as receptacles for a certain feminine hygiene product. "People are just cooler in Austin" they say. Half of the people my age who live there are from Dallas or Houston. I tell my friends that they were cool long before they moved there. Something must be said for that, but I digress. The thing is, too many of our fellow Texans from the south and west have wasted their breath critiquing Dallas as ‘not Texan enough’, and I can’t stand that crap. Shoot, it was we Dallasites who gave our statesman (and the world) their first frozen margarita. It was Dallas that taught our neighbors the meaning of style when Neiman freaking Marcus first opened its doors, and it was Dallas that embraced Texas’ steel-wheeled roots by building the nation’s longest light-rail line, while drivers in Austin and Houston continue to choke in gridlock. So spare us the un-Texan saws. Hell, I might suggest that the rest of you are a bit too Texan, gallivanting across the coastal plains with your steel-tipped belts and covering every square inch of your furniture in cowhide. I understand that none of my ramblings will do anything to repair the damage Mr. McMurtry has done. He wins. 100,000 Americans reading your column are remarking “Let’s spend our Labor Day in Houston honey! Larry McMurtry called it his Paris.” Have fun with that.