David Byrne’s “True Stories”
Screening for NEXT EXIT
Hosted by Sweet Pass Sculpture Park
Monday, November 4, 2019
Refreshments at 5:30, Film at 7:00
Register for the screening here
Culled from David Byrne’s scrapbook of special interest stories, “True Stories,” follows the lives of the eccentric characters of a small north Texas town in anticipation of their celebration of the Texas sesquicentennial celebration. Featuring performances by David Byrne, Spalding Gray, John Goodman (his first leading role); and songs by the Talking Heads, Meredith Monk, Tito Larriva, and alt-country rocker Terry Allen – it’s a unique look at the physical, cultural, and psychological landscape of north Texas. Byrne’s placid narrator drives over empty stretches of freeway to visit various boxlike structures, strikingly familiar to Dallasites: the faceless, concrete headquarters of Varicorps (a stand it for Texas Instruments), corrugated metal multi-purpose structures like the one that houses ex ovo, a string of nearly identical builder homes with prominent garages, the unmistakable NorthPark Center. This fictional Texas town, like the real Dallas metroplex, seems to encompass everything that captivates Byrne about urban sprawl and American values in the late 20th century. He marvels at this idiosyncratic strangeness set so plainly against the featureless landscape of the Texas prairie, remarking with a sense of bewilderment and awe that—”anything you stick in there is just about all there is to look at.”