Not Paris Texas

I remember having cable when I was seven years old — so 1980 or '81 — and having HBO for the first time. We didn't have a VCR yet, so watching movies anywhere that wasn't a drive-in or a movie theater was a really unique experience. I would watch the HBO guide for hours, seeing what was coming on.

A few years later, in 1985 or '86, Paris, Texas came onto the schedule. It made an impact on me before I'd even seen it. I lived in Texas. I was super into reading the encyclopedia, so I knew there was a Paris — but my brain wasn't developed enough to abstract that there might be more than one Paris in the world. So I was just confused and intrigued, every time I saw the title in the guide. What is Paris, Texas?

Eventually I watched it. I was ten or eleven. And if you've seen Paris, Texas, you know it's probably not made for ten-year-olds. Why is the sad guy in a suit not talking? Where is he going? That's about all I remember from that.

Cut to 2021. We're in the middle of a global pandemic. I've bought a house in the mountains, an hour and a half east of LA, to leave the city for a while. I've gotten back into film photography. I would very often drive down the mountain and just drive around the desert, looking at the weird things the desert has to offer — landscapes, ruins, ghost towns, weird plants, things that just looked super out of place. I'd do that for hours and hours and hours.

On this day, I came across some railroad tracks and saw this Astro-Burger with letters missing in the sign. It definitely seemed on its way out — I thought it was shuttered from time and small-town death. So I stopped and photographed it a lot. (Looking at Google Street View now, it seems to be open — so probably just a Covid thing.)

When I got home I decided I wanted to watch Paris, Texas. I hadn't watched it since the mid-80s. Now I'm a 47-year-old man, so I'd probably understand the subtleties of the film better.

And as I'm watching it, there's a scene where we're looking through the windshield of a car that goes across the same railroad tracks. With the Astro-Burger, from the early 1980s, in the frame of the windshield. My jaw dropped. I had that weird, breath-taken-away feeling. Whoa. That's where I was today. For whatever reason I'd decided to watch Paris, Texas on the same day I was at a place where they shot Paris, Texas. It still gives me chills.

It's those little things. I don't really believe in religion. I don't really believe in chance, or fate. But every now and again, I do believe in magic. This was one of those times.