I was born in Amarillo, but our family moved from there to Kansas, and then, when I was six, to Colorado, which is where I grew up. But both of my parents are from Texas, and we went to my grandparents' place every summer; both of my brothers spent their summers doing ranch work for my grandfather there. My parents moved back to my grandparents' place about twenty years ago. Texas has a strong presence in my life, and I'm officially a native Texan, but it's like I've gotten small infusions of the place and its culture all my life, never been immersed.

That's right about Marfa -- the director of There Will Be Blood was giving a free screening to thank everybody from the town who had been in the movie out on a ranch where it was filmed when I was there -- I was sorry to miss it -- and I heard two guys talking in a (great) burrito place in Alpine about whether they'd seen those two movies.