TFPF Tour '08: Fort Worth

One of my top priorities on my arrival in Fort Worth was a trip to the excellent Spiral Diner, which was recently voted the top restaurant in North America by Veg News Magazine. Their reputation is well-deserved, with incredibly tasty food that just happens to be all-vegan. The BBQ sandwich is just... well, there are no words.

I've become familiar with the Spiral since becoming friends with filmmaker James Johnston & his wife Amy McNutt, who started the restaurant a few years back. I'm actually staying at their house in the utterly charming Fairmount neighborhood just south of the Spiral. James was out of town, just arriving back today from the Sarasota Film Festival, where his new short film MERRILY, MERRILY premiered.

Before my workshop on Saturday afternoon, I decided to partake of one of Ft. Worth's most unique and rewarding cultural opportunites - the Kimbell Art Museum. I wish we had a museum this great in Austin. Their collection of pre-Columbian art alone is worth the trip. Add to that the newer Modern Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum and you've got a cultural district that few other cities in the country can match.

I picked up a couple postcards of my favorite pieces at the Kimbell to mail off, and happened to stumble on another true work of art unique to Ft. Worth - the downtown post office. It's a beautiful 1930's-era Beaux Arts/Classical Style creation, still very active as a post office. One of the things that caught my eye immediately were these eagles carved into the outside walls...

The eagles were repeated on the interior, this time in brass on the gates at each of the teller booths. The designers of today's grim, boxy post-offices should be ashamed of themselves.

I did my workshop just a few blocks away from the Post Office at the UT-Arlington's Fort Worth Center, a re-purposed rail depot, which is right next to the current rail depot for the TRE (Trinity Railway Express). TRE goes from downtown FW to downtown Dallas. Seeing the trains roll by made me jealous for Austin's Red Line to finally come on-line (later this year, I believe).

After the workshop, I got to chat with Alec Jhangiani from the Lone Star Film Society , the local sponsor of the workshop, about his experiences working in various departments on Terrence Malick's new film TREE OF LIFE, and about the plans for next year's Lone Star Film Festival. Looks like they're going for November dates again, a great time to come back to Fort Worth.