Editor,
On the 28th of August, I fell on the concrete sidewalk going into the Sketchers store at the outlet mall. No one from the store came to help me. Luckily, a retired police officer and a retired Army Colonel stopped the bleeding and helped me calm down. They stayed with me until the EMS arrived. My thanks go to all. Our country’s cities are disintegrating but San Marcos still has people who are kind and caring. This the America that I know and love.
Again, thank you, Caroline White San Marcos
Editor,
On behalf of San Marcos Cinema Club, we appreciate Friday’s cover story on the Boyhood Alley proposal before City Council: a tribute to the epic, Oscar-winning film shot in a presently unnamed backstreet downtown.
The article is framed around the Main Street board’s lack of support — but unfortunately neglects to acknowledge unanimous support from the San Marcos Convention & Visitors Bureau, as well as John Fleming, the Dean of the College of Fine Arts & Communications at Texas State University (where the Film Studies program is exploding with popularity); the Downtown Association; & the Office of Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra.
Prior to the Main Street board’s bizarre vote, staff leadership at Main Street told us they already informally refer to the backstreet as Boyhood Alley, just as our film society does. It’s absolutely worth noting City Council voted 6-1 in favor of advancing the Boyhood Alley proposal, with Mayor Jane Hughson as lone dissenter.
Mayor Hughson cited a concern by a few Main Street members that the name supposedly “sounds creepy” — a peculiar, QAnon-seeming logic we can’t appreciate.
By contrast, Councilmember Mark Gleason — who voted against the name as a member of Main Street, but admirably changed his position for the Council vote upon watching Boyhood — told his colleagues on the dais that the film was “impressive” and the Boyhood Alley name “does have meaning.”
Councilmember Jude Prather astutely observed, “Boyhood Alley would be a better representation of the San Marcos that we’re trying to present to people.”
In an interview with Time magazine in 2014, President Obama declared his favorite movie of the year was Boyhood. The Guardian, famed newspaper of London, described Boyhood as “one of the great films of the decade.”
Boyhood is a film like no other because it was shot, a little bit at a time, over the course of 12 years. Unlike all other films in the universe of cinema, there is not a pair of actors to play the younger and older versions of the same character; instead, we literally watch individuals on screen grow, mature and age.
The adorable little boy who starts the film, by the end, is intrepidly heading off to college.
The affect is singular, unique in the long history of cinema.
How special for San Marcos that our city, and stately County Courthouse, played a notable role in this incredible film.
We salute City Council — everyone but Mayor Hughson — for not surrendering to misguided and perversely paranoid illogic, but instead recognizing the importance of uplifting this monumental achievement in the history of cinema and taking real pride in San Marcos’ extremely fortunate involvement.
Jordan Buckley San Marcos Cinema Club
