Lascivious Houston

A look inside the world of topless clubs, where love and even passion are impossible to find.

by Michael Ennis

Footloose and Fancy

A gallery of the girls who lead a gypsy life, moving from one topless club to another.

by Joe Baraban

Gone To Texas

Thousands of people from the North, broke and out of work, are streaming into the state. This is the true story of two of them who abandoned Detroit for Houston, learned about cockroaches, tacos, and freeways, and finally discovered happiness in broken air conditioners.

by Nicholas Lemann

Carl Lewis and the Exquisite Science of Jumping

All this twenty-year-old University of Houston student wants to do is jump father and run faster than anyone else ever has.

by John Bloom

One Woman’s Tiny Problem Confronts Dallas City Hall

Vesta Cawley turned to the city bureaucracy for help with a problem that didn’t matter to any of the other 900,000 residents of Dallas. But it should have mattered more to city hall.

by John Bloom

The Bulls of Commerce

Raised in hardscrabble fiberglass factories, these cattle came to Texas cities to make shoppers feel like cowboys.

by Michael Lyon

Classical Music

Sixteen Strings

As befits masterpieces, Beethoven’s string quartets have been recorded a hundred times. Our trusty critic guides the novice through a maze of choices.

by W. L. Taitte

Behind the Lines

Welcome, one and all.

by Gregory Curtis

Country Notes

Lord of the Flies

Fly-fishing is a particularly fastidious way of trying to fool a fish, but it’s also a particularly pleasant one.

by John Graves

Art

Blue-collar Sculptor

Dallasite Mac Whitney is his own one-man construction crew - producing towering steel-plate sculptures.

by Michael Ennis

Popular Music

Spontaneous Combustion

Half a dozen Texas bands rev up and rock out.

by Pepi Plowman

Film

Hot and Bothered

In Body Heat a lust-befuddled lawyer fails to notice that his lover is setting him up for murder. The spy plot and love story of Under the Rainbow pale next to the sideshow attraction of 150 dwarfs. Endless Love only seems endless. Victory scores some points.

by C.W. Smith

Crime

Cattle Call

Trial by jury is a right most people charged with a crime never get to exercise. Instead, they accept a quicker, less risky alternative: the plea bargain.

by Jim Atkinson

Reporter

Four great Texas discoveries: world-class barbecue in Taylor, gold fever in Brock, psychic delvings in San Antonio, historical triage in Canyon.

Roar of the Crowd

Women in the air, men in the House, snakes in the grass.

Touts

Shake and bake.

Patricia Sharpe

Puzzle

Old chiselers.

State Secrets

What the future holds for artificial hearts, utility customers, Phil Gramm, and the Republican party.

Edited by Paul Burka