Heaven on Wheels

Why are we crazy for Cadillacs, silly for Suburbans, passionate about pickups? Because Texans love their cars, that’s why.

by Jim Atkinson

The Double Life of Paul Thayer

He had it all: a wife and a mistress, a limousine and a motorcycle, the second-highest job at the Pentagon and some good-time Dallas buddies. Then the SEC took an interest in his life.

by Peter Elkind

Blissed-Out on the Beach of Love

At a slightly wacky hotel in southern Mexico, you can lose your inhibitions and find a little romance.

by Lucius Lomax

Age of Innocents

Remember when children played dress-up in their own clothes? They still can.

The Night Crew

There are a hundred of them, and their job is invisibility. They come into giant office buildings after everyone has gone home and, if they do the job right, make the evidence of the day’s work disappear.

by Mimi Swartz

Western Art: Pierre Was New in Town and Had Never Really Caught Anything Before

An interpretation of a classic genre.

by Alexa Grace

Texas Primer: The Permanent University Fund

In 1883 the University of Texas got stuck with two million acres of West Texas scrubland. Then it hit oil, and the money started rolling in.

by Paul Burka

My Quest for the Perfect Biscuit

It all started at my grandmother’s when I was seven years old. No biscuit has since measured up, but my lonely search for that sublime confection continues.

by Stephen Harrigan

Education

Grading the High Schools

UT reports on how well students from Texas schools do.

Andrea Meditch

Behind the Lines

On the Edge of Life

by Dominique Browning

Business

How Do You Spell Real Estate?

Roger Staubach finds happiness by swapping Rolaids for real estate.

by Mark Seal

Movies

Prince of Wails

Prince’s Purple Rain is short on plot and dialogue but long on fancy anguish; The Bostonians is a namby-pamby treatment of Henry James’ biting novel.

by James Wolcott

Books

Tangled Lines

William Humphrey’s Hostages to Fortune tells a sodden fishing story; C.W. Smith’s The Vestal Virgin Room tells of an empty quest for fame; Rosemary Catacalos’ Again for the First Time is an outstanding collection of verse.

by James Whitaker

Popular Music

Cut From the Herd

“Herd It Through the Grapevine,” a new disc anthology, has the top of the pop crop.

by Jody Denberg

Classical Music

Opera For Beginners

The Public Opera of Dallas aimed its first season at opera greenhorns and scored two bull’s-eyes.

by W. L. Taitte

Reporter

Texas Monthly Reporter

A new Henry Lee Lucas mystery in Lubbock

by Joseph Nocera

Roar of the Crowd

Great café meals, dubious political deals, Luckenbach’s ideals.

Touts

It’s all here in black and white.

by Patricia Sharpe

Puzzle

State Secrets

Trauma for Texas hospitals; more trouble (what else?) for Clinton Manges; why Doggett should win—but probably won’t; and real deals in Houston.

Edited by Paul Burka