January 1987

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Features

1987 Bum Steer Awards

A year of anguished Arabs, bigshot bankrupts, crazy cookbooks, despoiled dinosaurs, exhibitionist editors, foiled fugitives, greens-eating graduates, half-cocked hashish, in flagrante inmates, jolly jailers, kinky kilocycles, late lobsters, moistened mayors, and northbound Nicaraguans.

Between a Hard Rock and a Place

The world’s hottest restaurant chain turns into Texas’ hottest restaurant feud.

by Joe Nick Patoski

Total Hit

One morning last August, a San Antonio patrolman told his superior officer that his best friend was a killer cop. By that afternoon, the killer cop was dead, the patrolman was claiming self-defense, and a city infamous for strange killings was in the midst of one of the strangest of all.

by Gary Cartwright

The Coronary Bypass

In Texas, survivors of this life-and-death operation wear their scars like medals of honor.

by Stephen Harrigan

No Promises

I arrived in Houston at the height of the boom, and left just as the bust began. Along the way I learned what it means to grow up.

by Mimi Swartz

The National Tour of Texas

I’ve long dreamed of driving every highway in Texas. This year I’m doing it—all 32,000 miles worth.

by Dick J. Reavis

Columns

Food

The Left Side of the Menu

Admit it. The first courses always seem more interesting than the entrées. Why not make a meal of them?

by Alison Cook

Behind the Lines

The law that changed nothing.

by Gregory Curtis

Books

Science Marches On

UT historian William Goetzmann traces America’s belief in endless possibilities to the boundless curiosity of its earliest explorers.

by Paul Andrew Hutton

Shopping

You May Not Need It, But You Gotta Have It

Arresta is a toy store for grown-ups, where every item is selected to seduce the slavishly stylish.

by Mimi Swartz

Religion

What’s the Sound of One Texan Meditating?

John Toler switched from advertising to Zen, Emerson to Buddha, and Lubbock to the Land of the Lotus.

by William Martin

Movies

The Three Sisters

Crimes of the Heart is a warm spill of sunshine, but Betty Blues is a mindless lump of misery and ¡Three Amigos! isn’t friendly at all.

by James Wolcott

Classical Music

Enter, With Trumpets

A series of world premieres commissioned by the Houston Symphony Orchestra has brought a dash of fanfare to Jones Hall.

by W. L. Taitte

Art

Art of the People

An innovative folk art exhibition at the San Antonio Museum of Art affirms the irrepressible spirit of the Mexican people.

by Michael Ennis

Reporter

Texas Monthly Reporter

The citizens of Muleshoe lose their only hospital, thanks to a California chain; the citizens of Houston learn the value of caution, thanks to a local developer; the citizens of the world get a chance to improve their potency, thanks to the Aggies.

by Peter Elkind