The Ultimate Hill Country Tour

Spend a long weekend this spring meandering through Texas’ fabled heartland, where you can stop and smell the wildflowers, taste country cooking, and take home a trunkful of fine antiques.

by Joe Nick Patoski

The High Times of Gerry Goldstein

Texas’ top drug lawyer helps dope dealers and cocaine kingpins beat their raps—and he’s proud of it.

by Mimi Swartz

Buckle Up

The rodeo belt buckle is prized by cowboys and collectors alike. By the look of these handcrafted samples, it’s easy to see why.

by Anne Dingus

Interview With The Vamp

After twenty years as the reigning queen of the soaps, the essential truth about Morgan Fairchild remains: She’s not a bitch, but she plays one on TV.

by Skip Hollandsworth

Wafer Madness

Inside a state-of-the-art semiconductor factory, a day’s work is never done, as technicians race to build smaller, faster, and more-powerful computer chips.

by Helen Thorpe

Life After Oil

Midland’s energy companies are still laying people off a decade after the bottom of the bust. But—surprise—the city’s economy is booming again.

by Paul Burka

Art

Not a Pretty Picture

Dallas and Houston have done it; Beaumont and Corpus Christi have too. So why hasn’t Austin built a respectable art museum? It comes down to three things: money, management, and mission.

by Geoffrey Leavenworth

Behind the Lines

The Fourth Tramp

A new book about Lee Harvey Oswald reveals that conspiracy theorists are still straining to repackage old news into something new.

by Gregory Curtis

Film

Cool Hand Lukas

Austinite Lukas Haas is back on the big screen alongside Winona Ryder, Julia Roberts, and Jack Nicholson. For now, though, he isn’t letting Hollywood go to his head.

by Spike Gillespie

Music

The Cult of Keen

It took two decades of shows at honky-tonks filled with frat-boy fans and Aggie admirers, but singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen has his first major-label record deal.

by Jan Reid

Travel

Habeas Corpus

The rap on Corpus Christi is that there’s no there there—but a case can be made that it’s a great weekend destination.

by Joe Nick Patoski

Reporter

The Far Right Stuff

Wyatt Roberts says he’s simply crusading against sin, but critics contend that the Christian activist is trying to usher in a new era in Texas: the anti-gay nineties.

by Helen Thorpe

Reporter

War, Inc.

Brown and Root goes to Bosnia for the Pentagon—and cleans up.

by Robert Bryce

Reporter

After Thoughts

The big-screen bungling of Rosellen Brown’s Before and After.

by Anne Dingus

Reporter

Fed Up

We take aim at five Texas militias.

by Andrew Goldman

Going To Press

Wild About Harry

by Anne Dingus

High Tex

Death and Texas

by Josh Daniel

The Ex Files

Don Baylor

by Glenn Otis Brown

Face

Renée Zellweger

by Jason Cohen

Low Talk

A Winters Tale

Edgar and Johnny Winter sing the blues over a comic book.

Edited by Evan Smith

Hot Box

CD and Book Reviews

The Inside Story

The Buckle Stops Here

by Anne Dingus

Roar of the Crowd

Goat or Hero?

How clueless is Congressman Steve Stockman? Plus: Life, death, and race in East Texas.

State Secrets

Right On

Primary color: Dole on a roll, a report card for the Religious Right, and other fallout from Election Day.

by Paul Burka

Fresh Beet, Radicchio, and Goat Cheese Salad

State Fare

Tired of plain old greens and lifeless veggies? Houston’s La Mora has a salad you just can’t beet.

by Patricia Sharpe