October 2006 Issue

On the Cover

Take a Hike

Travel by foot along these thirty carefully chosen routes—from the South Rim in Big Bend to Lost Maples near Vanderpool—and you’ll take in the sights, sounds, and smells of Texas in ways you never thought possible. Lace up your boots and go.

Features


Free Richard Lafuente!

They say he ran over Eddie Peltier with his El Camino on a North Dakota Indian reservation in 1983. He says he didn’t do it, and the evidence is overwhelmingly on his side—yet the Plainview native has languished in federal prison for twenty years. It’s long past time for justice

Feature

Dell Freezes Over

It’s not just the stock price. It’s not just the executive exodus. It’s not just the flaming laptops. It’s not just the lousy customer service. It’s not just the sagging employee morale. It’s all of these things—and it’s deadly serious. Inside the sudden decline of the world’s most powerful computer

Great Guns

In my 86 years I’ve come into the possession of an assortment of firearms: a Colt .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol that my grandfather bought at a hardware store in Cuero; a Remington Model 870 pump, 20-gauge shotgun that my Aggie uncle-by-marriage used to shoot birds; the Winchester Model 06 pump .22

Feature

Amazing Graciela

The stark beauty and powerful emotion of her photographs are undeniable. An excerpt from a new book celebrating the life and work of Mexico’s incomparable Graciela Iturbide.

Columns


Patricia Kilday Hart

Why Juan Can’t Read

In 2006 Texas schools still can’t teach English to Spanish-speaking students. Here’s what we should do about that—now.

All Shook Up

Independent candidates for governor won’t win this year, but they’ve certainly upended the established order. Democrats and Republicans, you have only yourselves to blame.

Reporter


Book Review

Goodnight, Texas

The citizens of WILLIAM J. COBB’s GOODNIGHT, TEXAS know hard times have reached their Gulf fishing town. The rising sea is flooding homes. Shrimp boats return to port empty; their owners give up and leave them docked. A humongous stuffed zebra fish with a horse in its mouth, newly

Book Review

The Road

First there were explosions, then the world seemed to be on fire, and now there is just the man and the boy hiding in a sheltered wood—father and son, left to travel alone after the boy’s mother opened her wrists in despair. Such is the face of America’s destiny in

Author Interview

Mark Zupan

The Oscar-nominated documentary Murderball introduced audiences to this world-class athlete and his sport: quad rugby, played in wheelchairs at a headlong pace. Gimp: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold—or You Can Play (with co-writer Tim Swanson) is a warts-and-all memoir, from the accident that left him

James Baker

“You know, talking to people is not appeasement if you know what you’re doing and you’re a good, hard-nosed negotiator. There ought to be nothing wrong with diplomacy.”

Artist Interview

Dewey Redman(1931-2006)

I MET DEWEY REDMAN in Fort Worth on a gray day in 2000. He was cleaning out the home of his recently deceased mother, and he welcomed our interview as an excuse for a much-needed break. The iconic saxophonist, who passed away on September 2 at age 75, talked engagingly

Music Review

Meadow

His air is somber, his words obtuse, and his arrangements formless, yet there’s something irresistible about the nomadic malcontent RICHARD BUCKNER. Buckner sings as though he’s trying to explain something to you without being overheard; his focus is laserlike. He’s no slave to structure either: His songs, like him, make

Music Review

Texas Thunder Soul

High school band albums, which proliferate in every community that has a music program, are usually so tedious that even the parents who buy them can’t bear to listen. On awful recordings packed with bad tunings and missed cues, the student musicians muddle through some stock big-band arrangement about as

Music Review

Sound Grammar

Living in an age where the “genius” label is as common as pocket change leaves a breathtakingly original artist like Fort Worth’s ORNETTE COLEMAN out in the critical cold. Coleman calls his music—marked by brittle melody, propulsive rhythms, and a lack of sonic density—“harmolodics,” a term that doesn’t convey much

Web


Web Exclusive

Set Him Free

Senior editor Michael Hall on talking to Richard LaFuente, who some believe was wrongly convicted of murder in 1986.

Pat's Pick

Urban Bistro

TALK ABOUT YOUR FIFTEEN minutes of fame. Dallas chef and restaurateur Avner Samuel has certainly had his: Avner’s on McKinney, Yellow, Okeanos, Bistro A, Bistro K, not to mention stints at the Mansion on Turtle Creek and the Pyramid Room, back when those behemoths were forces to be reckoned with.

Recipe

Pan Fried Stuffed Eggplant Pancake

With Jonah Crab on French Green Lentils and Serrano Ham. Recipe from Urban Bistro, Dallas2 pieces of sliced eggplant 1/2-inch thick 2 ounces olive oil salt and pepper 3 ounces French green lentils 2 cups water 4 ounces Jonah crab 1 teaspoon chopped fresh herbs 1 tablespoon flour

Books That Cook

Books That Cook

Stop and Smell the Rosemary, by the Junior League of Houston, is the sort of cookbook that takes cooking from a chore to an artful experience. The winner of eight national cookbook awards, Stop and Smell the Rosemary includes myriad color photographs and is designed with a tactful charm that

Texas Tidbits

Head Coach

Kristy Curry has the eyes of the Lady Raider Nation upon her.

Miscellany


Editor's Letter

Dear John

HE DESCRIBED HIS LETTER to me as “an inquiry from the fringe of things,” a turn of phrase every bit as elegant as I would have expected from its author. He informed me that, at 86, he didn’t write much anymore, at least not for public consumption, but that as

Roar of the Crowd

Crime, Seen

I WAS MESMERIZED by “96 Minutes” [August 2006]. My husband, Jim, was one of the people who offered his deer rifle to an officer, on the second story of the University United Methodist Church. He ran across the Drag, went into the building, and found the officer

Around the State

Around the State

Art Museum Of South Texas Corpus ChristiLET’S BE BRUTALLY HONEST: Corpus Christi’s art scene flies well below the radar, if it leaves the ground at all. Cutting-edge installations or high-profile exhibitions? Any self-respecting art snob knows to go to Houston or Dallas or Fort Worth or San Antonio. Marfa attracts

Explore the Archive

See all issues
Magazine Latest