September 1997 Issue

On the Cover

The Texas Twenty

They worked hard, overcame obstacles, bucked conventional wisdom, and touched our lives. Meet the most impressive, intriguing, and influential Texans of 1997.

Columns


No Show

Cash-poor PBS stations can’t seem to come up with innovative new ideas, so they ought to resurrect an innovative old one: Newsroom, the best local public- affairs program in Texas history.

Kinky Friedman and Willie Nelson.

My Willie

Willie Nelson and I have been friends for years, so why did I decide only now to make him a character in one of my mystery novels? The plot thickens.

Reporter


Barbara Barrie

I enrolled at the University of Texas in 1950 during a post-war period that produced many talented individuals. Harvey Schmidt, Tom Jones, Liz Smith, Robert Benton, Pat Hingle, Word Baker, Kathryn Grant (later Mrs. Bing Crosby), and I all graduated with degrees in drama. We did lots of dance concerts

Elka

Like sadistic teenagers who introduce fire ants into an otherwise docile ant farm, the producers of MTV’s voyeuristic soap opera The Real World make casting decisions based not on avoiding conflict but on encouraging it. This season’s stereotypes are a jock, a poet, a comely lesbian, a city girl, a

Power Surge

The biggest economic news in Texas is the merging of the electric and natural-gas utility industries in anticipation of the coming deregulation of electricity. Huge deals are in the works: Houston Industries, the parent of Houston Lighting and Power, is acquiring Houston-based NorAm, the nation’s third-largest gas utility; and Texas

Yule Love It

The holiday season comes early for Asleep at the Wheel, who’ve just wrapped Merry Texas Christmas, Y’all (High Street/Windham Hill Records) at Austin’s Bismeaux studios. Highlights include Tish Hinojosa singing “Feliz Navidad” and Willie Nelson and Don Walser on “Silent Night.” Too homey for you? Wheel front man Ray Benson’s

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDsRunning on equal parts inspiration and gumption, Austin’s Damnations are the alternative to alternative country, going way back for tunes like “Copper Kettle,” forward for a romp through Lucinda Williams’ “Happy Woman Blues,” and their own way with impressively traditional-progressive originals. The mostly acoustic Live Set (Damnations), pressed in

Web


Moose Cafe’s Cedar-Plank Shrimp

Scalloped Tarragon Potatoes1 pound red potatoes, skins on, sliced very thin 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons minced garlic 1 tablespoon fresh chopped tarragon Salt and white pepper to tasteToss all ingredients together. On a lightly greased sheet pan arrange potatoes in a spiral form, overlapping each slice, to make

Miscellany


What a Drag

Celebrity portraiture often requires that the subject be ready for anything. An imaginative photographer like Houston’s Pam Francis will conjure up unusual settings and costumes to best evoke her subject’s true nature, as when she lured oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt and his German shepherd to the roof of a building

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