June—People, Places, Events, Attractions06.02.2005As the REPUBLIC OF TEXAS BIKER RALLY gets under way for the eleventh year June 2–5, Austinites prepare once again for the low, eardrum-piercing rumble that thunders throughout the city like a doomsday alarm. Some 40,000 leather-clad, bandanna-armored easy riders will be contributing to the Doppler effect
He asked me if I was going to be white my whole life. I was, of course. But because of our friendship, I’m no longer the clueless upper-middle-class kid I once was.
Art, History, and Cooking 101—when it comes to a lesson in Hispanic culture, San Antonio gets an A+.
Recipe from Chef Nick Badovinus, Hibiscus, Dallas
Writer-at-large Don Graham on Mary Karr’s recently reissued book The Liars’ Club and confessional memoirs.
Fredrik Brodén, who took the photograph for Gary Cartwright and Dan Jenkins’s e-mail exchange, on inspiration and visualizing a concept.
A review of American Western Cooking From the Roaring Fork .
These fresh female faces know how to send a hit to the top of the charts.
Your not-so-secret identity.
Here’s singing for you, kid.
On both of its albums, The Mars Volta—El Paso natives and former At the Drive-In bandmates Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala—has trod the well-worn path of concept albums and rock opera. But if you’re picturing sequined capes and rotating stages, think again. In Frances the Mute (GSL), the pair
Just fourteen days after the December 26 tsunami struck South Asia, a gargantuan benefit concert was staged in Austin. Its headliner, Willie Nelson, was among those instrumental in pulling the event together so quickly, so it’s no surprise that Willie’s label has also moved at light speed to release a
Most writers strive to pare their work down to the bare essentials, to speak with a voice both clear and concise. Spoon has the same approach to its music. Rarely has a group been so devoid of superfluous licks. For its fifth album, Gimme Fiction (Merge), the Austin band
Chasing the Rodeo (Harcourt) is Austin journalist W. K. Stratton’s personal assay of the rodeo arts and the sport’s colorful history and personalities, from western star Tom Mix to legendary bucking-bronco rider Jackson Sundown. It’s also an ode to Cowboy Don, Stratton’s absentee father, who spent much of his life
Cheers to Dallasite Harry Hunsicker for giving us Hank (né Lee Henry) Oswald, a most welcome and worthy heir to the legacy of wisecracking private eyes like Robert Parker’s Spenser and Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole. It’s unfortunate (but entertaining) that Oswald spends much of Still River (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Minotaur)
With his historical novel The Diezmo (Houghton Mifflin), Rick Bass graphically conveys the intense sights, sounds, and emotions of the ill-fated Mier expedition through the person of James Alexander, his fictional narrator. Sixteen-year-old James seeks glory when he rides out of La Grange with a Texas militia seeking unspecified
Hot ShotsGive these splashy spring cocktails a spin.Why not observe the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo by brushing up on your tequila basics at these tastings and dinners?In Austin, Santa Rita Tex Mex Cantina hosts Tequila Tuesdays the first Tuesday of each month from 6 to 8. On May
I don’t know about you, but when I see the word “hibiscus,” I automatically think, “Any of various chiefly tropical shrubs or trees … having large, showy . . . flowers.” How that delicate floral image got attached to a decidedly Texan, though slickly sophisticated, restaurant in a hot Dallas
May—People, Places, Events, Attractions05.2005Coast into summer with a warm-up trip to the Texas beach: Our 367 miles of shore offer hundreds of sandy little oases, and along with fishing and birding, there are oceans of inexpensive activities at various state parks. On May 1, 8, and 15, play sea-creature roulette
“Nobody doing what I’m doing is important anymore. Not in the way Winchell, Kilgallen, Hedda, and Louella were important.”
“Kinky, your absence is going to be more devastating than Dan Rather’s leaving the ‘sunken anchor’ biz. Please rethink your aspirations!”
There was something irresistibly romantic about the gutter punk’s description of stowing away in freight cars. No wonder I wanted to try it—even if, at 38, I probably should have thought to myself, “You’re too old for this.”
Sneeze play.
No one thinks the Democrats have a chance of winning the 2006 governor’s race. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t write them off.
The awful truth about The Liars’ Club.
Duking it out, after more than fifty years of friendship, over Ann Coulter, Terri Schiavo, the appeal of golf, and, inevitably, the decline of the Cowboys.
Once upon a time I thought it was cool to question God’s existence. Not anymore.
The future is hers to see.
My short, unhappy life as a romance novelist.
No one in McAllen saw Irene Garza leave Sacred Heart that night in 1960. The next morning, her car was still parked down the street from the church. She never came home.
Photographer Dan Winters on red Saabs, old pickups, and Thomas Haden Church.
If you ever plan to motor West, in West Texas that is, there’s only one highway that’s the best.
The oldest drive in Texas didn’t have any tolls, passing lanes, or shoulders. In fact it wasn’t much of a road at all. The Chisholm and Goodnight-Loving trails were the superhighways of the legendary nineteenth century cattle industry—the pinnacle of a true Texas drive.
Former Texas Monthly senior editor Robert Draper on writing about his high school nemesis, Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of homeland security.
After just one visit, I fell in love with Wimberley. No wonder—the Hill Country hamlet is full of antiques stores, good food, and art studios.
A review of The Low-Fat, Low-Carb Southwest Cookbook.
Subtitled Charles Bukowski and a Ballad for Gone America, HOTWALKER (HighTone), from El Paso singer-songwriter TOM RUSSELL, is not an album of songs but rather an ambitious, historical audio collage of music and spoken word that pines for the heady days of Jack Kerouac, Dave Van Ronk, Woody Guthrie, Lenny
THE COMPLETE MERCURY RECORDINGS (Hip-O), from DOUG SAHM AND THE SIR DOUGLAS QUINTET, is a five-CD godsend that rescues many long-out-of-print albums and rarities from obscurity. Recorded just after Sahm’s initial Texas success, when he bolted for the more hospitable San Francisco, the six albums and one EP in this
Two talented guys, Will Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg, meet in Austin when Meiburg joins Sheff’s band, OKKERVIL RIVER. To display Meiburg’s songwriting talents, they form a second group, Shearwater. Now both top the list of the city’s best young bands. But while Shearwater, with Meiburg’s crystalline vocals, sounds dynamic and
“We ate our way through the Eisenhower recession, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam,” and a smorgasbord of other tragedies, says New York Post gossip maven LIZ SMITH of her ready-for-prime- rib social circle in DISHING (Simon & Schuster). This sassy memoir-with-occasional-recipe is the Fort Worth native’s lip-smacking tribute to her
Thirteen-year-old Jasira’s sexual explorations are the truest gauge of her emotional state in ALICIA ERIAN’S brassy novel TOWELHEAD (Simon & Schuster). She is variously transported when she discovers the Big O, confused and hurt by a predatory neighbor, and finally satisfied by her first real boyfriend in this no-holds-barred fiction
Texas-raised MITCH CULLIN has taken a lion-in-winter approach to the Sherlock Holmes myth, portraying the legendary sleuth as a beekeeping retiree drifting into the mists of forgetfulness on his Sussex Downs estate in A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). And he’s done so in an elegantly entertaining
“I knew immediately that they’d be serving ice water in hell about the same time I’d be cast in [Sideways].”
The Panhandle DA known statewide for his zeal in busting drug dealers and abusers turns out to have been an addict. Prosecutor, heal thyself.
The Sipping NewsGive these splashy spring cocktails a spin.THE KISSDragonfly, Hotel ZaZa, Dallas Layers are fashionable in cocktails too. 2 ounces Stolichnaya Razberi vodka 1 ounce fresh lemon juice 1 ounce simple syrup (2 parts sugar briefly boiled in 1 part water and then cooled) 1 ounce Chambord
Is the Texan who oversaw Abu Ghraib a hero, a villain, or both?
Yes, I am one of those parents, the sort who takes his perfectly contented ten-year-old out of a relaxed neighborhood softball league and propels her into the hypercompetitive world of youth tournament sports. But you know what? It’s what Maisie wanted.
Everyone expected Clark Kent Ervin to parlay his loyal Bush Republicanism into big things in Washington. Which is why his sudden exit from the Department of Homeland Security was so surprising.
Why Texas could lose the biotech revolution—and end up, once again, an economic also-ran.
Bluebonnet burglars, beware?
