» BREAKUP WATCH: Hurts to PurrAfter three years and the recent release of its eponymously titled full-length debut (self-released; available through cdbaby.com), this Austin band is calling it quits. It’s a shame, as these relative newcomers have made an album so confident and assuredly cool that it seems
For reluctant pianist RED GARLAND (he had really wanted to be a boxer), there was only one question: Was there life after Miles Davis? Garland, who was also leading his own sessions, had just finished four years in the mercurial trumpeter’s employ when he recorded his live At the Prelude.
I know what you’re thinking. You need a new WILLIE NELSON CD like Mack Brown needs a $400,000 raise. Well …… maybe. Don’t imagine another Red Headed Stranger, but YOU DON’T KNOW ME: THE SONGS OF CINDY WALKER (Lost Highway) does have a sound concept in mind. Though it seems
Austin director Margaret Brown, 34, has just seen her acclaimed film about legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt, Be Here to Love Me, released on DVD. Was there a specific moment that sold you on making this film? The music struck me first. When I first heard the song “Waiting Around
Coronary artery disease is an old and much-hated enemy of mine. The beast attacked me without warning in 1988 as I strolled with my Airedales along Austin’s Shoal Creek hike-and-bike trail. Last November—sacre bleu!—it got me again.
You don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got this swing.
My ambivalence about George W. Bush continues. And grows more pronounced.
DEMON THEORY, we’re told at the outset, is STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’s “three-part novelization” of a fictitious film trilogy, adapted from a best-seller “inspired by the case notes of Dr. Neider,” as originally published in the journal P/Q, as . . . well, you get the idea. The conceit is fairly
Everyday life is a complicated thing, and with his finely nuanced novel CHALLENGER PARK, Austinite (and Texas Monthly contributing editor) STEPHEN HARRIGAN makes it clear that the glamour boys and girls of NASA don’t handle the slings and arrows any better than the rest of us. Case in point: Lucy
Dallas’s CRISTINA HENRIQUEZ has assembled a heart-stopping collection of stories set in Panama in her first book, COME TOGETHER, FALL APART. She hints at the nation’s poverty—overcrowded homes, ramshackle furniture—but doesn’t dwell on it, instead finding rich narratives in mundane events. Take the poignant “Ashes,” in which young Mireya is
Ladies’ fashion is nothing if not a fantasy inside an illusion wrapped in a thong. Every season, there is a new “look,” a new “trend,” a new “paranoid schizophrenic thought disorder.” And then there are returns.
Jordan’s PickThe Blanton AustinIT’S REALLY GOING TO HAPPEN this time. On April 29 the Blanton Museum of Art at last unveils its new home, the Mari and James A. Michener Gallery, at the University of Texas. After nearly three decades of planning, a wealth of soap-opera moments, and some eleventh-hour
Besides working as a horse trainer, James Hand, from the tiny town of Tokio near Waco, has been haunting honky-tonks with his hard-won tales for more than thirty years. Suddenly, at 53, his on-and-off music career is decidedly on. The Truth Will Set You Free (Rounder), his first national release,
Since the punk era, rock music has been mostly attitude. But attitudes have shifted, the ambient electronics of DJ culture have seeped in, and the music now seems just as much about mood. Austin newcomers The Glass Family are a prime example. Sleep Inside This Wheel (i eat records, available
Rhett Miller’s innate talent and charisma have shone through the blazing cowpunk of the Old 97’s for more than a decade. His life seems a charmed one: He has kept his boyish good looks into his thirties; he’s married to a model. Clearly, it ain’t enough. The Dallas singer’s latest
Those who’ve witnessed faculty brats running amok on a small college campus will immediately recognize Houston memoirist Emily Fox Gordon and her preteen cohorts as they roam the grounds of fifties-era Williams College in Are You Happy? (A Childhood Remembered) (Riverhead), the follow-up to her well-reviewed debut, Mockingbird Years. Gordon
Before diving into the 43 poems of Sinners Welcome (HarperCollins), consider skipping straight to the back for poet/author Mary Karr’s sardonic essay on prayer and poetry. Agnostics, atheists, and skeptics will find her wise-ass insights a helpful lens through which to view the many forthrightly devout poems from this self-proclaimed
T Cooper strews ambiguity like clues at a crime scene throughout Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes (Dutton), a potent second novel. Was the author really born in the Texas Panhandle? Did Jewish refugee Esther Lipshitz really find her lost son’s body in a Central Park pond? What’s the relationship
Eastland is the perfect place for a day of leisurely sight-seeing and fact-finding.
In Texas, springtime equals blue—and lots of it.
The Lipan Apaches were a strong presence in Texas—until the Comanches arrived.
A review of Chili From the Southwest: Fixin’s, Flavors, and Folklore.
Photographer Thomas Dworzak talks about going to Iraq, spending a typical day with Captain Jonathan Moss, and photographing war.
Contributing photographer Peter Yang talks about Killeen, his first impression of Shoemaker High School, and the students who have lost a parent during wartime.
Senior editor Pamela Colloff on spending a day in Crawford and talking to war protesters.
Editorial director Christopher Keyes talks about this month’s special issue on the Iraq war.
Executive editor Mimi Swartz on talking to high schoolers in Killeen about losing a parent during wartime.
Executive editor Skip Hollandsworth talks about Master Sergeant James Coons and the soldier’s battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Will Iraq be the president’s legacy? A conversation with eminent historians H. W. Brands and Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Thousands of miles from my hometown of Castroville, I’m conducting incredibly dangerous house-to-house searches in Baghdad—and blogging about it when I get back to the base.
Recipe from La Mora’s.
A recipe from Bice, Houston.
Season’s Eatings— Timely treats for your culinary calendar.
Talk about international style. Those sleek cream-colored walls and sexy blond- and-auburn wood floors could be anywhere in the world: New York, London, Tokyo— all of which happen to be among the 26 cities that Bice has colonized since it was founded in Milan, in 1926. So, yes, this Houston
The weekend after Thanksgiving, demonstrators gathered in Crawford and made their feelings about the war quite clear.
Like Cindy Sheehan, Gary Qualls lost a son in Iraq. Unlike her, he doesn’t oppose the war.
With the military stretched thinner than ever, Staff Sergeant Christopher Schwope’s skill as an Army recruiter is undeniably important. And it’s a thing to behold.
A real-life G.I. Joe, Master Sergeant James Coons hardly seemed like a candidate for post-traumatic stress disorder. But when his demons got the best of him, there was nothing anyone could do—not that anyone really tried.
As a captain in the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion, all I think about is the future of Iraq. Here’s what my world looks like.
If the war is an unpleasant abstraction in the rest of the country, it’s omnipresent at Killeen Shoemaker, where many of the children of the enlisted men and women of Fort Hood are enrolled—and pray for peace every single day.
How Rick and Melissa Noriega served their country—and their constituents.
March—People, Places, Events, Attractions03.09.2006You have to wonder what’s most impressive about the 48-year-old World’s Largest Rattlesnake Round-up, in Sweetwater: the fact that a community of farmers and ranchers devised a way to turn all their diamondback-infested nooks and crannies into ripe hunting grounds, drawing crowds from as far as Australia
Mark Heisler and Steve Delsohn, who wrote Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography, talk about their book, Bob Knight, and basketball.
Senior editor Gary Cartwright on Austin and what he likes best about the liberal city he calls home.
Tommy Lee Jones is sought out for his ability to bring complexity to even the most standard role. Here are ten notable appearances onscreen.
Senior editor Patricia Sharpe on the state’s top restaurants.
Executive editor Skip Hollandsworth on his most difficult interview, actor Tommy Lee Jones
Salado is the perfect mix of shopping, culture, and fun.
Senior editor Pamela Colloff on researching a 45-year-old murder case, tracking down sources, and using a ghost story to show how the crime still haunts Odessa.
LBJ’s most important election wasn’t the presidential race he won. It was the Senate campaign he lost.
