The fastest road in America does not cross the Mojave Desert or the big sky country of Montana. Instead, it cuts through an unexceptional stretch of farmland southeast of Austin, where the posted speed limit on Texas Highway 130 jumps to 85 miles per hour. The so-called Texas Autobahn
I promise driving a truck won’t help you create any ties to your new state’s rural roots, but spending one day on a city street, sharing it with trucks like mine, may help you understand that practicality doesn’t have much to do with being a Texan at all.
When I was a teenager growing up in Wichita Falls, which is regularly hailed as one of the hottest cities in the state (and sometimes the country), I spent my summers smelling like roadkill. The moment I stepped outside my house, sweat began sliding like syrup down my back.
The story of Texas can be reduced to one sentence: somebody has something somebody else wants and will put up a fight to get.In the beginning, these fights were over land. The Spanish explorers came here in the 1500’s; ignoring native peoples, they claimed a vast region that included
An ode to the national sport of Texas.
Born and bred in Houston, the 33-year-old tour de force is the world’s greatest performer—and arguably its most famous Texan.
True Texans stock up with more than Topo Chico and Big Red.
All hail these golden spheres of goodness.
The art of cooking it just right.
Texans LOVE their tacos. Versatile, portable, and quick to wolf down, tacos are made with either corn or flour tortillas. In their different styles, you can trace more than half a century of Texas’s Mexican-food history.
Saturday morning—yes, Saturday morning—is meant for feasting on brisket and sausage at Snow’s, in Lexington.
“Are you Meerkatting or can we speak IRL?”
Every day more than a thousand people move to the Lone Star State. Lucky enough to be a new arrival? This crash course will get you thinking, eating, and talking like a native in no time. (Lucky enough to already be a native? You’ll be reminded of all the reasons to gloat.)
Bartenders, pedicabbers, signmakers, buskers, Lyft drivers, caterers, soundboard operators, and other working-class types find themselves on the receiving end of some SXSW-affiliated largesse, too.
Roll over, Jake Owen, and tell Brett Eldredge the news: Maddie & Tae are fed up with Nashville’s “bro country” formula.
A novice Austin jewelry maker catches Anthropologie’s eye.
Returning to El Paso and finding that you can’t go home again. Or maybe you can.
In an era of drought, tight finances, and a shrinking water park market, how does Schlitterbahn keep getting bigger?
A fond rememberance of Kent Finlay, the founder of Cheatham Street Warehouse and the “Godfather of Texas songwriters.”
Some crazy stuff went down last month. Here are a handful of headlines you may have missed.
What to hear, read, and watch this month to achieve maximum Texas cultural literacy.
“Pistol carrying is now so prevalent here as to be a first-class nuisance. The young men, white and black, hardly consider themselves in party attire unless they have on a pistol.”—Brenham Weekly Banner, May 27, 1886
A headline in the February 19 edition of the Waller County Times Tribune announced, “Hitch up your bitches and jingle those spurs, its trail ride season.”
iZombie rises from the dead.
Our estimable advice columnist on pathological liars, missing knives, the difference between a Texan and a New Yorker turned Floridian turned Montanan, and why tequila is not—hic!—a vegetable.
Ben Dorcy, who turns 90 next month, has been a roadie since 1950, and in that time has worked with Willie, Waylon, Johnny and June Carter Cash, Jerry Jeff, Randy Rogers, Jack Ingram, . . . well, you get the idea.
Dumpster Professor, you win again. We’re writing about you.
Growing up in the Permian Basin, I thought I had a sense of what it was like working the oilfields. Turns out I didn’t know a damn thing.
Austinite Rebecca Gray has big plans to open the first cafe in the state where humans and felines can peacefully coexist.
See a live version of “Copper Canteen,” a song off of James McMurtry’s latest album, filmed and recorded in Los Angeles last fall.
Considering the pet obituary.
Readers respond to the February 2015 issue.
When the owners of Jumpolin in East Austin went to bed on Wednesday night, they were the proprietors of a piñata shop. When they woke up on Thursday, they had a pile of rubble. But exactly what happened is still a matter of debate.
Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, and their near-identical path to Oscar glory.
Congratulations to new ag commission Sid Miller.
A memorable evening with James and Curtis McMurtry, the son and grandson of Texas’s most-beloved living author.
Crossing the Rio Grande in one’s undergarments.
The Flower Man House, RIP.
What to hear, read, watch, and attend this month to achieve maximum Texas cultural literacy.
Some crazy stuff went down last month. Here are a handful of headlines you may have missed.
Festival managing director Roland Swenson reflects on a difficult year.
Last summer, Theresa Roemer’s three-story closet made her the country’s most famous social climber. But she was only getting started.
Twenty-year-old Hayden Pedigo is making the most innovative, audacious music in the country. So why is he still in Amarillo?
In this exclusive excerpt from Barefoot Dogs, a fiction debut by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, a woman fleeing terror in Mexico City finds escape in an Austin laundromat.
The secret history of cotton, the crop that transformed the global economy—and kept Texans in poverty for generations.
Keeping movable type alive in the age of laser printers.
Our estimable advice columnist on Texas brag, the limits of speed limits, the intoxicating appeal of his alma mater, and just who, exactly, was going to Luckenbach, Texas, with Waylon and Willie.
Last week, Doritos revealed that their gigantic vending machine-shaped stage would not be returning to Austin this March. Neither will iTunes, Chevy, or Subway. What does that mean for SXSW?
The competition at the Big Bend Livestock Show is fierce. But treat your animal right and you might get to be number four with a pullet.
The most effective weapon of the Texas Revolution, even if it couldn’t save the mission’s defenders.
