King Vidor
What Galveston native filmed the black and white scenes in The Wizard of Oz?
Anne Dingus was born and raised in Pampa and attended Rice University. After graduating in 1975, she worked as a journalist at NASA and in the oil industry. In 1978 she joined the staff of Texas Monthly, first as a fact-checker and then as a writer. She wrote on a variety of topics, particularly history, popular culture, and humor. Her 1994 article “More Texas Sayings Than You Can Shake a Stick At,” which contained 662 Texas rural expressions, was by far her most popular article and quickly became a book. Dingus left the magazine in 2005 after more than twenty years on staff.
What Galveston native filmed the black and white scenes in The Wizard of Oz?
By Anne Dingus
Gardening won’t seem like such an innocent pastime after you read this first novel by Dallasite David Searcy, which gives the term “stalking” a nasty new horticultural slant. An elderly Walter Mitty- esque widower, afret over a gopher invasion that has threatened his pride-and-joy roses, orders some exotic flora guaranteed
By Anne Dingus
Executive editor Paul Burka and senior editor Anne Dingus tell the story behind January's cover story, "The 2001 Bum Steer Awards".
By Anne Dingus and Paul Burka
This is a genre-buster if ever there was one. Austin paleontologist Jon Kalb set out to chronicle his seven years of fossil hunting in Africa in the seventies, but the final product is far more than “science adventurism” (his term). The subtitle, though a bit daunting—The Race to Discover Human
By Anne Dingus
Kitschy calendars that say "Feliz Navidad."
By Anne Dingus
In one sense this earthy first novel by Austinite Christopher Cook is a feel-good book: Compared with the title characters, you can’t help but feel good about your own relatively decent self. In Robbers two aimless outlaws, Ray Bob and Eddie, hook up and, in a sort of quien-es-mas-macho contest,
By Anne Dingus
Whose picture did Sam Rayburn always hang in his office?
By Anne Dingus
Photographer Kurt Markus spent years tracking down modern working cowboys for his new book, ‘Cowpuncher.’ He corralled the genuine article at several Texas spreads.
By Anne Dingus
Anne Dingus has a few bones to pick with the modern mystery novel, which she says has been decomposing in recent years. Stepping up to defend the genre: none other than Texas’ queen of murder and mayhem, Mary Willis Walker.
By Anne Dingus
Senior editor Anne Dingus lists her ten favorite whodunits.
By Anne Dingus
What was the real name of the dog that portrayed Old Yeller?
By Anne Dingus
Want to get up close and personal with kudus and kangaroos, tigers and toucans, okapi and orangutans? We're especially fauna these zoos, the ten best in the state.
Nacogdoches boy Joe R. Lansdale is a veteran purveyor of horror and crime fiction, much of it pulpy at best. Still, all that writing has paid off in his latest novel, The Bottoms, which lands firmly in the mainstream-fiction category. Relax, phobe-o-philes—he still delivers a full dose of fear, East
By Anne Dingus
If Waco’s zoo were a book of the Bible, it would be Revelation. The famously Baptist town is home to a large and handsome zoo, one that deserves the full name “zoological park.” Covering 52 acres along the Brazos River, the Cameron Park Zoo was relocated and renovated—transformed, really—in 1993,
By Anne Dingus
Victoria’s zoo includes only critters native to the state, many of them threatened or endangered. But the hundred or so different species represent a surprisingly diverse spectrum of the animal kingdom, and when I visited on a peaceful August weekday, the residents were all out and about, clearly enjoying the
By Anne Dingus
Since 1929 the San Antonio Zoo has charmed every Texan within a hundred-mile radius. To avoid the Saturday and Sunday throngs, try arriving first thing in the morning during the week before the school groups (and remember, there’s no law saying you have to take your own kids). The lack
By Anne Dingus
I nominate the Houston Zoo, the state’s most popular, for a most-improved award. In addition to the vast new children’s-zoo area, which opens this month, many new walkways and viewing platforms make it more appealing than ever. The zoo is 78 years old, and many of its exhibits were designed
By Anne Dingus
How many monkeys did Frank Buck capture?
By Anne Dingus
Kudus—I mean kudos—to the landscapers and horticulturists at the El Paso Zoo. Their careful plantings, which manage to block sun but not wind, helped make a midsummer visit almost cool. Still, baking visitors gratefully entered the indoor displays: In the nocturnal exhibit, my friend Isela gazed for a long time
By Anne Dingus
The fledgling Austin Zoo is basically a big, no-frills barnyard full of exotic jungle beasts as well as miscellaneous domestic breeds. Situated on the city’s southwestern edge, it started out in 1992 as a petting zoo for small fry and has since expanded to include 106 species, from Shetland ponies
By Anne Dingus
Texas novels come in all stripes, but leave it to veteran writer Robert Flynn of San Antonio to introduce the species of the tiger tale to this neck of the woods. Collaborating with the late Dan Klepper, Flynn has released The Devils Tiger, a wild story about a Russian veterinarian
By Anne Dingus
Man of the centuries.
By Anne Dingus
Which professional sport did Charley Pride play?
By Anne Dingus
A Tony guy.
By Anne Dingus
Set largely during the reign of King Tutankhamen, this treasure-filled mystery will have other writers regretfully murmuring, “Tut, tut.” The third novel by Austin’s Carol Thurston, it brims with mummies, gods, and pharaohs, providing a mega-fix for Egyptophiles and a great read for everyone else. The Eye of Horus begins
By Anne Dingus
How much money has the Brown Foundation given away since 1951?
By Anne Dingus
If time, money, or other constraints prevent you from answering the call of the open road this summer, you can still take a long trip—at least vicariously—with Larry McMurtry. Roads, his latest effort, is a look at America’s highways, and in a way, a larger-scale version of In a Narrow
By Anne Dingus
In what movie was Ginger Rogers first paired with Fred Astaire?
By Anne Dingus
I think, therefore iamb: My personal tour of the history of bad Texas poetry, from best to versed, prose to cons.
By Anne Dingus
What is the one movie that Dennis and Randy Quaid appeared in together?
By Anne Dingus
Some authors dream up bizarre murders and other aberrations to thicken their plots. World of Pies proves that even the simplest of stories can leave readers fully satisfied. The first novel by Austinite Karen Stolz, World of Pies is about coming of age in a small Texas town—specifically
By Anne Dingus
Who was Stevie Ray Vaughan's musical role model?
By Anne Dingus
HI, SAYLOR Austin’s grisly past.IN AUSTIN IN 1885 the talk of the town was the series of unsolved ax murders of eight people — most of them maids or young mothers — by unknown fiends who were dubbed the Servant Girl Annihilators. Today Steven Saylor’s fictional take on the crimes
By Anne Dingus
From the fabulous, furry Gilbert Shelton to the hypercaffeinated Shannon Wheeler, these celebrated Texas cartoonists will surely draw you in.
By Anne Dingus
What chewable confection did Santa Anna help invent?
By Anne Dingus
books by Christopher Reich and Jay Brandon
By Anne Dingus
Cuff links? A commemorative plate? For Alamo hobbyists like me, rule number one is, Never surrender or retreat from the chance to snag a few iconic tchotchkes.
By Anne Dingus
In this quaintly addictive tale, the house of the title is a sort of anti-bordello for women, where the male residents provide lovelorn ladies not with sex but with solace, sweetness, and romance. The adroitness with which Kathy Hepinstall carries off this surreal premise is all the more impressive given
By Anne Dingus
Which Oscar-winner did Alvin Ailey act alongside in the play Call Me by My Rightful Name ?
By Anne Dingus
Gypsy Songman (Woodford Press) is the 57-year odyssey of Ronald Clyde Crosby from Oneonta, New York, to Austin, Texas, with whistle-stops for rowdy intoxication, music-making, and, ultimately, sobriety and happiness. You might know him as Jerry Jeff Walker. Précis: He lived it up, he’s living it down. by Mike Shea
By Anne Dingus
Tyler Beard is Texas’—and thus the world’s—top authority on Western wear, and his latest tome is this kicky compendium on the sole of the American West. The author, who lives on a ranch near Goldthwaite, tracks the history of the cowboy boot, tips his hat to 28 custom bootmakers around
By Anne Dingus
Various specimens of that celebrated species, the Texas woman, captured on film by photographer Annie Leibovitz, who used to be one herself.
By Anne Dingus
How much did baby shoes cost in Texas in December 1899?
By Anne Dingus
DURING THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES, emotional issues abounded—civil rights, the Vietnam War, women’s liberation. But what outraged social activist Mickey Leland the most was hunger, and the fact that it existed in his own Houston neighborhood. Early on, Leland’s passion for helping the common people catapulted him into the spotlight.
By Anne Dingus
For an outing that’ll make you go stark graving mad, visit Texas’ peaceful old cemeteries—and experience the esprit de corpse.
By Anne Dingus
The University of Texas Tower figured in which movies?
By Anne Dingus
Why was Eric Dickerson nicknamed Mr. Benny?
By Anne Dingus
Children’s writes.
By Anne Dingus
Artist of the portrait.
By Anne Dingus
On which two sitcoms did Sharon Tate have a guest-starring role?
By Anne Dingus