What was it, exactly, that caused Vickie Dawn Jackson, a sweet, soft-spoken nurse at Nocona General Hospital, to become one of the most prolific serial killers in Texas history?
Five of the best museums in the state have cafes designed to tempt the most refined tastes and sophisticated palates. A few have masterpieces on the menu; others are works in progress.
The eightieth session began with a Speaker’s race, ended with a Speaker’s race, and was consumed in between by the usual mix of nuanced issues and nasty politics. Along the way, a handful of lawmakers put the common good ahead of all else. And a handful of lawmakers didn’t.
After James and Linda Rowe were killed in a grisly refinery explosion in Texas City in 2005, their wild-child daughter could have taken a modest settlement and started to rebuild her life in a small Louisiana border town. Instead, she chose to fight—and brought a multibillion-dollar oil company to its
From the moment Voxtrot first put its driving Europop on the Internet, the Austin band—and its frontman—became a sensation. After a series of EPs, the group has finally, five years after forming, released its first full-length album, Voxtrot (PlayLouder).The band started as a hobby, something for you to do when
DENOMINATION Presbyterian PASTOR The Reverend Karl Travis ADDRESS 1000 Penn PHONE 817-335-1231 ON THE INTERNET fpcfw.org MAIN SERVICE Sundays at 8:15, 9:00, and 10:55 A.M. Where have all the young folks gone? And if they haven’t left, how can the churches hold on to them?
For Austin chanteuse Kelly Willis, it’s been five years and three children since she last released a solo album. Trading Dobros for diapers didn’t dull her instincts; Willis’ sump- tuous voice retains a hunger that elevates even the most pedestrian works. And she has certainly encountered her share of
Warming up to the new breed of “freak folk” takes practice. Spearheaded by the likes of Will Oldham and Houston-born Devendra Banhart, the movement—made up of young acoustic artists—is inward-focused, solipsistic, and unabashedly psychedelic; you’d have to go back to old Donovan records to find a historical antecedent. (Played “Hurdy
If you’re one of the suits in the music biz, you’re telling the members of Austin’s Spoon, reigning kings of the indie rock world, that it’s time to reach for the fabled brass ring of pop stardom. You know, the big radio hit. Crossover. Platinum city. But if the
In Pepperfish Keys, the fourth in Austinite Darryl Wimberley’s mystery series, Detective Barrett “Bear” Raines—a black cop on Florida’s racially charged Redneck Riviera—struggles to tell the good guys from the bad. Is Senator Baxter Stanton the people’s servant or a sleazebag who bribed his way out of a
Belying its subtitle, Joe M. O’Connell’s fiction debut, Evacuation Plan: A Novel From The Hospice, has surprisingly little to say about death. Not that anyone at this unnamed Austin hospice cheats the grim reaper. But these dozen stories and character studies offer scant insight into the ritual of
Marsha Moyer’s whip-smart storytelling elevates the amiable chick lit of her third Lucy Hatch book, Heartbreak Town, well above the genre. When we last saw Lucy, she and singer-songwriter husband Ash had moved to Nashville to work his label deal. But when record sales sag, Ash escapes into
In the sixties, at London’s Ealing Art College, a student named Pete Townshend was introduced by his Alabama-born classmate, Tom Wright, to both mind-altering substances and American rhythm and blues. Townshend went on to lead the Who, while Wright became a photographer, road manager—and sometimes Texas resident. Roadwork: Rock &
1. Your quest for inimitable footwear begins with the leather, so first give thought to your stomping grounds (cattle pen or cubicle?) and your image (rhinestone cowboy ?). Your basic, most traditional option is calfskin. Need extra-tough work boots? Elephant, shark, or bull offers durability. Dress boots? Go with lizard,
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston curator of contemporary art talks about this month’s new exhibit, “Red Hot: Asian Art From the Chaney Family Collection.”
Tell the boss you’re not feeling so well. The state’s most famous indie movie theater, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, is kicking off its third national Rolling Roadshow Tour—a series of gratis 35mm screenings of famous movies in the locations where they were filmed—and now’s the time to play that
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston curator of contemporary art talks about this month’s new exhibit, Red Hot: Asian Art From the Chaney Family Collection.
Trader Vic’sDallas Imagine King Tut’s tomb, but with tikis. After nearly twenty years in mothballs, the Dallas edition of the glamour bar of the Rat Pack era—Trader Vic’s—has been brought back to life. Miracle of miracles, the South Seas paraphernalia that filled the space did not turn to dust
Special privileges are bestowed upon the regulars of Rather Sweet Bakery and Café, in Fredericksburg: If someone is short on cash, he is welcome to simply tape the bill onto the refrigerator and pay later; other customers feel so at home that they place some of their own items in
Has it come to this?Is it no longer enough for a restaurant to have a talented chef, an enticing menu, and a mod space in the theater district? Must there also be some gimmick with the name? Please, no. Surely the in crowd hasn’t taken to sniffing, “Well, we
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but the worm finally turned sometime in the past year or two on the question of whether a magazine can survive without a Web site. For a while, I suppose, you didn’t necessarily need one, though we’ve been online in some form
Evan Smith is the cofounder of the Texas Tribune, a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, and the former editor in chief and president of Texas Monthly.
Your May story on Lisa Nowak and NASA was disappointing to say the least, not only because you linked her lurid story to an otherwise august organization but mostly because of the assumptive errors made by S. C. Gwynne [“Lust in Space”]. Here are a few: You write, “For more
