May 2010
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Features
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Go With the Flow
Throw a canoe on the roof or a tube in the trunk and head for the Llano, the Brazos, the Pecos, the Trinity, the Guadalupe, or any of the other rivers on this list of the twenty best trips to take on Texas waterways this summer.
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ANSWER KEY
1. b 2. d 3. b 4. d 5. b 6. d 7. b 8. a 9. b 10. b.
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Mr. Bridge
He’s the greatest player in the world—maybe the greatest player ever— of a card game that fewer and fewer people know how to play. But Bob Hamman doesn’t care. He’s too busy probing my mind.
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Last Days of the Comanches
In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, Empire of the Summer Moon, special correspondent S. C. Gwynne re-creates in thrilling detail the bloody 1871 battle that marked the beginning of the end for the most fearsome tribe to ever ride the plains and its mysterious, magnificent chief, Quanah Parker.
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Weird Science
As the peculiar case of a Fort Bend sheriff’s deputy and his bloodhounds makes clear, the techniques of crime-scene investigation are not as infallible as the TV shows would have us believe. How a misplaced faith in some forensic experts is putting innocent people behind bars.
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Columns
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Alamo Heights
One year into his first term as mayor of San Antonio, Julián Castro is emerging as perhaps the most prominent young Hispanic politician in Texas. Get ready to get used to him.
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The Great Pretender
The strange case of Mauricio Celis, the Corpus Christi lawyer who was not a lawyer.
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Enroncore!
The debut of Enron, the play, on Broadway might be the perfect time to settle a question that’s been bothering Houston: Does Jeff Skilling need a new trial?
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Offering fine advice since 2007
Dance hall guilt, faded accents, SUVs with “Truck” plates, and the ancient initiation ceremony at which a young Texan male is presented with his first firearm.
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Reporter
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Carrie Rodriguez
The Austin-born, Oberlin-trained musician—and daughter of the hard-living Texas songwriter-activist David Rodriguez—at one time aspired to be a great fiddler. Then she went on tour with Chip Taylor (who wrote “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning”) and, under his wing, blossomed into a singer and a songwriter. The pair recorded three studio albums; Rodriguez …
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Country Music
On paper, the pairing of WILLIE NELSON and producer T Bone Burnett seems like a potential train wreck. Though both can get amazing results, their working methods couldn’t be more different. Burnett’s a painstaking micromanager, while Willie’s the master of the offhand; you won’t find him hanging around for multiple takes. Yet their collaboration, simply …
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Americano
San Antonio’s KRAYOLAS arrived on the scene with matching suits and catchy Kinks-like material that already seemed retro in the new-wave eighties era. After some regional success, they hung it up, and that would have been that, had not an effort to preserve their original master tapes led to a reunion two decades down the …
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Court Yard Hounds
Divide and conquer? That was the hope of Dixie Chick siblings Martie Maguire and Emily Robison when singer Natalie Maines’s extended hiatus made the prospect of the band’s relaunch an if-and-when proposition. Itching to make another record—Emily’s divorce from country singer Charlie Robison left her with plenty of song material—the sisters stepped into the spotlight …
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Anna Mitchael
Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am’s subtitle—How I Ditched the South for the Big City, Forgot My Manners, and Managed to Survive My Twenties With (Most of) My Dignity Still Intact—might be unwieldy, but it provides a handy précis of this colorful memoir about the not-always-glamorous adventures of a young advertising copywriter braving the urban wilds …
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The Marrowbone Marble Company
Loyal Ledford of Huntington, West Virginia, is the unassuming central figure of THE MARROWBONE MARBLE COMPANY, the lyrical second novel from Texas State grad GLENN TAYLOR, whose debut, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. Ledford’s world is shaped by three pivotal events: He is orphaned …
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The Cardturner
LOUIS SACHAR’S young-adult novel Holes spent more than 175 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, which sets a daunting commercial benchmark for the Austin author’s new effort, THE CARDTURNER. In a move that should deflate retailers’ expectations, Sachar has written a teen book about that most complex and ritualized card game: bridge. His …
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The Comeback Kid
Three cheers for Woody Harrelson’s return to form.
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East Main Street, Fredericksburg
Narrow your focus to these two blocks of the city’s famed shopping stretch.
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Kirk Franklin’s Carry-on Luggage
Gospel sensation Kirk Franklin doesn’t like to travel. He would much rather be at home in Arlington with his wife, Tammy, and their four children. But the seven-time Grammy Award winner, who has sold more than 12 million albums, will see his hectic schedule get even more so when he goes on tour to promote …
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How to Smoke the Perfect Brisket
Aaron Franklin on how to smoke the perfect brisket.
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Liliana Quevedo, Realtor
Quevedo grew up in Juárez and has been a realtor in El Paso for six years. She is an agent for One Realty El Paso.</em As a bilingual realtor in El Paso, with roots in Juárez, I have a lot of connections in Mexico. I got my license in 2004, just when the market was …
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Flying on the Space Shuttle
José Hernández on flying the space shuttle.
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Web
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Saving the Llano
What’s missing from all the bureaucratic back and forth over permits and mining and dredging is a sense of the importance of the river itself.
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Goodnight Moon
Forty years ago, the attention to space exploration was constant. And the faces of the exploration gave rise to a group of larger than life individuals—the astronauts.
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Mojo Glazed Salmon With Spanish Chorizo, Baby Spinach, and Toasted Pine Nuts
Recipe from Chef Jason Dady, Restaurant Insignia, San Antonio / Featured Chef at the 2010 New World Wine & Food Festival
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Spin Doctors
The Performance Rights Act has rocked the music industry.
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Milanesa Napolitana
Recipe from El Arbol, Austin
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Mystic Rivers
Where does the Pecos River originate? How long is the Devils River? What river in Texas is used to cool nuclear reactors? Everything you wanted to know about some of our state’s waterways.
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San Marcos River
Where people do crazy things in the jet stream.
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New and Noteworthy
Tost BistroBar, San Antonio and Sushi Raku, Houston
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El Arbol
Austin
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The Usual Suspects
Brent Coon’s back to take on BP.
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Miscellany
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Kicking the Bucket List
Well, you knew it would happen. You publish the bucket list of things that all Texans should do before they die and e-mail messages from surly Texans proclaiming notable omissions pile up in your inbox like empty beer cans at a tailgate party [“The Bucket List,” March 2010]. As a fifth-generation Texan, I could argue …
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Contributors
Kenny Braun, Jan Jarboe Russell, and Tyler Jacobson
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Yes We Canoe
I’ve been thinking about a spot on the Brazos about a day and half below the dam at Possum Kingdom Reservoir, where a long, humped island narrows to a spit of sand. A couple of years ago I found myself camped there with three friends. We’d been paddling all day, and after catching and eating …
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