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May 2012

  • Features

    • Film

      Lights, Camera, Carthage!

      By

      Nearly fifteen years after Richard Linklater and I started talking about turning a TEXAS MONTHLY story into a major motion picture, it’s finally hitting the big screen, with a little help from Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine—and a seventy-year-old retired hairdresser from Rusk named Kay Baby Epperson.

    • Feature

      Downward Dog

      By

      Over the past fifteen years, John Friend turned his Woodlands–based Anusara style of yoga into an internationally popular brand. Then, in the space of a few weeks, it became hopelessly twisted amid a wild series of accusations of sexual and financial improprieties.

    • Feature

      Hog Hunting With Marcus Luttrell

      By

      The author of Lone Survivor still has his gun at the ready.

    • Feature

      Ben Fountain Undoes Dallas

      By

      The acclaimed 
author is publishing his first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. And some of his neighbors may not be happy.

    • Books

      The One-Question 
Interview With 
Steve Coll

      By

      The author of Private Empire: ExxonMobile and American Power answers the question: In terms of difficulty, how would you compare reporting on Exxon with the reporting you did for your previous book, The Bin Ladens?

    • Books

      Debating Robert Caro

      By and

      The fourth volume of an epic LBJ biography stirs more controversy.

    • Feature

      Dan Rather Pop Quiz!

      By

      Six interesting facts about the retired CBS news anchorman found in his new book, Rather Outspoken.

    • Politics

      Truth or Consequences

      By

      In 2004 Dan Rather tarnished his career forever with a much-criticized report on George W. Bush’s National Guard service. Eight years later, the story behind the story can finally be told: what CBS’s top-ranking newsman did, what the president of the United States didn’t do, and how some feuding Texas pols got the whole ball rolling.

    • Feature

      The One-Question 
Interview 
With Douglas 
Brinkley

      By

      The author of Cronkite answers the question: What’s the most surprising thing you learned about Walter Cronkite?

    • Feature

      Reading Along With 
James Donovan

      By

      The latest Alamo 
chronicler offers a glimpse of his reference library.

    • Feature

      In Praise of Sissy Spacek

      By

      Why doesn’t Texas’s greatest movie actress get the respect she deserves?

    • Feature

      The Writes of Spring

      By

      Robert Caro on LBJ. Marcus Luttrell on war. Douglas Brinkley on Walter Cronkite. James Donovan on the Alamo. Steve Coll on ExxonMobil. Ben Fountain on a surreal Dallas Cowboys halftime show. Dan Rather and Sissy Spacek on themselves. For some reason, May has turned out to be a month like no other for Texas-related books. Here’s our handy guide.

  • Columns

    • The Texanist

      texanist dancing

      Offering Fine Advice Since 2007

      By

      Boot-scooting in the right direction, leaving New York, wondering about the yardman, and trying out the cowgirl look when you’re no longer 25.

    • Behind the Lines

      Buyer Beware

      By

      Dear Jim Crane, new owner of the Houston Astros: Please don’t screw things up as badly as the last guy did.

    • Prudence Mackintosh

      Dear Jane

      By

      My mother-in-law knew how to sew, keep an immaculate house, and dress stylishly. In short, she was nothing like the unpolished young woman who married her son. Perhaps that’s why we loved each other so much.

    • Academia

      The Most Trusted Freshman in America

      By

      Long before Walter Cronkite was the voice of the news, he was just a kid from Houston at the University of Texas, chasing girls, acting in school plays, and drinking cheap beer. Yet Douglas Brinkley, whose new biography of Cronkite will be released this month, argues that it was in Austin that the seeds of one of the greatest careers in American journalism were sown.

  • Reporter

    • Artist Interview

      Norah Jones

      By

      On her new album, Little Broken Hearts, and more.

    • The Horse's Mouth

      Being a River Walk Tour Guide

      By

      Elizabeth Taylor on being a River Walk tour guide.

    • Hollywood, TX

      A Killer Role

      By

      In Killer Joe, Matthew McConaughey keeps his shirt on. For a while.

    • Street Smarts

      Grapevine

      By

      1. 
Grapevine Vintage Railroad Nestled among the shops and restaurants along Main Street are several landmarks, including an eight-by-ten-foot 1909 calaboose and the 1888 Cotton Belt Depot, which houses the Grapevine Historical Museum. From there you can board Victorian-style passenger cars pulled by a 1953 diesel named Vinny for a ride to the Fort Worth …

    • State of the Art

      Tejano Monument, Austin

      By

      The figures in the Tejano Monument, a 275-ton granite-and-bronze statue unveiled on the Capitol grounds in late March, depict the forging of modern Texas. A Spanish explorer gazes over a new world, his clothing and sword placing him in the early 1500’s, when Alonso Álvarez de Pineda became the first person to map the Texas …

    • Music Review

      The Grifter’s Hymnal

      By

      A new album by Ray Wylie Hubbard.

    • Music Review

      Nootropics

      By

      A new album by Lower Dens.

    • Working Life

      Bill Collings, Luthier

      By

      Collings makes some of the best acoustic guitars in the world and counts Lyle Lovett, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, and Joni Mitchell among his customers. His company, located outside Austin on U.S. 290, is famed not only for the high quality of its instruments but also for its refusal to make bargain versions, the way …

    • Object Lesson

      Ted Nugent’s Truck

      By

      The musician shows us some of his gear.

    • Book Review

      Exxposé

      By

      What lies beneath the hood of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company?

  • Web

  • Miscellany

    • Roar of the Crowd

      Roar of the Crowd

      By

      “I commend Paul Burka for bravely identifying who is ultimately responsible for the sorry state of Texas public school financing: the Texas electorate.”

    • Contributors

      Contributors

      By

      Joe Hagan, Mimi Swartz, and Paul Knight.

    • Editor's Letter

      Primal Screen

      By

      Here is a partial list of the nice people Skip Hollandsworth has written about since he joined the magazine as a staff writer in 1989: Charles Albright, a serial killer in Dallas who removed his victims’ eyes; Marie Robards, a Fort Worth teenager who killed her father by poisoning his refried beans; Andrea Yates, the …