Feature
Lands That I Love
Our natural resources are under greater threat than ever before. Meet three very different people who are doing something to save Texas. Literally.
January 2010 Issue
Features
Feature
The Quaid Family Circus
Over the past two years, veteran actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi, have transformed themselves from a pair of artsy eccentrics into a tin-pot update of Bonnie and Clyde. Though the Houston native and his wife of twenty years haven’t engaged in any homicides or bank robberies, they
Post-Office
Has it only been one year since George W. Bush left the White House? A snapshot of the forty-third president and his inner circle at the height of their power.
Feature
Revenge of the Nerds
How did a small cadre of film geeks from Austin take an outsized role in determining what you see at the multiplex on Friday night? One dismembered body at a time.
Mother, Heal Thyself
Susan Hyde’s children were constantly in and out of the hospital with one illness or another. But were they the ones who were sick?
Columns
Behind the Lines
Home Front Lines
For too many veterans, the emotional scars of war go untreated. An innovative group of Harris County politicians, judges, attorneys, and health care workers—most of whom are veterans themselves—is aiming to fix that.
Pink camouflage, Floridian “friends,” a bedtime dilemma, and whether or not it’s acceptable to mock Chileans for their flag’s similarity to ours.
The Texanist dishes up a heaping helping of fine advice.
Ghost Writer
It took me half my life to figure out that most of what I thought I knew about J. Frank Dobie was wrong.
Mimi Swartz
What She Wore
On the day my mother died, I found myself in the place that, more than any other, had defined our relationship: her closet.
Reporter
How to Make Texas Caviar
On New Year’s Day superstitious Texans take out a symbolic insurance policy by helping themselves to a heap of black-eyed peas—a practice that, according to tradition, guarantees one lucky day for each pea consumed. No one knows for certain how this ritual started, but one theory is rooted in horticulture:
Object Lesson
Elizabeth Avellán’s Car
Elizabeth Avellán, the co-owner of Troublemaker Studios and the producer of Desperado, the Spy Kids series, Grindhouse, and the much-anticipated sci-fi action flick Predators, considers her job a mix of maternal instincts and business savvy. “I’m the one who tells people, ‘Yes, you can do that,’ or ‘No, we
Music Review
Transference
Since its inception in Austin, in 1993, Spoon has had a skyrocket trajectory with six terrific albums, each one topping the last. It’s been two and a half years since the hand-clap-and-horn-laden rock and soul of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga kicked the group even further up the national
Captain Michelle Racicot, Army Trauma Nurse
Racicot grew up in New Mexico, but San Antonio has been her home base since she was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in 1998. She plans to leave the Army next spring and get a graduate degree in nursing from the University of Texas at San Antonio.My mom was an
Music Review
Girl of the Century
There’s a cool charm to Girl of the Century (Bloodshot), the new collaboration between Austin “rockabilly filly” Rosie Flores and the Chicago-based Pine Valley Cosmonauts, that defies easy explanation. The Cosmonauts are a loose collective led by Welsh rocker Jon Langford (the Mekons, Waco Brothers), who is
Music Review
Rain On the City
It was 1992 when a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of events resulted in a masterpiece. Freedy Johnston, a musician from Kinsley, Kansas, arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, at the height of its fertile songwriter scene and, inspired, recruited a few peers and (literally) sold the farm to record and finance his
Artist Interview
Ray Wylie Hubbard
The Dallas-raised songwriter first made a name for himself by penning “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother,” which Jerry Jeff Walker recorded in 1973 on Viva Terlingua. But he then struggled with alcohol, drugs, and relative obscurity until the nineties, when his album Loco Gringo’s Lament (1994) launched a string
Book Review
The Ticking is the Bomb
Seasonal Texan Nick Flynn (he teaches one semester each year at the University of Houston) is haunted throughout The Ticking is the Bomb by the same ghosts and demons that inhabited his remarkable debut memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City : his mother’s suicide, his father’s alcoholism,
Book Review
Roses
Roses, a sleepy, weepy saga of love, war, and tragedy set in the fictional East Texas town of Howbutker, has all the ingredients to make San Antonio’s Leila Meacham a big seller indeed: feuding families, breathless liaisons, tainted inheritances, and a bit of dirty dealing. In her first
Author Interview
Steven Weinberg
The Nobel Prize—winning physicist’s second collection of essays, Lake Views, covers a range of topics, from religion and Armageddon to the “Future of Science, and the Universe.” A professor in the physics and astronomy departments at the University of Texas at Austin, he is widely published in the scientific
Web
Pirate Under Attack. Avast, Ye Swabs!
If Texas Tech fires Leach, there will be a mushroom cloud over Lubbock for thousands of miles and a likely revolt of Tech fans, alums, and former players.
Let the Games Begin
Amateur athletes from across the state will have a chance to dream big at the Winter Games of Texas.
Minimum Shrinkage
When my psychiatrist kept falling asleep on me, I knew it was time to look elsewhere.
Conversation with a Texas Tea Party Patriot—My Dad
About halfway between our cities of residence, Houston and Austin respectively, my dad and I meet in a little restaurant named Schobels. They mostly serve chicken-fried items and other southern dishes. The waitresses, high school girls who wear too much makeup and never seem to remember the beer selection, call
Web Exclusive
Toy Story
From a Magic Garden crystal kit to a plastic replica of R2D2, the diverse offerings at three toy stores in Austin are right on—for any age.
The Filter: Dining
New and Noteworthy
Restaurant Insignia, San Antonio and Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, Dallas
Miscellany
Editor's Letter
Funny Cha-cha
Not a funny year. The meltdown kept melting down, the collapsing markets kept collapsing, and the downsizing economy kept downsizing. Texas fared better than most states (see “California, disaster in”), but we weren’t immune. In October, the number of unemployed Texans topped one million. In November, the comptroller’s office
Roar of the Crowd
Eternal Flame
What a well-done and moving story on this tenth anniversary of the Bonfire collapse [“Ring of Fire,” November 2009]. Flying at 37,000 feet on my way to New York, I cried like a baby as I read the story. Flashbacks to ’72 and ’73, when I was a medic
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