Texas Monthly articles from June 2008

Texas Monthly archives from June 2008

Compound fracture: I had sympathy for the Eldorado polygamists when their claims of religious persecution by the state seemed plausible. But the disturbing allegations of sexual abuse of underage girls changed my mind completely.(Behind the Lines)
June 1, 2008... I felt bad, at first, for the polygamists when the gun-toting state troopers and other law enforcement personnel busted into their Yearning for Zion compound, outside Eldorado, in early April. I felt bad when the officers tried using a "jaws of...

Kidding around.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... Your piece on the 68 awesome things to do with your kids was terrific but incomplete when it came to family-friendly train rides ["Child's Play," April 2008]. You missed the Austin Steam Train, which runs vintage trains every weekend on a...

In the line of fire.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... I would like to thank you for what appears to be a fair and balanced article on the Branch Davidian standoff ["The Fire That Time," April 2008]. My primary reason for writing is to clarify a statement by ATF special agent Chuck Hustmyre. I will...

Cane and able.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... Jan Reid should be the poster boy for all those who have an obstacle to overcome ["Citizen Cane," April 2008]. What an inspiration to those of us who toil with the minor hurdles of everyday life. Kenny Allen DEVINE

Masters of the universe.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... A hundred years ago, ether was proposed as the way light passed through space. It could be neither seen nor felt but had to be the densest material in the universe. Now we witness whimsical thinking sweeping the physics world once more ["The...

'Roid rage.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... I have no more idea of Roger Clemens's guilt or innocence than anyone else does, but I do know that Gary Cartwright needs to do a little more research ["Truth and Consequences," April 2008]. To compare his cortisone nasal spray to anabolic...

Stick it, scalper.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... I was somewhat taken aback by confessed former ticket scalper Jason Cohen in his story "Ticket to Ride" [Reporter, The Cheap Seats, April 2008]. Mr. Cohen states that he doesn't understand the animosity toward scalpers, comparing them to...

Spin city.(Roar of the Crowd)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... Your article "Fed Up," concerning the FBI investigation in El Paso, contains an inaccurate reference and quotation [Behind the Lines, April 2008]. In the article you quote the retiring county commissioner as having described to the incoming...

It's Pat.(Editor's Letter)(Editorial)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With all due respect to the assembled face-wipers on page 6, the brains, not to mention the gullet and the stomach, behind our latest list of the best barbecue joints in Texas is executive editor Pat Sharpe. Who else...

In the Chute by Jordan Breal: 6/7 McNay Art Museum 6/29 Impressionist Art in Fort Worth ongoing Shangri La Botanical Gardens.(Reporter)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] A Modern Addition SAN ANTONIO'S McNay Art Museum has had some work done. Again. Like a plastic surgery addict, the state's first official home for modern art is set to reveal yet another upgrade. But unlike the...

Writing a poem.(The Horse's Mouth: EVERYTHING I COULD EVER TELL YOU ABOUT ...)
June 1, 2008... NAME: A. Van Jordan AGE: 43 HOME: Austin QUALIFICATIONS: Has written three volumes of poetry, Rise (2001), MACNOLIA (2004), and Quantum Lyrics (2007) / Received the coveted Whiting Writers' Award, in 2004 / Teaches in the English department...

Empty netter: a fond farewell to my beloved Austin Ice Bats.(The Cheap Seats)
June 1, 2008... Back when all I cared about was rock and roll, my weekly forays to the record store inevitably meant buying twelve-inch British singles for the B -sides and hand-numbered indie 45's. Then I became obsessed with hockey. Ever the obscurist, my...

Tom "Spanky" Assiter, 50 Auctioneer.(The Working Life: STORIES FROM THE 9 TO 5)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When I was growing up, in Floydada, my mom and dad used to square-dance in the gymnasium of the junior high school, and I went along since we didn't have money for babysitters. And there was a fifties country song by...

So lawn, farewell: how I Xeriscaped my yard.(Green Guinea Pig: CAN JIM ATKINSON MAKE A DIFFERENCE?)
June 1, 2008... It was a shiny, blue-sky kind of spring day, and I'd decided to go for a jog. My mood was like the weather, buoyant and breezy. But as I trotted down Beverly Drive in Highland Park, my thoughts suddenly turned dark. It was Friday, and that...

The Texanist: Offering fine advice since 2007.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Q: Can one have too many Texas tattoos? By Texas tattoo I mean Texas-themed--for instance, a design with half the Texas flag incorporated, the outline of Texas with my Greek letters inside of it, and my newest, a...

Colorado calendar of events.(Brief article)(Calendar)
June 1, 2008... JUNE 2008 June 5-8 Teva Mountain Games Vail tevamountaingames.com June 5-8 32nd Telluride Jazz Celebration telluridejazz.org June 12-15 Annual Rocky Mountain Ford Mustang Roundup Steamboat Springs...

Frozen asset: HBO's comic take on Texas big rich is great fun. Too bad you may never get to see it.(Hollywood, TX: CRISTOPHER KELLY ON OUR STATE OF ENTERTAINMENT)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's a daffy soap opera on a Texas scale worthy of a daffy soap opera on a Texas scale. In 2006 HBO ordered a pilot of an hour-long comedy called 12 Miles of Bad Road, created by Harry Thomason and Linda...

Real Animal.(Chelsea Hotel '78)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Can the ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO who couched his earlier songs in a fog of romantic imagery be the same one spelling things out on the autobiographical REAL ANIMAL (Back Porch/Manhattan)? The San Antonio-born singer, an...

Sonidos Gold.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As big years go, GRUPO FANTASMA has had one of the biggest: Austin's eleven-piece combo played festivals across the country, appeared on national TV, and even struck up an alliance with Prince. Now comes a fourth CD,...

Beautiful World.(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Her lilting voice is a half whisper, her words evocative. At the top of her game, Austinite ELIZA GILKYSON adds to her remarkable string of successes with BEAUTIFUL WORLD (Red House). Musically, Gilkyson is expanding...

Frankie Miller.(Interview)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... The Victoria-born country star, now 77, had a stellar career in the fifties and sixties that is all but forgotten. His emergence from retirement, along with the newly released deluxe box set Blackland Farmer: The Complete Starday Recordings,...

How Perfect Is That.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HOW PERFECT IS THAT marks SARAH BIRD'S return to the madcap plotting that was her stylistic calling card in late-eighties novels like The Boyfriend School It's an entertaining flashback, but why now? The TEXAS...

Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] San Antonio-born journalist MARIE BRENNER borrowed her memoir's title, APPLES AND ORANGES: MY BROTHER AND ME, LOST AND FOUND, from the childhood nickname given to her and her older brother, Carl, with whom she was...

The Franchise Babe.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As the father of the golf novel (exhibit A: Dead Solid Perfect, circa 1974), Fort Worth's DAN JENKINS holds license in perpetuity to exercise the genre's cliches, which he does with relish in THE FRANCHISE BABE....

Sam Gosling.(Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You)(Interview)
June 1, 2008... A decade of research by this University of Texas at Austin psychology prof has led to new ways of understanding the relationship between individuals and the spaces they inhabit, as he now reveals with Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You. ...

Downtown Galveston: a vibrant mix of past and present.(Street Smarts: A QUICKIE GUIDE TO ...)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1 Due in part to a mandate that requires homeowners to renovate instead of rebuild, Galveston harbors the most spectacular collection of historic Victorian buildings in Texas. For a sampling, start at the...

Twin wells: chapter six: the escape.(Texquisite Corpse: A STORY IN TWELVE PARTS AND TWELVE VOICES)(Excerpt)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Baldwin washed his chocolate gravy down with tepid Diet Coke. The sugar combined with the remnants of last night's alcohol and made his head ring. Belly sat at a small, round table in the center of the room. She...

Herb Kelleher.(Texas Monthly Talks: EVAN SMITH SITS DOWN WITH ...)
June 1, 2008... The Austin American-Statesman editorialized that the two FAA inspectors who were whistle-blowers in the safety controversy involving Southwest planes should be celebrated as heroes for putting their careers at risk. Do you agree? I'll tell...

End of the road: after twenty years of political dominance by a certain father-and-son team, Texas is finally ready to move on.(identity politics)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Texans, if you'll look in your rearview mirrors, that's Bush Country rapidly receding behind us. We've dwelled there securely, at times smugly, for the past twenty years, during all but two of which someone named...

The kitchen is closed: my friend Pete Dominguez used to own some of the hottest restaurants in Dallas, where celebrities and their entourages feasted on Tex-Mex. Now he's alone, broke, and nearly forgotten.
June 1, 2008... Pete Dominguez eases his rattletrap Chevy Malibu into the driveway of the old house in Wills Point. "Here we are," he says cheerfully. "Home." The house was a showplace when he bought it, in 1970, but now it's literally falling apart--paint is...

BBQ 08: our quintessential, quinquennial review of the fifty best barbecue joints in Texas, with special attention paid to the top five (one of which you've probably never heard of), the cherished components of the classic barbecue meal, and the pits in which our meats are smoked, seared, or (Lord help us!) gassed.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] "YOU'LL BE EATING IN YOUR CAR MOST OF THE TIME." The younger writers looked alarmed. Eating in your car? The speaker, senior editor Mike Hall, was addressing the eighteen writers, editors, and fact-checkers who had...

The risk premium.(Company overview)
June 1, 2008... RUSSELL SPELL THOUGHT HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING INTO WHEN HE SIGNED ON WITH A HOUSTON COMPANY TO BUILD A PIPELINE IN NIGERIA, WHERE CORRUPTION AND VIOLENCE ARE COMMONPLACE AND THE SAFETY OF WORKERS CANNOT BE GUARANTEED. BUT HE NEVER IMAGINED...

The man who wasn't there: I never really knew my father, who died when I was four, but I'd always heard he was a prominent businessman and a loyal and loving husband--the kind of person, my cousin often told me, who could have been president. When I finally found out the truth about him, I came to love him for who he really was.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is a Father's Day STORY. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT IS NOT A STORY about the good times my father and I shared while I was growing up in Galveston, or the times that we went fishing together, or attended...

Desperate housewives: tree things were a given in Austin's high society in 2003: Marriages were on the rocks, pills were taken straight up, and ties to the Bush White House were the most intoxicating drug of all. An exclusive excerpt from Sarah Bird's new novel, How Perfect Is That.(Excerpt)
June 1, 2008... AH, PEMBERTON HEIGHTS, the creamy-white filling squirting out of Austin's exclusive Tarrytown Twinkle. * The image calms my jittery nerves as I pilot the Kia Sedona minivan that has replaced my beloved, yet sadly repoed, Escalade toward the...

Dough pizzeria Napoletana: San Antonio.(PAT'S PICK)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHEN YOU DINE OUT FOR a living, you can get a bad "been there, ate that" attitude. While other people are e-mailing each other like crazy over their latest find, you're hitting the "delete" key as fast as possible....

Villa O: Dallas.(NEW + NOTEWORTHY)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Despite the landlubber connotations of the word "villa," the theme here is nautical, with yachtlike details, including varnished mahogany and crisp navy and white accents. (That "O" does some heavy lifting, standing for "organic," "original,"...

Trattoria Lisina: Driftwood.(NEW + NOTEWORTHY)(Restaurant review)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The forty-minute drive from Austin is definitely p art of the appeal; so is eating in the midst of restaurateur Damian Mandola's baby vineyards. This Hill Country trattoria is new but studiously rustic (and sometimes...

The filter: dining.(Directory)
June 1, 2008... POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS The Filter: Dining is a service to our readers. The magazine accepts no advertising or other consideration in exchange for a listing. Reviews are written by resident critics in the cities that we list and are...

This year's model: fruit of your loins didn't turn out the way you intended? Time to get your own personal Mini-Me.(purchasing management)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] American commerce is generally so good at matching product to aspirations. The happy car consumer, to name one fine example, can usually calibrate his message down to the subtlest nuance. You want to tell the world...