Texas Monthly articles from May 2005

Texas Monthly archives from May 2005

Kay sera, sera: whatever she'll do, she'll do. In the meantime, here's what her "consultants" are telling her about the governor's race.(Behind the LINES)
May 1, 2005... TO: Senator Hutchison FROM: Your political consultancy RE: 2006 Republican primary Our firm is very excited about the prospect of representing you in your upcoming race for... well, to be perfectly frank, that's why we have taken...

Second opinions.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I was shocked by how my interview concerning the breakup of the Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine was portrayed in Ms. Mimi Swartz's article ["Till Death Do Us Part," March 2005]. The article takes events out of sequence and my...

Polls apart.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I wish to take issue with Jan Jarboe Russell's contention that Latinos are becoming more Republican based on their voting patterns in the 2004 presidential election ["Grand Opportunity Party," March 2005]. The National Election Poll (NEP)...

What's news?(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... Your editorial on blogs and the mainstream media omitted the most significant point: the issue of who determines what is and is not news [Behind the Lines: "That Blog Won't Hunt," March 2005]. It's like the old baseball story where the umpire...

Politically incorrect.(Roar of the CROWD)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I can't believe it! The Kinkster has given in to the seduction of politics ["Killing Me Softly," March 2005]. You know, to Texans, as well as your other faithful followers around this big balloon we live on, your absence is going to be more...

May: people, places, events, attractions.(May: PEOPLE, PLACES, EVENTS, ATTRACTIONS)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... 05.2005 Coast into summer with a warm-up trip to the Texas beach: Our 367 miles of shore offer hundreds of sandy little oases, and along with fishing and birding, there are oceans of inexpensive activities at various state parks. On May 1,...

Around the state.(Calendar)
May 1, 2005... WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBILITY KEY (W) The place is accessible to wheelchairs: The main entrance is at least 32 inches wide and there are no steps; restrooms, however, are not accessible. (W+) The place and its restrooms are accessible. ...

South Congress Avenue, Austin: where the Capital City's bohemian spirit still lives.(STREET SMARTS: A quickie guide to ...)
May 1, 2005... [1] With spring come fresh anchovies at VESPAIO, Austin's dimly lit Italian grotto. Try them in antipasti, on pizza napoletana, or pan-seared and served with apesto dipping sauce. Enhance your choice with a Provence rose, a chilled red...

West meets East.(COMING ATTRACTIONS: The month in Asian art.)(San Antonio Museum of Art)
May 1, 2005... The world's most exquisite Asian art is closer than you may think--a lot closer. Once the narrow domain of scholars, it is quickly piquing the interest of Texans across the state, and nowhere is that more evident than at the San Antonio Museum...

Cultural evolution: other opportunities to broaden your horizons.(COMING ATTRACTIONS: The month in Asian art.)("FROM GEISHA TO DIVA: THE KIMONOS OF ICHI" MARU")(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... You have through May 15 to check out "FROM GEISHA TO DIVA: THE KIMONOS OF ICHI" MARU" at the Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, in Dallas. It's a dazzling display of the clothing, furniture, and souvenirs of the popular...

Anchee Min.(COMING ATTRACTIONS: The month in Asian art.)(Chinese-born novelist )(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2005... China's last empress, Tzu Hsi, or Empress Orchid, rose from being a concubine in the Forbidden City to governing China in the late 1800's. On May 13 Chinese-born novelist Anchee Min, who details the sovereign's life in Empress Orchid, performs...

Strangers on a train: with a nineteen-year-old Houston street kid as my guide, I hopped freight cars, gave bulls the slip, and tasted freedom--for a day, anyway.(Texas Monthly Reporter)
May 1, 2005... As one might guess, there are simpler ways to hop a freight train than the way a gutter punk does. For instance, you could wait outside a rail yard for a train to stop, find an open boxcar, climb in, and remain inside until the train gets where...

Nothing to sneeze at.(MINISTER OF HEALTH: Jim Atkinson cures what ails us.)(allergies)
May 1, 2005... When I first wrote for this magazine about Texas's unofficial state disease--allergies--nearly a decade ago ("Blowin' in the Wind," April 1997), I was shocked by how little medical science had to offer our estimated 5.5 million sufferers. Even...

Gimme Fiction.(Sound Recording Review)
May 1, 2005... Most writers strive to pare their work down to the bare essentials, to speak with a voice both clear and concise. SPOON has the same approach to its music. Rarely has a group been so devoid of superfluous licks. For its fifth album, GIMME...

The Diezmo.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... With his historical novel THE DIEZMO (Houghton Mifflin), RICK BASS graphically conveys the intense sights, sounds, and emotions of the ill-fated Mier expedition through the person of James Alexander, his fictional narrator. Sixteen-year-old...

Songs for Tsunami Relief: Austin to South Asia.(Sound Recording Review)
May 1, 2005... Just fourteen days after the December 26 tsunami struck South Asia, a gargantuan benefit concert was staged in Austin. Its headliner, WILLIE NELSON, was among those instrumental in pulling the event together so quickly, so it's no surprise that...

Still River.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Cheers to Dallasite HARRY HUNSICKER for giving us Hank (ne Lee Henry) Oswald, a most welcome and worthy heir to the legacy of wisecracking private eyes like Robert Parker's Spenser and Robert Crais's Elvis Cole. It's unfortunate (but...

Frances the Mute.(Sound Recording Review)
May 1, 2005... On both of its albums, THE MARS VOLTA--El Paso natives and former At the Drive-In bandmates Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala--has trod the well-worn path of concept albums and rock opera. But if you're picturing sequined capes and...

Chasing the Rodeo.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... CHASING THE RODEO (Harcourt) is Austin journalist W. K. STRATTON's personal assay of the rodeo arts and the sport's colorful history and personalities, from western star Tom Mix to legendary bucking-bronco rider Jackson Sundown. It's also an...

Face lifting: how our legislators are tackling identity theft, one of the fastest-growing crimes in Texas.(FAQ: Christopher Keyes on the story behind the story)
May 1, 2005... What is identity theft, anyway? The act of an impostor stealing your Social Security, credit card, or driver's license number or any other key component of your personal information and using it to obtain credit or purchase goods under your...

Performing for kids.(THE HORSE'S MOUTH: Everything I could ever tell you about ...)(Interview)
May 1, 2005... NAME: Joe McDermott AGE: 45 HOME: Austin QUALIFICATIONS: Former rock musician and Montessori schoolteacher * Has performed at more than four hundred birthday parties and released four children's albums (his fifth, Anything Is Possible, is due...

Down but not out: the chance of a democratic upset in the 2006 governor's race is as likely as, well, Bill Clements winning in '78. Or Mark White winning in '82. Or Ann Richards winning in '90. Or ...
May 1, 2005... "But, Peter, how do we "Fly, of course.... It's easy.... All it takes is faith... and trust and a little bit of pixie dust. Now think of the happiest things. It's the Same as having wings." --From the Walt Disney film Peter Pan ...

Me and him: when I was in college, I thought it was cool to question the existence of a supreme being. But as I grow old, it seems to me that faith is almost irrepressible. Thank God for that.
May 1, 2005... When I was a little kid, I imagined that God looked like Dick Tracy, my favorite comic-strip character. I saw the Almighty in a snap-brim hat and trench coat, carrying a snub-nosed .38 that blasted large holes in evildoers with names like Prune...

Mary, quite contrary: when I first read 'The Liars' Club', I liked it and its potty-mouthed author (sort of). After slogging through the tenth-anniversary reissue, I wonder what I was thinking.(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... Americans want O.J., Scott Peterson, and Michael Jackson to confess, but they're not going to. What we're left with is people we wouldn't otherwise have heard of, confessing their guts out. They do it in the form of the confessional memoir, a...

Liz Smith: the 82-year-old syndicated newspaper columnist--and professional Texan--on politics versus gossip, the trouble with young Hollywood, and the one magazine that can make or break a star (nope, it's not Texas Monthly).(Texas Monthly Talks)
May 1, 2005... So here we are in a Mexican restaurant on the ground floor of your apartment building in New York. Do you think it's funny that I live over a Mexican restaurant called El Rio Grande? I think it's appropriate. But what I'm stuck on is...

Since she's been gone.(pop singer Kelly Clarkson)(Interview)(Cover Story)
May 1, 2005... Only three years ago Kelly Clarkson was working part-time for Red Bull, the energy-drink company, driving around in a little car that had an oversized Red Bull can attached to the top of it, passing out free drinks at places where young people...

In America: stories of struggle--and improbable success--from the colonias of South Texas.
May 1, 2005... ALONG THE TEXAS BORDER running between El Paso and Brownsville there are some 1,500 colonias: rural, unincorporated, and often poverty-stricken communities where immigrants have bought inexpensive lots and settled in for their first taste of...

Pug: I hadn't really thought much about race until he asked me a simple question: "damn, college boy, are you gonna be white your whole life?".(remembrance of broadening experience of working with African American Maurice Scott)
May 1, 2005... I'm not sure I have earliest recollection of Maurice Scott. We met in the late eighties, when I was a student at the University of Texas and working mornings at the state capitol. We were both sergeants-at-arms for the House of Representatives,...

Where we rank: first in executions, last in the percentage of low-income children with health insurance--that much we knew. But how Texas compares with the rest of the country in a whole host of other areas may suprise you. It sure surprised us.
May 1, 2005... This spring, Democratic state senator Eliot Shapleigh, of El Paso, distributed the second edition of "Texas on the Brink," a pamphlet detailing how the second-largest state compares with the other 49 in education, health, crime, and other...

"We are going to die in here.".(illegal immigrant's experience of people smuggling tragedy)(Excerpt)
May 1, 2005... Sometime after ten o'clock on the night of May 13, 2003, at least 74 illegal immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and the Dominican Republic crowded into the airtight container of an eighteen-wheeler in Harlingen, bound for Houston and a...

Old-timers' day: they've been friends--and friendly antagonists--going back to their time as Cowtown most colorful ink-stained wretches. Half a century later, Dan Jenkins (whose new novel, Slim and None, arrives in stores this month) and our own Gary Cartwright duke it out over Bill parcells, Ann Coulter, and that wealthy divorcee in the bar at the Colonial.
May 1, 2005... * March 20, 11:32 a.m. Yo, Danny, I have it on solid authority that the hero of your new novel, due to be published in May, is a foul-mouthed, whiskey-soaked, homophobic, rightwing crazy who makes his living as a touring golf...

Pat's pick: hibiscus.(May: RESTAURANTS, CAFES, BISTROS, JOINTS)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... I don't know about you, but when I see the word "hibiscus, automatically think, "Any of various chiefly tropical shrubs or trees... having large, showy... flowers," How that delicate floral image got attached to a decidedly Texan, though...

The dining guide.(Restaurant Review)
May 1, 2005... POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS The Dining Guide is a service to our readers. The magazine accepts no advertising or ether consideration in exchange for a listing. Reviews are written by resident critics in the cities that we list. The reviewers'...

Hot shots.(LIQUID ASSETS: These are a few of our favorite drinks.)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Why not observe th Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo by brushing up on your tequila basics at these tastings and dinners? In Austin, SANTA RITA TEX MEX CANTINA hosts Tequila Tuesday the first Tuesday of each month from 6 to 8. On May 3, a...

Passion victim: once upon a time I was a romance novelist--until I realized that writing about doing what comes naturally doesn't come naturally.
May 1, 2005... At times I've been invited to speak to aspiring writers about my "career path." This always Seemed on a par with asking Hannibal for tips on mountain travel. Yeah, he did cross the Alps, but, damn, it would have been a heck of a lot easier...