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Let the River Run
The Blanco River winds 87 miles through green hills and dramatic, rocky bluffs. It is dammed in more than ninety places, and a quirk in state law has ceded ownership of most of the riverbed to private...
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Frame by Frame
“You’re the one that makes the beautiful movies.”That’s what Abraham Zapruder’s assistant, Lillian Rogers, told him on the morning of November 22, 1963. It was meant as a gentle retort. Zapruder had...
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Low Stakes on the High Seas
Texas, since its very inception, has been peopled with chance-takers—trailblazers, frontiersmen, adventurers—for whom risking everything was as commonplace as the dirt upon which they ran their cattle...
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If you want to get a vocal response from readers, forget topics like politics or the Dallas Cowboys—that’s child’s play. All you have to do is put two words together: “beans” and “chili.” More to the...
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Blood and Sugar
Driving through Sugar Land, the suburb of 90,000 half an hour southwest of Houston, you can see the signs of growth everywhere. There’s the Smart Financial Centre, a $90 million, 6,400-seat concert...
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Denton A. Cooley, 1920-2016
During Denton Cooley’s funeral, in November, many of the people gathered at Trinity Episcopal Church were likely thinking how much better it would have been if he had been there. So many of his pals...
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Old News: An Illustrated Look at Curious Headlines From a Bygone Era
“A number of sombreros, smuggled over from Mexico, have been seized in San Antonio.” —Brenham Weekly Banner, November 14, 1879The post Old News: An Illustrated Look at Curious Headlines From a Bygone...
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Meanwhile, in Texas . . .
A Dallas man spread his friend’s ashes in the orchestra pit at the New York Metropolitan Opera, prompting an evacuation because police thought it may have been anthrax. Thieves broke into a trailer and...
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Why, That Son of a Steak!
On a cool morning in early October, a 2,400-pound black bull named Alpha struts around a pasture east of the Panhandle town of Canyon as if he’s royalty. His parentage, though, is a mystery. Alpha is...
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The Checklist
Art“James Drake: Anatomy of Drawing and Space (Brain Trash)” (El Paso Museum of Art, through January 8) A Lubbock native, Drake has spent the past forty or so years earning acclaim for his sculptures...
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A Fond Farewell
There has been no greater honor in my professional life than working at Texas Monthly. I started here as an intern in 1996 while pursuing a master’s degree in literature. I had never worked in...
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She’s the Sheriff
On November 8, Zena Stephens, the chief of police at Prairie View A&M University, was elected sheriff of Jefferson County, in Southeast Texas, making the 51-year-old Democrat the state’s first...
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Keith Kreeger Studios
In his East Austin studio, Keith Kreeger sets his three kilns to 2,400 degrees. Glazing inside are glossy black porcelain bowls and serving dishes with gold paint dripping from the rims. Kreeger’s...
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The Prisoner
Every once in a while, Edwin Debrow dreams that he is a boy again. He is standing in a field of freshly mowed grass. It is a warm day, with no clouds in the sky. The sun is on his face. There are no...
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Infinite Loop
The cocktail menu at Midnight Rambler, in the basement of Dallas’s Joule hotel, is in many ways as much an artistic expression as the extensive collection of artworks showcased in the hotel proper, an...
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Infinite Loop
The cocktail menu at Midnight Rambler, in the basement of Dallas’s Joule hotel, is in many ways as much an artistic expression as the extensive collection of artworks showcased in the hotel proper, an...
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The Earth Below
I commence a walk one morning this fall, among the last warm days of the year. Thin, ribbed clouds overhead. Intermittent sunshine. Breezy. Our little place in Marfa is twenty flat acres on the...
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On Tapa His Game
This is the tapas bar I had in mind all along,” says Jason Dady, the chef and co-owner of the Bin. The forty-year-old is chatting with customers at a tall wooden table in a converted twenties-era...
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Chicken and Dumplings
Could there be a better time for chicken and dumplings? The very word “dumpling” brings to mind coziness and sustenance and gentle pats on heads that are at this moment likely addled by seasonal...
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