Michael Hoinski
By Michael Hoinski:
Tear Down the Wall
The border-busting banda sound of Dallas' Las Palmas de Durango.
It was a frigid Saturday night just before Christmas, and there was a fiesta going on at Plaza de las Americas. Inside an abandoned retail space rented out for parties in the otherwise vacant South Dallas strip mall, abuelos y … Read More
Close to Homeless
No food or water. No money. No cell phone. Just proof of I.D., the clothes on our backs, and a backpack stuffed with a sleeping bag. That’s what 14 of us are allowed on our Street Retreat, a weekend immersion … Read More
Dodging the Ditches at GM
It’s kind of sad that it had to happen,” says Enrique Flores Jr., union president at the General Motors assembly plant in Arlington, of GM’s bankruptcy filing this month. “I mean, it’s one of the biggest companies—at one time the … Read More
Destination Dance Hall
Live music promoter Steve Dean may have solved his location problem. The veteran impresario’s previous venue, The Oaks, was just far enough northeast of Austin to keep city slickers from making the trip, thus dooming it to closure. Dean’s current … Read More
Dateline
Hogs Gone Wild
The pressure was on Danielle Rucker and Chelsea Barragan. The Sabinal Lions Club Wild Hog Festival queen and princess, respectively, were hometown favorites in the women’s division of their festival’s main event, the 18th annual Wild Hog Catching World Championships. … Read More
Instruments of Peace
Three Texas fiddlers celebrate and share the spirit of murdered reporter Daniel Pearl.
Jonathan Cooper was watching a TV report about the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 when an old photo of Pearl playing an instrument flashed across the screen. “I jumped out of my seat,” Cooper says, … Read More
And the Beats Go On
Music has proved a wand of empowerment for the vast array of Texans who have wielded it. The state’s native inhabitants ramped up their tribal music in part to free themselves from the incoming Spanish settlers. Later, Mexicans played conjunto … Read More
Tear Down the Wall
The border-busting banda sound of Dallas' Las Palmas de Durango.
It was a frigid Saturday night just before Christmas, and there was a fiesta going on at Plaza de las Americas. Inside an abandoned retail space rented out for parties in the otherwise vacant South Dallas strip mall, abuelos y … Read More
How Sweet the Sound
A Baylor professor sets out to preserve black gospel's golden age
This year marks the 75th anniversary of gospel’s bedrock song, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” Recorded by Chicago piano man Thomas Dorsey following the death of his wife and infant son in childbirth, it typifies the genre in its calling … Read More