Culture
Jorge Ramos’ New Book, ‘Stranger,’ is a Journalist’s Manifesto
On Giant’s Shoulders: New Cinema History Dissects Texas Tropes
'Giant' was meant to confront certain ugly implications about Texas, chiefly that it is perpetually big, bigoted and booming.
In 1956, America was ascendant, and Texas was America. Eleven years after the end of World War II, the greasy machinery of capitalism had conquered the country ...Read More
In ‘God Save Texas,’ Lawrence Wright Explains the Lone Star State to Outsiders
The latest entry in the ever-popular explaining-Texas genre, “God Save Texas” is a rambling, impressionistic record of ambivalence.
In 1845, when the United States was hotly debating the imminent annexation of Texas and the prospect of a war with Mexico, Abraham Lincoln wrote to a constituen...Read More
In San Antonio, ‘The Other Side of the Alamo’ Turns Whitewashed Texas History on Its Head
Open through July 20 at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, the show ranges in tone from playful to serious, celebratory to mournful.
When a young Texan reaches the fourth grade, she shuffles onto a bus and prepares for a rite of passage: a visit to the Alamo. The trip is paired with a full ye...Read More
‘The Natural History of Texas’ Celebrates the State’s Lesser-Known Critters and In-Between Places
At first glance, the book appears to be a textbook. But it soon transforms into a welcome collection of oddities, a bestiary of the strange, unexpected and overlooked.
On December 7, 1941, two events coincided in a wholly unpredictable way. That the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor is household knowledge. Less well known is that...Read More
‘The Red Caddy’ Is Charles Bowden’s Pithy, Witty Posthumous Tribute to Edward Abbey
Bowden and Abbey were both fearless, larger-than-life types with a taste for tequila, an eye for women and a big problem with authority.
Charles Bowden was a notorious walker-outer. Obituaries of the celebrated writer, who died in 2014, often note that he walked out of his own dissertation defens...Read More
Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes
Sotelo’s incisive and descriptive poems take readers across Texas to interracial weddings, modern cities, dinner parties and mother-daughter conversations.
Larry McMurtry once concluded that nearly all of Texas literature was minor and sentimentalist. Writers like J. Frank Dobie and Walter Prescott Webb mourned a...Read More
Swan Song
You won't find it on a highway map, but a 250-year-old village on the Rio Grande is internationally famous among birders. Will it survive Trump's wall?
Swan Song You won’t find it on a highway map, but a 250-year-old village on the Rio Grande is internationally famous among birders. Will it survive Trump&...Read More
Drag Queens and Churchgoers Find Common Ground in ‘The Gospel of Eureka’
With arms outstretched, the 67-foot-tall mortar Christ of the Ozarks sculpture towers over Eureka Springs, Arkansas, literally and figuratively. For decades, to...Read More
‘Get High With Ricki Lake!’: New Film on Medical Marijuana Leaves Out Texas Families
Featuring heartrending stories, Weed the People aims to change the stigma around cannabis treatment — but fails to look much outside its California bubble.
“I smell weed!” Ricki Lake walks onto the back patio of a South Austin home and laughs. It’s Monday night and the backyard is filled with people v...Read More