Culture
Loon Star: Gun Crazy
Two Houston Archives Gather Harvey Memories for Historians of the Future
They’re a time capsule of the destruction wrought by the deadliest storm to hit Texas since 1919.
In a photo taken shortly after Hurricane Harvey swamped Houston two years ago, a black luxury SUV sits submerged in murky brown floodwaters. In the background, ...Read More
The Symphony Comes to South Dallas
Music education and enrichment opportunities are scarce in my neighborhood, but the Dallas Symphony aims to bridge the gap.
She is growing a cosmic garden, she is one of the fates stretching a string of life before her, she is Moses parting the sea before turning to bring the waves d...Read More
‘The Weil Conjectures’ Rewards the Intellectually Adventurous
Part biography, part memoir, Karen Olsson’s new book traces the extraordinary lives of a famous mathematician and his philosopher sister.
The Latin root of the word conjecture, conicere, means to throw things together. Think of Jackson Pollock splashing different paints onto a canvas and hoping fo...Read More
Goodbye to the Amarillo Art Mall
After 14 years, the artist colony inside a former Amarillo shopping mall is being laid to rest. Now the Panhandle creative-types who called the place home “are just gonna get scattered.”
It was a fine funeral for the fine arts. In early August, the denizens of Sunset Center, a 1960s-era shopping mall in northwest Amarillo that found a second lif...Read More
‘Black Light’ is a Weird, Wonderful Fever Dream of a Book
People glow, hunt for psychedelic mushrooms, and fall in and out of love in Kimberly King Parsons’ debut short story collection.
Some fiction lets you know exactly what it is from the outset. It’s comfortable in its genre or setting; it’s upfront with the reader about the plot, the ti...Read More
Immigrants Put Down Roots in a San Antonio Art Exhibit
Admitted: USA paired immigrant artists with mentors who helped them write an artist statement and grant proposals, apply for public art commissions, and market themselves on social media.
A solitary orange chair in the middle of a courtyard. Doors set into colorful walls, dappled with sunlight and shadow. A mural of a fortune-teller, marred by a ...Read More
A Riveting New History of an Ancient West Texas Canyon
Like a cross-section of the desert, David Keller’s book reveals layers of overlapping history in the spectacular and rugged Pinto Canyon.
“Other than by foot or horseback, there are only two ways to get to Pinto Canyon,” writes David Keller in his latest book, In the Shadow of the Chinatis: A ...Read More
‘Texas Flood’ is a Soulful Portrait of Stevie Ray Vaughan
A new biography captures Vaughan’s journey from record-obsessed Dallas kid to all-time guitar god, taking care to convey what made his music transcendent.
Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Ray Vaughan succeeds in just the way it must to reach both Vaughan’s fans and those first learning why he’s a sh...Read More
‘Seadrift’ Dredges Up a Little-Known—and Deeply Disturbing—Texas Story
An electrifying new documentary captures a forgotten conflict in the sleepy coastal community of Seadrift.
The new documentary Seadrift opens with a tranquil shot of the bay in the tiny Gulf Coast fishing town that lends the film its title. Frogs jump and a heron pre...Read More
