Pulitzer Prizes

Compose Yourself

An Account of the (Toy) Gunman Who Inadvertently Put the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Lockdown

Last Saturday, the folks taking in the new George W. Bush Presidential Center were briefly under the frightening misimpression that it had come under terrorist attack, as reports of an "active shooter" put the center and SMU on lockdown. Among the visitors were Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winni ... More >>

Good Satire or Bad Taste?: The Morning News and a Pulitzer Winner Battle Over a JFK Joke

We were pretty sure that Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Ricks' recent suggestion in the Washington Post that America exile Texas in pursuit of a more perfect union was a joke. Blaming the state for the JFK assassination (without Texas, "John F. Kennedy might still be alive") and the wars in Iraq and A ... More >>

John Cage Match

The Washington Post Suggests that America Boot Texas From the Union

Obama's reelection last year prompted a lot of talk over whether Texas should once again secede from the Union. Except for a few die-hard secessionists, though, few considered it a serious proposal, more like an opportunity to make Texas jokes. So the debate just kind of fizzled out. But the Washin ... More >>

Roger Ebert: Why There Can Never Be Another

Straight from the Poet’s Mouth

Forever Modern

He Did Garbage Pail Kids?

Robert Gomez's Whirlwind Continues with The Green Hour

Tiger Style

After the Newtown Massacre, It's Easy to Fear the Weirdos, but Be Careful Who You Call Weirdo

Los Angeles Times political columnist and cartoonist David Horsey, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, authored a column and cartoon yesterday arguing that, "... there are way too many oddballs among us with violence on their minds and guns within reach." I get the second part, about the gun ... More >>

Eight Heavy Metal Costumes for Halloween

So you want to be a rock star, but you haven't been able to convince your partner to let you strip off the Polo long enough to slip into coolness. Thankfully, Halloween is just around the corner. It's the perfect time of year to lose the tie and slip on the dog collar. See also: - The 10 best Hal ... More >>

To Build Joppa Gateway Park, the City Will Have to Battle One of Its Most Notorious Slumlords

The Joppa Gateway is one of those half dozen parks included in the city's Trinity River Corridor Project that will provide access to the wetlands and horse parks and other amenities that are being built. Located near the junction of Interstate 45 and Loop 12 ... er, ahem ... Great Trinity Forest Way ... More >>

SMU Student Indicted for Raping a Classmate in a Dorm Room

A 20-year-old junior at SMU has been indicted on charges that he raped a fellow student in a dorm room in February. The student, Donald Samuel Cuba, was booked into Dallas County Jail and is out on a $15,000 bond. The story -- including details on the school's controversial student-discipline heari ... More >>

The Lurid Pleasure of Killer Joe

In Lieu of Flowers, Send Xanax

Uh-Oh, Schutze is Optimistic About the Word Biz. (His Editor Wonders if It's Résumé Time.)

You'll have to forgive us veterans of the newspaper business, but certain days -- especially Mondays for some reason -- are just self-referential days. Something in us wants to say to readers, "But enough about you." We wake up way more concerned with ourselves than anybody else out there. And as ... More >>

Southern Gothic at WaterTown Theater

The Sad State of the Dallas Doughnut

Like many food writers I'm sure, I've been watching Pulitzer-winning Jonathan Gold's transition from the LA Weekly to the Los Angeles Times closely. The death of the star system at the daily publication has gotten a lot of attention, too, but it's Gold's first blog post that has invoked deep introsp ... More >>

Arizona Whitewashes American History in Texas

The Mayor's $20 Million Plan for Southern Dallas is Just Another Drop in the Bucket.

Double Your Funny, Guaranteed

WaterTower Theatre Announces Cast for August: Osage County

For WaterTower Theatre's first local production of August: Osage County, the Pulitzer-winning drama by Tracy Letts, director René Moreno sticks with the star of his acclaimed 2011 Oklahoma City production, longtime Dallas actress Pam Dougherty, in the lead as matriarch Violet Weston. She co-starr ... More >>

'Bad Sex' or None at All: King's Dallas Novel Nominated for Dubious Honor

Stephen King made a rare appearance at the 6th Floor Museum recently, touting his new novel, 11/22/63, which was nominated last week for an annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award by the Literary Review. We understand that bad sex might not be the only reasonable gripe about King's Kennedy-era thriller, ... More >>

Can We Mock a Mockingbird?

Catch a Wave

It's About Time We Pay College Athletes and Get Them Off the NCAA's Plantation

​Texas schools earn a couple of mentions in Taylor Branch's explosive article "The Shame of College Sports" in the current Atlantic Monthly. Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-wining civil rights movement historian, piles shame upon shame in calling for an end to the ludicrous fraud of amateur athle ... More >>

Getting Lots of Buzz

Morphing Drama into Comedy

The Ochre House sends up O'Neill's greatest; Sylvia's cute as a pup at Pocket.

Look Now, Morning News, Dallas's Problems Aren't Detroit's. Get It?

​Colleen McCain Nelson debuts a new political column today on the op-ed page of The Dallas Morning News in which she holds up my former hometown, Detroit, as the arch example of what Dallas needs not to be. She's writing about Mayor Dave Bing's initiative to withdraw scarce city services from ... More >>

Parkland Was Certainly Quite Proud of Itself Following the Shootings of Kennedy, Oswald

Via The Sounds of History​Had dinner at the folks' house last night, after which the boy and I went digging through a stack of old Dallas Newses and Times Heralds my dad keeps stashed in a closet, almost completely forgotten. They were my grandfather's and date back to November 22, 1963, and fast- ... More >>

Watch Carefully as The Dallas Morning News Tippy-Toes Away from John Wiley Price

​If you are a regular reader of The Dallas Morning News, Dallas's only daily newspaper since 1991, and if you are following the federal corruption investigation of John Wiley Price, the county's most powerful black politician, then from here on out you need to put on your magnifying specs and ... More >>

For Your Friday Listening Pleasure, Part I: Dallas Symphony Orchestra Plays Carnegie Hall

​As we mentioned a few weeks back, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra played Carnegie Hall this week as part of the first-ever Spring for Music fest. The piece performed: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky and librettist Gene Scheer's August 4, 1964, the LBJ commission that world-premiered i ... More >>

Mexicans Get a Bad Rap

Don't blame them for hip-hop cliches; also, how to propose in Mexico.

Before DSO Heads to Carnegie Hall, An Invite to a Recording Session at the Meyerson

Speaking of the arts (and, in the comments, affordable tickets)  ...The Dallas Symphony Orchestra sends word this morning that the DSO's heading to Carnegie Hall on May 11, where, as part of the first-ever Spring for Music fest, the orchestra will perform for the 11th time -- its first with mus ... More >>

Uptown Players stumble with Horton Foote’s Young Man from Atlanta.

Foote Fault

Putting Their Best Footes Forward for the Launch of Citywide Horton Foote Festival

Photo by Elaine LinerHorton Foote Jr. and siblings Hallie, Daisy and Walter celebrated what would've been their dad's 95th birthday at a party in the Winspear lobby Monday.​Monday, on what would have been their father's 95th birthday, the four children of Pulitzer- and two-time Academy Award-winni ... More >>

Rent's Due

Kicking Off Foote

In Light of Bissinger vs. Cuban, I Present the NBA's All-White Team

​Buzz Bissinger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. His Friday Night Lights captured high-school football in Texas, spawned a network TV series and afforded him writing immortality. Buzz Bissinger is also an idiot. At least when it comes to the NBA. His "White Men Can't Root" column for ... More >>

Superheroes

Critical Condition: War Between Dallas News and Parkland Escalates Over "Ouster" Story

Dr. Lauren McDonald​A few weeks back we took a look at the back-and-forth between The Dallas Morning News and Parkland Memorial Hospital, which, in recent months, has been the subject of numerous investigative pieces detailing patients put at risk and "needlessly harmed," in the words of News Depu ... More >>

Proulx's Rules

Criminal

Moby-Dick tops our list of 2010's best on DFW stages

Rabbit Hole: The Lifeless Pursuit of "Normal" Life.

Family Portraits

Food Writers: Enough With the Fripperific Cliches

Just in case you don't know what frippery means...​As a writer, I always keep one Internet tab tuned to Merriam-Webster's website, which is the best source I've found for the precise meanings of words (and the correct spelling of "simultaneously," which I regularly butcher so badly that Micros ... More >>

Poor man's prime

Dunston's smokes out affordable steak