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Q: What (and where) are the biggest swimming pools in the Lone Star State?A: While everything is, of course, not really bigger in Texas, Texas is indeed full of many very big things. Were the Texanist to lose focus with regard to the question at hand, he might well digress with a long list of big things found across the state, including but not limited to pecan statues (Seguin), rattlesnake statues (Freer), ranches (Kingsville), masonry shafts (the San Jacinto Monument), urban bat colonies (Austin), gas stations (multiple beaver-infested locations), and egos (howdy, y’all!). Alas, the Texanist will exercise restraint. As for swimming pools, we are very fortunately blessed with a bounty of big, beautiful watery spots. Ranking the very biggest among these by size, however, is…

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Sheila Jackson Lee, one of Texas’s longest-serving and most distinctive members of Congress, died July 19 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 74. Jackson Lee was a ubiquitous figure in Houston politics, instantly recognizable for her jewel-toned outfits and halo braids that encircled her head like a crown. To detractors, she was Queen Sheila—imperious, impatient, and self-important. To supporters, she was a tireless champion for the downtrodden and a beacon of Black power. In 2021 she played a lead role in making Juneteenth the first new national holiday in 38 years. It was one of her proudest accomplishments in nearly four decades of representing Texas’s Eighteenth Congressional District, a seat formerly held by civil rights icons Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland. The future congresswoman was…

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In the ballroom of Houston’s Arab American Cultural and Community Center, the cast of The Revolution’s Promise bends into forward folds, articulates consonants, and speeds through tongue twisters (the classic “She sells seashells by the seashore” and, echoing Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, “Bleach blonde bad built butch body”). But while a more traditional troupe might be preparing to portray fictional characters or historical figures, these Houston-based actors are performing the testimonies of living and dead Palestinian artists.The Revolution’s Promise is a joint project by Artists on the Frontline, a global organization focused on “cultural resistance,” and the Freedom Theatre, which is based at the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In the hour-long play, the collected ruminations of Palestinian creators are performed as monologues…

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Kingwood, a master-planned community in the northeast corner of Houston, has attracted residents for decades with the promise of residing in a “Livable Forest.” But ever since Hurricane Beryl swept through the region last week, that same forest has made Kingwood one of the least livable places in Houston.  Though the area escaped much of the flooding that plagued Houstonians closer to downtown during the category 1 hurricane, the dense canopy covering the large, upscale homes turned treacherous. As a band of 80-mile-per-hour winds plowed into the neighborhood, entire seventy-foot pine trees too thick to wrap one’s arms around were ripped from the soil and toppled with ease. Branches rained down from above, snapping telephone poles, crushing vehicles, destroying roofs and fence lines, and slicing into…

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WHO: The Latin American League’s baseball championship weekend.WHAT: Recent immigrants to North Texas coming together to form a multicultural “Boys of Summer,” with teams representing countries of origin from Venezuela to the Dominican Republic. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: Cristofer Rodriguez started playing baseball in his home country of Venezuela when he was three. The now nineteen-year-old moved to the United States last year and, along with working his maintenance job and planning to complete an English course, he knew he wanted to continue playing ball any way he could.Enter Darwing Jove, a fellow Venezuelan who works as a maintenance supervisor for a Dallas apartment complex, with a side hustle as a content creator. He made a video of a trip he and his wife took to…

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