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Ivery Dorsey and the college students trying to exonerate himOver a prison phone in Huntsville, Ivery Dorsey is rapping. At 6 cents a minute, time is money, but Dorsey doesn’t think he’s wasting his breath. Serving his seventeenth year of a twenty-year sentence for a murder he insists he didn’t commit, the 49-year-old Houstonian—who goes by the moniker Hallow (as in “hallowed be thy name”)—hopes to become a hip-hop artist upon release. “I’ve always been a dreamer,” Dorsey explains. Before he went to prison, he was recording a mixtape, Almost Famous, produced by Bruce “Grim” Rhodes, who worked on well-known tracks like Lil’ Troy’s “Wanna Be a Baller.” Dorsey regales me with some bars he’s been working on. “The truth is to be sold and not to be told. See that’s the lies that they…

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A spread of dishes from El Alebrije Oaxacan Streetfood.In 2020, after fifteen years working in restaurant kitchens, Memo Quintero lost his job. His chef position at a Houston restaurant was eliminated as a result of the pandemic. Meanwhile, his wife, Didi Quintero, was finishing her studies at the University of Houston. Their income was dissipating and they needed to do something. They started to sell tlayudas—crispy, fourteen-inch corn tortillas slathered with beans, lettuce, tomatoes, quesillo, and more, from Memo’s native Oaxaca—out of their home. “It did well enough that I began to think how we could move into a food truck,” Memo says. The couple borrowed money from family members and opened their small trailer, El Alebrije Oaxacan Streetfood, in April 2021. To say that year was a memorable one for the Quinteros is…

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TCU Women's Basketball Weathers a Season from HellWhen it was over, TCU women’s basketball coach Mark Campbell gathered his players on the court in Fort Worth Tuesday night to savor a victory so improbable they’re likely to remember it for the rest of their lives. In normal times, a 66–60 defeat of a University of Central Florida team that has yet to win a Big 12 game this season would be just another brick in the wall on the journey to March Madness. That would be especially true for a TCU team that entered 2024 with a 14–0 record and a number 23 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25. That fast start was all the more remarkable considering the Horned Frogs had been 14–45 over the previous two seasons, before Campbell arrived…

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Meats, sides, and the Big Red tres leches from Burnt Bean Co. in Seguin.Texas racked up an impressive 39 semifinalists, including 20 for Best Chef: Texas, in the first of three rounds of voting in the 2024 Restaurant and Chef Awards competition, announced today by the James Beard Foundation. The awards—typically described as the Oscars of the restaurant industry—will have two more rounds of voting. Nominees will be named on April 3. On June 10, winners will be announced at the annual awards ceremony and gala in Chicago.This year will be the third to reflect massive changes in the foundation’s awards procedure. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most restaurants that received nods were fine-dining establishments from large cities. But since 2022, following a massive overhaul of the competition rules designed to improve both inclusivity and geographic scope, lesser-known…

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Senior editor Forrest Wilder above the Pecos River, near Langtry, on November 11, 2023.Most journalists develop a specialty or two, accumulating knowledge of particular topics through their reporting and cultivating of expert sources. At Texas Monthly, for instance, executive editor Mike Hall, a law school dropout and rock-and-roll singer and guitarist who plays weekend gigs in Austin, writes often about both criminal justice and music. Executive editor Courtney Bond enthusiastically covers food and drink as well as Texas travel. But few writers anywhere display the range of senior editor Forrest Wilder, the author of this month’s cover story on the fast-growing sport of rock climbing.Forrest has closely followed Texas politics for decades, both as a writer and an editor. He knows the character of the state’s gerrymandered federal and state legislative districts and the personalities who shape our electoral…

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Texas Medicaid lossIt wasn’t unusual for Harper to fall suddenly. “She’s a toe walker,” said her mother, Brooke Wilson, referring to a condition associated with her daughter’s autism. “She’ll literally just be standing there, and she’ll tip over.” But this time was different.One morning last fall, Wilson was getting ready to go to her job as a special education teacher when her husband called out from the kitchen. She rushed in to find nine-year-old Harper slumped over, with her head on the counter. When Wilson lifted Harper’s face, the girl’s eyes rolled back, and her body crumpled downward. “Thank God I was right there, so her head didn’t hit the floor,” Wilson said. “It was the scariest thing. My whole body was shaking.”As the family rushed to…

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Marfa Invitational DramaMichael Phelan is beaming like a kid playing with a gargantuan erector set. The far West Texas sun is starting its drop into the Western sky, illuminating the face of the controversial Marfa art maven as he stands under a construction crane that holds an eight-thousand-pound shipping container. The crane operator lifts one end and positions it at an angle atop another container. It’s a leg, or at least it’s going to be, once all twelve steel rectangles are placed into the form of someone reclining in the middle of a big field. Together, they form Sleeping Figure, a massive sculpture designed by Los Angeles artist Matt Johnson and now on permanent display in Marfa. Phelan is here mainly to watch, since Johnson and engineers already…

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Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) is seen on Capitol Hill Sept. 13, 2023.In May, Meebs Aslam gave a $10 donation to a political campaign promising to oust one of the nation’s most loathed senators. Colin Allred, then a Democratic congressman from Dallas, had just announced a bid against incumbent Ted Cruz. Aslam, a precinct chair for the Travis County Democratic Party, was initially so enamored by the relatively green House member—“Allred was in the NFL; he’s this really exciting, physically fit, well-spoken, kind person”—that he volunteered to help with invitations for one of Allred’s November fundraisers. There, Aslam said he watched a who’s who of deep-pocketed Democrats and big party figures, including U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, schmooze and ultimately donate around $12,000 in total to Allred’s campaign. Allred quickly caught fire and emerged as…

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bbq fest announcementIt’s official: TM BBQ Fest will return November 2–3, 2024. After a successful second year in the barbecue capital of Texas in 2023, Texas Monthly is thrilled to return to Lockhart for the fifteenth annual event. Thanks to Jim Beam for sponsoring our 2023 recap video. Videography by Resolute Media.We’re excited to be celebrating fifteen years of TM BBQ Fest in November, so get ready to take your meat sweats to the next level. Guests can expect another two-day celebration of smoked meat with music, live fire, and good times to be had throughout the entire weekend. Last year we were fortunate to partner with a number of local business owners and tastemakers who helped make the weekend a success. Thanks to the City of…

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The new Randy sandwich at Sunbird BBQ.David Segovia and Bryan and Kimmy Bingham, the trio of owners at Sunbird Barbecue in Longview, spent a long two and a half years in a food truck. They thought their plan for a brick-and-mortar would materialize quickly, but after moving eight miles west to White Oak and serving under a pseudonym in Shreveport, Louisiana, they finally opened a permanent spot in December.In 2021, the three hatched a plan to open their own place while working at the original Bodacious Bar-B-Q on Mobberly Avenue in Longview. Three years earlier, Segovia was working for a document shredding company and answered a job ad Bryan posted for the pit room. “I didn’t even tell my wife what I was doing,” Segovia said of the brief interview process.…

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