Bayou Diaries
What It Means to Live in Houston
In a city made up of many cities, spread out, like tiny countries, ascribing their influence is a lot like trekking through a tiny country of your own.
The Case Against Making a City “Beautiful”
On finding beauty in Houston amidst the ugliness, and what the city stands to lose from increasing gentrification.
Montrose, the Neighborhood That Gave Us Everything
Montrose was unofficially codified as the nexus of queer life in Houston. If you held a map to the wall, I could tell you how we came to be on those streets.
We Were Prepared for a Storm, But Not Hurricane Harvey
There will be as many different iterations of this storm, and the ones to come, as there are Houstonians. And we have to hear them—they’re what will determine our map for the next one.
Finding Peace at the Rothko Chapel: What Local Arts Can Teach Us About Our Cities—and Ourselves
In Houston, as with everywhere else, the arts serve as tiny lifeboats—and sometimes, if we’re lucky, we all find ourselves floating together.
The Rodeo Is a Holdover from Texas Lore, and Part of the Changing Story Houston Tells About Itself
If traditions like the rodeo can accommodate Houston’s diversity, whole new traditions will be formed—leaving us with something even better.
Finding Holiness Beyond Houston’s Scores of Sacred Spaces
We’d made a connection across tables, generations, tongues, our own tiny blip of transcendence. Holiness in the noodle bar.
What an American City Sounds Like
It’s a space where language is manipulated and contorted and pulled and borrowed. It sounds like everywhere and anywhere else.
In Houston’s Diverse Culinary Landscape, Who Cooks, Who Eats, and Who Gets to Stay?
On a fast-growing city, food as culture, and why you can’t talk about Houston’s cuisine without talking about race.
We Go to the Park to Go Somewhere Else: On Houston’s Green Havens
You’re in the city, but you aren’t. You don’t have to spend any money. No one’s asking about your documentation. You don’t have to do much at all except for exist, and open your eyes.