Howdy, friends!
The Texanist hopes this missive finds you well. And really, why wouldn’t you be? Spring—the most wonderful season of them all here in Texas, as we learned in the last edition of this communiqué—has arrived; and despite everything, moods are fairly light, just as the Texanist predicted.
With just such lightness in mind, the Texanist would like to take a moment to step out of the spotlight he’s allowed to shine on himself each month via this newsletter and instead turn the light on a few of his magazine colleagues who have done their parts to contribute to the airy vibe by producing some slightly less serious-minded and super enjoyable journalism of late.
It is, as you know, rodeo season (also a great time of year in Texas) and if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading Lauren Castro’s touchingly funny sheep-riding lament, the Texanist would urge you to do so. The title of the piece is “How Mutton Bustin’ Ruined My Childhood,” and that is likely all the enticement you’ll need. For the magazine’s Texas Firsts series, rodeo greenhorn Jack Sullivan (New Yorker by birth, Texan by choice) chronicled his first-ever trip to a dusty cowboy (and cowgirl) exposition. Please enjoy “We Sent a New Yorker to Houston Rodeo. It Got Wild.”
Lastly, the Texanist’s intrepid associate Sasha von Oldershausen wrote an excellent story about a mysterious medical anomaly with which she has been plagued her entire life. The inability to burp sounds funny; retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction sounds much less funny. And, really, it isn’t funny at all. The condition can actually be quite painful. So this one isn’t light in the same sense as the two aforementioned light ones, but Sasha was able to bring a certain lightness to the subject in her handling of it. The Texanist won’t ruin it for you, but there may be some satisfying resolution by the story’s end. Do yourself a favor and read “I Can’t Burp: A Gassy Medical Mystery.”
The Texanist is lucky beyond words to get to work with a whole crowd of talented colleagues, and these are just three among many. But you already knew that. Thanks, by the way, for your loyal readership. And thanks, too, for indulging the Texanist.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
