Conversation
To celebrate this week’s opening of the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater and the Winspear Opera House, Renegade Bus’ Peter Simek talks with AT&T Performing Arts Center CEO Mark Nerenhausen about the Arts District and what its means for Dallas.

The American neighborhood died after World War II, writes author and urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg. And with it went our “Third Places.”

On Glasstire, Christina Rees argues that Dallas’ media scene needs to raise the level of discourse in order for Dallas to achieve its dreams of cultural sophistication. Peter Simek applauds her call to arms.

When it comes to the stagnant growth of Dallas’ downtown, the city sweats, residents gripe, and investors point to the lack of foot traffic. But Joan Arbery sees twenty realizable investments that could draw people downtown. (Listed in no particular order.)

After 22 years, the Dallas Philosophers Forum has moved from restaurant to restaurant, but the contemporary salon still serves up a smorgasbord of deep thoughts with a glass of good conversation.

Poetry
It’s flat–out impossible to believe there aren’t any good poets in Texas, writes 2005 Texas Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach. Then how come only two poets are featured at this year’s Texas Book Festival? Birkelbach takes a look at the state of the state’s sages. Plus: A poem by Birkelbach.

As the ground breaks on the Woodall Rodgers Deck Park, Millennium Park vet offers critical words of advice.

Some say high speed rail may not make economic sense in Texas. So what? Build it anyway – because something bigger is going on.

An arboreal, fecund, sometimes secretive ambit, the conservatory intimately links us to the earth even as it precludes us from experiencing unbridled nature.

A curator from New York recently asked me if we have any museums down here? Friends visiting for the first time from Boston seemed disappointed that I did not pick them up in a stagecoach from the airport and take them to a ranch, and they discover that Dallas is “just another big city.” Although I had explained this to them on many prior occasions, they had to see it to believe it.