Book Notes: Molly Ivins & Stevie Ray (6.25.20)
Molly Ivins quotes, Stevie Ray photos
By Glenn Dromgoole
Fans who appreciated – and miss — the witty, irreverent prose of liberal Texas columnist Molly Ivins, who died in 2007, can revisit some of her best lines in a compact little collection, Molly Ivins: She DID Say That (Great Texas Line Press, $5.99 paperback).
Compiled by twin sisters Allison and Margaret Engel, who also have produced one-woman plays based on the writings of Ivins and humorist Erma Bombeck, the pocket-sized book is full of such zingers as:
“You know Texans. You can always tell ’em. You just can’t tell ’em much.”
“Our state is spending more on prisons than it is on higher education. That’s a fair working definition of a dead civilization.”
“Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country. Stay alert.”
Writing about a particular Republican congressman: “If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drilling rights on that man’s head.”
“I use humor to open people’s ears. That’s what happens when people laugh. They open their ears and hear what you have to say.”
Stevie Ray: Photographer Tracy Anne Hart has put together a photographic tribute to guitar virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughan in Seeing Stevie Ray (Texas A&M University Press, $35 hardcover).
Her photographs feature Vaughan in concert from 1983 until shortly before his death in 1990.
“There will never be another like Stevie Ray Vaughan,” she writes. “What a privilege it was to hear and see him onstage and know him as a friend.”
The book also includes a section of photos of some of the musicians who influenced Vaughan, and another section of photos featuring musicians influenced by him.
