Mariel Tam-Ray

Calhoun Middle School students walk out in protest of ICE in Denton Diego Perez said Calhoun Middle School administrators sent word to his family earlier this week — if the eighth grader led a student walkout on Thursday afternoon, there would be

And this story? I'm also proud my co-worker Cindy B.-G. did this story.
dentonrc.com/education/ca...

An absurd garage sale on Denton’s Normal Street confuses buyers but has plenty of fans 25 years later Local artists are gathering to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Denton's PriceMaster with two events on Saturday, Feb. 7, and Tuesday, Feb. 10, with artists, vendors, music and a parade.

Finally getting some backstory on the PriceMaster here. The first time I heard about the PriceMaster was at my younger kid's Montessori school like 13 years ago, when the teacher (a Good/Bad alum) told me to check it out on YouTube. I love Denton.

office convo
Mary: I made the worst gravy. You could cut it with a fork.
Dennis: Too much flour? ... You roux'd the day?

‘Quakertown, USA’ looks at how power and money disrupted Denton’s working-class harmony 100 years ago Quakertown, USA chronicles the prosperous Black community that Denton city leaders razed in the early 1920s to build a city park. The new documentary explores the racial and economic motivations

"Working-class folks got along with working-class folks. It was people who had more power, more influence and more money who disrupted that harmony."
dentonrc.com/entertainmen...

Co-worker was trying to recommend "One Battle After Another" to the office, but the closest he got to remembering the title was "Fight Me for a Long Time."

Happy birthday, Michael Stipe! #REM

But it turns out a sharp-nosed raccoon is the real genius behind Bobby’s newfound power. One of them ends up wrapped in aluminum foil.
(This episode was later banned because of the foil-wrapping.)

I dreamed I was trying to find a lost episode of King of the Hill: "Bobby Hill, Perfume Genius."
Bobby suddenly becomes famous for his uncanny ability to select just the right individual scents for people to wear.

Phone screenshot of a Wordle game. The first guess was “south.” The second guess, which was correct, is “white.”

I made it awkward, didn’t I?

There’s a fine line between joyously and joylessly.

“Hey, Siri. Flip record to Side B.”

master class in writing alt image text

Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.

Fascinating read on how a suspicious pitch highlighted a growing problem in freelance journalism: A flood of generative AI that even prestige publications don't catch, complete with fabricated quotes, from scammers who see opportunity in a field so many real humans are struggling to survive in.

Tortilla topped with cilantro, onions, sludgy filling, salsa.

WFH election night jackfruit carnitas tacos.

simultaneous crime against literature and history.

My newspaper got rid of a long-standing ban on poems in letters to the editor, which means we now have a submission that attempts to rhyme "shingle" with "Mengele."

A motorcyclist barreled down between two lanes of stopped cars on the I-35E frontage road so he could turn right onto Brinker. He even took both hands off his handles to show off. All of us drivers could only stare helplessly at his backpack in the form of Garfield.

H-E-B plans second Denton grocery at University and Bonnie Brae, on land it bought a decade ago Texas grocery company H-E-B is planning not one but two stores for Denton.

Hang on to your hats, grocery shoppers. Denton is going to be a two-H-E-B town.

Some things I am involved in:
Tonight is KUZU's big birthday show, Revolution 8 at Rubber Gloves. >> www.kuzu.fm

Sunday is the last day to vote for local businesses in Best of Denton. >> bestofdenton.com

& it's always, always a good day to support public media. >> give.kera.org/fm-standard

Phone screenshot from Airbnb app showing a map with one rental for $141 for two nights, named "Villa in Paris," two full beds, smoking.

FYI, the cheapest vacation rental in Paris, Texas, is the "Villa in Paris," aka a room at a Mȯtel 6 that gets 2.7 stars on TripAdvisor.

Airbṇb is now, truly, the Ubėr of Hotėls.cȯm.

Packy, ever the art director, would have berated me for the quote marks that got messed up in this rushed cut-and-paste job.

From an obituary in my newspaper:

"Gene was a connoisseur of toast, a favorite food, and was always looking for the most perfect toast. She declared the toast she experienced in Hawaii the best toast ever."

My kids’ favorite elementary teacher would take out this photo to judge her class when they were getting out of hand.

Been looking for this photo for a while, and my husband dug up his copy. Me staring down Rhett Miller at an Old 97’s show at Fitzgerald’s in Houston, “98 or “99. Photo by Abi Cohen. A favorite, to my chagrin, of the late Packy Saunders’.

It’ll be OK, Engage Denton died an unceremonious death on April 28, 2025.
www.cityofdenton.com/1153/Denton-...

“I recognized that one word in that song.”
— my husband at the Midlake show after “Van Occupanther”

It's not an election night newspaper unless I can get the word "handily" into at least one headline.

Asian grocery stores, a lifeline for immigrants, brace for steep new tariffs Asian grocery stores are a lifeline to the communities they serve. But store owners say the prospect of sweeping tariffs are threatening their ability to stock up on goods and keep prices affordable.

Asian grocery stores are a lifeline to the communities they serve. But store owners say the prospect of sweeping tariffs are threatening their ability to stock up on goods and keep prices affordable.

Is there gonna be a throwdown between Cavedweller and Gravedweller on the slab at Rubber Gloves?

An outrageous art-rock memorial honors John Freeman, whose wild creativity ignited a Denton scene in the ’90s The first time Jermy Johnson saw Denton icon John Freeman perform in the late ’90s, Johnson recalls a colossal show: people in costumes, an air raid siren, a smoke machine

“... All the people I know who were interesting and wild, I met through John. He was like a bridge between the different scenes in Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton.” — Martin Iles on John Freeman, in this portrait by Christian McPhate in the DRC
dentonrc.com/entertainmen...