Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The ‘Moby Dick’ of Texas Football Novels Is Hard-hitting as Ever

Unveiling “Austin”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Psychedelic State of South Texas (Fernando A. Flores)

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Catastrophe Guru

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Has a San Antonio Inventor Solved a Problem of Small-scale Wind Power?

Did Texas Blackouts Reveal Austin’s New Real-Estate Hot Spots?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Giant Steps

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Houston’s National Women’s Conference, 40 Years Later

While We Were Sleeping: The Feds Say a Price-fixing Scheme Costs Texas Patients Tens of Millions

Wall Flowers

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Brutally Suppressed in Her Lifetime, Gertrude Beasley Is Finally on Our Bookshelves

Houston Photo Exhibit Documents First Markers of Modern U.S.-Mexico Border

No Gogh!

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What Will Become of the Library?

The Great Mellowing

EAST Austin Is Over. What’s Next for an Art Scene That’s Losing Its Nucleus?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The People’s Champion (Vincent Valdez’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’)

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Clothes that Make the Man

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Lives in Limbo

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Luz Maria Sanchez: Narco Violence, as Seen by a Journalist-Turned-Artist

No Sign of Trump’s “Millions” of Illegal Voters in Texas

Sedrick Huckaby Looks His Subjects in the Eye, from Dreamers to an Ex-President

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Last Book Sale

The Image in the 21st Century