Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Clothes that Make the Man

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Wall Flowers

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

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

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

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

No Gogh!

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Lives in Limbo

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Great Mellowing

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Last Book Sale

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Unveiling “Austin”

Giant Steps

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Catastrophe Guru

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Image in the 21st Century

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What Will Become of the Library?

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Dario Robleto artist profile

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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