Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

The Great Mellowing

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Giant Steps

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Image in the 21st Century

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

Wall Flowers

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Clothes that Make the Man

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Library?

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

No Gogh!

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

Lives in Limbo

Unveiling “Austin”

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

The Catastrophe Guru

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

The Last Book Sale

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