Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Dario Robleto artist profile

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Image in the 21st Century

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Catastrophe Guru

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

What Will Become of the Library?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

No Gogh!

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Wall Flowers

Robert Irwin in Marfa

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Unveiling “Austin”

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Giant Steps

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

The Last Book Sale

Lives in Limbo

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Great Mellowing

What Will Become of the Paper Book?