Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Great Mellowing

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

What Will Become of the Library?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

No Gogh!

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Last Book Sale

Giant Steps

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Clothes that Make the Man

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Unveiling “Austin”

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Robert Irwin in Marfa

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

Wall Flowers

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Dario Robleto artist profile

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Image in the 21st Century

Lives in Limbo

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

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box