Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Last Book Sale

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

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

No Gogh!

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Wall Flowers

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Unveiling “Austin”

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

What Will Become of the Library?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Giant Steps

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Image in the 21st Century

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

The Great Mellowing

Lives in Limbo

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Catastrophe Guru

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?