Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Giant Steps

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

What Will Become of the Library?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

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

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

The Image in the 21st Century

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Catastrophe Guru

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Wall Flowers

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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

No Gogh!

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Lives in Limbo

Dario Robleto artist profile

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Great Mellowing

Unveiling “Austin”

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Robert Irwin in Marfa

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

The Last Book Sale