Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Wall Flowers

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No Gogh!

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

The Image in the 21st Century

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

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

The Last Book Sale

Lives in Limbo

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Great Mellowing

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

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

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Giant Steps

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Clothes that Make the Man

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Unveiling “Austin”

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

What Will Become of the Library?

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0