Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

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

The Last Book Sale

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Catastrophe Guru

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Robert Irwin in Marfa

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Lives in Limbo

What Will Become of the Library?

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Clothes that Make the Man

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No Gogh!

Wall Flowers

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Unveiling “Austin”

The Great Mellowing

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Dario Robleto artist profile

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

Giant Steps

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Image in the 21st Century

“Trapped” in the Limelight