Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Great Mellowing

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Unveiling “Austin”

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Catastrophe Guru

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Clothes that Make the Man

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

What Will Become of the Library?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Giant Steps

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

No Gogh!

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Image in the 21st Century

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Lives in Limbo

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Wall Flowers

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

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

The Last Book Sale

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince