Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Dario Robleto artist profile

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Clothes that Make the Man

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

No Gogh!

The Catastrophe Guru

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

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

What Will Become of the Library?

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

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Wall Flowers

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Lives in Limbo

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Last Book Sale

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

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

The Image in the 21st Century

Giant Steps

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Unveiling “Austin”

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Great Mellowing

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Wonderful World of Bluth