Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

The Catastrophe Guru

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

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

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

The Image in the 21st Century

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

“Trapped” in the Limelight

What Will Become of the Library?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Giant Steps

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Lives in Limbo

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Wall Flowers

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

The Last Book Sale

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

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

The Great Mellowing

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

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

No Gogh!

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Welcome to Texas, Elon

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Dario Robleto artist profile

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard