Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Great Mellowing

The Last Book Sale

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

No Gogh!

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

Giant Steps

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Catastrophe Guru

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

Wall Flowers

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

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

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Unveiling “Austin”

Dario Robleto artist profile

Robert Irwin in Marfa

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

What Will Become of the Library?

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

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

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

Lives in Limbo

The Image in the 21st Century

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