Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

No Gogh!

The Great Mellowing

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

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

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Unveiling “Austin”

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Welcome to Texas, Elon

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

What Will Become of the Library?

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Lives in Limbo

Wall Flowers

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Giant Steps

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Catastrophe Guru

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Last Book Sale

The Image in the 21st Century

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment