Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Last Book Sale

The Clothes that Make the Man

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Unveiling “Austin”

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Robert Irwin in Marfa

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

The Catastrophe Guru

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

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

Giant Steps

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

The Image in the 21st Century

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

What Will Become of the Library?

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

The Great Mellowing

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Wall Flowers

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

No Gogh!

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Lives in Limbo

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

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

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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