Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Wonderful World of Bluth

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Unveiling “Austin”

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

The Last Book Sale

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

Robert Irwin in Marfa

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

No Gogh!

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Giant Steps

The Image in the 21st Century

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Lives in Limbo

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

What Will Become of the Library?

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

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

The Catastrophe Guru

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

The Great Mellowing

Wall Flowers

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge