Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Catastrophe Guru

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

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

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

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

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

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

What Will Become of the Library?

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Dario Robleto artist profile

Giant Steps

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

The Great Mellowing

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Image in the 21st Century

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

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

Lives in Limbo

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Clothes that Make the Man

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

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

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

No Gogh!

The Last Book Sale

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

Wall Flowers

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Wonderful World of Bluth

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