Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Wall Flowers

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

Welcome to Texas, Elon

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

The Great Mellowing

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

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

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

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

What Will Become of the Library?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Unveiling “Austin”

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

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

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

The Catastrophe Guru

Dario Robleto artist profile

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

The Image in the 21st Century

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

Giant Steps

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

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

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

Lives in Limbo

The Last Book Sale

No Gogh!

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

The Clothes that Make the Man