Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

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

“Trapped” in the Limelight

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

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

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

Giant Steps

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

Unveiling “Austin”

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

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

Dario Robleto artist profile

Wall Flowers

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

The Catastrophe Guru

What Will Become of the Library?

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Lives in Limbo

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

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

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

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

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

The Last Book Sale

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Great Mellowing

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

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

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

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar

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

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

The Image in the 21st Century

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

The Clothes that Make the Man

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

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

No Gogh!

The Wonderful World of Bluth

Welcome to Texas, Elon