Michael Agresta – words & ideas

I write about art, ideas, culture, and

Portfolio

The Catastrophe Guru

The Steve Jobs of West Texas

What Will Become of the Library?

“Trapped” in the Limelight

Life During Wartime (book review)

LA Review of Books

Trenton Doyle Hancock: His Pet Monsters

Can Hackers Mess With Texas’s Elections?

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

Vincent Valdez: The Big Picture

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

The Redemption of Sinead O’Connor

The Wonderful World of Bluth

What Will Become of the Paper Book?

What Is the Greatest Artwork in Texas?

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

Thinking Outside the Ballot Box

Wall Flowers

Will the Next Election Be Hacked?

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

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

How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cults

Pacific Standard

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

A Bigger Canvas (Houston Feature)

Travel & Leisure

How the Western Was Lost, and Why It Matters

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

The Last Book Sale

The Clothes that Make the Man

Dario Robleto artist profile

Unveiling “Austin”

Robert Pruitt: Wards Matter

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

The Great Mellowing

The Image in the 21st Century

Welcome to Texas, Elon

At Age 86, Painter Roger Winter Is Still Reinventing Himself

Cody Wilson, Austin’s Edgelord Prince

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

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

Illustrating Border Life for the Next Generation

A Tree Grows in San Antonio (Margarita Cabrera)

Mark Rothko, Houston’s Absent Son

Marfa, Texas Is Getting Its Own Solar-Powered Stonehenge

No Gogh!

Lives in Limbo

Robert Irwin in Marfa

Bonnie and Clyde at 50

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

No, Austin Won’t Become Silicon Valley 2.0

Giant Steps

Forgetting How to Read? Stop Reading Online.

100 Ways to Draw a Line (Transborder Biennial)

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

Adios Utopia, Hello Texas

The Great Texas Novel about the Spanish Flu

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

Cult or Cure? (MDMA and PTSD)

The Fantastic World of Cande Aguilar