Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Are Commercial “Third Places” Going Away?
Coffee houses are one of the earliest examples of ‘Third Places,’ a term popularized by urban sociologist Raymond Oldenberg, who described them as “public places on...
Academy Of Motion Pictures Announces $500M Fundraising Campaign
More than $100 million has already been pledged to the campaign, with significant contributions from Rolex, a long-time academy partner. - Los Angeles Times
Apple Apologizes For Horrifying Art-Crushing Ad
The advertisement titled "Crush" has over a million views on Apple's YouTube channel and was shared by CEO Tim Cook on social media platform...
Towns In Sicily Offered Abandoned Homes For €1. But Can You Rebuild A Town...
Were once-sepulchral towns reinvigorated by newcomers eager to put down roots? Were the new residents integrating into small-town life, or was an influx of...
Trying To Find Paths Through Art And Authoritarianism
Maybe this is a time to look for something else in art, to look at art that resonates with this moment on the precipice...
Book Bans Were Gaining. So Lauren Groff Opened A Bookstore
“This store would probably still be a pipe dream if the book bans hadn’t happened,” said Groff, who has lived in Gainesville since 2006....
Rio National Museum Destroyed By Fire Gets A Major Donation
The fire, caused by an electrical short-circuit, destroyed about 85% of its archive of 20m artefacts. Losses included Egyptian and Greco-Roman relics acquired by the Brazilian...
What Made Beethoven Stand Out
What did make Beethoven stand out from the crowd was his personification of the Romantic revolution, which coincided more or less with his lifetime....
The Classical Music Sector Has Recovered Faster From COVID Than Other Art Forms. Why?
Evidence shows that even in the early post-pandemic days, music recovered more quickly nationally than other performing arts disciplines, and the losses during COVID...
How Notions Of Apocalypse Shape Our Challenges
We have found that discussions of the apocalypse unite the ancient and modern, the religious and secular, and the revelatory and the rational. They...
Why Bellevue Arts Museum Is In Constant Financial Struggle
Dogged by debt, over-optimistic financial forecasting, leadership turnover and overreliance on a small group of funders, the museum patched holes by creating new ones....
Kids’ Interest in Reading Is Dying. What’s The Reason?
At least among one audience, books are dying. Alarmingly, it’s the exact audience whose departure from reading might actually presage a catastrophe for the...
The Complete Bach — All 1000+ Pieces — Over 11 Years
This will be one the first occasions, if not the first, that all of Bach's works have been performed live and in-person in a...
Australia’s Music Festivals Are In Trouble
Chair of the inquiry, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said there was “compelling evidence” that the government needed to intercede to stem the rising cost...
Dudamel’s Long LA Goodbye
The L.A. Phil has had an uncharacteristic amount of worry, and Gustavo Dudamel has been at the center of it. Little has seemed right...
Reconsidering Mary Poppins: Why The British Film Rating Board Keeps Reclassifying Old Movies
A distributor is legally required to ask for a new rating when it rereleases a movie that was classified before the introduction of the modern ratings...
Professor Argues AI LLMs Refute Some Fundamental Ideas Of Linguistics
He argues that LLMs demonstrate a wide range of powerful language abilities and disprove foundational assumptions underpinning Noam Chomsky’s theories and, as a consequence,...
Should UK Museums Start Charging Admission?
For all kinds of reasons and on all kinds of levels, charging entrance would create a more equal culture and a more equal society. -...
The Virtues Of Performing All Of Something
A composer cycle is no mean feat – for both musicians and audiences. But there is something remarkable about hearing works from the same...
A Tale Of Two Orchestra Initiatives
Philly’s program is swimming, while Pittsburgh’s, after making initial waves, is treading water. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Reinventing The Meaning Of Work In Europe
Data suggest that something is amiss: across Europe, the average proportion of 15-29-year-olds not in work nor education or training exceeds the EU’s 9% target....
New Jersey Is Building A Billion-Dollar Studio Production Complex
The state economic development authority today approved a partnership with a $1+ billion studio complex including 22 sound stages set to rise in the...
Silent Disco And What We’ve Learned About The Power Of Moving Together
So what does the “silent disco” phenomenon tell us about dance? Researchers have used it to study social dynamics, finding that it interferes with the...
The Eccentric Volunteers That Make The Oxford English Dictionary Work
Though the OED is published by Oxford University Press, it is, in many respects, the spiritual and intellectual opposite of an elite university. For one thing,...
Evelyn Glennie On Music As A Physical Phenomenon In Your Body
I’m not a medical person, but we do know that sound is about vibration. The body is like a resonating chamber; every part of...
