Douglas McLennan
Bradley Cooper’s “Leonard Bernstein” Biopic Gets A Big Greeting At The Venice Film Festival
Bradley Cooper’s long-awaited second film as director — screened at the Venice Film Festival to rapturous applause. The drama about the life of legendary stage composer...
Confessions Of A Netflix DVD-Holdout
"I stream plenty of movies, and listen to most of my music on Spotify. The real reason I stuck it out was the queue....
Politics Is Fracturing The Close-Knit Country Music Community
“Politics has to cool off, but I don’t know if that changes anytime soon. It’s a bummer. Now we feel like any other genre,...
Cable Company Admits Cable TV Business Is Broken
Cable TV has become too expensive for consumers and providers, Charter Communications said in an 11-page presentation to investors on Friday, adding that cord-cutters...
Oregon Shakespeare Festival – Back On Track?
We think we’re gonna end up with about 15,000 more tickets sold than in 2022. And student groups are coming back. That was a...
The Problem With Non-Profit Journalism
Regular journalism plumped up with NGO filler and paid for with foundation dough too easily becomes either risibly partisan or a kind of kitsch...
The Metropolitan Opera’s Focus On New Opera Is Great. But It’s Going About It...
"Peter Gelb is telegraphing to composers that stylistic conformity within the boundaries of a populist musical means is the only possible route to success...
The Real Villain In The British Museum Scandal: Politicians
At the British Museum, flat funding from the Conservatives has meant a real-terms cut in revenue grant-in-aid of 37% between 2009-10, under Labour, and now, under...
How JD Salinger Used Copyright To Shield His Privacy
Salinger’s public legacy, a gnarled mess of copyright enforcement designs, First Amendment controversies, and the persistent desire to be left alone by the press,...
How Authors Are Being Influenced By Their Fan Communities
I reminded them that I was older than their dads, but they didn’t mind, and I became a fusion of agony uncle, village witch...
Major Increase In Philanthropy For Journalism
"Partly because it’s a relatively new area of giving, it’s hard to get a reliable count of how much philanthropy funds journalism. A report...
Major New Arts Center Opens In Lower Manhattan
Getting here required not just artistic pluck but political backing, a half-billion-dollar construction budget, and the creation of a new institution with the interdisciplinary...
British Museum In Crisis After A Rough Summer
The museum is now deluged with renewed calls for the restitution of contested objects, and raising a huge sum for an impending refurbishment looks...
Scalpers Make Out Like Bandits At Toronto International Film Festival
By Tuesday, tickets for Hayao Miyazaki’s film “The Boy and the Heron” had topped $527 — more than a $200 increase. Meanwhile, tickets for...
Could The AI Boom Quickly Bust?
Reality check, we have no concrete reason, other than sheer technoptimism, for thinking that solutions to any of these problems is imminent." - Dezeen
Creativity And Brilliance Seem To Cluster In Certain Places In Certain Times. Why?
A survey of the past shows that genius is not randomly scattered about, like the seeds of a dandelion, but concentrates: ancient Athens, Renaissance...
The Problem With Criticism: As A Culture We’re Rejecting Hierarchy?
“Today the mere suggestion that some things are better than others, particularly in the arts, is met with confusion and hostility.” - Artnet
What’s At Stake: Artists Sue Over AI Training On Their Work
The lawsuit may serve as an early bellwether of how hard it will be for all kinds of creators — Hollywood actors, novelists, musicians and computer programmers —...
Fight Over “Woke” Coverage Is Tearing Apart Atlanta Magazine
“ use terms like ‘woke’ and we shouldn’t be taking on issues that are divisive and we can ill afford to lose any...
Riccardo Muti, Unbound
"I was learning from them, because a good conductor – and I don’t know if I am a good conductor – but a conductor who is wise knows...
Professor Engages ChatGPT As Participant In Class
ChatGPT is the oversized A.I. elephant sitting front and center in every classroom. Instructors can try to ignore or prohibit it, but doing so...
Study: YouTube May Have Solved Its “Rabbit Hole” Recommendation Problem
In early 2019, YouTube announced tweaks to its recommendation system with the goal of dramatically reducing the promotion of “harmful misinformation” and “borderline content”...
Study (For What It’s Worth): 84 Percent Of The General Population Would Like To...
This new data comes from a Royal Philharmonic Orchestra study. A previous survey from 2018 found that 79 percent of the population was interested in seeing...
Teacher: Perhaps AI Will Let Us Focus On Teaching What Matters
"Starting this year, the center of gravity in my classroom is not teaching writing as an “essential skill” that all students need to master;...
Algorithmic Theatre: Artists Need To Consider Their Role In Using AI
As the downsides to our increasingly mediated world become more apparent, working with AI no longer seems quite as defensible as it once did....