Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Tracking Your Screen Time So You Have A Healthier Life? Don’t! (It’s A Trap)
I was spending seven hours a day looking at my phone. I spent the following weeks actively trying to bring the number down. I...
How Goodreads Went Wrong
On the surface, Goodreads seems to have mission clarity. It bills itself as “the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations” and frames...
End Of An Era: Frank Oteri Steps Down From NewMusicBox After 24 Years
Since NewMusicBox launched in May 1999, it has published in-depth interviews Oteri conducted with many of America’s most significant musical creators of the late...
Why Schoenberg Matters
A paradox is operating here: why would such an influential visionary and radical creator as Schoenberg receive minimal attention and performances of his masterworks...
Brandeis University Evidently Finds The Arts Expendable
Given the economics of falling enrollments, bloated administrations, ballooning deficits, and cultural illiteracy, it suggests something far more insidious, namely that Brandeis, of all...
Why Netflix Is Betting Big On Gaming
Netflix says games are a key part of its proposition to stay relevant with audiences in years to come, and is slowly ramping up...
The Portraits That Define Presidents
Time and time again, presidents have wrestled with or in some cases openly fought back to challenge the ways they were being pictured. They...
The Plan To Reinvent Lincoln Center
“We very much came with an agenda, which was we were going to tell a different kind of story about Lincoln Center, to fundamentally...
Chinese Media Calls On British Museum To Return All Chinese Artifacts
"The huge loopholes in the management and security of cultural objects in the British Museum exposed by this scandal have led to the collapse...
Has Lincoln Center Lost Its Way?
When the nation’s premier classical music complex says that it doesn’t think Mozart is that important, why should anyone else? - City Journal
Time For Another Full-On Attack On Book Blurbs
Blurbs have always been controversial—too clichéd, too subject to cronyism—but lately, as review space shrinks and the noise level of the marketplace increases, the pursuit of...
Why We Particularly Need Bad Reviews
In some ways, more culture writing circulates than ever before, but with fewer resources invested in any individual piece of writing. What you get...
Recalculating The Enviromental Impact Of Music Festivals
After audience travel, by far the largest source of emissions is food and drink, which on average accounts for just over 34%. This is...
Toronto Theatre’s Audience Problem
As entertainment centres like Toronto become increasingly diverse, theatres that continue to program works with only their ever-shrinking base of traditional patrons in mind...
One Way To Look At It: Get Rid Of Ill-Tempered, Indulged, Larger-Than-Life Conductors And...
Replace charismatic leadership with technocratic good manners and the whole edifice comes tumbling down. Fine by me, but just beware of what this means....
YouTube Could Face Billions Of Dollars In Fines Over Ads Targeted At Children
Child advocacy groups now suspect that a second FTC probe into YouTube could result in a fine that dwarfs that 2019 record penalty. Their...
The Oh-So-Complicated Power Dynamic Between Artist And Patron
Given the vast difference in agency prevailing between artists and patrons, is an intellectual, artistic, ethical discussion on equal terms even possible? - 3 Quarks...
Eminem Stops Ramaswamy From Using His Music As Theme Song
"What Vivek is doing is trying to align himself with the struggle of overcoming adversity. From what I know of Vivek's policies, objectives and...
Criticism As A Creative Act…
Here lies the difference between viewing criticism as a passive medium of arbitration versus an act of creation—one that requires the critic to take...
The Need To Fail Better
What if we could learn to habitually reframe failure as a source of discovery and personal development? What if we could face problems and...
A Project To Connect Funders With Chicago Black Dance Companies
“We are such a siloed city. We’re each in our little parts of Chicago trying to get funding, we all have our heads down....
Every Photo We Take Is Aided By AI. So How Much Before Its More...
"The increased attenuation of human creativity from the actual generation of the final work will prompt challenging questions regarding how much human input is...
The Looming (And Existential) Legal Battles Over AI And Copyright
The real struggle might not be between AI and artists, or even governments, but with large copyright holders. What happens when Disney gets tired...
What Simon Rattle’s Departure From The London Symphony Means For UK Music
Rattle retains a lifetime role as the LSO’s Conductor Emeritus; he will be back often. Symbolically, though, his departure is a sad moment: any...
Will AI Disrupt Wikipedia?
Sure, the implementation of A.I. technology will undoubtedly alter how Wikipedia is used and transform the user experience. At the same time, the features...
