Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Conflicting Complications Of De-Colonizing Classical Music
As Black and brown musicians, the question is not whether we can “solve” classical music’s issue with racism. Rather we wonder: Why do we...
More Research On Building Better Brains Through Participating In The Arts
"Children that are playing music, their brain structure actually changes and their cerebral cortex actually gets larger." - NPR
Fandom, Fake Friendships And The Real World
In 2021, psychologists found that forming parasocial bonds was strongly related to avoidant attachment. That is, people who tended to push others away in their day-to-day...
How To Fight Book Bans
A poll published found 61 percent were more concerned that “some schools may ban books and censor topics that are educationally important” than by...
An Architect Dreams Of Rebuilding A Ukrainian City As A City of The Future
The vision that he outlined was grand. It included restoring the largely bombed-out building of the regional administration as a functional monument, the way...
Dallas Theatres Are Struggling With New Realities
“It’s not like we want to sound the fire alarm. It’s not all doom and gloom. But the current situation is not sustainable.” - Dallas...
Why Journalists Say They’re Leaving Twitter But Aren’t
The first and most obvious reason is inertia. Journalists spent more than a decade building up their presences on Twitter, and they were never...
Broadway Loved Our “Oklahoma.” On The Road It Was A Completely Different Story
"You know how some movies bomb with critics but still make millions at the box office? We were the inverse of that. We had...
Urgently Needed: A Defense Of Humanism
It’s suddenly plausible to imagine that freethinking, that tradition of poking and prodding at all fixed ideas and institutions, will drift into obsolescence, because...
Man Arrested In Fake Vinyl Record Scheme
A businessman who made more than £1m selling fake vinyl records was caught after a fan of punk band the Clash complained that the...
Man Spends Years Trying To Convince Art World He Found A Raphael In An...
Twenty-seven years, reams of research and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, Ayers’ associates have come forward to claim the artwork, called the Flaget Madonna,...
Reminder: Digital Culture You Buy Isn’t “Bought.” It’s Only Licensed (That’s A Huge Difference)
E-books that had been published and sold in one form were retroactively (and irrevocably) altered, highlighting what consumer rights experts say is a convention...
Cable TV’s Audiences Are Getting Older
A good example of this is Cartoon Network which advertises itself as targeting a core audience of boys and girls aged 6-12, now though most...
Not Just About The Body: Feminism And The Dancer
A dancer’s mind is just as important as her body; the one guides the other. To dance fully without hesitation, without self-consciousness, sets the...
James Patterson Contends The NYT Bestseller Charts Are Rigged. Is He Right?
The New York Times bestseller lists (there are more than a dozen of them) are the product of a lot of math, but also...
Meet Manchester’s Book-Swapping Vending Machine
More than 600 books have been swapped so far in the new scheme in Manchester's Corn Exchange. - BBC
How AI Is Training To Replace Artists And Producers
AI poses a threat to work opportunities across the board by giving producers the tools to recreate their favourite voices on demand, without the...
$200 Million Gift Of Calders To Seattle Art Museum
As part of their gift, the Shirleys will give SAM 48 works by Calder, spanning the artist’s career, with mobiles at various sizes from...
The Debilitating Cost Of Writing
There were stretches when I made so little money writing or editing that I couldn’t blame my parents for assuming they were hobbies. They...
Met Museum Returns More Stolen Antiquities
The $25 million sculpture dates to 225 C.E., and is believed to have been looted in the 1960s from a shine at Bubon, an...
The State Of American Orchestras
The League of American Orchestras reports on the state of the industry. - League of American Orchestras
Where In Our Brains Does Imagination Come From?
Though there are many theories about the place of imagination in cognitive architecture, two are worth mentioning here, not least because all others can...
How Pasadena Playhouse Became LA’s Best Theatre
Feldman’s mission is to remind local audiences what they’ve been missing. He wants theatergoers to demand more from the menu than a selection of...
Ontario’s Stratford Festival Reports Modest Surplus
Stratford "reported total revenues of $66.2 million for the year, with a surplus of $638,711 after expenses. The results, credited to strong ticket sales,...
How Architecture Has Become A “Hollowed-Out” Profession
Greater specialisation had become necessary and appropriate as construction grew in complexity, and they felt this compartmentalisation of roles would allow all aspects of...
