Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
A History Of The Game “Monopoly”: Meant To Critique Capitalism But Turned In to...
There have now been more than a thousand versions of Monopoly, based not only on different cities but on properties such as “The Big...
BBC Relaxes Dress Code For Presenters: Sweaty Is More Authentic
“It’s a bit like, be as sweaty and dirty as when we’re in the field is actually more trustworthy than if we look like...
Time To Rethink The Meaning Of Indigenous?
Today, nearly half a billion people qualify as Indigenous. If they were a single country, it would be the world’s third most populous, behind...
Understanding The Wonder That Is BookTok
Although the Barnes & Noble event caters to fans of romance and fantasy, BookTok is vast and multifarious. The community is a constellation of...
Conspiracy Theories: Toxic Influence Or The Price Of Democracy?
If great masses of people maintain a certain belief over long periods of time, one can be fairly sure that there is something in...
Is This Painting A Raphael Or Not?
What began with a chance discovery turned into a quest that consumed Mr. Ayers for decades. He managed to discover a great deal about...
How The Mythologies Of UFOs Color Our View Of Government
A recent edited collection of essays by leading ufologists notes that, some seventy-five years after the alleged Roswell crash, we arguably know no more...
The Limitations Of Our One-Dimensional Schooling
In the consumerist world, the difference between true and false needs vanishes—we become convinced that ultimate fulfillment can be found in our next luxury...
How Harry Styles Caught Our Collective Mood
Harry’s House is simply just fun pop music at the perfect time. We are coming out of a pandemic and are in a cost...
US Movie Releases Are No Longer Necessary For International Success
The U.S. theatrical market is no longer always an accurate model. Certain genres, particularly action and thriller, tend to out-perform globally — there’s a...
Are Theatre Creators Being Shut Out Of Credit?
Today, a de-emphasis on the authors and director seems more common within theatre marketing – a far cry from the days when contractual language...
What Membership Data Say About Health Of Public Media
Median Membership Revenue for the three-month period from October through December is down 0.6% year-over-year. TV and joint-licensee stations saw a decrease of 0.7% in membership...
Alex Ross: Being Realistic About Dudamel
Unlike its future-oriented counterpart on the West Coast, the New York Philharmonic is always looking back to its glory days under Mahler, Toscanini, Bernstein,...
The Hammer Museum’s Building Transformation Has Taken 24 Years
After a 24-year renovation and expansion and a $180m capital campaign (of which $156m has been raised), the Hammer has announced 26 March as...
How Google Lost Its Creative Edge
Google was incredibly insecure—always was, and still is. The company, which had toppled a market leader by building better technology, is haunted by the...
AI Is Coming For Music
This technology “is generating infinite music that isn’t actually composed by anybody, and that’s a terrible, scary, awful way of thinking about where music...
How Craft Beer Creates Community
In 2015 there were 4,803 craft breweries in the US, by 2021 there were 9,118. Equally important is the ideological shift in the beer market...
Defending JK Rowling
This campaign against Rowling is as dangerous as it is absurd. The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie last summer is a forceful reminder of...
The Case For Everything-Is-Math
The mathematics that's all around us, after all, doesn't come to us smoothly, in neatly formed themes or topics or packages. It's not separated...
The Culture Battle Over Snark And Superficial Knowingness
The current state of public discourse, if it’s even worthy of that name, is a strange fusion where smarm and snark wrestle and embrace...
Japan’s Anti-Disney Theme Park
Disney is, famously, a vast corporate content farm, with all artistic choices carefully examined by an assembly line of executives, marketers, focus groups, etc....
Theatre Audience Behavior Is Getting Worse, In Part Because Of… Marketing?
West End Theatres: “We are talking to them about marketing. So, when we market shows let’s not have phrases such as ‘best party in...
Why AI-Produced Art Makes Artists More Valuable
Instead of thinking of AI-generated art as a doomsday development — a cluster-bomb thrown by Big Tech into the heart of the art world...
Tate Britain To Rehang Its Collection For First Time In Ten Years, Giving More...
As part of its commitment to diversifying its collections, great female artists from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries – including some never seen...
Ukrainian National Orchestra Arrives At Carnegie Hall
The Carnegie performance was added last spring. The hall’s leaders heard about the tour and thought that hosting the orchestra would help show solidarity...
