Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
No Wall Between Fiction And Reality. Our Brains Exchange Notions Between The Two
We suggest that fiction and reality interact through some sort of trade exchange with all its dark sides and complexities. Some transactions occur in...
Five Things Science Has Discovered About King Tut
Recently, studies using x-rays, CT scans and DNA testing showed Tutankhamun had malaria, along with some other medical conditions such as a cleft palate. He also...
The Fertile Creative Mind Of Freeman Dyson
From spaceships powered by exploding nuclear bombs to the eponymous “Dyson spheres” that could be used by advanced alien civilizations to capture energy from...
Taylor Swift Announces Tour. TicketMaster Crashes. Fans Are… Upset
“I have now been ‘in line’ on @Ticketmaster for over 4 hours just for the privilege of registering to buy @taylorswift13 tickets. Not even...
Adam Gopnik: Learning To Embrace An Upside Down Mondrian
Uncertainty about an artist’s intentions—including, but not limited to, which way she intended the picture to be top and which bottom—is not a sign...
No Regrets – Putting Off That Creative Career
We spoke to a total of 33 people in the UK, all of whom had felt “called” to music in early life but then...
A Sudden Shift In Culture Of Twitter Users
As a lot of the current people leave and a lot of new people who are there because of what they think Elon is...
Messy As It Is, A Case For Translation
One ongoing effort to pin down the instable entity that is translation involves finding metaphors or analogies for it. This epistemological parlor game has...
Hotly Contested: The Purpose Of Studying History?
Should we study the distant past to explore its strangeness—and jolt ourselves out of easy assumptions that the world we know is the only...
HBO Grew Out Of Journalistic Impulse (Then Turned On It)
To pull in viewers, HBO’s early executives dreamed up a network that ended up reflecting contemporary culture — its policing and crime, politics and...
How Gael Greene Invented The Modern Restaurant Critic
She was famous for a kind of glamorous hauteur, which the bedraggled dining critics of today, with their furtive TikTok feeds and constantly buzzing...
Why Aesthetics Trump Moral Value
It is a well-worn cliché that the practical person scorns aesthetic value. But there’s reason to think that it is the only way in which we...
The Latino Vanguard Transforming Los Angeles Culture
This is a survey of the rising writers, actors, directors, architects, thinkers, musicians and other artists who are shaping the culture you are living...
An AI Brain-Powered Opera
There were three singers — “ambassadors” to the sun, space and life — as well as a percussionist, a violinist and a flute player....
The Collected Jerry Saltz
Although Saltz blasts the usual targets — speculative collectors, unscrupulous auction houses, gender bias at museums — the tenor is overwhelmingly positive. This might...
Julie Powell (Of Julie/Julia Fame) Dies At 49
Powell narrated her struggles in the kitchen in a funny, lacerating voice that struck a nerve with a rising generation of disaffected contemporaries. The...
Shakespeare: A Fascinating Debate About National Culture In New Zealand
Behind the row lay an unanswered question: how does a post-settler, multicultural society create a national identity? This latest case put a spotlight on...
How Our Brains Perceive Color
Our sex can play a role in how we perceive color, as well as our age and even the color of our irises. Our...
Random House Says It Will Publish Amy Coney Barrett’s Book Despite Campaign To Block...
By Monday afternoon, the letter had attracted more than 625 signatures from authors, translators and agents. The signatories included more than 75 who identified...
Scottish Culture Funding Crisis
In a new report, the committee warned: "The sector now faces a 'perfect storm' as it struggles to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, compounded...
Why Is It So Fun To Look At Pictures Of Derelict Shopping Malls? (It...
In various states of decay, the death of the American shopping mall is so much more than about the rubble. - The Guardian
Increasing Inclination To Regulate TikTok
In the US, moves to rein in the video platform have gained momentum only relatively recently, although there’s little debate that the round of...
New Business Models For Creative Artists Seem To Be Taking Hold
For 25 long, hard years, creative professionals have been told that you must give things away for free on the Internet. But not anymore. Alternative...
Adding Up Hurricane Damage To Florida Theatres
Part of the roof caved in on the 393-seat main auditorium of the Rep’s historic Arcade Theatre. The orchestra pit was under six feet...
An ABT Star’s Road Back After A Ruptured Tendon
Jumping remains a challenge; and regaining power has been difficult. “My tendon that severed feels different,” he said. “It feels like a foreign entity....
