Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Why Art Ought To Be A Daily Habit
Arthur Brooks: Engaging with art after worrying over the minutiae of your routine is like looking at the horizon after you’ve spent too long...
Did Marshall McLuhan Lead Us To Fake News?
McLuhan's doctrine was attractive to the Boomers because it explained that everything the older generation knew, or thought they knew, was an illusion. Everything...
You Think AI Ought To Make Moral Judgments For Us? (Psst! It’s Already Happening)
Recently, some scientists taught an artificial intelligence software, called Delphi (after the ancient Greek religious sanctuary), to make moral pronouncements. Type any action into it, even...
Oops: Nielsen Admits It Undercounted Viewership And Cost Ad Dollars
Between April and the end of the 2021, the VAB says, Nielsen did not count “one and a half billion impressions” in 20 top...
Why Is It Taking So Long To Develop More Female Conductors?
“If you don’t have role models, it’s much harder to see yourself as a conductor – and there were male musicians who wouldn’t see...
Kennicott: Why It’s Difficult To Know What To Make Of The Academy Movie Museum
The Academy Museum, like the Newseum before it, does an imperfect job of balancing two basic identities and purposes, one essentially self-promotional, the other...
How Alternative Art Spaces Changed LA
Despite the chorus of mainstream voices that had written off Los Angeles as essentially devoid of noteworthy cultural activity, the 1970s gave rise to...
The Taylor Swift Debacle — Why Questioning Her Authorship Is A Dumb Idea
Calling out fellow songwriters for not writing their own material is bad form for musicians, particularly so given that the definition of songwriting has...
Does Passing Down Ballet Tradition Hinder Advancement Of The Art Form?
“We’ve been told forever that what you receive from your teachers, you are then passing on to your students. And I think in that...
Data Scientists Set About Completing Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony. In The Process…
"I have spent the past two years immersed in writing a book about the man and his music. Beethoven’s most appealing feature is his...
Washington State School District Takes Aim At “To Kill A Mockingbird”
The teachers’ objections to the book included criticism that Black characters are not fully realized and that the book romanticizes the idea of a...
Dance School Retools Around Wellness, Mental Health
Students are taught mindfulness, yoga, talking therapy - and coping techniques, such as breathwork. "The aim is to counterbalance everything else they do, not...
Broadway Shrank Last Week
Broadway continued its winter freeze last week, with box office dropping 11% to a slim $16,494,289 for its meager 21-show roster. Attendance for the...
Charlie Brown’s Voice Is Dead
Born in Los Angeles on Aug. 10, 1956, Peter Robbins got his start as a child performer and, beginning at age 9, brought to...
Can “Anarchist Architecture” Make Us More Resilient?
"Architecture and anarchy may not seem like the most obvious pairing. But since anarchism emerged as a distinct kind of politics in the second half of...
The Shortcoming Of Immersive Art
The “immersive entertainment” industry, which includes nondigital experiences such as escape rooms and other content in which the participant feels a sense of presence...
Radical Change As Threat? It Wasn’t Always So…
When we do imagine radical change, it is usually dystopian, and often, at least implicitly, predicated on ecological catastrophe. Seen from this vantage point,...
Pivot To Video Is Changing The Performing Arts
“You get something different from film. We want to be specific in our storytelling: we want it to be close-up and we want to...
Ireland Launches Universal Income Plan For Artists
The program will cover two thousand arts and culture workers for a span of three years. The government has earmarked €25 million ($28.3 million)...
Africa’s Cultural Institutions Leading The Way On New Ways Of Presenting Culture
These visionary entrepreneurs, who represent some of the continent’s best talent in professions ranging from architecture to finance, are creating new models of preserving...
Indie Movies Are Quite Odd Right Now
Let’s call them “bizart-house movies,” for lack of a better term — unapologetically odd and original creations, led by a gifted group of rebel...
What Canadian Orchestras Are Doing Online
A majority (69%) of orchestras are planning a hybrid (digital and in-person) season for 2021-22. Once halls return to full capacity audiences, 45.9% of...
Social Media Is Flooding Us With Addictive Junk News
A digital drug for anyone with a phone, and especially young people, the TikTok app uses random reinforcement — similar to a slot machine...
The Weird Spat Over A Star NPR Reporter’s Report On The Supreme Court
In her own telephone conversation with The Daily Beast, Nina Totenberg—a towering presence at NPR who has been there since 1975—responded to NPR's public...
Why Spats In Academia Are So Nasty
Reviewers are faced with essays that are additions to their already heavy workloads that could have used more time. And the inclination to take...