Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Vicious Book Review Are Back With A Vengeance
If the hatchet job ever died, it is — like Gawker — back with a vengeance. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that...
Why It’s So Difficult To Predict The Future
There is an assumption that the more scientific the approach to predictions, the more accurate forecasts will be. But this belief causes more problems...
Audio Books That Become Inseparable From Their Readers
With audiobooks, voice narrators are (almost) everything. They can make a great story greater and a bad story better. This is especially true with...
What Qualities Ought The Next Music Director Of The Kansas City Symphony Have?
The Symphony board could make a statement by requiring, for one thing, that Michael Stern’s successor take up full-time residence in Kansas City. - KCStudio
IRS Wins: Prince Estate Worth Twice What Executor Claimed It Was
The process came to a head earlier this month when the IRS, the US tax agency, asserted that the estate was worth $163.2m, twice...
End Of The BBC As We Know It?
Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said the Government is signalling “the end of the BBC as we know it” in a “pathetic” attempt to...
Get To Know America’s First Native American Poet Laureate
Joy Harjo’s story is an American epic, a triumph of the spirit, reshaping history’s lens on the West, rewriting a national myth of endless...
What’s Happened To Those Public Statues Celebrating Racists?
Government officials have tried to grapple with the best course of action for monuments that are symbols of both divisiveness and history, balancing the...
Inside Thomas Dausgaard’s Sudden Departure From The Seattle Symphony
Yes, music directors quit all the time, but virtually never in the middle of a season and, in the modern era, not effective immediately....
Wordle Copycats Are Multiplying. Apple Is Taking Them Down
It's exceedingly hard to copyright an abstract game mechanic like "guessing five-letter words and giving hints based on correct letters." - Wired
Time To Take Play More Seriously
"You're making connections between different parts of the brain which haven't necessarily been connected before and then you're repeating it. It's through this process...
Toronto Symphony Picks A New Executive Director
Mark Williams currently serves as chief artistic and operations officer of the Cleveland Orchestra, reporting to music director Franz Welser-Most. - The Plain Dealer...
Hot Topic Du Jour: Why Is Everyone Upset About “Don’t look Up?”
Critics, audiences, and activists have both savaged and praised the movie, and the backlash has highlighted the difficulty of conveying an urgent message with...
World’s Second Largest Movie Theatre Chain Reports Sharp Rebound In Ticket Sales
Box office and concession revenues saw significant growth across the second half of 2021. Notably, group performance was at 50% of 2019 levels in...
Jon Podhoretz Remembers Terry Teachout
"Terry’s ability to bounce month to month from film noir to the crisis of the symphony orchestra to the talents of Robert Mitchum to...
Group Calls On Seattle Art Museum To Treat Homeless People Better
A collective of anonymous workers called Decolonize SAM is calling for a boycott and demanding the museum stop removing unhoused people from museum property, provide de-escalation...
Omicron Is Soaring. Is It Ethical To Go To Concerts?
Is it a good or an ethical idea to go to a concert in the vortex of this unprecedented surge, what with local hospitals...
NBC Universal Picks New Audience-Measuring Service
The company announced today it will use data from iSpot.tv, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that measures audiences across linear TV and streaming platforms to provide...
The Pope Is Caught Shopping For CDs. Here’s What’s In His Collection
While it is mostly made up of classical music, it also includes: an old album of Édith Piaf’s greatest hits; Argentine tango tunes, especially...
AJBlogger And Wall Street Journal Theatre Critic Terry Teachout, 65
Very very sad to announce the death of one of ArtsJournal's original and most prolific bloggers. - The Wall Street Journal
Claim: UK Government Funding Of Theatre Makes No Sense
Even before Covid, the government’s (and Arts Council England’s) approach to the complex private/public ecology of the sector felt confused and outdated. Now, it...
NFTs? A Really Dumb Idea
It’s possible to see a purpose for cryptocurrencies, but NFTs are (for now) almost comically bereft of anything most of us would associate with...
Insisting That Art Focus On Social Justice Is A Narrow View Of How Art...
Consider those charitable foundations that have decided to stop funding the arts, or to only fund arts activities that explicitly promote diversity, equality, and...
Norman Mailer Wasn’t “Canceled.” (Dumb)
Instead, the publishing conglomerate’s decision to back away from Mailer points to a different set of financial imperatives, as well as a growing impulse...
Should Art Be “Relevant?” Jed Perl Thinks Not
Perl’s thesis, most succinctly framed in his concluding chapter, is that the arts, rather than being obliged to convey utilitarian messaging, must instead remain...
