Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
English National Opera Is Victim To The Notion That The Point Of Art Is...
Opera’s contribution to health and welfare, its ability to improve lives, is a happy by-product. It is not the point. It is not opera’s job to do...
Great Book Covers You’ll Never See (And Why)
Ultimately, when you see a book cover in a store or online, you’re really just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Because at most...
How To Judge A Translation
A bad doctor and an uncircumspect translator are both bad in proportion to the good that they would be able to perform if they...
Learning To Conduct, One “Nutcracker” (And Apprentice) At A Time
If Philadelphia Ballet’s fledgling apprenticeship program needed a success story to tout, Na zir McFadden is it. After his ballet post, the Philadelphian landed a plum:...
The Rise Of YouTube Charity Porn. Philanthro-tainment?
Charity content on YouTube and most recently TikTok has always been a formulaic and nearly surefire way to gain likes and views. While these...
Report: Access To Local News Declined Substantially In 2023
Residents in more than half of U.S. counties have very limited access to a reliable local news source. More than two newspapers a week...
When The Oakland A’s Danced “Nutcracker”
The most charming and enduring tradition was the collaboration between the Oakland A’s and Oakland Ballet, which from the mid-1980s through the 1990s paired...
This Year’s Golden Globe Nominees
This year, any discussion of Golden Globe snubs and surprises ought to start with the show itself, since this once-snubbed awards ceremony has engineered...
Michael Brodeur’s Best Classical Music List Of 2023
"Although orchestras and opera companies are still struggling to regain and retain their pre-pandemic audiences, 2023 was a year with so much to hear...
3,700 Versions Of “Silent Night”
George Plasketes, a professor of media studies and popular culture at Auburn University, called the song “almost like comfort food.” Much like “Amazing Grace,”...
Free Speech And The Complicated American University
The real problem was that none of these university leaders made a clear, coherent case for their institutions’ values. So when they did invoke...
Do Kids Even Know How To Use A Dictionary In The Age Of Siri?
A terrifying thought occurred to me. “Do you even know how to use a dictionary?” This was my second son, and it turned out...
Google’s Most-Searched Celebrity Of 2023 (It Isn’t Taylor)
The person who prompted the most trending queries – i.e., had the highest spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2023 as compared...
Date Announced For Reopening Of Notre Dame
The date was confirmed by the French President Emmanuel Macron during a visit to the site on 8 December, according to the French newspaper Le...
How To Think About Our Marriage With Technology
At its simplest, technology can be understood as a tool which enables us to reach a particular end; a chimp using a stick to...
The Macroculture Is Dead. Long Live Microculture!
"The most curious part of this is how people working inside the macroculture are the only folks who don’t understand what’s going on." -...
Fran Drescher Talks About What The Actors Won In Their Strike
"We went from not having any protections — they would be pulling our members off to go get scanned and think that was OK...
How Culture Got Captured By Big Tech
There is an expression often used to capture the power of the press: never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the...
A Critic, His Experiences, His Aesthetic
The question of the relation between one’s life and one’s taste has become a fraught one, and is still more troubled when the taste...
Nobel Lit Prize Winner Jon Fosse On What He Has To Say To The...
“I often say that there are two languages: The words that I wrote, the words you can understand, and behind that, there’s a silent...
“Prestige TV” Is Booming In Asia
Streaming giants in the region are increasingly placing their series bets on creators armed with a glittering list of prizes from the international festival circuit, and...
Study: 17 Percent Of Entertainment Workers Lost Jobs During The Writers/Actors Strikes
According to the Otis College of Art and Design’s study, the first released under the college’s ongoing Otis College Report on the Creative Economy,...
Nintendo Cancels Its Annual Tokyo Gaming Showcase Over Safety Threats
Nintendo canceled its upcoming video game showcase and postponed several other events because of persistent threats to the company, its workers and players. -...
Decoding Noam Chomsky
From the start of his academic career, no part of his scientific work would show up in his political activism, while no trace of...
How Portland Lost Its Creative Vibe
There are still plenty of creative people in Portland, of course, but many left during the pandemic, and no doubt many potential newcomers have...