Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Rise Of X-Rated Novels
While younger generations, at least, have said in recent years that they want to see more platonic friendship and less sex on screen, reading appetites...
Hispanic Festivals Cancelled Over ICE Safety Fears
THING NW Festival 2025 cancelled its Aug. 16 Latinx musical performance lineup. All other Saturday musical events are still scheduled to go on as planned...
Satirist Tom Lehrer, 97
Mr. Lehrer — an Ivy League mathematics teacher who spent his early academic career on the periphery of show business — created a repertoire...
Will AI Kill Social Mobility?
Social mobility will become progressively locked as AI progresses. What is at risk is not simply job loss, but the very idea of income distribution. The concept...
Books By The Meter: The Art Of Looking Well-Read
There is social capital to be gained by simply looking as if you are a cultured person who listens to music on vinyl and reads lots of...
Today’s Fraud: The Dark Art Of Manipulation
Many companies are taking our time and money by practising the dark art of manipulation. They hide crucial terms in fine print. They automatically...
The Week Comedy Fought Back
If anyone thought Colbert's cancellation — which won't come until his contract ends in May 2026 — might tamp down political commentary in other areas...
A Century Later, The Death Of Art Deco’s Democratic Dream
It has been a century since the term “Art Deco” was coined, a shortened version of the name of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative...
AI Hype Masks Evil: Creative Destruction And Theft Of What Others Have Built
It’s the kind of moment that invites a familiar concept: creative destruction. I originally associated the phrase with Joseph Schumpeter, but it actually has...
Ode To What Used to Be The Arts Events Listings
As mainstream culture grows ever narrower, once-robust subcultures are struggling for survival. Perhaps social-media influencers are today’s critics and curators, but even as our...
How Trump’s Fight With Canada Has Affected The Shaw Festival
We have more than 600 employees, produce between 11 and 14 productions across four stages from April to October—plus two holiday shows—and host upwards...
Why I Won’t Let AI Into My Classroom In Any Form
If there has ever been a time to double down on the value of a humanities education, it’s now. It’s no coincidence that a...
Given The State Of The Industry, Why Would Anyone Want To Buy A Movie...
The theatrical box office market is down. It’s harder than ever to get people out of their homes and into the cinema. The business...
Piano In Unusual Settings
Inspired by the preservationist John Muir, Noack started the project as a way of getting closer to nature, and bringing classical music to rural...
Dan Pelzer Read 3,599 Books In His 92 Years, And Kept A Record. Here...
Mr. Pelzer’s children said he was able to read 3,599 books from 1962, when he first began jotting his reads down on his language...
An Artist Turns A Spotlight On Sport And The American Mythology
After Pfeiffer moved to New York and attended his first live sports spectacles, he became fascinated by how much of the work of making...
Holographic Elvis Show For £300 In London? Fans Are Mixed
Reviews suggest they have dressed up some footage from Elvis’s 1968 comeback TV special and built a show around it (which includes visits to...
Met Museum Reports Highest Attendance Since 2019
The museum announced that more than 5.7 million attendees visited its two locations — The Met Fifth Ave and The Cloisters. While the visitor rates do...
How Reality TV Changed The Way We Watch TV
"For the first time, viewers started seeing ordinary people on television who weren't celebrities, which is a very different phenomenon." - BBC
Philosophy: Making Shit Up?
How to draw distinction between the good philosophy and the bad philosophy? How much philosophy counts as good, and how much philosophy counts as...
Can Poetry De-escalate Polarization?
Poetry has always been political. The writer and civil-rights activist Audre Lorde argued it produces “a revelatory distillation of experience”. In other words, by distilling aspects...
Want To Understand Someone? Look At Their Spotify Playlists
Don’t waste time perusing photos their mom posted on Facebook nine years ago. If you want to get to know someone—and I mean really know them—there...
Study: People Relate Better To Neurotic Robots
"A majority of participants actually mentioned how human-like they found the neurotic robot," says Alex Wuqi Zhang, a researcher at the University of Chicago. "They...
What Happens Now That Skydance Owns Paramount?
CBS, MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures are all bracing for upheaval when Larry Ellison and his son, David, take the keys from Paramount Global...
A Trend? New Horror Movies Depict The Rich As Monsters
In films like Ready or Not (2019) and The Menu (2022), the rich aren’t simply out of touch; they’re portrayed as predators, criminals or even monsters. -...
