Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Is California’s Music Festival Boom Over?
Typically, the festival sees a surge in ticket sales in June, but in 2024, a surge never arrived. With stalling sales and mounting bills...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: Here are some highlights from today's haul:
“Pulp Fiction” — An Oral History "To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Pulp Fiction, Variety spoke...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning. Here are today's highlights:
Restoring The Colors In An Ancient Egyptian Temple "Egyptian and German experts have successfully restored the lost colors and...
The Unraveling Of Alice Munro
No writer who heard it would touch it. From bookstores to biographers to journalists, the literary world had everything to gain from an untarnished...
Aggressive Prediction: Music Streaming Revenue Will Double By 2030
By the numbers, that refers to $49.7 billion in paid streaming gross revenue for 2030, nearly double 2023’s $26.4 billion, and a cool 647...
Atlantic Magazine Becomes Profitable, Reports 1M Subscriptions And Returns To Monthly Print
It’s an everything-old-is-new-again finding that also explains the continued success of some books, luxury magazines and literary journals. - CNN
Data: How Massachusetts Arts Sector Has Recovered From Covid Shutdowns
Organizations remain very reliant on declining revenue sources. In 2022, 65% of expenses were covered by contributed revenue. However, the rate of contributed revenue growth...
What Alvin Ailey Built
What he wanted to promote with his company was the idea that Black audiences—general Black audiences, like the folks Acocella probably saw applauding “Revelations”—should...
Royalties Lawsuit Against Giant Music Producer Rattles The Industry
In a lawsuit filed in California, attorneys representing Durst, Limp Bizkit and Flawless Records accused UMG of using software “deliberately designed to conceal artists’ (including...
Japan’s Hidden Clutter Culture
Homes filled to the rafters with hoarded junk are common enough to have an ironic idiom: gomi-yashiki (trash-mansions). And in areas where space is limited, cluttered...
Study: How Authenticity Matters
The emotional and psychological ties people have with places contribute to their perception of authenticity. Just as much as the exposed bricks and wooden...
Young People Won’t Read Books? That’s Just Not True!
"The rising young generations want texts that matter to them, that reflect their lives and experiences. So when we force-feed yet another vanilla canonical...
Darren Walker Is New Director Of The National Gallery
Walker, who has been a board member of the National Gallery since 2019, is perhaps best known for his 11-year tenure at the helm of one...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning. Today an investigative report on how thoroughly Live Nation has come to control the Australian live music business. Fees upon fees which...
A Revisionist History Of Music File Sharing And The Music Industry Response
The story they want to tell, in an emphatically triumphalist tone, is that the early pirates were David and the music industry was Goliath....
“Suffs” To Close On Broadway
The show has struggled to sell enough tickets to defray its running costs, and on Friday night the producers announced that it would close...
Study: Those Who Learn A Second Language Develop More Brain Connections
Scientists found that bilingual individuals have more efficient communication between brain regions, notably between the cerebellum and left frontal cortex. - Neuroscience News
Seattle’s Book-It Theatre Rises Again
This new incarnation of Book-It will not be a producing company. They are not hiring a staff or planning a full season. You cannot...
African Museum With Priceless Prehistoric Artifacts Faces Crisis
The Nairobi National Museum, flagship of Kenya’s museum system, is in trouble, overwhelmed by a bounty of specimens and a lack of money to...
A Room Of One’s Own: Creative Space For Writers
Every writer is different. The path to telling stories about our world is hard won, and the space that’s necessary to allow us to...
Robot Conductor Makes Its Concert Debut
The artistic director of Dresden’s Sinfoniker, Markus Rindt, said the intention was “not to replace human beings” but to perform complex music that human...
I Was An Established Writer. Then I Went Back To School And Learned…
Despite all the one-click-away distractions, my peers had insightful queries, if rather too many, interrupting lectures as if pressing every hyperlink. Rarely were they...
How LiveNation Has Taken Over The Australian Music Business
A Four Corners investigation has found Live Nation has expanded its reach to every part of the Australian music industry and its practices are...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: Here are this weekend's highlights:
Booker Shortlist Authors On The Moment Inspiration Struck "It feels incorrect, to have inspiration strike in the midst...
This Week’s Highlights
Good morning: Debates about whether art accessed in digital form replaces in-person physical experiences are largely over. There has been a resurgent interest in...