Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How A Texas Court Ruling On First Amendment Could Break The Internet
A state compelling social-media companies to host all user content without restrictions isn’t merely “the most angrily incoherent First Amendment decision I think I’ve...
The Vocabulary Problem (And What Makes Language Fun)
The problem arises because people use different words for the same thing. Your wallet is stolen, and you’re going to google what to do....
Russia Won’t Submit Entry For This Year’s International Oscar
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian films have not seen much travel to the west, particularly as those made with state...
Christie’s New NFT Platform Is Called Christie’s 3.0
“This is a platform for us to more rapidly scale our digital art offerings and do more frequent emerging artists auctions and work with...
Why It’s Difficult To Grasp The Concept Of Time
Physicists and philosophers may have different approaches to the structure of time, but what unites them is a rejection of the notion that that...
The Thing About Sleep: It’s Essential
One thing that sleep researchers are pretty sure of is that every system in our body seems to be impacted by sleep. When we...
The Long Brave Effort It Takes To Get A Book Translated Into English
If anything, six years between the publication of the original text and its English translation is rather speedy, especially for a literary work whose...
Mondrian’s Fanatical Pursuit Of Perfection
“Beneath the surface there was always a major concern which would compromise with nothing. Even though, like Baudelaire’s albatross, he had ‘giant wings,’ he...
Why Axios’ “Short Brevity” Writing Style Isn’t So Smart (And Doesn’t Save You Time)
Skim an Axios story, and it will fly past so quickly you’ll have no idea what it says. You have to read carefully to grasp its...
Authors Protest Staff Pay At Iconic Australian Bookstore
“Readings can afford to pay a living wage to its workers. This is a multi-store business that, until 2021, posted profits for 25 consecutive...
Finland Is Forgoing Concrete For Wood In Its Buildings. Is This The Future?
Developers are increasingly swapping out more mainstream materials like concrete and steel, in favour of wood. It's linked to the country's ambitious efforts to...
Claim: Silicon Valley’s Attitudes On Sexual Censorship Are Harmful
At a time when attitudes toward sex work, transgender individuals, and other sexual minorities are by and large changing for the better, it is perhaps...
Portland Theatres Collaborate On New Venue Collective
The Cuomo Theatre Collaborative will serve as a new building for small to midsize theatres such as Third Rail and PETE, and will serve...
Ambitious Plans For A New Bay Area Arts Venue
The project aims to nurture the artists and arts leaders of tomorrow by investing in arts education, including artists-in-schools programs, student performances, master classes,...
Research: Rethinking Baby Boomer Participation In The Arts
Findings confirmed this cohort ‘talked about how arts and culture helps them stay up to date; they use the phrase “to keep young, keep...
“Transformative” $22 Million Gift To Canadian Theatres
The money – gifted in sums from $125,000 to $1.5-million, to both big institutions and smaller independent theatre, mostly based in Toronto, all but...
A First: This Year’s Giller Prize Shortlist
The most obvious is that, for the first time, all are by writers of colour. A glimpse between their covers reveals something else though....
New App Will Listen While You Hum And Identify And Play The Song
Once the service identifies a track, it will show you an information page with its title, artist and single/album cover where you can play...
The Uber-Rich’s Mad Rush To Evacuate Art As Hurricane Ian Approached
“It reinforces the importance of the pre-storm plans, because after the storm, the conditions are so detrimental to the artwork. The humidity, you don’t...
Nina Totenberg’s Friendship With RBG Shows The Perils Of Insider Friendships
There’s a chance that a blunt story about Ginsburg’s decline might have changed the trajectory that led to the end of Americans’ right to...
Why We Laugh
This raises the possibility that laughter may have been preserved by natural selection throughout the past millennia to help humans survive. It could also explain why...
Movie Academy’s LA Museum Sees Boffo Box Office In Its First Year
At the very least, the museum’s rosy first-year financial picture makes it something of a rarity among nonprofit cultural institutions, many of which are...
Sydney Festival Quits All Funding By Foreign Governments After Controversies
Sydney festival has suspended all funding agreements with foreign governments and their cultural agencies, after a mass boycott by artists and audiences earlier this...
American Newspapers Are Losing Their Comics Sections
This shrinking of American “funny pages” comes more than a century after the rise of the print comics section. “Comic strips were created —...
TikTok Creators Are Making Shortened Versions Of Movies And Getting Millions Of Views
Chinese creators use translation apps, dubbing software, and VPNs to help viewers speed-watch movies and TV dramas in English, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia. Despite...