Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How British Words Invaded American English
The chattering classes – another useful Britishism – have a persistent desire for ostensibly clever ways to say stuff. They have borrowed from Wall...
How Do You Teach A Dying Language That Only Nine People Speak?
The dense Mukogodo Forest, one of the largest in east Africa, is the traditional home of the Yaaku. Originally hunter-gatherers, they looked after the 300...
Does Listening To Music While You Work Help Or Distract? The Studies Say…
Listening to instrumental or familiar music in the background competes less with a study assignment than music with lyrics or unfamiliar music. Instrumental music also seems to...
Pianist Sues Melbourne Symphony For Canceling Gig, Alledgedly For His Views On Gaza
The pianist has filed legal proceedings in the federal court, alleging MSO management cancelled the 15 August concert in Melbourne in an attempt to...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: French president Macron's idea to promote culture among young people was to offer students between 15 and 18 money to pay for...
Who’s Funding The Arts? And Does It Need To Change?
Yearslong decreases in corporate charitable giving and overall charitable giving made The Chronicle of Philanthropy ask, in January, “Has the giving crisis reached the point of no return?”...
The Importance Of Dangerous Words Onstage
Who needs to see a play in which inflammatory positions and arguments aren’t dangerous? Hatred and intolerance won’t disappear because pious new puritans stop...
Opera In The UK Is Suffering. Except In This One Place
Glyndebourne, a privately funded festival that receives little state support, has been mostly immune from the convulsions of the opera industry in Britain. -...
NPR Retooling Its News Magazine Shows As Audiences Slip
Among the changes it’s making on its flagship programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered are including more stories in the 2- to 3-minute range, featuring a broader...
Giant Sydney Festival Gets A New Director
Kris Nelson, a Canadian national currently based in London, is well-known for his transformative work as the Artistic Director and CEO of the London...
TV Is Dying. Streaming Is A Pain. Watching World Is In Pain
Welcome to the glorious, occasionally terrible and definitely weird moment when old TV is slowly dying and new “TV” is not exactly thriving, either....
Students Entering Elite Colleges Don’t Know How To Read Books. Why?
It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to....
AI And The New Questions About Copyright
From a legal perspective, even though the use of AI dates back to the 1950s... the proliferation of AI today brings to the forefront...
CNN, Its Revenues Falling, Paywalls Its Websites
U.S. users will have to pay $3.99 a month or a discounted rate of $29.99 a year for access. The subscription will allow unlimited...
Kris Kristofferson, Country Music Philosopher
Kris Kristofferson, who died at age 88 in his Maui home on Saturday, was a guitar-toting stage performer, a ruggedly handsome movie actor, and an outspoken...
Today’s AJ Highlights
Good morning: Drugs intended to treat diabetes have had the remarkable side effect of helping people to lose weight. Everyone wants them. But it...
“Inside Out 2” Broke Theatre Box Office Records. Now It’s Breaking Streaming Records
The success of “Inside Out 2” on streaming has been unsurprising given how well it performed at the box office earlier this year, surpassing...
Cravings, Desires, Drugs And Buddhists
I had been thinking about how so many people taking GLP-1 medications find that, without even trying, they’ve suddenly released their desires for food, alcohol,...
Does Guaranteed Basic Income Improve Artists’ Lives? (A Study)
Preliminary outcomes show that when artists receive guaranteed income, they generally concentrate on addressing outstanding debt, bills, and increasing their personal savings. They also have...
Why We Were Fascinated By Maggie Smith
"Her astonishing range, as borne out by a stage and screen career that traversed generations, genres and culture levels, had one common denominator: a...
End Of An Era: UK Car Makers To Stop Putting CD-Players In Cars
The tyranny of choice can make the comparatively limited days of the in-car CD player, or multi-disc changer, if you were fancy, seem highly...
What It Means To Write A Play In The Age Of AI
"In the midst of all this, what does it mean to be a writer trying to write in the way that I want to...
Francis Ford Coppola Self-Financed His $120-Million “Megalopolis.” It Just Bombed Its Opening Weekend
The major studios wouldn’t touch “Megalopolis,” the ambitious passion project from octogenarian Oscar-winner Francis Ford Coppola. Now it’s clear why. - Los Angeles Times
Endangered Indigenous Languages Are Getting A Boost On Social Media
Never before have Indigenous nations and communities had so many tools for revitalizing their languages. - The Walrus
Does AI Understand Language Or…
The downside of these machine-learned embeddings is that, unlike in a game of 20 Questions, many of the descriptions encoded in each list of...