Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
What’s The Point Of New Year’s Resolutions If Time Is Already Determined?
If all moments of time exist, does that mean that my staying in bed every morning in 2022 instead of going for a run...
Why Obama-Era Pop Culture Seems So Dated Now
As millennials age into the solid middle of the culture here at the end of 2021, they’re getting to experience that disorienting slip with...
Big Tech Is Betting This Will Be The Next Big Cultural Thing
After 15 years of riding a boom in mobile computing that has turned tech’s biggest companies into giants worth trillions of dollars, the power...
Betty White, 99
A trailblazer and pioneer in media, Betty had the longest running career for any woman in TV prior to her death -- starring in...
A Comprehensive List Of Arts And Entertainment Figures We Lost In 2021
It's a long list. - BBC
How Artificial Intelligence Is Being Used In Making Music
The use of AI in music is here today, and while its contribution is still small, it will likely grow. If you take that...
2021’s Jazz Critics’ Poll: The Year’s Best Jazz
In being asked to stand in for clubs, concert halls, and festivals so frequently these last two years, recordings are still being asked to...
Lincoln Center Was An Enormous Urban Renewal Project. What About The People Who Were...
The Lincoln Center complex, which opened in 1962, was a citadel. Critics noted that it was designed to separate itself from the Black and...
How The Pandemic Has Changed Cities (Perhaps For Good)
Even with those opinions on the books, the pandemic—or really, the haphazard response to it—has shifted people’s perceptions of what a city can be. -...
TikTok Is Now The World’s Most-Trafficked Website (Beating Out Google)
Regardless of where it sits, TikTok is no joke when it comes to popularity. It had a surge of growth during the pandemic which...
Seattle Musician Shares The Scoop On Streaming: 80,000 Plays = $90
“I just mean to really expose what these numbers mean and what they don’t mean." After splitting the revenue with a collaborator, those...
Ways To Think About Death (It Might Not Be So Bad?)
This is not an argument that death is not bad. This is the titular argument that death is probably not as bad as you...
Puzzling Over What To Make Of 2021 In The Movie Business
For Hollywood studios, 2021 was a year of great experimentation and the rare chance to relentlessly test movie distribution patterns in ways they had...
Why Are NYC’s Public Monuments Crumbling From Neglect?
Dozens of monuments and artworks await repairs and conservation that may never be forthcoming because of rising maintenance costs and shifting priorities to newer...
Proposed Oklahoma Law Would Punish (And Fire) Librarians If They Don’t Remove Books
Under Senate Bill 1142, if just one parent objects to a book it must be removed within 30 days. If it is not, the...
“Don’t Look Up” Critics And Defenders Go To War
It shouldn’t have to be restated every time a lackluster movie is released that a critic’s job is to evaluate a film’s quality and...
Are Critics Missing The Point Of “Don’t Look Up”?
This is not the film Idiocracy, depicting us all as dumb consumerist sheeple. This is a film with great faith in humanity, and cynicism only...
Paris Revives a Cultural Icon – The Seine
Swimming has been officially banned since 1923. More than two-thirds of all French have a negative perception of the river. And yet when French officials unveiled...
We’re Overwhelmed By The Amount Of Culture Being Produced Today
It is impossible to overestimate the volume of stuff that is being produced, edited, and put online today. The content cup runneth over, and...
How Streaming Devalues Movies
You can sense it in all the calculations Disney has been making with regard to what goes to theaters, what’s PVOD, and what goes directly...
Second 1887 Time Capsule Found Under Robert E. Lee Statue
News accounts described its dozens of donated artifacts, including Confederate memorabilia. Based on historical records, some have also speculated the capsule might contain a...
Will Crutchfield: New Opera Is Thriving
New opera, by any reasonable definition – by any defensible amalgamation of the definitions commonly put forward over the years – is thriving. -...
The Best Books Of The Past 125 Years? The NYT Book Review Asked Readers…
In November, we presented a list of the 25 most-nominated books (one per author) for a vote. After tallying more than 200,000 ballots, the...
The Rare Fabric That Was Coveted 200 Years Ago That No One Now Knows...
Made via an elaborate, 16-step process with a rare cotton that only grew along the banks of the holy Meghna river, the cloth was...
How Orchestras Are Trying To Diversify Audiences
Orchestras are approaching these audiences through multilingual websites, artist and repertoire choices, and outreach activities, connecting more firmly with the communities they touch. - Strings