Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Christopher Ricks, The “Irritable” Literary Critic
I think criticism is being good at noticing things. If I write about a particular work of literature, I do have to believe –...
What It’s like Coming Back To The Cello After 40 Years
"I felt like I was reconnecting with a best friend. I needed the opportunity to play music and have these other musicians in my...
Revising Mamet’s “Oleanna” Post-#MeToo
The production can be read as a post-#MeToo critique of the invidious yet slippery ways in which male power exerts itself without being easy...
How The Arts Could Lead On Thinking About Disabilities
Framing disability in this way—as a series of deficits—adds to the problematic thinking that interprets access as questions of patron services, facilities, or technology. -...
The Dark Side Of The Meritocracy
For all of the well-intentioned idealism of today’s aspirational elite, there is a dark side of meritocracy that is never fully concealed in the...
The Potential Benefits Of Using NFTs For Tickets
NFTs can be bought, sold, traded, swapped, used as collateral, borrowed, lent, etc. In other words, your ability to financially engineer to create additional...
What Does Netflix’s Purchase Of Famous LA Movie Theatres Mean?
Under the deal, the Cinematheque will continue to program autonomously on weekends, while Netflix will use the theater for their premieres and special events...
What Will Happen To The Music I Collected On Spotify?
"I feel uneasy about the hundreds of playlists I’ve taken the time to compile on the company’s platform: 10 or 20 years from now,...
NYC’s Historic Cherry Lane Theatre Bought By Lortel Foundation
The foundation is a few blocks from the Cherry Lane Theater on Christopher Street and has managed the building for the past decade. The...
Bourdain Voice Deepfake Reminds Us Documentaries Aren’t Real Reporting
The deluge of nonfiction filmmaking and its seemingly endless permutations has rendered the term "documentary" almost meaningless. - Washington Post
That Tune You Can’t Get Out Of Your Head? Annoying, Right? But There’s A...
These so-called earworms — gross — are annoying but useful, as new research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in June helps illuminate...
When Ideas In Accademia Get Out Of The Lab, They Can Be Dangerous
There’s a huge leap in jumping from these general, aggregate findings to believing that such simple ideas can guide the behavior of complex states...
Are Master’s Degrees An Educational Scam?
In some ways, they’re more similar than they might seem. Many of them are one-year certificate programs. We don’t call them that. We call them master’s...
Is Changing The Name Of The Yale Drama School Worth A Big Donation?
To quote Shakespeare, “what’s in a name?” Quite a lot, it turns out, in these days of societal reckoning. - Los Angeles Times
The Anthony Bourdain Voice-Fake: Documentaries Have Been Faking For Some Time Now
A reenactment and a voice fake actually do different versions of the same thing: Both cement a reality in your mind — the image...
Here’s a Counter-Factual: Social Media Is Making Us… Nicer?
In person, we still know how to be classy friends. But class is tricky on social media. No one can be expected to read...
Ian McKellen’s Epic “Hamlet” Production Loses Two Actors
The Mail on Sunday reported that the two actors had dropped out because of clashes that had taken place since rehearsals began. It said...
Why We All Need To Pay Attention To How Artificial Intelligence Works
Each link is a small expression of intelligence, and the algorithm, even without users being aware, extracts and accumulates that intelligence in the form...
Painting Restoration Takes The Smile Off
The restoration work not only reveals the rogue addition of an upturned smile, but also a jarring strip of dirty sky added to make...
Hong Kong Book Fair Slims Down With Self-Censorship
This year, far fewer politically sensitive books are on display. Vendors are curating their books carefully to avoid violating the national security law, which...
New Study Confirms 1972 MIT Study That Collapse Of Civilization Is Imminent
It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade—and at...
“Digital Twinning” Is Revolutionizing How We Solve Problems
The technology, which involves creating a digital clone of a real-world object or system, is revolutionising the fields of healthcare, manufacturing and logistics. It...
For A Culture Of Innovation You Need Arts Spaces
My research findings demonstrate how honing imagination and wonder is essential to creating cultures dedicated to innovative and responsible corporate practices demanded by a...
Brexit Has Made It A Nightmare For UK Bands To Tour Europe
“This is about whether one of the U.K.’s most successful industries, worth £111 billion a year, is allowed to prosper and contribute hugely to...
Seriously? Producers Used AI To Fake Anthony Bourdain’s Voice on Documentary
The synthetic voice was created by feeding more than 10 hours of Mr Bourdain's voice into a machine-learning system. - BBC
