Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Naomi Wolf Was Once Highly Influential. How Did She Get So Crazy?
With each subsequent decade, Wolf has injected a little more madness into the cesspool of weird that we sometimes call “the discourse.” - The...
“In The Heights” Was Hyped As Summer’s First Hit. Opening Box Office Says Nope
The Warner Bros. musical generated a wane $11.4 million from 3,456 U.S. theaters in its first four days of release, below earlier expectations suggesting...
1974: The Year Los Angeles Became A Cultural Powerhouse
Ronald Brownstein, a senior editor at the Atlantic and political analyst for CNN, offers 1974 as a pivotal year in which Los Angeles took...
Grappling With The Ethics Of Regulating Artificial Intelligence
"Scientists have to deal with this uneasy balance between being free to do what they like and needing to face the consequences of their...
Sorry — The Brain Is Not A Muscle That Grows Stronger With Use
In recent years, I.Q. scores have stopped rising or have even begun to drop in countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France and Britain....
In North Carolina, A New Statue Will Honor Formerly Hidden History
A few days ago, David Zucchino's book on the 1898 Wilmington Massacre won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, a new statue is about to go...
Theatre In A Slowly Reopening Canada Worries It’s Being Left Behind
One Vancouver AD says that his colleagues are extremely burned out - and also worried about what's coming. On the other hand, post-pandemic: "I...
Sony Writes Off Artists’ Debts
This means that groups and single artists who were still trying to pay back debt - and thus were not eligible for royalties -...
Envisioning A Kinder, More Beautiful Apocalypse
Filmmaker Jim Mickle: "I started asking questions like, 'What if you could make an apocalyptic story where you actually want to go to that...
Cultivating Creative Community In The Midst Of The Pandemic
It's not easy to find creative community at the best of times. Sometimes you just need an outside force - say, an "art incubator."...
Trying To Replicate An Unexpected, Grand Success
That's what season 2 - and sophomore novels - are all about. Overwhelming numbers for a TV series or book can scare artists off....
Boston Merges Ballet And Virtual Reality
It's impressively intimate: "As you stand in the middle of an undulating semi-circle of bodies, each moving with snakelike ports de bras, you discover...
Jeanne-Claude And Christo Drew Up Plans In 1962 To Wrap The Arc De Triomphe
Now, their plans are becoming reality. According to Christo's nephew, "A photo montage of how it would look was done but they never proposed...
When A Movie Understands A Generational Dilemma
In the Heights might have opened to disappointing box office numbers this weekend, but those who did see it had the chance to learn...
The Healing Power Of Queer Coming Of Age Stories
Books can be intensely powerful for some people, especially when the books do the work of repairing past pain. "'So many queer people 'have...
The Next Streaming Wars Are Coming
Coming to those who are interested in Spanish-language media, to be a little more precise. Disney, Netflix, and Warner Media, and Univision all have...
Food Travel Shows Desperately Need New Gatekeepers
Take Netflix's new High on the Hog as an example: "The narrative about Black food is often one of resilience—a history of dishes and...
Everybody Plagiarizes
And that's fine. "Published authors, more often than not famous ones, have had few scruples when it comes to committing literary larceny. 'Authors are like privateers,' claimed Samuel Johnson, 'always...
How To Be Everywhere Online
First, meme well (and second, make She Memes Well the title of your memoir). In her new book, comedian and meme power user Quinta...
Ned Beatty, Prolific Actor Of Stage And Screen, 83
Beatty's roles "captured the full spectrum of humanity — from sincerity to villainy, buffoonery to tragedy — and made him one of the most...
The Blogger Preserving Jewish Ballet
In college, Beatrice Waterhouse started wondering where she could find information about Jews in the ballet world. So she created a Tumblr site, "'People...
Quantum Computing Will Not Change Everything
Despite the hype, the reality is different - and to resist the hucksters, we need to understand why. - Wired
The Fights Over Robert Indiana’s Estate Come To An End
It's been an expensive and draining series of legal battles. "After three years of courtroom hostilities, the estate of the artist Robert Indiana and...
Brexit May Cause A Royal Mess With Copyright, Authors Warn
Living authors like Kate Mosse and Philip Pullman are worried because as Britain exits the EU, protections have changed. "Authors and publishers fear that...
A Guide To The Pulitzer Prize Books
Northern Hemisphere summer reading plans, here you go. - The New York Times
