Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Sonos CEO Admits Enormous Failure Of App Update
I am having trouble thinking of an app update fiasco large enough to compare it to this one, because in my time as a...
Leonard Slatkin At 80
Few currently active conductors have developed such a natural affinity with the recording studio. The independent producer Andrew Keener, who collaborated on his UK...
Study: Memory For Music Doesn’t Degrade With Age
Research has shown that many aspects of memory are affected by ageing, such as recall tasks that require real-time processing, whereas recognition tasks that rely...
Astonishing French Department Stores Changed Cities. Can We Learn From Them?
Inspired by opera houses, the grands magasins were astonishing spectacles, built on a pharaonic scale. A new exhibition in the French capital charts the golden age...
US House Fends Off Cuts To NEA, NEH Budgets
As of June 28, the House of Representatives has approved $203.9 million each to the NEA and the NEH, evenly distributing the Biden-Harris administration’s...
Musing On Dance And Addiction
A dancer's day is all about discipline, be that in relation to movement or intake (even healthy, appropriate eating: food is fuel etc). So...
Why The TV Experience Sucks Right Now
As viewers, we’re being flattened by a fire hose of programming — and the experience of watching TV feels like a ritual of submission,...
How Memes Are Helping Redefine Kamala Harris
The popularity of memes means they have become an important vehicle for political communication. In my research, I have identified four roles of memes:...
Struggling To Explain The Enormity Of AI
The great discoveries of humanity have always taught us that we are not masters in our own house: Copernicus removed the Earth from the...
David Dorfman And The Zen Of Dance
When you’re dancing with another person, or folk-dancing in a big group circle, or country line-dance, or disco dance—that’s how I started—you’re concentrating on...
New Live Recordings By Louis Armstrong
This month, with the release of a new album of live recordings, fresh material has been added to the ongoing debates about Armstrong's contradictions. -...
Study: Most UK Adults Don’t Read For Pleasure
The study, commissioned by the charity the Reading Agency, saw 15% of adults reporting that they have never been regular readers, and 35% saying...
Cultural Phenomenon: “Inside Out 2” Overtakes “Barbie” Box Office
The film, which follows the first film’s heroine as she hits puberty, has just overtaken Barbie in terms of global ticket sales, as well as becoming...
The Culture-War Math On Attacks On Libraries
Though book bans have been a familiar tactic in culture wars, today we’re witnessing an attack on libraries themselves as social institutions. There’s a...
Why Kids Aren’t Reading Books
In the first half of 2024, print sales of middle reader books, intended for children ages 9 to 12, dropped by 5 percent from...
Perusing Editor Robert Gottleib’s Books
When Mr. Gottlieb, who died last June at 92, wasn’t heartlessly lancing thousands of words out of Robert Caro’s biographical volumes or marking up...
A Short History Of Olympics Opening Ceremonies
It took decades for Olympic opening ceremonies to reach this scale. At the first modern Olympics in 1896, in Athens, athletes simply entered the stadium...
San Francisco Symphony’s Ongoing Turmoil
Salonen’s anticipated departure casts a long shadow over the Symphony amidst a furor of concerns about leadership, transparency and board decisions. - San Francisco Chronicle...
What Truths Break Through: How Do You Know?
It is unclear how ordinary citizens can reliably evaluate the ideas circulating within the public sphere. Figuring out the truth about complex political issues is highly...
Streaming Companies Cut Back Production Spending
Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are all cutting back to reduce their streaming losses. Amazon has the resources to compete with Netflix, but is still figuring...
Claim: The UK’s Arts Funder Is A Mess
There’s something profoundly cynical in the way ACE used the last government’s ineptitude as cover for its own anti-classical agenda: its cack-handed assault on...
The UK Publishing World Is Overwhelmingly Run By Women. Why?
The publishing industry is suffering from a damaging gender imbalance. According to a recent UK publishers’ survey, 83 per cent of marketing, 92 per...
The 80s Literary Establishment Fades Into History
They were famous for round-robin letters to newspapers commenting on world affairs, for clogging up prize shortlists and, as their books declined in quality...
A Conductor Who Worked To Define Music History
According to the Boston Symphony, the orchestra gave 146 world premieres during his tenure, as well as another 86 U.S. premieres and many, many...
Meet The Olympics Opening Ceremony’s Artistic Director
More than a billion people are expected to watch the July 26 opening ceremony. But Thomas Jolly, 42, is no stranger to outsized projects in...