Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Turns Out Bach Was A Mathematical Genius
The composer himself had an intensely mathematical brain. He would sign his name in music, and would even hide little references to the numbers...
How Metaphors Shape The Way We Think
They ‘must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect’, as Aristotle already noted...
How A Dancer Who Made History Ended Up Dealing Blackjack In Vegas
“So many years I haven’t done ballet. And then suddenly Jennifer comes and tries to bring everything up. To me, it was like a...
The Staffing System That Cripples Italian Museums
The effect of the national concorso system is that successful applicants may be placed somewhere geographically inconvenient or at odds with their own expertise....
Defending “Rhapsody in Blue”
Of course, it is important to acknowledge that the rhapsody was, by our modern standards, cultural appropriation. - The New York Times
Three Principles For Achieving Greatness
Whether you want to write a book, run a marathon, or play a Beethoven sonata, here are three rules that can supercharge your effort—inspired...
Ai Weiwei Warns About The Threat Of Censorship In The West
“In the context of censorship in the West, there was a prevailing illusion that the West embodied greater freedom of speech and press, portraying...
How Product Designers Get Ripped Off
Product design jobs, for many, hold the allure of creativity, innovation, and professional fulfillment. However, beneath the surface lies a stark reality: a landscape...
Defining “Cute” (Not Just A Product Of Its Time)
Jumping through time and geopolitical boundaries, the show demonstrates that “cute” cannot be bound to a single time or place but is an accessible...
What Medium Has Learned About Journalism
What "people find valuable is authentic personal experiences from people who know what they’re talking about. And those people tend not to be in...
Podcast Tech Is The Kind Of Open Democratic Tech We Need
"Wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement... the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech...
Video Games Are A $180 Billion Industry. So Why Are Companies Laying Off Thousands?
How is an entertainment industry said to be worth $180bn a year shedding staff at such an alarming rate? - The Guardian
Study: America Is Built On Cars. Could Its Cities Become 15-Minute-Cities?
As researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we had a question: Can America — the land of the free and the home of...
Study: Is It Better To Have Friends That Agree With You?
Researchers "wanted to find out whether having certain personality traits was related to how people perceived their friendships and to how they were perceived...
“Starlight Express” Has Now Been Running Continuously For 35 Years
Many New Yorkers—including this one—forget that on the West End the show ran for 17 years. Estimations of the show’s total earnings ring up...
Taylor Swift V. The Comma Police
Plenty of people, upon hearing the biggest music announcement of the year, started thinking about diacritical marks and then talking about them on social...
Caution About AI In The Entertainment Industry
The U.S. studios are aware of the dangers behind “making a wholesale shift to AI,” according to the CEO of a leading artificial intelligence dubbing outfit that says...
Why We Still Need Paper Books
Research suggests that comprehension is six to eight times better with physical books than e-readers. - Psychology Today
What A Plan To Save Churches Says About Their Place In UK Culture
Many churches are at risk of closure due to structural problems far beyond the capacity of local congregations to fix. - The Conversation
These Days Artists Have To Be Obsessed With Their Brand
The internet has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do — from nine-to-five middle managers to astronauts to...
Fox, ESPN, Warner Launch New All-Sports Service
The platform will include games from the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, WNBA, NASCAR and college sports, including the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament, as...
How NYT Classical Music Critic Zach Woolfe Approaches His Job
“I think what people are interested in is passion,” Mr. Woolfe said. “Even if you didn’t understand every word, my goal is for you...
The Problems Children Can Solve But AI Can’t
Trained on human-generated data, large language models are very adept at noticing patterns in that data. But learning from existing written material – even...
The Sci Fi Writer Who’s Been Pretty Good At Predicting The Future
Perhaps no writer has been more clairvoyant about our current technological age than Neal Stephenson. His novels coined the term metaverse, laid the conceptual groundwork...
A Very Low Bar For Lyric Poetry
The barrier to attempting lyric poetry is so low it’s basically asphalt. Platforms for the stuff are plentiful, and rotten poems, furred with hyperlinks,...