Author: Douglas McLennan

How True Is That College Application?

As college admissions become ever more competitive, with the most elite schools admitting only 4 percent or 5 percent of applicants, the pressure to exaggerate, embellish, lie and cheat on college applications has intensified, admissions officials say. The high-stakes process remains largely based on trust: Very little is done in the way of fact-checking, and on the few occasions officials do catch outright lies, they often do so by chance. – The New York Times

An Artistic Approach To Helping People Understand Dire Issues

“When I asked Olafur Eliasson about the impact of the work, he said he thinks that fear-based narratives tend to be unpersuasive, and he prefers to create a meaningful encounter with the environment to encourage change. London’s deputy mayor for culture, Justine Simons, expressed confidence that the work will change attitudes, saying at the launch that Ice Watch ‘will bring the stark reality of climate change to thousands of people in a very direct and very intimate way. It will undoubtedly inspire action’.” – Arts Professional

Joe Melillo Talks About His 35 Years At The Brooklyn Academy

“I have worked in the performing arts for so long—presented or produced thousands of shows here, worked with thousands of artists—that I’m so preconditioned to change it’s part of my DNA. No one asked me to leave; I knew in my heart I was coming to the evolutionary end of this journey. Retirement for me is stopping here and going on to a new identity that uses everything I’ve been exposed to over thirty-five years here in Brooklyn and around the globe, finding the path to where I can make another cultural contribution that has some meaning.” – Howlround

Regrets: I Never Knew My Father Shared My Bond With Music

“Throughout my childhood, my family had missed out on the joys of sharing music with one another. With three kids, two parents, two loud TVs, one bathroom and rarely anything approaching silence, music served as each individual’s private escape. How surprising to realize that my father had subscribed to our secret club all along. We had never listened to opera before that brief time in our lives. And after my father died, the opera music exited quietly. Pavarotti had left the building.” – The New York Times

Did Dvorak’s New World Symphony Waken Americans To American Music? Nope

Surprisingly, the premiere led to perplexed disappointment. Listeners agreed that the music was magnificent, but many did not hear anything “American” in it, after all. “Some of those who applauded most loudly,” wrote one Brooklyn critic, “thought the Indian and Negro themes would have been as effective if picked up in Siberia.” – The New York Times

Does Sartre’s Philosophy Tell Us Something Useful About Today’s Political Crises?

“As we seek political and philosophical bearings in this time of renewed calls for a socialist alternative to capitalism, postwar efforts to bring Marxism and existentialism together have much to teach us—not only because of the continuing importance of each mode of thought to political thinking and organizing, but also because their interaction in Sartre’s work deepens our understanding of how we exercise agency under conditions we do not control.” – Boston Review