WATCHING THE PAINT DRY

Louis Andriessen’s opera “Writing to Vermeer”, getting its US premiere at the Lincoln Centre Festival is a long sit. “For all its visual beauty and technical slickness, this 100-minute opera (which ended its run on Saturday) is a dramatically neutral, philosophically and emotionally barren exercise in poststructuralist contemplation.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

NO TIME FOR THIS

“In his new book, ‘The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics’, Julian Barbour asserts that time simply doesn’t exist. This by itself is not so shocking. My friend Artie, for example, has always insisted that there’s only change, not time. Things move around; time may just be a way of noting that. But Barbour goes further. He says there’s no such thing as motion either. Instead, Barbour sees a universe filled with static instants – instants that contain “records” that fool any conscious beings who happen to find themselves encased in one into believing that things have moved and time has passed.” – Feed

HOW WE PAY FOR ART?

Berlin is rebuilding, and signs of change are everywhere – physical and cultural. “In Germany, where government funding had never been an issue before, it seemed odd to hear people complaining about how excessive subsidies were creating an atmosphere of dependency and waste among their artistic institutions.” – The New Republic