Editor's Message
A Time for Talk and...Action
The Muslim world erupts in reaction to the juvenile provocations of a reactionary Danish newspaper. The Vice President fills a hunting partner full of buckshot and then makes Harry take the fall. The Democrats take a hard line on the United Arab Emirates but have no position on the war in Iraq. It is indeed a cartoonish moment in world affairs.
But the problem is that these cartoons ain’t funny. A full-blown civil war is erupting in Iraq but, other than John Murtha, nobody has any idea how to end the bloodbath. What’s even more pathetic is that neither our political leaders nor our opinion-makers even appear to be searching for a solution. All they manage to say is that “we can’t lose Iraq,” which is a flawed position from the get-go, since it was never “our” nation to begin with.
All supporters of the war—from the eager imperialists to the humanitarian interventionists—have some serious explaining to do. And all of us who opposed the war from the outset have some serious work to keep on doing. A serious debate leading to a clear exit strategy is the very least we can do for both the rest of the world, and especially ourselves. After all, the blood of countless Iraqi civilians, and of American soldiers, is on all of our hands.
We have more masthead changes to report, this time in our Art section. Our longtime Art Editor, Daniel Baird, whose sparkling insights and tireless commitment helped put the Rail on the map in the art world, has moved on to become the Arts and Literature editor of The Walrus, an excellent Canadian magazine of ideas based in Toronto. And Megan Heuer, our extremely astute and equally dedicated Managing Art Editor, has decided to devote more time to her graduate work in art history. We’re indebted to both for their outstanding input.
The good news is that John Yau, a distinguished man of letters and frequent contributor to the Rail, is our new Art Editor. We’re also pleased that the talented Thomas Micchelli and Ben La Rocco are now managing our Art section.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

The Expanded Moment of Being
By Farzia FallahSEPT 2021 | Critics Page
The choral piece Miserere by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri (1582, Rome1652, Rome) is assumed to have been written in the 1630s and was regularly performed in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It is a work for nine voices, divided between two choirs. The piece consists of six sections, which are basically repetitions, in each of which a different line of Psalm 51 is sung. Today, when I listen to this piece outside any religious context, I feel as if the piece could go on and on. Listening to it, there is no difference for me, for instance, between minute three and minute eight. I am in a state of supreme concentration during these 12 minutes or so, with no sense of now or later or before. The piece creates its own time, and in these repetitions, one loses the sense of time. It has the effect of a piercing Now.

Raqs Media Collective: HUNGRY FOR TIME
By Klaus SpeidelDEC 21-JAN 22 | ArtSeen
While some visitors deemed the exhibition refreshing or exciting, a majority also voiced anger, disappointment, and incomprehension in the visitors book of the Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, the paintings gallery of Viennas art academy, in the face of Hungry for Time, an exhibition curated by Raqs Media Collective from New Delhi.
Hernan Bas: Developing TiME LiFE
By Charlotte KentMAY 2020 | ArtSeen
Amidst the rise of online viewing rooms for shows we might not otherwise see, Lehmann Maupin made the decision to provide us backgrounds to shows we have. In Developing TiME LiFE, the gallery presents studies (available for sale) as well as information from Hernan Bas about the process for his most recent fall 2019 show.
Time, Lost and Regained
By George GrellaOCT 2021 | Music
This past August, TIME:SPANS combined last years postponed programming with a new 2021 schedule and presented 11 concerts. That number of evenings dedicated to music from the first or second Viennese Schools would be definitive, but near a quarter way into the 21st century, a listener is barely getting a partial survey of whats happening on the contemporary scene.