Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Review: The Gospel of The Hold Steady: How a Resurrection Really Feels  by Michael Hann and The Hold Steady  Craig Finn and The Hold Steady The Hold Steady, described by many as the world’s best bar band outside of E Street, releases a new book on July 25, 2023 that delves deeply into the stories behind the band and its loyal fans. The physical book is gorgeous. The story of the band and their passionate fans blazes across the volume from the first page to the last. Over two hundred expertly composed photographs capture The Hold Steady on stage and off with a proper smattering of confetti strewn floors.   The history of The Hold Steady is told through interviews with the band members and those who were there behind the scenes. From their Midwest roots to their adopted Brooklyn home, the members of The Hold Steady open up about the struggles and triumphs of creating, performing, and promoting their music. Lead singer and lyricist Craig Finn opens the...

by Gregg Chadwick Julia Elliott's new novel,  The New and Improved Romie Futch , takes us on a Southern adventure that seems inspired by the absurdly picaresque world of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces , the cyber/ historic cosmography of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas,  the dangerous science of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , the obsessive hunt of Herman Melville's  Moby Dick , and the eerily foreboding scape of Don De Lillo's White Noise, blended with the environmental warning of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, all played to a soundtrack by the pioneering electronica musician Delia Derbyshire.  Romie Futch lives in an alternative yet still contemporary South Carolina, where hipsters seem to have swarmed South from Brooklyn and East from Portland to mingle and clash with characters that still haven't moved far from their High School glory days. Romie Futch is one of these down at the heels locals.  Romie's ex-wife haunts his d...

by Gregg Chadwick Peter Clothier's scurrilously witty new novel "The Pilgrim's Staff" explores lust, lecherousness, and love through the voices of two men from two disparate centuries. David Soames, a contemporary figurative painter living as an ex-pat in Los Angeles, receives a curious package in the mail from an English cousin. Wrapped in layers of tape and memory is the two hundred year-old journal of an English gentleman, who begins his tale with the words,"I am no Rake!" "Rake" is a wonderfully antiquated word that refers to a man caught in the snares of immorality, particularly concerning the charms of the opposite sex.  William Hogarth A Rakes's Progress:3 The Rake at the Rose Tavern 62.5x75.2  cm oil  on canvas 1734 Collection Sir John Soane's Museum , London Writing this on the 10th of November, in a coincidence worthy of Clothier's novel, I am reminded that the 18th century English painter Wi...

by Gregg Chadwick Peter Clothier Leads A One Hour/ One Painting Session photo by Joanne Warfield Peter Clothier's important new book Slow Looking: The Art of Looking at Art guides  the reader seamlessly through the history, process, and ideas behind his  One Hour/One Painting  sessions.  Clothier's development of One Hour/One Painting   began with the realization that along with most museum or gallery visitors, he increasingly spent more time looking at the information label on the wall than at the artwork itself. To combat this habit, Peter began  to spend an hour silently and inquisitively gazing at one work of art.  Much influenced in recent years by Buddhist thought and practice, Clothier combined elements of  meditation and  contemplation in these sessions and  found  more profound and rewarding experiences.    In a   One Hour/One Painting session, Peter Clothier invites small groups...