Speed of Life

Neda Sung by Iranian Singer Maral As the protests simmer and rage in Tehran, the arts in Iran are exploding and seeking solidarity with the outside world. The response to my paintings concerning the recent events in Iran has been strong and dialogues have begun to emerge. The website Bar-Ex picked up my interview on my paintings for Iran and I was privileged to hear a broad array of new important music from Behind the Iran curtain. I am reminded of the band "The Plastic People" and the works of playwright Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia and their artistic efforts to break down their Iron Curtain. In Iran today we have the singer Maral who has created a haunting and powerful song for the memory of Neda, who was murdered last month by the Basij on the streets of Tehran. Fittingly, Maral also lends vocals to the band,"The Plastic Wave." In Maral's lyric "Neda screams through her eyes of her pain" as Maral "cries of her own pain through Neda's n...

Losing my religion for equality Jimmy Carter July 15, 2009 from The Age Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God. I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention , after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented...

U2 Amsterdam July 21, 2009 , originally uploaded by u2log.com . U2 adds images of the protests in Iran to the live presentation of Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Update: U2 Now Scrolls Rumi Poem Azadi in Solidarity With Artists 4 Freedom More shots at: U2 Log

U2 Paints Berlin green for Iran (Sunday Bloody Sunday for Iran - Live in Berlin - July 18, 2009) Update: U2 Now Scrolls Rumi Poem Azadi in Solidarity With Artists 4 Freedom Artists 4 Freedom in support of Iran: Artists 4 Freedom Text of the Rumi Poem Here: U2 Scrolls Rumi Poem During Barcelona Concert July 7, 2009 Video in Milan Can Be Found Here: U2Goes Green Again for Iran in Milan "Our private lives continuously intersect with the history of our time." -Huston Smith

U2 Performs "Faraway, So Close" Live in Berlin - July 18, 2009 (Cassiel this one is for you! Nous sommes embarque.)

I am eager to share with you an interview I did with Artists 4 Freedom on my paintings for Iran. Artists 4 Freedom is international in scope and is located between London, Barcelona, Lisbon and Berlin, Here's the link. Please feel free to comment on the site. Artists 4 Freedom They are doing important work.

Bono and Edge appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross In the first segment check out Bono as he squirms "Stop! Oh, no!" when Ross airs a clip of U2 doing "Street Mission" on TV in 1978. The highlight of the second segment is the story of Barack Obama's witty comment to Bono at a prayer breakfast in DC when Bono attempted to evade then President Bush's photo op. Obama's words to Bono,"Nice work with the hug dodge."

Influential cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivers his sermon during Friday prayers at Tehran University The complete video of Rafsanjani's sermon is available on YouTube . All of the clips are posted here: Voice of Democratic Iran: Khandaniha From Nico Pitney at Huffington Post: Rafsanjani's most important line? Via email, Portland State University professor R. Kevin Hill writes: There was subtext and not-so-sub-subtext in several of Rafsanjani's remarks, based on the transcript of a live-blogger (caveats about accuracy, accuracy of translation, etc.) excerpt of which follows. If this is accurate, and I'm reading the oblique sermon style correctly, he's articulating a principle of popular sovereignty and calling on the government to resign. I've highlighted the crucial remark: "The Imam [Khomeini] would always quote the Prophet [Muhammad] who would say to Ali [Muhammad's successor]: leave the people if they do not want you. From ...

Update: Video of Rafsanjani's Speech Linked Here: Rafsanjani Video - July 17, 2009 RT @jimsciuttoABC Cellphone vid of 2day's protests, cn hear chants of 'Allah Akhbar' Video of July 17, 2009 #iranelection #rafsanjani RT @france7776: AP: Rafsanjani got tears in eyes said how prophet Mohammad respected the rights of ppl #iranelection #iran #tehran #gr88 onlymehdi describes the image as "President Mousavi in the Friday Prayers" - July 17, 2009 “Listen to the reeds as they sway apart, hear them speak of lost friends.” -Rumi

Photograph courtesy NASA From National Geographic: "Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin deploys a foil sheet for collecting solar particles near the Eagle lunar lander in July 1969. July 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. Today Aldrin advocates a return to space targeted at Mars and other long-distance exploration missions." I am listening to Clint Mansell's haunting score to Duncan Jones' film Moon . It seems fitting 40 years after Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon that a richly nuanced and psychologically motivated film has been created by the son of the man who gave us Space Oddity in November 1969 in the wake of the first moon landing. The score is available now on itunes : Clint Mansell - Moon - Soundtrack to the Film More on Moon at: AppleTrailers for ipod - Moon

The Song - ترانه - Taraneh Gregg Chadwick 12"x12" oil on wood 2009 "First there was Neda. Then there was Sohrab. Now there is Taraneh." "The names and stories of the Iranians who have been brutalized or killed in the aftermath of the post-election protests are gradually seeping into a memorial vault of the faces of suffering and endurance in the name of sociopolitical reform. One by one, the faces of protest are providing an essential yearbook of the individuals who comprise the protest masses, and a catalogue of the Iranian government's treatment of political activists. On Friday July 19, a large group of mourners gathered at the Ghoba mosque in Tehran to await a speech about the martyrs of the post-election protests by presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. According to one Iranian blog, 28-year-old Taraneh Mousavi was one of a group of people that was arrested by plainclothesed security forces for attending the gathering. Taraneh, whose first name i...

Delphine Minoui Thanks to Delphine Minoui in Tehran for Le Figaro and also Jahd Khalil in Beirut for the Los Angeles Times for linking to my post on Rumi and U2. Both Delphine Minoui's site Chroniques Orientales , which is decribed by Le Figaro: "Le blog de Delphine Minoui, correspondante du Figaro à Téhéran, répond à l'envie d'aller au-delà des titres effrayants de l'actualité. Il donne la parole aux hommes et aux femmes qui rythment le quotidien du Moyen-Orient." and Jahd Khalil's site Babylon & Beyond provide important information and insight into Iran and the Middle East. I am indebted to their journalistic bravery, The pen is truly mightier than the sword. Below is a bit of Jahd Kahlil's post: The text reads “Listen! Listen! Listen!” which one blogger attributed to "The Song of the Reed Flute," by famous Persian poet Jalaladdin Rumi. Persian poetry and Rumi in particular are some of the strongest sources of Iranian national p...

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday in Green for Iran (Live 12 July 2009 @ Stade de France, Paris) In their latest series of concerts before U2 breaks into Sunday Bloody Sunday , the Iranian artist Sussan Deyhim's track Beshno Az Ney can be heard. (Unfortunately it does not appear on the videos I have found. If you come across a version that includes Sussan Deyhim's intro please let me know.) You can find the track here on itunes: Sussan Deyhim's Beshno Az Ney Update: U2 Now Scrolls Rumi Poem Azadi in Solidarity With Artists 4 Freedom Sussan Deyhim's haunting vocals grace the soundtracks to many of the moving films of Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat. In an interview with Tyler Green, Shirin Neshat said,"I try to find beauty in the middle of the horror, and vice versa," she says. "Sometimes, really horrible things — you can turn into a weapon of beauty. " Sussan Deyhim and Shirin Neshat Logic of the Birds Shirin Neshat Untitled 1996 b/w RC print and i...

"Rue Mosnier with Flags" Édouard Manet 25 3/4 x 31 3/4 in. oil on canvas 1878 Getty Museum, Los Angeles photo by Gregg Chadwick Édouard Manet's "Rue Mosnier" was painted two years before July 14th was declared the French national holiday in 1880. The holiday is known as the Fête Nationale in France and commemorates the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris by an angry mob on 14 July 1789, sparking the revolution that rid France of its monarchy. Manet painted the scene as if he is looking down from his second story studio onto the flag decked street below. Manet's brush is fluid and the color scintillating but the weary amputee on crutches, perhaps a war veteran from the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, is the figure with which we enter the painting. In essence we as viewers enter the scene carrying a ladder just behind the man on crutches bearing the "costs and sacrific...

Joan Baez Santa Monica Pier July 9, 2009 photo by Gregg Chadwick We Shall Overcome w/ Verse in Farsi for Iran Joan Baez Santa Monica Pier July 9, 2009

"Pompeii, especially, with its grand murals and flourishing gardens haunted by the dark shadow of Vesuvius, has always suggested uncomfortable parallels with our contemporary world, especially here in Southern California, where the sunlit life also turns out to have dark shadows in which failure and death lurk at the edge of consciousness. Now, in these times, we have even closer parallels with those ancient, beautiful, affluent people living the good life on the verge of annihilation." —Eleanor Antin on Classical Frieze Eleanor Antin The Artist's Studio from "The Last Days of Pompeii," 2001 (detail) chromogenic print 46 5/6 x 58 5/8 inches Eleanor Antin The Tree from "The Last Days of Pompei," 2001 chromogenic print 60 x 48 inches Eleanor Antin's film and photo work, Classical Frieze , re-imagines Pompeii and the classical Roman world as if seen through the eyes of a contemporary filmmaker paying homage to the sword and sandal film epics of t...

Text of the Rumi Poem Here: Update: U2 Now Scrolls Rumi Poem Azadi in Solidarity With Artists 4 Freedom U2 Scrolls Rumi Poem During Barcelona Concert "Our private lives continuously intersect with the history of our time." -Huston Smith

"Our private lives continuously intersect with the history of our time." -Huston Smith

July 9, 2009 Anti-riot forces attacking with teargas. People chanting 'don't be afraid, we're all together' #iranelection فیلم فوق مربوط به لحظاتی است که تظاهر کننده ها به تقاطع طالقانی ولی عصر رسیده و به طرف میدان ولی عصر راهی شدند. ساعت 6:23 بعد از ظهر مدت زمان راه پیمایی از وصال به طرف ولی عصر حدود 25 دقیقه بود تا هنگام رسیدن به تقاطع طالقانی ولی عصر، نیروهای انتظامی و سپاه متعرض جمعیت نشدند ولی مسیرهای پشت سر جمعیت را برای جلوگیری از افزایش جمعیت می بستند. بعد از رسیدن به تقاطع طالقانی-ولی عصر جمعیت مسیر خود را به طرف میدان ولی عصر ادامه دادند که این فیلم مربوط به این لحظات است. در این لحظات نیروهای ضد شورش به طرف جمعیت گاز اشک آور پرتاب نموده و با موتور سیکلت به تعقیب آنان پرداختند و جمعیت را به طرف خیابان طالقانی راندند. من بعد از آن به طرف چهار راه ولی عصر رفتم که به مردم اجازه رفتن به طرف میدان انقلاب را نمی دادند. و حتی نیروهای سپاهی سوار بر موتور به زدن مردم عادی در پیاده رو با باتوم پرداختند. در مسیرم به ایستگاه مترو، تعداد زیادی ماشین زره پوش حامل نیروهای ضد...

"Our private lives continuously intersect with the history of our time. Rarely was this more evident than in Tiananmen Square in 1989 when I saw a million students rise up in protest. My friend climbed atop our taxi and shouted, 'Democracy is not only for America! Democracy is not only for China! Democracy is for the whole world!'" -Huston Smith The images from around the world bear witness to a global reality. "We are not sheep", they cry from the streets of Tehran to the streets of Urumqi. In both Iran and China, the ruling forces have duped many of the poor, rural citizens of their country into acting as proxy agents for their power grab. In China especially in Tibet and the Uighur regions, much like the British did during the height of their empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, ethnic groups are set against each other to distract the people away from the real foe - the unjust government. The riots this week in China were bloody and many innocents died...

July 9, Tehran #iranelection , originally uploaded by .faramarz . Protests marking the 10th anniversary of the 1999 student killings (by the basij) at Tehran University More photos from July 9, 2009 can be found here: Photos of the 10th anniversary protests in Tehran Reports ppl coming out of their homes, standing in their own streets, shouting Allah Akbar and death to the dictators. #iranelection #gr88 RT @oxfordgirl Basij reported to be in retreat for first time, perhaps not happy being led by Khamenei son?! #iranelection #gr88 From the New York Times: Update | 12:07 p.m. The New York Times has received two e-mail messages from a witness to the protests on Thursday in Tehran, whose name we will withhold for that person’s safety. This first e-mail message was sent just over one hour ago: The phones are completely out. I’m hiding in an international hotel…. riot police wanted to break in but the managers convinced them. The crowd is running in the thousands, starting in Enqelab ...

June 6, 2009 Shirin Ebadi, the Chair of the Defenders for Human Rights Center has issued an open letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, requesting the removal of a ban placed on the operation of the DHRC, and an end to security and political pressures on civil, political and human rights activists by governmental bodies and officials in his administration. In this letter, Ebadi has reviewed the pressures imposed on the members of the Defenders of Human Rights Center over the past six months. She has further asked the President if these actions and pressures, which are all in contradiction to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are in fact in line with the best national interests of the government and the country. The letter issued by Shirin Ebadi appears below: The honorable President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, As you know, after the victory of the Revolution in February 1979, limitations were placed on female judges and they were disallowed from serving in this position. As such, I...

U2 plays Electrical Storm in concert for the first time ever on July 2, 2009 in Barcelona.

Update: U2 Now Scrolls Rumi Poem Azadi in Solidarity With Artists 4 Freedom The Irish rock band U2, during a concert for their new album No Line on the Horizon , bathed the concert hall in Barcelona in a rich green and scrolled what appeared to be Rumi's The Song of the Reed Flute or alternately titled in a translation by Philip Dunn, Manuela Dunn Mascetti and R.A. Nicholson - On Separation and Words . Video of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" with Rumi's poem can be seen at: U2 and Rumi Krista Tippett writes that "In the Song of the Reed , Rumi reflects on the human spirit through the metaphor of the ancient reed flute or ney that is popular in Middle Eastern music. This poem opened the Masnavi, Rumi's compendium of rhyming couplets that explored issues of Sufi theology and the spiritual journey." I post the poem in full in solidarity with the struggle in Iran: ( Please buy the book and Coleman Bark's heartfelt translations of Rumi also belong on your boo...

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday in Green for Iran (Live 02 July 2009 @ Camp Nou, Barcelona) July 7, 2009 Video in Milan Can Be Found Here: U2Goes Green Again for Iran in Milan Much thanks to Bono, the Edge. Larry and Adam Also a must read from Der Spiegel Online is an interview with Iranian theologian and philosopher Mohsen Kadivar: Iranian Regime Critic Mohsen Kadivar 'This Iranian Form of Theocracy Has Failed'

Gregg Chadwick A Persian Vigil (for Marjane Satrapi) 24"x48" oil on linen 2009 Tomorrow is the 4th of July in the United States. As I think in red, white and blue, more than a hint of green enters my thoughts. Today in the New York Times, Marjene Satrapi writes longingly and powerfully about her true home in Iran: It’s likely needless to remind you that this was not the first time Iranians showed how much they love freedom. Look only at the 20th century: They launched the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (the first in Asia); nationalized the oil industry in 1951 (the first Middle Eastern country to do so); mounted the revolution of 1979; and engineered the student revolt of 1999. Which brings us to now, and that deafening cry for democracy. Almost 20 years ago, when I started studying art in Tehran, the very idea of “politics” was so frightening that we didn’t even dare think about it. To talk about it? Beyond belief! To demonstrate in the streets against the president? Surr...