Speed of Life

Obama ~ Biden 2012

by Gregg Chadwick The First Grader , a new film directed by Justin Chadwick and produced by Richard Harding and Sam Feuer, has been gathering cinema festival awards as it moves towards a May 2011 release. This week The First Grader won the award for best feature film at the Palm Beach Film Festival. I recently attended a pre-release screening of this poignant and numinous movie set in the Rift Valley in the mountains of Kenya. The First Grader, like Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, seamlessly combines story and place to create an illuminating beacon for our time. The First Grader portrays the story of Kimani Maruge, an 84 year old Mau Mau veteran who helped liberate Kenya from the British. After the Kenyan government announced in 2003 that free schooling would be offered for all, Maruge, played marvelously by Kenyan actor Oliver Litondo, arrives at a primary school to finally get his chance at an education - long denied under oppressive colonial rule and unavailable to him since ...

Spend some time at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam today: Van Gogh Museum Online

On Saturday, March 26, 2011 the Torrance Art Museum held a fundraiser for the Japanese Red Cross to help with the humanitarian needs of post-tsunami Japan. I donated my painting Illume for the cause. This oil painting of a young Buddhist monk, seemingly caught in the glow of prayer candles, resonates hope in mourning, acceptance and rebirth. Gregg Chadwick Illume 16"x20" oil on linen 2011 Ongoing until April 30, 2011 at the Torrance Museum of Art is the exhibition Gateway Japan curated by Yuko Wakaume, Ei Kibukawa, and Max Presneill. More at: Torrance Art Museum

Gregg Chadwick The Sheltering Sky 218cm x 163cm oil on linen 2010 In honor of the brave people of Libya and in memory of the brave Libyan journalist Mohammed Nabbous.

Live Stream of United Nations Security Council Meeting on Libya March 17, 2011

"At times like this, we are all Japanese" -George Takei Gregg Chadwick Beauty and Sadness ( 美しさと哀しみと) Utsukushisa to Kanashimi to 57"x103" oil and collage on Japanese screen Live video chat by Ustream NHK Live Stream from Japan with Updates on the Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Crisis

Buddha, Japanese National Museum, Tokyo Gregg Chadwick "A Balance of Shadows" My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan. Video from Shinjuku,Tokyo showing skyscrapers swaying with the force of the March 11, 2011 earthquake centered off of northeastern Japan. Buildings in Japan are engineered to meet extraordinarily high governmental standards to help prevent earthquake damage. (Video by escot2008) " Friday’s quake was centered off the coast of Honshu, the most populous of the Japanese islands, at a point about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo and a depth of about 17 miles below the earth’s surface.The quake occurred at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time, and was so powerful that buildings in central Tokyo, designed to withstand major earthquakes, swayed." -United States Geological Survey globalgiving has set up a well organized webpage for donations at Japan Earthquake And Tsunami Relief Fund More at: Earthquake in Japan

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com Gregg Chadwick Engine Company 48"x36" oil on canvas 2011 Dedicated to the brave Union workers across the globe: firefighters, nurses, teachers, steelworkers, bricklayers, SAG members, screenwriters, police officers, custodians, musicians, and company. Especially those fighting for their futures in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison, Wisconsin Protests set to the Dropkick Murphys' pro-union song "Take 'em Down"

Watch live streaming video from theuptake at livestream.com Solidarity with the Workers! On Wisconsin! Archive Below: Ustream is now down. But brandzel currently has live mobile video from inside the rotunda at : brandzel at qik.com in the Capitol building

John Wooden (1910 - 2010) Photo by Gregg Chadwick at Pauley Pavilion, November 2006 John Wooden's Great-Grandson Tyler Trapani Makes Last Bruin Points at Pauley Pavilion Bruins - Great Final Game at Wooden's Pauley Pavilion! UCLA 71 - Arizona 49 #ucla #ncaa #reevesnelson #bball #tylertrapani #jrw #wooden

To Public Service Workers in the State of Wisconsin Dear Sisters and Brothers, On behalf of the 700,000 members of the Polish Trade Union NSZZ “Solidarnosc” (Solidarity) I wish to express our solidarity and support for your struggle against the recent assault on trade unions and trade union rights unleashed by Governor Scott Walker. We are witnessing yet another attempt of transferring the costs of the economic crisis and of the failed financial policies to working people and their families. As much as some adjustments are necessary, we can not and must not agree that the austerity measures are synonymous with union-busting practices, the elimination of bargaining rights and the reduction of social benefits and wages. Dear friends, please rest assured that our thoughts are with you during your protest, as we truly do hope that your just fight for decent working and living conditions, for the workers’ rights will be successful. Your victory is our victory as well. In Solidarity, Piotr D...

We Are Wisconsin from Finn Ryan on Vimeo . We Are Wisconsin by Finn Ryan Since the Wisconsin Uprising of 2011, when hundreds of thousands of workers rallied on behalf of labor rights, support for unions has surged. History will record the fight by Wisconsinites and allies across the country as the critical juncture where labor’s march began anew! pic.twitter.com/qFGb3EJtkI — John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) August 30, 2022

Gregg Chadwick Engine Company 48"x36" oil on canvas 2011 Dedicated to the brave Union workers across the globe: firefighters, nurses, teachers, steelworkers, bricklayers, SAG members, screenwriters, police officers, custodians, musicians, and company. Especially those fighting for their futures in Madison, Wisconsin.

STATEMENT FROM GREEN BAY PACKER CHARLES WOODSON IN SUPPORT OF WORKING FAMILIES IN WISCONSIN Last week I was proud when many of my current and former teammates announced their support for the working families fighting for their rights in Wisconsin. Today I am honored to join with them. Thousands of dedicated Wisconsin public workers provide vital services for Wisconsin citizens. They are the teachers, nurses and child care workers who take care of us and our families. These hard working people are under an unprecedented attack to take away their basic rights to have a voice and collectively bargain at work. It is an honor for me to play for the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers and be a part of the Green Bay and Wisconsin communities. I am also honored as a member of the NFL Players Association to stand together with working families of Wisconsin and organized labor in their fight against this attempt to hurt them by targeting unions. I hope those leading the attack will sit do...

Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill Protest from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo . Wisconsin Protests Set to Arcade Fire's Song "Rebellion" This one is for my cousin Anne Johnson who has been at the Capitol building in Madison each day this week. Keep the faith. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the country.

To the demonstrators in Madison, WI - Keep the Faith. Today we are all Wisconsinites! #wisconsin #egypt #tcot #P2 #wiunion Since the Wisconsin Uprising of 2011, when hundreds of thousands of workers rallied on behalf of labor rights, support for unions has surged. History will record the fight by Wisconsinites and allies across the country as the critical juncture where labor’s march began anew! pic.twitter.com/qFGb3EJtkI — John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) August 30, 2022

I enjoy the writing of Adam Gopnik. His current piece in the New Yorker, How the Internet Gets Inside Us , delves into the spaces between man and machines: between the internet and inner self. Today the New Yorker hosted a chat with Adam Gopnik. I found the conversation to be fascinating and have archived it below. The New Yorker: Adam Gopnik will be joining us shortly to discuss the Internet. For now, please submit your questions. 2:00 Adam Gopnik : Hey everyone. Glad to be here for the slightly ironic-meta purpose of carrying on a conversation on the internet about the uses of conversations on the internet. Let me start taking questions. A.G. 2:00 [Comment From Doug] When did you first start using the Web? Were you a late or early adopter? 2:01 Adam Gopnik :: Early or late? Somewhere in between I suppose. I went on e-mail in the mid nineties while living in Paris-- my life is now composed of nothing but e-mail and caffiene-- but only really started being addicted as the world did, in...

After winning Best New Artist at last night's Grammy Awards, jazz artist Esperanza Spalding's career is set to explode. Below is a beautiful clip of Esperanza performing at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on May 12, 2009. Esperanza Spalding performs “Tell Him” on the double bass at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on May 12, 2009.

"For all of its empty talk about Egypt, the government of Iran should allow the Iranian people the same universal right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate in Tehran that the people are exercising in Cairo." - White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor ”We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week.” She added, ”We are against violence and we would call to account the Iranian government that is once again using its security forces and resorting to violence to prevent the free expression of ideas from their own people.” - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Video from Feb 14, 2011 protests against Ahmadinejad in Tehran An eyewitness in Tehran today reports for the BBC: Mohsen Asgari BBC News, Tehran "Riding on the back of a motorbike, holding my mobile to take video footage, I went to central Tehran on Monday afternoon. My driver sk...

Nice to see a real Indie band win a major award at the Grammys. Congrats to one of my faves: Arcade Fire!

by Gregg Chadwick Egyptian Portraits at the Neues Museum, Berlin photo by Gregg Chadwick Including: Upper Left Mask from Amarna: Portrait of a Man Center : Queen Nefertiti Bottom Right: Pharaoh Ay New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca. 1340 BC Gypsum Amarna Height 18 cm Neues Museum, Berlin These life-sized masks are from a series found in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmoses in Achet-Aton (today called Amarna) in Middle Egypt. Amarna was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti. The portrait study of a man in the upper left of the photo provides an interesting view of Thutmoses' artistic process. First a cast was taken directly from the sitter's face and then a gypsum copy was made from the mould. The gypsum sculpture was then brought to detailed completion. In this installation of ancient sculptures, we are directly confronted with the real faces of Egypt. Even if the sitters' names and identities have been lost to history, their muted prese...

The Super Bowl is an American spectator sport for the advertisements as much as the game itself. After a thrilling finish, the Green Bay Packers hold on to win 31 to 25 over the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the advertisement competition, Chrysler's ode to Detroit wins hands down!

Today in Cairo hundreds of thousands of protesters peacefully gathered to urge Mubarak to step down from his 30 year reign in Egypt. Over the weekend, President Barack Obama sent Frank Wisner as his personal envoy to tell Mubarak that his time is over. This evening, Mubarak spoke via a televised address and declared that he will not seek another term. Elections are scheduled for the fall. In Tahrir Square, Mubarak's words were not enough. The massive crowd chanted "Erhal! (Leave!) Erhal! ( Leave!)" A US official told BBC's Kim Ghattas that Mubarak's announcement was not enough for the Obama administration either. From the White House, President Obama said that a transition in Egypt "must begin now". January 31, 2011 Interview with anti-Mubarak protester in Tahrir Square, Cairo Interview by Zero Silence from a forthcoming documentary.

In an earlier post, I referenced a photo taken by Lefteris Pitarakis of a female protester kissing an Egyptian police officer. A Protester in Egypt Kisses a Police Officer photo by: Lefteris Pitarakis / AP A guide for protesters in Egypt has been circulating. Alexis Madrigal on the Atlantic site has published a translation. Reading the manual it is evident that the protests are intended to be peaceful. The manual was sent out in anticipation of today's events. The illustration, below, taken from the manual echoes Pitarakis' photo. More at: Egyptian Activists' Action Plan: Translated

A Protester in Egypt Kisses a Police Officer photo by: Lefteris Pitarakis / AP This evening President Barack Obama spoke out after a phone call with current Egyptian leader Mubarak: THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, everybody. My administration has been closely monitoring the situation in Egypt, and I know that we will be learning more tomorrow when day breaks. As the situation continues to unfold, our first concern is preventing injury or loss of life. So I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere. I also call upon the Egyptian government to reverse the actions that they’ve taken to interfere with access to the Internet, to cell phone servic...

Henry Taylor Chicago Cous 2007 Acrylic on canvas 24" × 20" Samsøn Projects, Boston More info on Boston's Samsøn Projects Tonight at Barker Hangar, the Art Los Angeles Contemporary art fair opens at 8pm. The fair runs from January 27, 2011 until January 30, 2011. Gregg Chadwick Ko-Omote (Winter Face) oil on silk 2011 My studio at the Santa Monica Art Studios is located across the street from Barker Hangar and will be open tonight for the opening party and this weekend. Please stop by and say hello. Santa Monica Art Studios Studio #15 3026 Airport Avenue Santa Monica, California 90405 Also of interest, on Sunday at 4pm at the Ruskin Theater across the street from Barker Hangar, the Honor Fraser Gallery presents Rancourt/Yatsuk's Omega Club: 2011 Annual Gathering , a fictitious multi-level marketing company’s annual event. Conceived as a rising star of the trillion-dollar health and wellness industry, Omega Club will host its first annual gathering of 2011. Details on A...