Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Easy Money (Song by Song Review of Bruce Springsteen's New Album -  Wrecking Ball) In 1958, The Coasters slyly sang in Yakety Yak about bringing in the dog and letting out the cat. In Bruce Springsteen's Easy Money (Listen Here) ,  off of his new album Wrecking Ball , a couple finds themselves letting out bo th the dog and the cat on what might be their last night on the town.  Gregg Chadwick The Mirror Dreams 40"x30" oil on linen 2012 A percussive stomping beat drives the song, playfully making light of the downtrodden couple's last ditch attempt to pull off a score: There's nothing to it mister You won't hear a sound When your whole world comes tumbling down And all them fat cats they'll just think it's funny I'm going on the town now looking for easy money Like bluegrass played on a summer's night, fiddles and acoustic guitar swirl and twang. But the  song turns ominous when Springsteen sings: I got a...

Gregg Chadwick Neon Dreams 40"x40" oil on linen 2012

by Gregg Chadwick Super Bowl Sunday has grown to become a secular holiday that rivals Thanksgiving in the United States. I just got off the phone with my brother and our New Jersey/New York roots run deep. Sporting events from this past weekend remind me how much I carry Spike Lee's and my Grandpa Chadwick's sporting allegiances with me. Jeremy Lin's astounding play for the New York Knicks basketball squad last night proved to be a harbinger for the New York Giants inspired play today. Tomorrow morning will be a bit sweeter as New Yorkers access their newspapers of choice. For me, memories of late Saturday nights in the Village buying Sunday's New York Times at a corner grocery never fail to bring a smile to my face. As did Clint Eastwood's inspired role in this year's Chrysler ad. I'd recognize that silhouette anywhere. Doesn't look like Carmel's Hog's Breath to me though. I've been in a Noir mood myself with a studio full of new paint...

by Gregg Chadwick K'NAAN Photo by Erin Baiano         CourtesyThe New York Times           SongGate continues.  The New York Times and other websites and publications have now picked up the story of K'NAAN's extreme displeasure over the Romney campaign's misuse of his rousing anthem of freedom Wavin' Flag . Earlier this week, I posted about the controversy. I am heartened that the national media continues to dig into the issues involved. What is amazing to me is the utter lack of critical listening by Mitt Romney and his campaign. Did anyone involved listen to K'NAAN's powerful lyrics? The following verses don't sound like Romneyspeak to me: Born to a throne, stronger than Rome A violent prone, poor people zone But it's my home, all I have known Where I got grown, streets we would roam Out of the darkness, I came the farthest Among the hardest survival Learn from these streets, it can be bleak Accept no defeat, ...

by Gregg Chadwick Portrait of K'NAAN I find it intriguing how an artwork over the years gathers a life of its own through changes in context and in reference to global events. The uproar over Mitt Romney's use this week of K'NAAN's infectious hit  Wavin' Flag is the latest in a long series of political events in which conservative politicians have misappropriated the music of politically progressive musicians in an effort to appear hip or part of the zeitgeist. I was in Berlin during the 2010 World Cup and K'NAAN's World Cup Theme Wavin' Flag thundered across the Tiergarten in the shadow of the angel capped Siegessäule. At the Kennedy Museum, a short walk away through the Brandenburg Gate, an exhibit of photographs by Nadav Kander illuminated President Obama and the members of his team. In the Tiergarten two years earlier in 2008, Barack Obama had given one of his most impressive campaign speeches. Nadav Kander Exhibit at the Kennedy Museum...

Jenny Holzer’s "For the Guggenheim" projected the words of Wislawa Szymborska on the museum’s outdoor facade. (2008) photo courtesy of Lili Holzer-Glier Clouds I’d have to be really quick to describe clouds— a split second’s enough … for them to start being something else. Their trademark: they don’t repeat a single shape, shade, pose, arrangement. Unburdened by memory of any kind, they float easily over the facts. What on earth could they bear witness to? They scatter whenever something happens. Compared to clouds, life rests on solid ground, practically permanent, almost eternal. Next to clouds even a stone seems like a brother, someone you can trust, while they’re just distant, flighty cousins. Let people exist if they want, and then die, one after another: clouds simply don’t care what they’re up to down there. And so their haughty fleet cruises smoothly over your whole life and mine, still incomplete. They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re go...

by Gregg Chadwick Peter Clothier's Mind Work explores the history and spiritual dimensions of his inspiring life. Clothier is known for insightful writing on the arts and artists which adds luminosity to the events depicted in  Mind Work . The volume delves deeply into a life well lived and inspires us to consider our own lives in a spirit of humility and acceptance.   The book is  structured into a series of essays that reflect an admiration for Montaigne's writings. In this spirit, each chapter of  Mind Work  dwells upon a singular idea and illuminates this idea with episodes drawn from Clothier's experiences.   Mind Work  deftly weaves Peter's family history into essays rich with metaphysical questioning. Looming behind much of Clothier's life is the recurring struggle to both live up to his father's dreams for him and to overcome them. In one pivotal chapter, Clothier and his wife Ellie encounter, for the first time, Michelangelo's sculp...

For Super Bowl XLVI, Honda has released an homage to Ferris Bueller's Day Off  starring Matthew Broderick in a reprise of his iconic role. Only, this time Ferris is a grown up film star who calls in sick.  The truant hops in his bright red 2012 Honda CR-V and relishes a day in L.A.  According to Honda, over two dozen movie references are hidden throughout the ad directed  by Todd Phillips. For the Twitter inclined - Use the hashtag #dayoff and  find them all My favorite scene is with the walrus...

by Gregg Chadwick Henri Maillardet's Automaton at The Franklin Institute  In November 1928, the fire scarred remains of a mechanical boy were dropped off at The Franklin Institute  in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Left in pieces, it took months of painstaking work to reassemble the automaton. Little was known about the history of this extraordinary object. Like the automaton in Brian Selznick's magical, graphic novel  The Invention of Hugo Cabret  and Martin Scorsese's wonderful film adaptation of the book now simply entitled  Hugo , the machine itself provided the clue to its origins. When the complicated cogs and mechanisms were repaired and the machine was rewound for the first time in decades, the automaton's hand began to draw.  Remarkably the machine's mechanical memory, held four drawings and three poems  (illustrated below). One of the poems finished with a signature in French, "Ecrit par l'Automate de Maillardet." The mechanic...

by Gregg Chadwick President Barack Obama sang the first line of Al Green's hit "Let's Stay Together" at a January 19, 2012 fundraiser at New York's historic Apollo Theater and, according to  Billboard ,  sales have increased almost 500% this past week after the video of the moment went viral. Al Green was at the event and evidently inspired our President to surprise the crowd and his staff with a confident a cappella rendition. Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" sold 16,000 downloads in the week ending January 22, 2012 according to Nielsen SoundScan. This is the best sales week for Green's classic song since SoundScan began tracking downloads in 2003. President Barack Obama and Al Green Photo Courtesy Billboard