Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick   From Birth - Baltimore April 2015 Photo by  Lara Davidson * " Schoolteachers, Johns Hopkins employees, film crew people, kids, retirees, everybody went to the city jail. If you think I’m exaggerating, look it up. " - David Simon on Baltimore's anguish.  "Are you going to tell me the story of my life, or am I going to tell you yours." - Baltimore Resident to me in a coffee shop near  City Recreation Pier in the  Fells Point  neighborhood in Baltimore in the late 1990's.   Homicide: Life on the Street's police department scenes were all shot there . Eddie Gray's death at the hands of the Baltimore Police Department is sadly not an isolated event. To understand the current situation in Baltimore, it pays to read the thoughts of  David Simon   on Baltimore’s Anguish:  Freddie Gray, the drug war, and the decline of “real policing” in  The Marshall Project.  David Simon's history with Charm Cit...

“Life is a fatal adventure. It can only have one end. So why not make it as far-ranging and free as possible?”  Alexander Eliot I received the sad news yesterday that my dear friend, art writer and mythologist, Alex Eliot passed away. Born April 28, 1919, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Alex would have turned 97 this week.  Alex was the art editor at Time Magazine from 1945 until 1960. During those years Alex crafted numerous articles about the modern art scene.  Alex always held us spellbound with tales of meeting the major artists of the period.  Alex especially loved to tell the story of meeting Salvador Dali in New York and that Dali became a close friend because Jane Winslow,  Eliot’s wife,   had lived in Catalonia and spoke Dali’s native Catalan fluently.  For his 90th birthday, Alex's talented daughter, the writer Winslow Eliot, asked me to craft an appreciation of Alex. I have revamped this essay a bit to reflect on his pass...