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My wife, son, and I enjoyed the exhibitions of  photography at three locations today: the Brush Gallery and ALL Gallery at Market Mills and the Whistler House Museum of Art/Parker Gallery. At about 1 p.m., the Brush was packed with people for the reception and announcement of four prize winners. This show was all classic black-and-white photographs of a variety of subject matter, from architectural studies to portraits. The entries were the work of people from across the state and beyond. One of the winners was from St. Louis, if I recall correctly. Across the courtyard at Market Mills the Arts League of Lowell Gallery featured a mix of color and black-and-white work. My brother Richard had two prints in the show — one image from the North Shore and another of a sagging out-building near the former Hub Hosiery in Lowell. A distant cousin of mine, Greg M., had a color shot of a distressed person sprawled on a city street. There were two selections from a photographer who has been shooting the bridges in Lowell. She had a one-person show at the Mogan Cultural Center a few months ago. She uses distinctive heavy metal frames that allude to the steel work on bridges. 

Our next stop was the Whistler House, where there was a small, but impressive display of Polaroid transfer prints. One group of prints was made from archival images shot by a man who traveled in the early 1900s to Cambodia, China, Egypt, and other countries. The small prints were fascinating moments in time with familiar icons of these cultures: the Sphinx, Chinese junks, a Buddhist temple in Cambodia.  We were also impressed by the fine pastel works in the Parker Gallery in an exhibition curated by Jim Dyment of the Whistler House Museum. People were streaming in to see the Polaroids, and museum director Michael Lally was in the Gallery greeting everyone. Afterwards, we toured the Whistler House itself, which is as vital as ever. Paintings from the permanent collection were featured in all the rooms. It’s always great to see the Aldro Hibbard winter scenes when there is snow outside on Worthen Street. We topped off our tour with a stop in the third-floor studio of resident artist Meredith Fife Day. She was in and welcoming visitors to the jewel of a work-space with the big window looking out on the Holy Trinity gold dome and St. Patrick’s stone steeple. The gold leaf of the dome was on fire with sunlight against a background of pure powder-blue sky. She had a series of paintings, collages, and drawings all inspired by a remarkable blue bridge in France that she had seen on a recent visit. I was also interested in her paint and pencil studies of buildings and rooftops in the Acre. Kudos to the organizers of the Photography Weekend. We didn’t see everything today, but we were inspired by the creative work we encountered downtown.

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For a few months now stories coming out of Ireland tell a tale of economic woe and financial floundering. There are housing and foreclosure problems, bank, loan and credit crises along with job loss and employment instability. Yesterday two hundred workers at the once iconic Waterford factory staged a sit-in - refusing to leave the premises. The Irish Times on-line now reports a threat by Moody’s to downgrade the State’s bond rating. These situations are reflective of the close ties of Ireland to the US and of course her membership in the EU. Ireland had been flying high economically - an economic model touted even by Republicans during the Bush/Paulson bank bailout debates citing the favorable tax rates, etc. Check out the full story at: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0131/1232923378733.html

From IrishTimes.com:

The Republic of Ireland has become the first western European country, in the current downturn, to have its rating placed on a negative outlook by Moody’s.

The agency outlined three factors that would result in a downgrade of Ireland’s “AAA” rating – the highest available – over the coming year.

These include an erosion of the Irish “economic model” and a further significant weakening of the Government’s financial strength, possibly due to rising liabilities from the banking system.

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I think Springsteen’s performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday is proving to be as much of a draw as the Steelers-Cardinals contest. A friend of mine once said to me that Bruce’s song “The River” always makes him think of Lowell. I didn’t go to the Springsteen concert at Lowell Memorial Auditorium many years ago, but I wonder if he played that song in the show. I’m sure some of this blog’s readers caught that show. My recollection is that the concert was recorded for possible use on an album, but I could be wrong. If “The River” would go on the soundtrack for a Lowell movie, what else would be included? How about “Millworker” by James Taylor and “Hey, Jack Kerouac” by 10,000 Maniacs?  Maybe (smile) “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” by Si and Gar? “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd? Did anyone go to the Pink Floyd tribute concert at the Auditorium last night? Last fall, my family went with friends to the U2 tribute concert by The Joshua Tree at the Auditorium, and the music was first-rate. The crowd was the size of a club audience. The same band is playing the upcoming Winterfest downtown.

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Check out this Associated Press story from today’s New York Times online about a city arts initiative in Portland, Maine, that has produced among other creative work a 2009 calendar featuring photos and poems by police officers. This is a long way from the calendars of body-builder fire fighters, but pretty interesting as a way to explore the psychological benefits of creative expression for people whose daily work is emotionally intense.

Don’t forget that this is Lowell Photography Weekend with exhibits and displays at galleries and museums all over the city. Google the topic for a schedule of events. Maybe there are a few local police photographers represented in the exhibits.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/31/us/AP-Poetic-Police.html?_r=1

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Jim Leary of the Lowell School Committee wrote a letter to the editor responding to the Sun’s Monday editorial which called for stripping the committee of authority over the fiscal affairs of the Lowell public schools.  As we mentioned in an earlier post, Leary’s colleague Jackie Doherty also responded to the same editorial with a post on her blog.

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The Trustees of the Pollard Memorial Library Foundation have scored a big hit getting Democratic political consultant Robert Shrum as the star of their Annual Meet the Author Night. Save the date of May 20, 2009! For the price of a $50 ticket you can wine, dine and hear the stories and insights of the ultimate Democratic insider. Hats off the the Trustees for appreciating the excitement of a new Democratic President and administration and using it to bring attention to the unsung gem of the Pollard Memorial Library. The PML will be the hottest spot in historic downtown Lowell on May 20th. I’ll be there - will you? I’ll post more information later-on in the weekend. Thanks to Matt Fitpatrick for the heads-up.

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Two Lowell Men’s League Basketball teams battle it out…

YouTube description:
An epic battle in the Men’s League C-Division game between two Lowell, MA teams. Both teams were undefeated. The Mill City/Big Richards win a 77-74 OT win. Chris Gill made a full court shot to send the game into OT at he buzzer.

The quality of this video is poor, but the content is amazing…from around 140-155 seconds into the video you can see Chris Gill lob a successful, full court, desperation shot…pretty cool.

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An excerpt from a recent article about the death of John Updike by David Ulin in the LA Times:

“… ‘Rabbit, Run’ — published in 1960, when he was just 28 — was written in reaction to another iconic novel of its moment, Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road.’ What Updike wanted, he explained on that night at UCLA, was to write a book in which going on the road had consequences, to explore what might have happened had Kerouac’s Sal Paradise left a wife and child behind.

“Such a statement speaks to a certain rigid moral vision, which was again, perhaps, both a weakness and a strength. Updike was not a revolutionary writer, and he may have suffered from having lived — and written — through revolutionary times. His least compelling books, such as 2006’s “Terrorist,” are attempts to remain relevant; he was at his finest when he described the world he saw.

“But that, too, is the legacy of the working writer, which Updike was until the end.”

david.ulin@latimes.com

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At some point soon—sooner than most of us think—the print edition [of the New York Times], and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist.

Michael Hirschorn writing in January 2009 edition of The Atlantic.

As reported today, in 2007, the New York Times Company showed a profit of $209 million.  In 2008, it lost $58 million, a stunning reversal.  Its profits for the fourth quarter of 2008 dropped 48 percent from a year earlier.  Undoubtedly this will result in more layoffs at the Times (and presumably at the Boston Globe which is owned by the Times).  In an effort to quickly raise cash to payoff rapidly maturing debt, the company has also retained the investment firm Goldman Sachs to help sell its 17 percent share of the Boston Red Sox (including Fenway Park and NESN). 

Hirschorn’s article – “End Times” – contemplates what a post-print New York Times might look like.  Anyone interested in newspapers, news and the internet will find it interesting reading.

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If we had a regional Literary Range like the Presidential Range in the White Mountains, then Robert Frost and Jack Kerouac would be the twin top peaks in the literary mountains of the Merrimack Valley, rising just above Mt. John Greenleaf Whittier and Mt. Anne Bradstreet. Their companion peaks in the related Concord Range would be the Himalayan triple-name summits of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott. But, more seriously, Marie noted the anniversary of Frost’s death. Kudos to the Robert Frost Foundation of Lawrence for keeping the literary flame alive in that city with ever-more imaginative programs and activities. Before Lowell had the Jack Kerouac Commemorative sculptural tribute at Bridge and French streets, Lawrence had the Robert Frost Memorial on Campagnone Common with plantings referenced in Frost’s poems. Notice the birch trees next time you drive by. It is gratifying to know that the Frost Foundation founders like Les Bernal and Mark Schorr were inspired to organize around that great poet by the successful Kerouac activities in Lowell. Several years ago, they had announced a plan for a national-level Robert Frost Literary Center in Lawrence, and I hope the group pursues that goal.

I posted earlier about the quote from President Kennedy about the role of the arts and the artist in society spoken at the Obama “We Are One” music and words celebration the Sunday before the Inauguration. The quote was from JFK’s remarks at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library in Amherst not long before he was shot in Dallas, Texas. A quote about the arts from that speech is also on the wall of the Kennedy Presidential Library.

With the reintroduction of poetry at the recent Inauguration, there were many media recollections of Frost’s recitation at the Kennedy Inauguration in 1961. He was such a huge figure, we’d have to put him in those Himalayas with Emerson and Thoreau. Still today, many people picture the older, white-haired Frost as the icon of modern-era American poets. He lived so long and was so visible and publicly honored that he is indelible in memory. His early poems composed at the farm in nearby Derry, N.H., and carried over from his short stay in England remain among his most admired work (A Boy’s Will and North of Boston). If you have not walked the grounds at the Frost Farm in Derry, I recommend a visit — you can still feel his presence in the field and woods. 

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