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Archived Posts from this Category
‘The Red Sox Tree’ by Tom Sexton
Posted by PaulM on 11 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Poetry
Here’s another poem from Tom Sexton’s book of Lowell poems, A Clock With No Hands (Adastra Press, 2007). With Nomar back in the news and in the fold, this seemed like a good day for this poem.—PM
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The Red Sox Tree
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It seemed to take all morning to go around
the massive trunk of that ancient beech.
Almost eight, I kept one eye on the ground
as I climbed as high as I could reach.
A vet who’d fought on Iwo Jima carved
their line-up where the branches thinned,
far above the last initials in their heart,
where the air was always cold on the skin.
Climbing to it was my goal that summer,
and on the Fourth I was almost there
when I was forced back down by thunder
and lightning close enough to singe my hair.
Safe at home behind my bedroom door,
I chanted Williams, Pesky, and Bobby Doerr.
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—Tom Sexton (c) 2007
Why so many pine cones?
Posted by PaulM on 11 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, Greater Lowell, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Science
The Boston Globe yesterday reported on the unusually large amount of pine cones everywhere this year. I noticed this phenomemon in my family’s back yard and across the street at the South Common. The explanation has to do with regular cycles of production, this one being the culmination of the most recent three-year cycle. Read the article here and consider subscribing to the Globe if you appreciate it.
‘The War Place’: Section 8
Posted by PaulM on 10 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Poetry
Following is the eighth section of the long poem “The War Place.” Section seven was posted March 8.—PM
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8.
Invasion of Grenada, 1983
A Marine jet whines,
Its slant chalk scratch
On an otherwise flawless ceiling.
Even L.A.’s smog blown off
By night desert winds.
Scruffy palms, roasting,
Outnumber the faithful at Capo Beach
This bright autumn noon.
One bather treads,
Light in the heave and slide,
Just beyond the break.
Hissing foam sucks back through the stones.
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—Paul Marion (c) 2010
Jack Kerouac Day (Weekend) Coming Up
Posted by PaulM on 10 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010
The full schedule of activities for Jack Kerouac Day (he was born on March 12), which has become a “Kerouac Weekend,” is available at www.lowellcelebrateskerouac.org
This Thursday at UMass Lowell, music and movie producer Jim Sampas, who grew up on Wilder Street, will be on campus to offer a master class/listening session at which he’ll tell the behind-the-scenes story of making the soundtrack for the recent documentary film about Kerouac’s novel “Big Sur.” He worked with musicians from Death Cab for Cutie and Son Volt. His talk is at 11 am in Durgin Hall, 114 (note that seating is limited and reservations are required—contact paul_marion@uml.edu to reserve a seat). At 3 pm, Jim will be joined by fellow film producers Curt Worden and Gloria Bailen for a 3 pm showing of their Kerouac film, “One Fast Move or I’m Gone,” in the O’Leary Library auditorium, room 222. Admission is free.
Manchester is More Than Channel 9
Posted by PaulM on 09 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, Greater Lowell, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010
The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H., is one of the Merrimack Valley’s small cultural treasures. Today’s Globe includes a review of an exhibition of watercolors (”From Homer to Hopper: American Watercolor Masterworks”) that sounds like the show would be a good reason to take a ride north next weekend. Read the article by Cate McQuaid here, and subscribe to the Globe if you appreciate it.
Dems Need to ‘Spring Ahead’ to Jobs-Jobs-Jobs
Posted by PaulM on 09 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: 2010 Election, Culture, Federal, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Politics, Presidency
President Obama and company need to move the question on the health care reform bill so they can focus more energy on the joblessness and job insecurity that are gnawing at the nation’s collective confidence. Bob Herbert of the NYTimes has his “jobs” drum out again today, and he’s pounding it in hope that the Democrats in Washington will hear the message. Read his column here, and subscribe to the NYT if you appreciate it.
A Lenten Reading by Ross Douthat of NYT
Posted by PaulM on 08 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010
The NYTimes columnist Ross Douthat offers his thoughts about mysticism for the masses (small “m” masses). Read his essay here, and subscribe to the NYT if you appreciate it.
‘The War Place’: Section 7
Posted by PaulM on 08 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Poetry
Following is the seventh section of the long poem “The War Place.” Section 6 was posted on March 3.—PM
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7.
Vietnam War
Part One
A group of political science majors were sitting at the table in the faculty office where we hung out between classes when Jim started to talk about his days in South Vietnam. He said, “Once we took a hill in monsoon season, and I was a lookout directin artillery, but didn’t always report movement. The jungles were fulla bugs, and our repellent use-ta burn our skin off—came out of a swamp once with a leech stuck to my stones—worst things was the green bamboo vipers, and the water, the water was terrible, gave us dysentery. Y’always felt damp from crappin yaself, y’could either drink the water and get the runs or drop iodine tabs in your canteen and end up vomitin—it tasted so bad. I lived on dried fruit and oatmeal. For three weeks VC rockets hit us. I stayed in my foxhole dreamin of a Coke-in-ice. Y’know that hilltop was so small, we shat on shovels, threw it off the sides.”
Part Two
Came back to be a lawyer
Study politics
Guy with the wire glasses
Nervous excitement
Telling how he joined the Marines
Right out of high school
Still wearing football cleats
Went right to a leatherneck office
And woke up in boot camp
A kid from a cozy suburb
In a sweaty sport shirt
When he got off the bus
The terror and screaming
Didn’t stop for twelve weeks
But on Sundays
At the same time
All together
Sitting the same way
The boys wrote home
Part Three
Iron chops the sky up and down this coast, from Camp Pendleton to the Marine air base at El Toro. Maybe it’s the palm trees or because I’m picturing the surf sliding into Vietnam on the other hem of this ocean, but I can’t help thinking these helicopters are from the war, the ones that carried wounded kids out of fire zones long enough ago that movies of the war seem old. I didn’t go, but can’t get rid of it. I keep reading Casey’s Obscenities and Herr’s Dispatches, drawn to the mayhem. I wonder if young Turner from my home back east was stationed in California before shipping out. A quiet guy who lived up the hill from my house, his name now tops a steel post set in a grassy patch at Hildreth Street and New Boston Road where I caught the high school bus. Now it’s a hero square: Turner Square. That’s what we do at home. In high school I was too cautious to join the walk-out protest when U.S. troops went into Cambodia big-time. The draft was suspended the year I would have been called to go. I still don’t know what I would have done if the call had come. Several years later, planes lifted orphans out of Vietnam as the world watched everything go bad on TV. At a Concord church, I helped pack baby food, diapers, and formula all day, and then trucked the goods to Logan Airport for a charter flight. When I finally visited the black Wall in hot and steamy white-stone Washington and felt the incisions in its mirror-face, I searched for Sergeant Turner’s name among the names that hold up all the signs at all the intersections. His dates are 31 Jan 48, 17 Aug 69. He’s on Panel 19 West, Line 57. Exactly the same letters as on the neighborhood sign.
Part Four
I guessed he was Laotian from the multi-colored handmade bag
Whose interlocking designs read LAOS-USA.
Walking past Jordan’s Christmas window, he said “Vietnam” without speaking.
We exhanged smiles. I tried not to stare,
Wondering what his eyes had seen, and what they saw in me.
At the Indochinese Festival in Lucy Larcom Park,
Youngfolk in pink, green, and gold swayed through the coconut dance,
And then a Cambodian rock band with Cambodian-American flair
Injected the park with electric notes—guitars twanged ancient melodies.
Beautiful kids sat happy-eyed while the cooking pots steamed.
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—Paul Marion (c) 2010
Red Carpet Reaches Lowell, Turns Blue
Posted by PaulM on 07 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Technology
When you watch the red carpet festivities at the Academy Awards later today, look for some long blue threads that extend to Lowell. This morning, Dave Perry of the Sun broke the news that film director James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic, Aliens) will speak in the Middlesex Community College Celebrity Forum on June 16.
‘Creative Economy’ Workers from UMass Lowell
Posted by PaulM on 07 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Culture, Education, History, Lowell, Lowell 2010, Technology
Nancye Tuttle of the Sun today writes about successful graduates of the UMass Lowell graphic design program. Their work is on view through March 12 in the exhibition “Working Proof: Graphic Design Alumni Exhibition” in the Dugan Gallery, 883 Broadway, on UMass Lowell South. Gallery hours are 11 am to 4 pm, Monday through Thursday. In the article, the students praise the UML program and the teaching of Prof. Karen E. Roehr. Read the story here, and subscribe to the Sun if you appreciate it.
