A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Literary Event: “Three Franco Poets from Lowell” This event was held on Monday, June 22, 2026, at UMass Lowell’s Coburn Hall as part of this year’s Lowell Franco American Festival Week. The three poets were Dr. Joseph H. Roy (1865-1931), Suzanne Beebe and Paul Marion. The event was moderated by Dr. Mercedes Baillargeon of the University’s Department of World Languages and Cultures who is also the director of the University’s Franco-American Digital Archive. About 30 people attended despite the storminess of the evening. The event began with a delicious buffet of classic French-Canadian dishes. The program began with Paul reading the English translation of one of Dr. Roy’s poems (which were translated by regular blog contributor Louise Peloquin) with Professor Baillargeon then reading the same poem in its original French. They cycled through several poems this way. Next, Suzanne Beebe read several of her poems which were mostly about her memories of her immigrant grandparents. Paul came next, reading several of his own poems, including one on his impressions of Paris from his first visit there and another on that enduring culinary mystery, Chinese Pie. A general discussion with audience questions followed. Each of the principals shared something that stuck with me: Professor Baillargeon observed that Dr. Roy’s poetry seemed heavily influenced by the style of the most prominent French poets and writers of that time, suggesting that the intellectual assembly line ran from France to Canada (and to those in the US who came from Canada); whereas the more recent poems by Paul and Suzanne were much like American poetry suggesting that the French influence demonstrated a century or more ago had given way to American influence. Suzanne observed that her parents spoke English in their home so she did not learn French from them. She did study it in school for many years but that’s not the same. However, she did grow up knowing her grandparents and experienced the culture and traditions through them, but she wonders whether her nieces and grand nieces who never had that exposure will feel a connection to Franco culture or will it have fully evolved out of them. Finally, Paul said that Paris was great but it was a trip through Normandy that made him feel connected. That’s where his ancestors were from before they went to Canada and the wide open fields and agricultural lifestyle brought to mind the rural environment his  ancestors left behind in Canada when they moved to the US. 

Museum Exhibit: “Framing Nature: Gardens and Imagination” at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This exhibit opened in mid-March and closed last Sunday. Text at the entrance explained that the exhibit used visual arts to show the importance of gardens throughout history and across the globe. There were garden-scene tapestries from Medieval Europe, Persia, and China, and ancient horticultural books. Two modern paintings depicted the Garden of Eden in new ways. Another room highlighted the affinity of artists for gardens. A lily pond painting by Monet and a watercolor by John Singer Sargent were highlights of this room. I especially liked a display called “the autobiography of a garden.” Here, the artist did twelve etchings of himself in his garden, one for each month of the year that collectively showed the annual garden cycle (i.e., perusing seed catalogs in January, tending seedlings in cold frames in April, and harvesting a crop in September). Each etching was then placed on a stoneware dinner plate with the twelve plates displayed on a wall. This was a contemplative, thought-provoking exhibit. Notwithstanding my mention of Monet and Sargent, there were not many paintings in the exhibit which on one level was a let down but it also forced the viewer to focus on other things which may have been the intent of the curators. 

Museum Exhibit: “Art of the Americas, 1700-1800”, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The MFA just completed a revision of the first floor of its “American Wing”. Earlier this year, the museum made the difficult but wise decision to send back a substantial federal grant to avoid the white-washing censorship the federal government is imposing on museums across the country. While that money would undoubtedly have been helpful, forsaking it gave the MFA freedom to show and say whatever it thought appropriate with this redone exhibit being a manifestation of that. The text at the entrance explains that when most think of the 18th century in US history, it is about independence, but this exhibit is about interdependence, about how the many cultures of north, central and south America and the Caribbean depended on each other, sometimes for their mutual benefit, other times in harmful ways. The displays juxtapose things you would not think go together but after seeing them, reading about them, and thinking about them, you realize that they are connected. For example, Paul Revere’s famous etching of the Boston Massacre is displayed alongside an Ojibwe war club from the same period. Many of the old favorites remain. The exhibit is anchored by the enormous Washington at the Delaware painting (the one of him on a horse, not in the boat), but that’s mostly because the painting and its frame are so large that it wasn’t feasible to move it. This is a very good, thought-provoking exhibit that is a much-needed counterpoint to how history is being assaulted by the Federal government at other institutions. 

Op-Ed: “The Biden Verdict Is In. It Isn’t Pretty” by Carlos Lozada, New York Times, June 21, 2026. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been a fan of Lozada since his days as book critic at the Washington Post. Here, he cites Jill Biden’s memoir, Hunter Biden’s omnipresence on social media, and rumors of a Joe Biden memoir coming soon to essentially wish that they’d just go away. He then drafts an indictment of Biden’s presidency, saying that even his big achievements (ARPA, the Inflation Reduction Act, and Build Back Better) received little credit while his border policy and persistent inflation were big negatives. He also wonders if Biden, on two of his biggest issues – responding to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the quest for a more equitable country after the George Floyd murder – really felt strongly about either. The basis of this question was that Biden, a lifelong Catholic, had long seemed ambivalent about abortion, and while in the Senate, he authored the crime bill that had huge disparities based on race. My own feeling is that Biden should never have run for a second term. Regardless of his age, his ability to communicate effectively was gone, and being a good communicator is an essential task of being president. By staying in the race, he deprived the Democrats of a competitive primary which would have put forth the strongest candidate with ample time to make their case to voters. By hanging around until his horrendous debate performance and then dropping out, Biden significantly increased the odds that Trump would be elected again with all the horridness that has entailed.