Menu
Author Archive
Spring-Summer
We had the windows open until after dark last evening, and the birds were singing and calling loudly, sending the outside into the living room. Feels like a summer morning today. Out early with the dog, and the air was of a quality that registered as summer in my brain.…
Read More »This Is Important: Manning Gift Yields $5 Million for UMass Lowell
Did I mention UMass Lowell alums Robert and Donna Manning and the $5 million for the development of a new home for Management studies: The Robert Manning School of Business? See below for another post with links to media articles. Robert Manning will be the Commencement speaker at the Tsongas Center…
Read More »On Bob Dylan’s 70th Birthday: A Film Clip from Lowell
Thanks to Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! on Facebook and the blog Reader’s Almanac of the Library of America for this film clip and commentary about Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg. The footage is from November 1975 in Edson Cemetery in Lowell, when Bob Dylan was in the city with…
Read More »The Robert Manning School of Business at UMass Lowell
UMass Lowell today announced a donation valued at $5 million from alumni Robert and Donna Manning. A new home for the university’s College of Management will be named the Robert Manning School of Business. Read the Boston Herald report here, and get the Herald if you want to read…
Read More »Jack Neary’s ‘The Porch’ @ UML ICC, June 2, 3, 4
“THE PORCH is to eastern Massachusetts what Steel Magnolias is to northwest Louisiana. A deceptively tender play that is also very funny. It’s an inviting place to set a while and will leave you feeling right neighborly.” Broadway World Tickets are moving fast for the four performances of Jack Neary’s…
Read More »Spring Extra
I don’t know if it is because we endured such a harsh winter this year, but the spring season seems like it has come to us in high-definition. I’ve read the media coverage about the mother-of-all-allergy-seasons and the double deluxe blooming in the woods and fields. That’s part of the overall…
Read More »Maureen D. & Irish Mist
I don’t think of NYTimes columnist Maureen Dowd as a sentimental person, at least not from her opinion pieces, but in her latest op-ed column she gets a little misty in between her wise-gal lines as she writes about the Irish embrace of both Queen Elizabeth II and President Obama.…
Read More »‘Your Old Car Can Go Home Again’ by Ray LaPorte
You Can’t Go Home Again, But Your Old Car Can I left my old home town for good nearly 25 years ago, after spending a rich early career helping to rebuild its historic structures and fading reputation. And, although I have few opportunities to walk her streets or visit old…
Read More »Kerouac on Martha’s Vineyard
One of our far-flung correspondents, Ray LaPorte of Lowell and beyond, sent this phone-cam picture of a Kerouac souvenir t-shirt in a shop window in Vineyard Haven on “the Island” in the Atlantic.
Read More »