Author Archive

‘Pinky’s Gospel’

My uncle Frank died this week. Francis “Pinky” Roy was my late mother’s youngest brother. He lived for years in New Hampshire after an adventurous life that took him from the Centralville neighborhood of Lowell to Europe in World War II to California, Florida, and other states. He was a meat-cutter by trade,…

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Katy Perry Inspired by Kerouac

The Kerouac House (writer in residence program in Orlando, Fla.) posted a link on Facebook to a video of singer Katy Perry talking about her new song “Firework,”  which she says was inspired by the writing of Jack Kerouac in “On the Road.” The source link is at fabulousbuzz.com. Katy Perry performed at the…

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Scholar Mason Drukman on Individualism & Community

To support communal feelings, a nation must seek to preserve certain cherished institutions as well as engage in creative innovation; it must value collective responsibility as well as individual incentive; it must espouse goals over and above those of economic self-aggrandizement. If a commitment to the ends of economic individualism…

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