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Picking up on Tony’s post about Hemingway, I want to add a Kerouac thread to the discussion. Hemingway’s stories influenced Kerouac’s early work. In early 1942, 19-year-old Jack Kerouac was writing sports articles for the Lowell Sun and at the same time conceiving what he pictured as a trilogy of…
Read More »In today’s NYTimes, David Brooks weighs the relative merits of informing ourselves and improving our minds through new and traditional means (web v. book). He offers recent study results and wise pronouncements from thoughtful sources. I’m sure he knows we aren’t in an either-or world. It’s an “and-plus” world for those…
Read More »Folk-soul singer-songwriter Amos Lee and Jamaican reggae grandaddy Jimmy Cliff will play at Boarding House Park tonight and tomorrow night, respectively. For details and tickets, visit www.lowellsummermusic.org Next weekend, it’s ’90s alt-rockers Cake and singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading.
Read More »I marked this boston.com article about Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for sharing a few weeks ago, but didn’t get around to posting it. In a time when it is easy to be discouraged about the economic situation, I think it’s important to note the bright spots. Companies in Chelmsford and Westford are…
Read More »This bird or a close cousin and others like it contribute to the morning music in and around the South Common. With its many trees and bushes, the Common is an aviary of sorts, especially at this time of year. I don’t know the bird types well enough to list…
Read More »Timothy Egan is based in the western U.S. and writes for the NYTimes. His recent column offers a prespective on the current national situation (military and economic). He says President Obama is facing “a Lincoln moment” and has to come up with a response that can pull the nation together…
Read More »Walking the dog on the South Common around suppertime for the past few days has been like traversing a stretch of desert. The cut grass on the south slope above the playing field crunches underfoot because it’s so brittle. Someone once described the hillsides in California as being the color of mountain lion…
Read More »Ringo Starr, born Richard Starkey in Liverpool, England, turned 70 years old today. Interviewed by the New York Times for today’s paper, he said he had one request for those who want to wish him well on this day. He started this little ritual two years ago on his birthday.…
Read More »Prof. Bob Forrant forwarded the following quote about Jack Kerouac’s influence on the emerging political activist Tom Hayden in 1960. He’s reading a book by James Miller about the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and ther rise of the New Left to prepare for a history course he is…
Read More »All this writing and opinion-giving about our economic problems and what’s needed to get the nation out of the financial ditch sent me back to the writings of young Jack Kerouac in the collection I edited, “Atop an Underwood.” In 1941, when he was 19 years old, Kerouac wrote a…
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