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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…
Read More »The web isn’t called “the web” for nothing. Like no other tool, the internet both displays and helps us plug in to the vast connectedness of daily life. In recent days the writers on this blog have put their words around the economy, the future of cities, university happenings and…
Read More »Speaking of TIME magazine, the new issue has a spread about the summer reading lists of some well known people. Judd Apatow mentions “The Garden of Last Days” by Andre Dubus III, who teaches writing and literature at UMass Lowell. Apatow’s list also includes heavy hitters Dave Eggers and Dostoevsky.
Read More »Just to add to the back-and-forth about Andrew’s post on “austerity” and the economic mess, note that the TIME cover story this week is about the power of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., a major factor working against any serious budgetary reform. Remember how Ross Perot was going to lift the…
Read More »Boston.com posted a “best” list for ice cream in New England that includes Shaw Farm in Dracut and Kimball’s in Westford, Carlisle, and a NH location. Here’s the link for the Shaw Farm entry. Not on the list, but worth the drive is the ice cream stand at the Brookstone…
Read More »Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band played on the Boston waterfront Tuesday night to a large crowd, including many young people, according to a colleague of mine who attended the concert. She said it was an excellent concert, but Ringo did not come out for an encore. What’s the old show…
Read More »I wake up early every day, but today I got up even earlier to check on our young cat who came home from the vet’s late yesterday after being spayed. We were told to watch her closely for several days to be sure she is recovering as expected. I was…
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