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Anti-Trump Rally: 6 p.m. Report
About 200 people rallying in the Free Speech Zone at 5.30 p.m. Happy to see the second shift show up outside the Tsongas. After 45 minutes, frostbite was setting in, so I gladly handed off my piece of the stand-out to the next group. Thousands upon thousands in line from…
Read More »‘The Ball’ in ‘Lowell’s Cathedral’ Is an Instant Tradition
Rosemary and I were lucky enough to get tickets to the sold-out New Year’s Eve celebration organized by the ever-active Made in Lowell group led by Tobi Marx and his team. At least 350 people converged on the majestic stone “cathedral” that was once St Jean Baptiste church (also Nuestra…
Read More »Trump Coming to Lowell
Seems official if there are web links to get free tickets being posted on Facebook. The Donald is due in Lowelltown. John Cassidy of The New Yorker magazine has a cutting take on candidate Trump, one of the increasing number of media sideswipes that have not been effective in slowing…
Read More »Lowell Talks: The Roots of The Brush Art Gallery & Lowell’s Cultural Revival
Save the date if you are a fan of The Brush Art Gallery & Studios and the Lowell cultural renaissance. On Saturday, January 16, at 1 pm, the Brush Gallery is hosting a panel discussion about the roots of this amazing arts project that will begin its 35th year in…
Read More »‘Patterns of a Prayer Town’
Web image by anthony92931 courtesy of commons.wikimedia Along with Henri Marchand’s “fruitcake” essay and my “Oranges at Christmas” essay, the re-appearance of this poem has become part of the Christmas tradition for our blog. I wrote the first draft of this poem in 1976, and worked on it on-and-off for a long…
Read More »‘Oranges at Christmas’
This essay was first heard on the “Sunrise” radio program of WUML, 92.5 FM, at UMass Lowell around 2007. Executive producer Chris Dunlap assembled writers in the area for the daily essay feature, a popular component of the morning public affairs show. I’ve shared this essay with rh.com readers for several…
Read More »‘The Christmas Fruitcake: An Ageless Tradition’ by Henri Marchand
Fruitcake web image courtesy of apple.com Like its subject this essay has been around, appearing first as a Sunrise radio essay, re-wrapped as a “Guest Column” piece in the Sun, and showing up on this blog last year. At Paul Marion’s request I re-gift it once more to all who…
Read More »Talking Lowell History Post-WWII
Sharing the spotlight today at the Lowell Historical Society meeting in the community room at the Pollard Memorial Library. The topic was “Lowell After World War II,” and the program drew a full house of more than 70 attendees. We talked about our new books, ‘”Lowell: Images of Modern…
Read More »The French Election: What’s at Stake & What’s Familiar to Us
From HuffPo, a leading French intellectual lays out what he sees at stake in the coming election in France. There’s turmoil in the electorate because of the turmoil in the affairs of war and politics all over the place. There’s a connection to the Trump thing there also, with many…
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