Menu
Historic view of the South Common on postcard (courtesy cardcow.com) 100 people of all ages on the South Common at 7 pm. Talk about place-making. These basketball players, dog-walkers, strolling families. blanket-sitters, bike riders, soccer ball kickers, playground kids, circus performers practicing, and others are making the park a…
Read More »I want to extend the reach of a letter in today’s SUN written in support of US Rep. Niki Tsongas. Read the letter by Ellen Murphy Meehan here.
Read More »With increasing discussion about renovating the Smith Baker Center near Lowell City Hall, I went to the vault to get this essay written in the moment in 1989. Let’s hope we can revive the Smith Baker Center and offer the public inspiring events like Maya Angelou’s appearance there.—PM . A Day That…
Read More »Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. “In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire” [An address delivered for Memorial Day, May 30, 1884, at Keene, NH, before John Sedgwick Post No. 4, Grand Army of the Republic.] Not long ago I heard a young man ask why people still kept up…
Read More »I’ve posted this poem from 1978 on the blog before. It was written soon after the experience that provided the brief story thread. In those days, I was constantly on the lookout for images and incidents that could feed a new composition. I wanted to write, write, write. It’s a slight piece, but has…
Read More »
I’m back from a family vacation in Chicago, Illinois, one of the great cities of the USA. It was my first visit to a city that I associate with Carl Sandburg, Barack Obama, Studs Terkel, Albert Halper, Poetry magazine (founded by Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin), Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor, the Cubs…
Read More »My blogging colleague Dick posted the list of guided walks on Saturdays this summer. Rosemary and I are leading a walk that will take in the highlights of the Lowell Public Art Collection, one of them being Ellen Rothenberg’s multi-piece sculpture at Lucy Larcom Park. For this artwork, one design…
Read More »Here’s another news story about a fabulously wealthy donor giving a ton of money to a fabulously wealthy institution. A Wall Street titan and alumnus of Yale University, Stephen A. Schwarzman, contributed $150 million for a performing arts center that will be fashioned out of a set of extraordinary buildings on the campus. In reporting…
Read More »“Nine years after moving into its waterfront building, the Institute of Contemporary Art is hoping to expand into an adjacent office tower and increase its gallery space by a third. At the heart of a proposal before the Boston Redevelopment Authority is the museum’s effort to take up two floors…
Read More »“The most important thing a museum creates is an audience.”—Matthew Teitelbaum The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a new director coming, Matthew Teitelbaum. Read about him and the cultural institution he led for 17 years, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), where he has shaped inspiring programs, exhibitions,…
Read More »