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It Needs Sweeping by Susan April On November 25, 1968, The Beatle’s double LP White Album was released. I was twelve, in eighth grade, and I had to have it. Wish I could say I had been swept into Beatlemania after watching their first Ed Sullivan Show appearance on February…
Read More »The Beatles Land in Little Canada by Charlie Gargiulo An excerpt from Legends of Little Canada: Aunt Rose, Harvey’s Bookland, and My Captain Jack (forthcoming from Loom Press, 2022) Not long after New Year’s Day, we started to hear about a musical group from England called The Beatles. It was…
Read More »Lowell’s Mid-Century Modern Architecture: Eugene Weisberg By Marie Frank Marie Frank is the Director of the Art History and Architectural Studies Programs at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She holds a doctorate in Architectural History from the University of Virginia. Lowell’s nineteenth-century architecture dominates its skyline and the history books. But…
Read More »On Sunday, WBUR (Boston’s NPR radio station) posted a story about race or ethnic-based restrictive covenants in Massachusetts land records. The story also ran in Sunday’s Lowell Sun and was on the air and online from WBUR on Monday. Today I’ll supplement that story with additional information about the documents…
Read More »The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is on the northwest side of the Tidal Basin, across the water from the Jefferson Memorial. The site is to the south of the National Mall, about even with the Vietnam Memorial. The memorial is simple, dignified, and inspirational. Its main components are three large…
Read More »Beannachtaí Trasna are the words that leave me, they waft and wend their way to you from my acre in Ireland to your acre in Lowell and beyond, through earth, sea and sky…they mean Blessings Across. Happy New Year to all as December cedes to January, another year turns. We…
Read More »The Poetry of Mapmaking: Retracing Maps of Northern Maine and Elsewhere By Christine O’Connor Detail from Phillips’ Map of the ‘Moosehead – Allagash Region of Northern Maine’ (1978) This past summer I visited Harding’s Bookstore in Wells, Maine. It was the first time since the start of the pandemic.…
Read More »Trasna is pleased to announce that poet Daniel Murphy will join its team of editors. This week we feature four of his poems. Whether it’s a “rusty gate in a field of rock,” or “the cream cheese on your cheek,” Murphy explores the expansive to the intimate. There is a rhythm in…
Read More »This was originally posted on this site on December 31, 2010. Plaque erected in Quebec City marking the spot of American General Richard Montgomery’s death. “Here stood the Undaunted Fifty safeguarding Canada, defeating Montgomery at the Pres de Ville Barricade on the last day of 1775, Guy Carleton commanding at…
Read More »2019 in Review Lowell changes its method of electing City Councilors. In settling the pending lawsuit which alleged that the system of electing all councilors and school committee members in an at large, winner take all method, violated the Federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the impact of minority voters, the…
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