I’ve never seen a copy of the newspaper written and published in the late 1920s and early ’30s by Jack Kerouac’s father, Leo Kerouac, when he owned Spotlight Print, a small printing business downtown that got washed out in the 1936 Flood. Called The Spotlight, the newspaper had items about local entertainment…
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How many times have you said something like that to yourself? What is that, a reflex reaction to psychological muscle memory of what certain days “feel” like? This usually happens when holidays get into the mix, shuffling the pattern of days off. Out with the Boston Terrier this morning on…
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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 Quebec.” Two hundred and thirty-five years ago tonight, American soldiers attacked…
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Shawn Levy, my old friend from graduate school at the University of California, Irvine, is a film critic for The Oregonian newspaper in Portland. Here’s Shawn’s take on “The Fighter,” which he calls “terrific.”
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Christian Bale as Dickie Eckland in “The Fighterr” In today’s New York Times A&E writer Manolha Dargis writes in the “”Awards” section about Christian Bale’s performance as Dickie Eckland in “The Fighter.” Dargis analyzes the portrayal and the character portrayed. Is an Oscar in the wings for Christian Bale? Read…
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On her “Lowell Doughboys” blog, Eileen Loucraft recently wrote about US Army Private James F. Costello who was killed in action in France during October 1918 during the First World War. Costello is honored by by a square in the Collinsville section of Dracut and at the junction of Lakeview…
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Dick mentioned CNN in a comment tonight. I went to the CNN site and found the network’s review of “The Fighter.” The reviewer gave the film an A- rating. Read it here.
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My family did a little shopping in south Nashua this afternoon. The lines were long and money was flowing. In Best Buy, 40 people waited at the registers. The exchanges line was 25 deep. We lucked out because we bought an item in the computer department, which has its own registers.…
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Speaking of the power of cities, after two highly successful productions in Lowell (2008-09), the Massachusetts Poetry Festival will move its tents, workshops, coffeehouse readings, and auditorium events to downtown Salem in 2011, with a packed schedule of activities set for May 13 and 14. Keep checking www.masspoetry.org for updates as the…
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In today’s Boston Globe Edward L. Glaeser – a professor of economics at Harvard and author of a soon to be published book “The Triumph of the City” – penned an op-ed piece well worth reading. DURING ECONOMIC downturns, we begin to fear that we are entering a permanent period…
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