We are introducing a writer who has not appeared on this blog. Joe Blair lives in Iowa with his wife, Deb, and family. He grew up in Westford, Mass., and studied literature and writing at UMass Lowell, later earning an MFA in nonfiction at the University of Iowa. This essay…
Our new contributor Frank Wagner from Texas has a poem about neighborhood destruction, a subject familiar to anyone in Lowell who knows what happened in the Market Street Greek-American enclave in the Acre in the 1930s, Little Canada in the 1960s, and the Hale-Howard district in the late ’60s/early ’70s.…
Here are the City Council motions and a report on the 75 Arcand Drive eminent domain taking from the agenda for Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting: CITY COUNCIL – MOTIONS Nuon – Req. City Mgr. provide update regarding review of inspection and enforcement procedures within Developmental Services to determine if…
Seeing Through the Double Standard By George Chigas The use of the double standard (in this case, when a state applies the rules of war differently depending on which side you’re on; but it also applies to multiple other contexts: personal, home sports teams, etc) is an age-old form of…
Minutes of last week’s Lowell City Council meeting from City Clerk Michael Geary: ROLL CALL – Roll Call showed 9 present. M. Leahy presiding. Councilor Conway requested moment of silence in darkened chamber for Mary Elizabeth Pyne and Marian L. Sorenson. CITY CLERK 2.1. Minutes of City Council Meeting…
We’re sharing some poems by blog contributor Chath pierSath—from his travel diary in Cambodia where he has been for a few months. He often posts multiple times a day from cities and villages in his native country, composing spontaneously and documenting what he thinks and feels. His poems are raw,…
We have a new poem by Tom Sexton, an occasional contributor to this blog–and regular reader of what we post here. We had Linda Hoffman’s apple orchard essay this week. So, why not blackberries . . . and fire ants? Tom and his wife Sharyn live part of the year…
Uth and Them By David Daniel Fourteen-year olds are geniuses, right? Why else would I be grinding on the city hall steps on a Sunday and olly and bust up my face on the iron handrail? I couldn’t even have a fantasy of the imprint of my teeth in some…
The Scent of Apples Fades By Linda Hoffman Linda Hoffman, a nationally recognized artist, is the orchardist at Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio in Harvard, Mass. A strong advocate for sustainable agricultural practices, she contributed this essay to our blog as New England orchardists face increasing pressures to grow…
Then entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. It wasn’t just Buffalo’s NFL Wild Card loss yesterday that got me thinking about long-suffering Bills fan Tim Russert, who set the gold standard for a tough but fair Sunday news show interviewer. When Chuck Todd eventually became…