A joint motion by Councilors Erik Gitschier and Corey Robinson that “the law department draft necessary language to facilitate residents’ ability to select our mayor via ballot before the 2025 city council election cycle” generated some discussion at Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting. However, like so many of the motions…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Hiding out from election coverage isn’t working all that well for me. Half my recent blogs have been non-political book reviews, but that hasn’t diluted the tension leading up to November 5th. Now I feel compelled to…

The onset of this year’s World Series and the recent deaths of Luis Tiant and Pete Rose revived my memories of the 1975 World Series which Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy calls The Greatest World Series Ever. The two teams that played that year were Tiant’s Boston Red Sox and…

Overheard Conversations: Be Careful, A Writer Could Be Listening By Stephen O’Connor James Joyce was certainly not the first writer whose pockets were full of scraps of paper on which were scrawled bits of conversations. Any writer worth his or her salt is continually listening to other people’s phrases, stories…

WHY DO IT? A hiker’s confession By Jerry Bisantz OK, so this is the newest in my “try to figure out why Jerry does stupid stuff all the time” writings. And this one will be about my passion for climbing. I must blame my buddy Steve for this one.  I…

FRENCH CANADIANS – GOOD AMERICANS – (PIP #44) By Raoul H. Beaudreau      L’Etoile published in French from 1886 to 1957 with English popping up occasionally, in advertisements for example. The following reader’s letter appeared in English and was later reprinted all over New England. Here is the original, with…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself by senior BBC correspondent Nick Bryant is a frigid splash of icy water on the notion of American exceptionalism. It may help us to understand Donald Trump’s enduring, if frightening appeal…

Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting was largely uneventful, which is often the case these days. “Uneventful” is not necessarily a bad thing for a city council meeting to be. Functioning properly, the city council is supposed to develop a strategic vision for the city, communicate that vision to the city…

Did Poe Transform History? By David Daniel Among the themes that recur in the work of Edgar Allan Poe —madness, the death of a beautiful woman, the doppelgänger, the idea of the perverse—one of most insistent is revenge. Noodling on the Internet recently, thinking ahead to the upcoming Poe in…

Billie Holiday in Lowell By Leo Racicot I never “got” Billie Holiday’s voice; it sounded to me like nails on a chalkboard or a cat in heat. Whenever friends ooh-ed and ah-ed over her, I’d close my ears. After seeing Lady Sings the Blues, my friend, Joe couldn’t stop singing…