Bob Dylan said you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind’s blowing. Bob Forrant says we shouldn’t wait for the economists to tell us which way the economy went, but should seed the clouds ourselves to make some money rain. Read his latest take on the regional economy in…
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Following is the third and final section of my poem “Colorado,” which I hope our readers have enjoyed. I’m working on a new collection of poems and prose sketches whose title is “Stars in the Dark.” The book includes older and new writings, most of which are not related to…
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The Massachusetts Office of Tourism has been reminding us by e-mail and on the official web site that last year: “The Special Commission Relative to Designating 1000 Great Places in Massachusetts was created by an Act of the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick on January 15,…
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Fifty years ago yesterday Harper Lee published To Kill A Mockingbird. The book and subsequent movie hold a unique memory for me, which I will explain later. Harper Lee was born and raised in Alabama during a time of extreme, racial discrimination in the United States. Strangely, she only published…
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Yesterday at noon I was toiling away in the heat mowing my lawn just so I’d be done in time to watch the final game of the World Cup. Weeks ago, I think I caught a few minutes of the US v England game but my interest quickly waned. But…
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Really. Op-ed columnist Ross Douthat says the US needs a better targeted class fight that should pit “savers v. speculators, outsiders v. insiders, the industrious middle class v. the reckless, unproductive rich.” Read Douthat here, and consider subscribing to the NTY if you appreciate the writing.
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Following is the second section of my poem “Colorado,” which I introduced yesterday. The Blood of Christ or Sangre de Cristo Mountains are in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The range is either the beginning of the Rocky Mountains on the way north or the last stretch of the Rockies heading south.…
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In 1868, Lowell resident Charles Cowley wrote the “Illustrated History of Lowell”, a book filled with fascinating facts about our city. Here’s my fifth weekly compilation of “tweeting” from Cowley’s book: July 3 – Chelmsford always gave tax breaks & land grants to millers, mechanics & traders so they would…
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“Arrangement in Gray: A (self) Portrait of the Painter” James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1872) Just the other day I noted a Lowell connection in the current issue of Yankee magazine – a quote from James A. M. Whistler. And now we note that on this day – July 11, 1834 –…
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This being July, I’m offering section 1 of a three-part poem titled “Colorado,” which I wrote in pieces during the early 1980s, when I spent a fair amount of time out west. I later combined the individual poems because together they made a stronger composition.—PM Colorado 1. Heat flashes over the High…
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