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Living Madly: Lighter than Air

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Living Madly: Lighter than Air

By Emilie-Noelle Provost

Joy can be hard to come by these days.

In my case at least, the last seven years have often felt like one long street fight. In early 2019, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The following year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, my daughter’s college graduation was cancelled and I was laid off from my job as the managing editor of a regional magazine due to lack of advertising revenue. My mother died in September 2020, followed by three of my close friends dying a month apart in 2022. My husband was laid off from his job in 2024 after the software company he worked for was purchased by a private equity firm. Both of my cats died just eight days apart this past May. And since last February, I’ve been battling a nasty antibiotic-resistant infection that refuses to quit no matter what I, or my doctors, throw at it.

When you factor in the unpresented political and social upheaval that has become a more or less ordinary part of our everyday lives, rampant inflation, high unemployment, and the malignant, unhinged cast of characters currently running the federal government, it’s a wonder that anyone gets out of bed in the morning.

Life has a heaviness to it.

But like an unexpected visit from a dear friend, joy still sneaks up on me sometimes. I often find it while I’m hiking: a newly hatched butterfly drying its wings; the burble of a cold, fast-running brook; swirling snowflakes suddenly filling the air on a dark winter day.

And then there’s music. For most of my life, it has been my savior, a signpost on the road to oblivion that convinces me to turn around and start walking in the opposite direction.

When I dropped out of high school at age sixteen, I did not have the courage or the language to express my anger and disillusionment at the brokenness of my family. But I found a refuge in the heavy metal music scene of the late 1980s. It’s screaming guitars, hard-driving percussion, and powerful lyrics gave me a safe place to unload my rage and disappointment. I made friends at concerts—people my age who were just as pissed off as I was, for many of the same reasons. Some of them are still my friends today.

That music helped me clear my head enough to think my situation through. It made me realize that the only person who could save me, the only person truly responsible for my happiness and wellbeing, was me. I went back to school, completed two years of academic work in a single year, and graduated with my class.

These days, my musical tastes tend to be less aggressive. I listen to classical music during the day while I’m working and often in the car. Sometimes, when I turn on the radio, I can actually feel the stress leaking from my bones. I’m able to unclench my jaw, a bothersome tic that’s become so habitual I often don’t realize I’m doing it.

For the last twenty-five or so years, I’ve also been an enormous fan of traditional and roots Celtic and Québécois music. I have a crate of CDs in my living room and dozens of digital albums on my laptop and phone, but one of my favorite things in the world is seeing traditional bands perform live.

This isn’t just because trad musicians tend to be extraordinarily talented, creative, and thoughtful. As a former journalist and student of history, I appreciate the research and time that goes into collecting and rearranging music that, in many cases, is centuries old. The stories these old songs tell are almost always still relevant, tales of love, loss, and, occasionally, unbridled happiness. I love the humanity in these pieces, to be reminded that hardship and heartache have always been part of people’s lives, and that we have always, somehow, found reasons to persevere.

Often, there’s also an element of magic in this music, a sort of alchemy resulting from the combined passions of individual musicians playing together at a single moment in time. More than once, I have sat in a concert hall and felt time stand still as a single holy, transcendent melody—so much lighter than the air that carries it—washes over the room, leaving in its wake a surge of pure joy.

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Émilie-Noëlle Provost is the author of The River Is Everywhere, a National Indie Excellence Award, American Fiction Award, and American Legacy Award finalist, and The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters. Visit her at emilienoelleprovost.com.

Seen & Heard: Vol. 37

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Article: “Dear Client, thieves may be eyeing your home. No worries.” By Ron Lieber for New York Times on August 31, 2026. This longtime Times business columnist returned from vacation to find a letter from the bank that held his mortgage “confirming changes to your address.” Only, he hadn’t made any changes. He hurriedly called the bank and the person he reached (at a distant call center) said the records showed no address change so it he shouldn’t worry about it. He pressed the call center person who said there was an added layer of security he could activate but would have to do it in person at a branch. So he went to a local branch – this is a big national bank – spent 45 minutes with an assistant manager who didn’t know what he was talking about. In other words, the “added layer of security” wasn’t a thing. Afterwards, acting in his professional capacity as a NYT columnist about to do an article on the bank, he got someone who knew what they were doing to call him back. It seems the columnist lives in a condo (called “an apartment” by New Yorkers) and that the unit number messed up the bank’s automated address check system which considered it a new address. However, the bank official and others the reporter spoke to for this article says that changing the mailing address of a property owner on file with a bank is one tactic thieves use to conduct title theft, but that those most at risk are the elderly or recently deceased, so if you know anyone in those categories, you should pay especially close attention to their property and to the local property records to intercept any fraudulent activity early in the process.

Article: “Collecting Old Filmstrips Before They Disappear” by Christian Kriticos, New York Times, September 5, 2026. Filmstrips were a mainstay of my K through 8 education which ended in 1972. Because I’m interested in the history of technology and also in people who try to save information and the tangible media it resides on, I was very interested in this story. Hardly any archives collect filmstrips so some volunteers working independently are doing their best.

Obituary: Gloria Steinem (1934-2026) by Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times, September 4, 2026. It’s funny but I don’t recall reading anything by Gloria Steinem or seeing her interviewed, yet I had tremendous respect for her. Perhaps that’s because I’ve recognized that the US has long treated women as second class citizens. It was much worse long ago but that disparate treatment continues today and in some ways is worsening since young women growing up in America today in some ways have fewer rights than their grandmothers had at the same age. I knew that Steinem fought for the cause of women for her entire long life and respect her for that which is why I made note of her passing. 

Book Review: “Two lives, one Russia” by Nicholas Danilov (1988). The name “Nicholas Danilov” came up a few weeks ago and I immediately recalled that in the 1980s while working as an American journalist in Moscow he was arrested for espionage and held for several weeks until he was exchanged for a Soviet spy who’d been arrested by the Americans. I wanted to refresh my memory so ordered his memoir via interlibrary loan. One reason Danilov wanted to work in Russia was because of his deep family routes there. His grandfather had been a senior general in the Russian Army before World War I, survived the war and the Soviet takeover and got himself and his family out of Russia. But the grandfather of the general’s wife had also been a Russian army officer named Fyodor Frolov. However, when Frolov was just a lieutenant in 1825, he got caught up in an attempt by a cohort of army officers to assassinate the Czar and initiate a democratic revolution in Russia. The coup was discovered, the leaders executed, and the followers exiled to Siberia. After ten years of incarceration, Frolov married and had a family. While working in Moscow, Danilov spent many hours searching for Frolov’s story. When Danilov was arrested and imprisoned, he constantly compared his experience with that of his ancestor. Although it was incredibly stressful, Danilov was held for just over two weeks and then was released and flew back to the US. This book intersperses Frolov’s story with the author’s own. I found it hard to put down. 

YouTube Channel: Moodi Foodi Berlin. Each video on this channel takes an in depth view of a street food vendor in Berlin, Germany. It popped into my YouTube feed recently, I watched for a few minutes and was hooked. Why did the algorithm show me this? I do watch a lot of cooking videos including some from Germany. That’s because I lived in that country for 3 years in the early 1980s, have returned on visits a few times, and always enjoyed the food and tried to duplicate it for home cooking. I haven’t seen any food trucks in the series. Instead, the vendors typically use small trailers that they tow with their small cars. The episode starts with the vendor pulling into a plaza, unhooking the trailer and getting ready for customers. It highlights vendors who mostly cook from scratch, right in the trailer. The food looks great but I expect speed of service is not a big consideration.

L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street, Chapter 5

Two years ago, Louise Peloquin began sharing excerpts from L’Etoile, a French-language newspaper published in Lowell from 1886 to 1957. At my urging, she has agreed to compile some of her previous posts with added contextual information into a book manuscript to be called, L’Etoile: A Star on Prince Street. Starting this week, Louise will present draft chapters from the book in serial form here on the blog. Today, we have another installment.

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L’Etoile – A Star on Prince Street

Chapter 5 – Star Sustenance

By Louise Peloquin

     In Chapter 3, we quoted an excerpt from a 1994 interview of Biron’s youngest child Marthe who worked at L’Etoile from her adolescence until the newspaper’s closing in 1957. She explained how revenue acquired from printing services guaranteed what she called her father’s “independence of thought.” Biron advertised L’Etoile but he needed ads from others.

Marthe talks about advertising.

     “French newspaper circulation was never huge. In order to support the newspapers, it was necessary to solicit advertisements at 35 cents an inch, often going door to door in the quest…

With the newspapers, politicians and professionals seized the opportunity to rally votes and drum up business among the Franco-American readership. The budget from their ads was minimal.

Moreover, the newspaper exempted parishes from the cost of printing weekly bulletins by including them gratuitously in its columns. However, their promoting the paper was not allowed….

The newspaper team members persevered… They functioned like centipedes, from linotype to press, from typing to correcting proofs, in the search for advertisers.

As a constantly renewed miracle, the paper managed to appear…with its message of life, its message of hope.”

Popping up here and there among L’Etoile columns, inserts listed a variety of items offered by L’Etoile Publishing Company.

Here are two examples.

« Avez-Vous Besoin de

Cartes d’Affaires

Petites Circulaires

Grandes Circulaires

Livrets de Reçus

Etiquettes de toutes sortes

Factures de toutes sortes

Entêtes de Lettres

Lettres d’Invitation

Envelopes de toutes sortes

Livrets de vente avec Duplicata

Bons de Pain

Bons de Repas

Menus, Etc., Etc.

L’Etoile Pub. Co.”

“Do You Need

Business cards

Small circulars

Large circulars

Receipt booklets

Labels of all kinds

Invoices of all kinds

Letter head

Invitation Letters

Envelopes of all kinds

Sales booklets with Duplicates

Bread Vouchers

Meal Vouchers

Menus, Etc. Etc.

L’Etoile Publishing Company »

« Augmentez vos Affaires en Annonçant.

Les Marchands de Lowell devraient retenir une espace dans

L’Etoile

Afin de faire connaître au public acheteur ce qu’ils ont à vendre.

Augmentez Votre Commerce et Encouragez votre Journal Local en Insérant une Annonce.

Notre Département d’Impressions est prêt à exécuter toutes sortes de travaux, depuis les cartes de visite jusqu’aux placards.

Ouvrage de Luxe une Spécialité. »

« Increase Your Business Affairs by Publicizing.

The Merchants of Lowell should retain a space in

L’Etoile

In order to make known to the purchasing public what they have to sell.

Increase Your Business and Encourage your Local Newspaper by Inserting

an Advertisement. Our Printing Department is ready to execute all sorts of work, from calling cards to signs.

Luxury Work a Specialty.”

      Canvassing for ads, publishing ads and encouraging “the establishments” appearing in L’Etoile, all made for a virtuous circle. The French term “entraide,” meaning mutual aid, comes to mind.

Here is an example of an ophthalmologist’s recurrent ad.

« Vous n’allez pas à l’aveugle en visitant Joseph-F. Montminy

492 Merrimack. Tel. 6211”

“You do not go there blindly by visiting Joseph- F. Montminy

492 Merrimack. Tel. 6211”

Once the ads procured, L’Etoile followed through by encouraging readers to patronize the businesses in question.

« Lecteurs!

Réservez vos achats pour les maisons qui publient leurs annonces dans L’Etoile vous serez mieux servis et vous rendrez service à votre journal en le mentionnant. »

“Readers!

Reserve your purchases for the establishments which publish their advertisements in L’Etoile. You will be better served and you will be of service to your newspaper by mentioning it.”

L’Etoile’s mission was serving Lowell’s French-Canadian community. Therefore, presenting businesses which could cater to its needs and wishes was a priority. The paper wanted to offer readers information to facilitate daily life.

Biron was known to examine each advertising order and to ask himself whether or not the establishment, whilst legitimately aiming at enlarging its market, had its clientele’s best interest in mind. Concern for L’Etoile’s industrious, hard-working readers was ever present and Biron believed that they were well aware that ads appearing in the paper were worthy of their consideration.

French-Canadians enjoyed preparing meals and were innovative in making the most of the contents of their pantries. Nothing was wasted. The skimpiest of ingredients could turn into meals worthy of modern Michelin Guide chefs. A measure of this and a pinch of that, whatever was at hand became the culinary enhancement which turned a couple of carrots and potatoes, a measure of flour, an egg, a spoonful of suet into a gourmet tourte.

Here is what Union Market had to offer Lowellians.

“Union Market, Tel. 4810 – 4811 – 4812

173-175-177 Middlesex. Foot of South St.

Spécial pour vendredi et samedi. Les prix sont plus bas que jamais. La qualité est la meilleure.

Gigots et Filets…..12c.

Quartiers de Devant…..10c.

Côtelettes de Veau…..13c.

Côtelettes…..12 ½ c

Steak de Veau…..20c.

Boules de Porc…..13c

Oreilles de Cochon…..8c

Museau de Coch0n…..10c

Tête de Cochon…..10c

Volaille Fraîche Tuée…..20c

Oie Fraîche Tuée…..25c

Canards Frais Tués…..20c »

„Union Market, Tel. 4810 – 4811 – 4812

173-175-177 Middlesex. Foot of South St.

Special for Friday and Saturday. The prices are lower than ever. The quality is the best.

Legs of lamb and Filets…..12c

Front Quarters…..10c

Veal Cutlets…..13c

Cutlets…..12 1/2c

Veal Steaks…..20c

Pork Meatballs…..13c

Pig’s Ears…..8c

Pig’s Snout…..10c

Pig’s Head…..10c

Freshly Killed Poultry…..20c

Freshly Killed Goose…..25c

Freshly Killed Ducks…..20c”

Union Market probably carried pork belly and pig’s feet as well. A “ragoût de pattes de cochon et ses boulettes,” a hearty French-Canadian stew made with pig’s feet and pork meatballs simmered in a rich brown sauce, was a favorite dish appreciated by many in Little Canada.

Editing ads and presenting L’Etoile Publishing Company services were tasks as seriously  undertaken as writing feature articles. Every printed piece was lovingly composed and crafted, all for the benefit of the readers.

(All translations from French to English are by Louise Peloquin.)

Barney Frank: his final last word by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

The late Barney Frank’s book, The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy, to be published September 15 by Yale University Press, is a valedictory the former Massachusetts Fourth District Congressman wrote during the last year of his life. In a sweeping broadside peppered with astute observations, he describes it as “an effort to undo the damage inflicted” by the “well intentioned but deeply flawed choices” of a Democratic left that is, he insists, “largely responsible for the political strength that xenophobic populism has come to enjoy in the developed world.” He opens with “Mea culpa,” but this is no personal apology. He assigns the guilt for this “tragic historical irony” to others on the left, especially the left of the left.

Frank’s argument is sharper than that Democrats have merely moved too far left to win. He indicts two distinct parts of the Democratic left for jointly creating the conditions in which right-wing populism could flourish. First, he maintains that, from the 1980s until recently, mainstream liberals neglected, in varying degrees, working people’s economic insecurities. Then, after Trump’s 2016 victory, self-styled progressives alienated potential allies with absolutist positions on social and cultural issues that undercut chances for electoral success. Worse, Frank argues, mainstream liberals have failed to challenge “the left wing of the left wing’s left,” letting the Republican right tar all Democrats with the most extreme positions — “defund the police,” pronoun litmus tests, open borders, and more.

Frank’s basic thesis, and the organizing principle of the book is that Democrats must offer practical solutions to the extreme concentration of wealth in this country and not subordinate that goal to a host of social transformations that are not only unpopular but will undermine both the Democratic Party and American democracy.

Frank believed his bona fides as a card-carrying progressive — battle scars earned over decades in the legislative trenches, fighting against rising income inequality and for civil rights, gay, labor and women’s rights — earned him the standing and the credibility to speak frankly to an audience not primed to hear his message.

He may have an audience. Even some more established “progressives” like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez are reframing the posture they took in their earlier days in politics. She told ABC News recently that “Woke 1 was crazy.”

Frank writes that, when the dissident left made certain issues litmus tests for candidates, mainstream Democrats remained silent on things that were unpalatable to them, just as today too many party members have quietly allowed themselves to be defined by much of the extremist agenda of Democratic Socialists. Certainly, Republicans are only too happy to smear the whole party with the fringe call for abolishing prisons, eliminating national borders, even canceling Thanksgiving.  The ensuing culture wars have fueled populist outrage and undercut mainstream efforts to address the income inequality that, Frank argues, is destroying the people’s faith in liberal democracy.

Frank, who cultivated a reputation as the smartest one in the room, is oddly lazy about his descriptive terms, and his definitions are often diffuse. Liberal democracy he defines narrowly as rule by a majority that respects the rights of minority voices. He might well have added how free and fair elections, respect for the rule of law, free press and independent judiciary – all under attack today – are key to the weakened democracy he wants to rescue.

When he aspires to address the Democratic left worldwide, the book gets muddled. He uses “the Left” too promiscuously, paying too little attention to the new democratic-socialist movement in the United States and failing to distinguish it from the substantially different labor and social-democratic parliamentary parties of Europe.

He saw the book as a response to the tragic irony that deeply flawed bad choices by the Democratic left (meaning those who are labeled progressives today) “are largely responsible for the political strength that xenophobic populism has come to enjoy in the developed world.”  The grandiosity of this claim oversimplifies. There’s strong evidence that economic insecurity feeds populism — often through culture and identity — but that explains only part of whether discontent hardens into a successful radical-right movement.

To Frank, the cardinal sin of mainstream liberals here and abroad was embracing free trade, technological innovation and growing GDP while failing to address the lost jobs, stagnant wages, weakened communities and widening inequality that came with them. They mistook a growing economy for shared prosperity and served the affluent professionals and corporate titans of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, ignoring the growing concentrations of wealth that left working-class people behind.

Against that economic background, the far-left minority (what Frank calls the left of the left) was simultaneously pushing an extreme social agenda that mainstream Democrats (not to mention independents and others) were not ready for. One example of the lamentable social issues: the insistence of some transgender activists that male and female are no longer “valid categories.”

He faults activists for confusing the righteousness of their views with majority opinion, and for often misreading resistance as prejudice or ignorance instead of honorable disagreement. The litmus tests and simplistic slogans of the radical left are troubling enough in a primary; they are fatal when activists withhold support from the party’s nominee in a general election, effectively preferring a Republican to a Democrat who failed to check every purity box.  Simultaneously, Democrats cannot gloss over legitimate immigration, crime or sex-and-gender questions merely because Republicans exploit them.

Frank’s recommendations are rooted in a deep understanding of the legislative process and a willingness to tackle problems that reflexive Democrats are often loath to discuss. From his years in government — though he did not always practice the niceties of persuasion himself — Frank understood legislative sequencing, compromise, and the moral weight of actually enacting policy.

More valuable than Frank’s turgid analysis of Keynesian economics is his insider account (as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee) of strategies enacted to save the banking system and the auto industry in the financial crisis of 2008. The lasting result was the deepening resentment in homeowners and other individuals who saw government’s role only as protecting institutions that needed protection the least. Since that crisis, voter cynicism about the efficacy of government solutions still prompts high unfavorability ratings of both parties, eroding public confidence and participation, which effective government requires.

His recurring theme is not new but remains relevant, namely, that “forging a coalition behind a broader, less politically provocative agenda is the only way to restore majority support for liberal governance.” He is not without practical solutions to the predominant sources of economic grievances, with specifics on health costs, housing and environmental regulations.  As for how to pay for them, other than naming farm subsidies and the space program, he dodges cuts to be made,  saying “I do not presume to dictate where cutbacks should be made,”

Frank fans will find vintage Barney aphorisms such as “cursing the darkness is more emotionally satisfying and less intellectually taxing than working out the candlepower needed to dispel it;” and “for a politician, criticizing your friends can cost more than standing up to your enemies.”

Unfortunately, he gives just two sentences to one of the thorniest issues at play in Democratic politics: the intra-party differences in attitudes toward Israel and the resulting raw antisemitism, much of it intergenerational, that threatens the party today. In his final interviews, Frank staked out a more nuanced position than this book offers, one that is neither unconditional support nor outright rejection.

His arguments are not new. The book aggregates concerns he aired for decades — excoriating neoliberals and the far left alike, advocating pragmatic legislative incrementalism. At his memorial service in May, we learned how hard the writing had become as congestive heart failure advanced and the heroic part his husband, Jim Ready, played in helping him finish. It is a small book —111 pages— that, had Frank been in better health, might have been trimmed into an essay for The Atlantic‘s Ideas section or a long op-ed. Instead, as he trigger-warned us, “redundancy is preferable to any possible ambiguity,” and the main theme returns, in slightly different dress, again and again.

In the end, the book (already somewhat dated) works as a political warning — above all on economic abandonment, cultural litmus tests and coalition discipline. He is right about ideological excess and insufficient repudiation. But the more vexing problem is that many voters simply don’t believe that existing institutions, parties or economic arrangements respond to them. Cultural overreach can worsen that crisis; moderation alone cannot cure it. (He supported the more moderate Democrats in Michigan and Maine primaries, both of whom lost.)

The Hard Path to Unity is more an epilogue from Barney Frank —his conviction about how a broad Democratic coalition must conduct itself — than a comprehensive strategy for how “the Left” can “Rescue Democracy.”