Jen Myers of the Sun got the scoop on today’s announcement by Merrimack Repertory Theater and UMass Lowell that they will team up on the world premiere of Jack Kerouac’s only full-length play, “Beat Generation,” as the centerpiece of the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival this October. The news leaped across wires and through media nets all day, from the Boston Globe to Associated Press to NYTimes.
March 12th, 2012
UMass Lowell Greeley Peace Scholar John Prendergast, actor and activist George Clooney, and Sudan Experts To Testify at Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 3/14
UMass Lowell’s 2012 Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, will testify on security conditions in Sudan and South Sudan for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations with Sen John Kerry presiding this Wednesday.
Mar 14 2012 10:00 am
America/New York
The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will hold a hearing “Sudan and South Sudan: Independence and Insecurity” on March 14. Senator John Kerry will preside and Enough Project Co-founder John Prendergast and George Clooney will testify alongside other Sudan experts.
Location:
Senate Dirksen 419
Panel One:
The Honorable Princeton Lyman
Special Envoy for Sudan
U.S. Department of State
Special Envoy for Sudan
U.S. Department of State
The Honorable Nancy Lindborg
Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance
U.S. Agency for International Development
Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance
U.S. Agency for International Development
Panel Two:
Mr. George Clooney
Co-founder
Satellite Sentinel Project
Co-founder
Satellite Sentinel Project
Mr. John Prendergast
Co-founder
Satellite Sentinel Project, Enough Project
Co-founder
Satellite Sentinel Project, Enough Project
Mr. Jonathan Temin
Director, Sudan Program
United States Institute of Peace
Director, Sudan Program
United States Institute of Peace
.
John Prendergast is one of the international human rights activists featured in the “Kony 2012″ film that is a phenomenon on the web, with more than 100 million views. The film aims to raise the visibility of the brutal African warlord Joseph Kony of Uganda and now Congo and provoke his arrest so that he can be brought to justice. John will be at UMass Lowell for four days in April to begin his Greeley Scholar residency for 2012. Read more here. As this year’s Greeley Peace Scholar, John follows the 2011 Greeley Scholar Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year with two other women “peace-builders.”
March 12th, 2012
Lowell Congresswoman Edith Nourse Roger’s Length of Congressional Service About to be Surpassed
U. S. Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts presides over the House Chamber in this image from 1926. (Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives)
For many years Edith Nourse Rogers held the record as the longest serving woman in the Congress. Rogers followed her deceased husband John Jacob Rogers into the 5th District seat when he died in March 1925. “Edith yielded to pressure from both Republicans and the American Legion to run for his seat and to continue support of veterans. Commenting that “the office seeks the woman,” 44-year-old Edith Nourse Rogers won the special election in June 1925, defeating a former governor with 72 percent of the vote, the first of eighteen lopsided electoral triumphs.” Mrs. Rogers held the seat until her death on September 10, 1960.
This weekend after holding the title as the longest serving female in the U.S. Senate, Senator Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. will become the longest serving female member in all of Congress – surpassing the record held by Edith Nourse Rogers, R-MA who served for thirty-five years.
Senator Barbara Mikulski
March 12th, 2012
In Lowell: Posed Past Politicos
Every once in a while there is a photo posted on this site of politicos from our Lowell/Greater Lowell past. I came across this photo posted elsewhere by LHS board member and young activist Lowellian Corey Sciuto. Do you remember these players and anything about their connections? Where was the photo taken?
March 12th, 2012
“Walking Jack” – walking tour of Kerouac’s Lowell
Kerouac Birthplace - 7 Lupine Rd, Lowell
Taking advantage of the wonderful weather, I joined 35 others on a 3.5 hour, 5+ mile walking tour of Jack Kerouac’s Lowell. Tour guides Mike Wurm and Bill Walsh explained that while all of the sites on this tour had been covered on previous tours, this was the first to do them all at the same time. It was an ambitious walk that began at the Kerouac Commemorative at Bridge and French Streets and then stopped at the many houses in Centralville and Pawtucketville in which the Kerouac family had lived, and at many other places important in Kerouac’s life and work. Here’s the route we took:
- Begin at Kerouac Commemorative
- Cross Merrimack River on Bridge Street Bridge
- Turn left on Lakeview Ave, right on Stanley St to 66 West St
- Left on West Sixth St to St Louis Church and School
- 34 Beaulieu Street
- Victor St to Ennell to Hildreth to 240 Hildreth and 320 Hildreth
- Left on Orleans to Burnaby to 35 Burnaby St
- Back to Orleans then left on Lupine to 7 Lupine Rd
- Fred to Lakeview to Beaver to Riverside to Bodwell to Phebe to 16 Phebe Ave
- right on Sarah Ave to 35 Sarah Ave
- across University Ave to Gershom Ave
- Back on University Ave across the Moody Street Bridge (aka Textile Ave Bridge)
- Down Pawtucket past Archambault Funeral Home (site of Kerouac’s wake)
- Behind Franco American School to the Grotto
- Back along Pawtucket to Merrimack, down Merrimack to St Joseph’s High School and St Jeanne Baptiste Church
- Continue down Merrimack to Lowell City Library (aka Pollard Library) and Lowell High School
I’ve combined photos of most of these places into a short video which follows:
March 12th, 2012
I’m On the Road with Kerouac
I am a little embarrassed to admit this, especially knowing my friend and co-author Paul Marion will probably read this, but I only recent read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. For years the concept of the book did not interested me. Maybe it was growing up in the late fifties and sixties and watching too many comedy shows parody beatniks or members of “the beat generation” that turned me off. I don’t know…but there are reminders of Jack Kerouac and On the Road in every fiber of Lowell and if you hang out in the city you can’t help but feel their presences. When I finally did read On the Road (just last month) I was blown away by it and Jack Kerouac’s writing style. Kerouac’s words read like notes of music to me.
Here is an example of what I mean and my favorite passage from the book.
“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
Happy birthday Jack
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