From Sir Paul’s website, this newsy blog post about his few days in Los Angeles recently, getting honored as MusicCares person of the year, going to the Grammy Awards, attending the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, chatting up Neil Young, and more.
http://www.paulmccartney.com/web/guest/news/-/blogs/still-buzzing-on-la?
Paul Marion and Rosemary Noon at Boardinghouse Park (from Lowell Sun) “Paul Marion, a Lowell native who grew up in Dracut, has worked to revitalize the city since the 1970s. Sun/Bob Whitaker
Don’t miss Nancye Tuttle’s article and sidebar about Kiwanis Club Community Spirit honoree (and our blog colleague) Paul Marion in today’s Lowell Sun:
LOWELL — Paul Marion doesn’t brag about his accomplishments or take credit for making things happen. But behind the scenes, the soft-spoken Marion has been a key player in making Lowell a better place to live, work and play for nearly 40 years.
The Greater Lowell Kiwanis Club celebrates Marion’s community service and honors him with its 2012 Thomas Kelakos Community Spirit Award on March 23 at a banquet at Lenzi’s in Dracut.
“It’s humbling to be singled out, since so much of what I do is about partnerships and collaborations, but I’ve always tried to be a leader,” said Marion, 58, executive director of community and cultural affairs at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Read the full article here: http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_20009235
The Kiwanis Club of Greater Lowell is honoring Paul Marion with its Thomas G. Kelakos Community Spirit Award. Paul is a wisely chosen honoree – next to his family – community is Paul’s life, his focus, his passion. A true son of Lowell, Paul is a voice for the community expressing visions for the future rooted in the experience of the past. A poet, author, editor, writer, cultural and community affairs guru – currently the Executive Director of Community and Cultural Affairs at UMass Lowell, Paul was recognized by Community Teamwork in 2008 as a Local Hero. I believe that for his contributions to improving the quality of life in his Lowell community, he is a local treasure and a role role. When asked recently by a local newspaper editor for my thoughts about Paul, I noted:
“Paul Marion is an author, poet, thinker and cultural activist and professional who has become an important voice for Lowell. For over 30 years he has guided, chronicled and espoused community cultural activities in the city – his commitment has been a constant – telling the story, inspiring partnerships, helping program development – from his time at the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission to his role today at UML as Executive Director, Community and Cultural Affairs.”
Join the Kiwanis Club of Greater Lowell on Friday Evening March 23, 2012 at Lenzi’s Catering in Dracut as they so rightfully honor my friend and colleague Paul Marion.
For tickets, advertising and sponsoring opportunities Call Bob Howard at 978-459-4836.
MassMoments tells us this morning that in 1849 – the first American-made Valentine cards were created and sold in Worcester, Massachusetts by Mt. Holyoke graduate Esther Howland. Modeled on the English-style Valentine, her fancy designs, embossed, cut and colored paper along with romantic sentiments and hidden messages soon grew into a thriving business. Miss Howland hired women as assemblers, advertised her product and finally moved beyond a home-based business into a downtown location. Because of Esther Howland and her entreprenurial skill – Worcester was the “Valentine Capital of America” well into the 20th century.
…in 1849, the first American-made valentines were sold in Worcester. They were designed and made by Esther Howland, the daughter of a local stationer. After graduating from Mt. Holyoke College, she returned to Worcester and began making valentines modeled on a fancy one she had received from an English friend. Her brother took the samples on a sales trip and came home with an astonishing $5,000 worth of orders. Howland began by hiring her friends to assemble the valentines; within a few years, she built her business into a $100,000 a year enterprise, a notable success for any entrepreneur but a truly remarkable accomplishment for a nineteenth-century woman.
Read the full MassMoments article here.
This valentine card was created by Esther Howland – the “Mother of of the American Valentine.”
Note:
In 2011 – Hallmark cards created over 1600 different Valentine card designs. Approximately 141 million Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged industry-wide (not including packaged kids’ valentines for classroom exchanges), making Valentine’s Day the second-largest holiday for giving greeting cards.
Poet and writer John Olson reviewed Joseph Donahue’s new collection of poetry, “Dissolves: Terra Lucida, IV-VIII,” on his blog called Tillalala Chronicles. Read the thoughtful, in-depth review here.
I have Joe’s book on the side table in the living room and am reading it in small sections. When I have a sense of the whole book, I’ll let our readers know. This is writing that is not to be rushed through.
Edgar Allen Poe Lowell, Massachusetts, late May to early June 1849 Daguerreotype
On this day – January 19, 1809 - American short-story writer, poet, critic and editor Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe poularized the short-story and his tales of mystery and horror gave birth to the modern detective story. Among his best known works are his short stories “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and his poems “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee” and “The Bells.” Poe died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore at the age of 4o. As I noted in a blog post last fall – Poe visited Lowell, Massachusetts in the Spring before he died – to lecture on American poetry. See the blog post here. Read more about Poe here at wikipedia.com.
With Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. being remembered tomorrow in a special way across the nation, I went back to a prose poem written after a family visit to Washington, D.C., in the early summer of 2004, another presidential election year. We were months away from seeing Barack Obama make news with a speech at the Democratic Party’s convention in Boston, and the extraordinary memorial for Dr. King was yet to be installed on the National Mall. — PM
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Checking the Property
My nine-year-old son says, “I’m going to read the ‘Gettysburg Address’”—on the other side is the lesser-known second inaugural speech. What’s the Lincoln shorthand? Freed the slaves; saved the union. People crowd the marble steps at dusk. A sign asks for silence. When he sees my wife lining up a snapshot, a guy in a straw cowboy hat offers to take a picture of my brother’s family, my wife, son, and me in the glow of the civic temple. Climbing the steps, I caught sight of the figure set behind the columns, and then lost him because of the steep ascent, only to come upon the sculpture again near the top, where visitors gaze at the huge seated president, whose massive square-toed boot juts out, looking as if it could kick Jeff Davis’ football the length of the Reflecting Pool and onto the white spike of the Washington Monument, which, in the after-supper hour reflects sun along its narrow western face, a mighty glo-stik on the national common, a staunch obelisk, a big white numeral standing for the first president, who set the constitutional republic in motion, the stone blocks a different shade on the top half, marking a stop in work and resumption, the monument telling its own story, one in which protesters rolled cut stones into the drink, foreshadowing later protests and rallies and comings together, like the 1963 March on Washington that brought Martin Luther King to these same steps to declare his dream of a nation at last free for all, the same steps where Joan Baez and Bob Dylan sang for justice and where Dylan returned to sing for Bill Clinton’s booming inaugural, the same steps movie-land Vietnam vet Forrest Gump spoke from and from which he spotted his life-long love and source of ache splashing toward him, the same pool in which the spaceship crashed in the Planet of the Apes remake, this electric stretch of public land without timber or copper, a wide open space in which to make a verb of America—to recall and celebrate and to do democratic research and development in this red clay-lined lab, bordered and crowded with evidence of the ongoing experiment, and bearing key formulas and equations inscribed in stone.
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—Paul Marion (c) 2004
Culture, Election 2012, History, Lowell, Poetry | 
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Here’s the third group of South Common haiku from the Facebook postings in November and December. If we ever get a pile of snow this winter, I’ll try to write another batch with the Common in white.—PM
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South Common Haiku Set (III)
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Who has not looked up
and seen the long white jet trails
that fade in seconds?
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Never get used to
seagulls on the soccer field,
far from Hampton Beach.
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Train horn, no whistle,
long sound in the Thorndike dark.
The line ends, starts here.
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Large-to-small branchings,
fundamental nature form—
veins and river paths.
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Over the low hill
whiff of Owl Diner bacon—
they sell oatmeal, too.
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Night street sounds and news.
All the people dying on
the old radio.
.
Joel-Lowell rhymes.
Billy could like the Common
just the way it is.
—Paul Marion (c) 2011
South Common Haiku Set
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Red bow on blue door
sunlit beyond the frost park
on a new-year day.
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—Paul Marion (c) 2012
A New Year’s Eve tradition was popularized on this day – December 31, 1929 – when band leader, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played “Auld Lang Syne” at the stroke of midnight in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. “Auld Lang Syne” is a poem written by Scotsman Robert Burns – set to a very old tune – played and sung on New Year’s Eve and also when appropriate to remember and honor old friends and past times. Many use this lyrical tribute as a toast. Loosely translated it means “days gone by” or “old times”. Here’s an “English” translation of the Burns poem:
“Auld Lang Syne”
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS
We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS
We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS
And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS
More here at wikipedia.
A Happy, Healthy, Peaceful New Year my friends – but always remembering “auld lang syne.”
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