Big Into – “The Jupiter Song”

Take a tour through the solar system with Iron Range natives Curtis Kraft Mattson and Jozef Conaway. Their nerd-rock band Big Into is releasing a music video every month for each new track off their upcoming EP. “The Jupiter Song” is the fifth video in the series.

Saturday in Canal Park

Some kids appeared to be having fun in Canal Park Saturday.

PDD Quiz: Basketball

Drive to the basket and take your shot at this week’s basketball-themed PDD Quiz. Shout out to PDD user llinmpls for suggesting some of this week’s questions!

The next current events quiz charges your way on March 31. Submit question ideas to Alison Moffat [email protected] by March 26.

Minnesota hockey hair featured in the New York Times

The New York Times reports this week on Minnesota as the “global hub for hockey hair.” The feature includes the story of Graff Mellin, the junior forward for Hairmantown, who went against the mullet trend with a buzzcut leopard look.

Dance Monkey

For those of you hungry for a three-and-a-half-minute dance session, here’s another Kirwan Klassic from Duluth’s Jean Kirwan. It features go-go dancers performing to “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I.

Hawk Ridge housing proposal under scrutiny

The Duluth News Tribune reports there is concern in the community about a proposal to rezone about 4 acres of land in the Hawk Ridge neighborhood for the Bald Eagle Estates housing development.

Who had the “biggest deal in town”?

The Lakewalk Voyageur Inn has finally been completely demolished (after a long time of sad hotel half-rooms on the hill). Revealed is this old sign. What used to be at that location?

Cargill buying spree on Park Point exceeds a dozen properties

The Duluth News Tribune reports Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert wrote a letter to billionaire Kathy Cargill in February asking to discuss her plans for properties she and her representatives purchased on Park Point. The Star Tribune reports two properties sold at the end of February on Minnesota Avenue’s 1500 and 1400 blocks. Cargill’s limited liability company, North Shore LS, has acquired a dozen properties on Park Point in the past 14 months. The Strib notes “the LLC also owns a home on the point bought in 2021, and a Lake Superior shorefront condo in eastern Duluth.”

The Nerd Habit of Collecting Signatures

As I mentioned in a previous post, at MarsCon in Bloomington last weekend the son of a nerd who had died was selling his father’s collection of media, books, games and ephemera.

I picked up the Doctor Who cookbook from the previous century, some trading cards, all for pennies on the dollar. Perhaps the best find, or at least the one I can’t ever imagine finding again, was the single by the actor who played the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, “Who is the Doctor?”

Found: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Pictures (from Duluth?)

I found a group of photos I believe show Buffalo Bill Cody in a procession on Duluth’s famous carriage path. Then there are a few photos of the show itself with a lot of people, including many American Indians highly adorned, milling around a circle. If you look closely you see white people sitting on chairs.

Are these all related to Cody’s time in Duluth?

Signatures for a Nerd

At MarsCon in Bloomington last weekend, the son of a recently passed nerd was selling his father’s collection of media, books, games and ephemera. I picked up the Doctor Who cookbook from the previous century, some trading cards, all for pennies on the dollar.

Minnesota All Hockey Hair Team 2024: Friends in Flow Places

This year the All Hockey Hair Team takes on a country and western theme as John King and Pulltab Sports offer up another montage of the best hair from the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament in St. Paul.

From buttery salads to a snow leopard on the loose — it’s all there.

Duluth Island

The discovery of a scale model of Duluth, carved from black coral on a desert island in the South Pacific, sent shockwaves through the scientific community. The miniature cityscape lay in a hand-excavated chamber under the sand, on an uninhabited, unnamed island only half the size of a city block. The flat, round expanse of sand, if noticed at all by distant ships, seems featureless. At twenty feet above sea level, it fully submerges in some storm surges, and might not survive climate change’s rising seas. First appearing on maps in 1941 with a numerical designation, it was not explored until 2015. That’s when a team of American biologists, following a tagged sea turtle, navigated a black reef and set foot on what is now known as Duluth Island.

Sea turtles and sea birds liked the island well enough. It had no trees or flora visible from off its tiny shores, but up close it was seen to support beach grass and some shrubs. The thought of human habitation was so impossible it didn’t cross anyone’s mind until one of the team noticed a square slab of black coral in the island’s dead center. It measured thirty inches by thirty inches and was at least a few inches thick, set into the sand. It was either subsuming into the sand or emerging from it. The object, obviously the product of human labor, remained unexplained as the biologists departed.

JamesG – “Be Nice”

The latest track from former Duluth hip-hop artist JamesG asks the lyrical question, “Why can’t you be nice?”

I can only assume your mean streak matches the one up in your undies.
Probably live in the past like Al Bundy.
Poking around, tryna start shit cause you think it’s funny.
Crossing lines without remorse, Pam Beesly at the Dundies.

The Moss-covered Log: A Wildlife Hotspot

An old, moss-covered log in Voyageurs National Park was a popular item last fall. The allure of the log caused some bears to temporarily lose their minds and the log paid the price for it. The wolves and some other forest critters were not too far behind the bears.

This trail-camera footage is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the park.

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