On Saturday at the Twin Cities Book Festival, Gary Boelhower, Joan Henrik, Miriam Karmel and Crystal Gibbins celebrated the 40th anniversary of Duluth’s Holy Cow! Press.
The panel, moderated by Jim Perlman, was basically short readings followed by a book signing. It was great to see friends at this celebration of literary culture.
Grand Opening at Gaming Goat St. Paul.
The Gaming Goat in St. Paul is operated by Jeremy, who is one of the founding members of Nerd Nite Duluth. He still returns to Duluth for nearly every Nerd Nite to host, so in my mind, he’s still part of Duluth, and so his shop is worth a visit the next time you are in St. Paul.
I ran, then jogged, then walked in the “Running for Our Heroes” 5K. I learned something about running, about 5Ks, about myself.
I was almost, almost charged sales tax at a second-hand shop near the Miller Hill Mall a few weeks ago, on the purchase of socks. I was disappointed … because this is the law:
Clothing is exempt from Minnesota sales and use tax. Clothing means all human wearing apparel suitable for general use. The exemption for clothing does not apply to fur clothing, clothing accessories or equipment, sports or recreational equipment, and protective equipment, which are taxable.
(From Minnesota Department of Revenue Clothing Sales Tax Fact Sheet)
I found the CD that Mike Simonson gave me and uploaded it to SoundCloud. It’s a half-hour segment titled “Teaching History, Literacy and Tolerance: The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial in Our Schools.” Panelists are Henry Banks, Catherine Nachbar, David Beard, Gail Schoenfelder and Perry Kennedy. Moderators are Jennifer and Mike Simonson.
Gunnar Birkerts, a Latvian-born architect who extended the vocabulary of Modernism using unexpected angular forms, folding planes and ingenious, light-suffused interiors, died on Tuesday at his home in Needham, Mass. He was 92.
So it’s end of summer, and the weather’s been … uneven … and it’s getting darker earlier. My heart turns toward movies.
More from that odd board game:
1. One of the westerly townsites which later became part of Duluth had an Ojibwe name which meant “the rock from which the people sprang.” Name that townsite (and if you know whether this is accurate, let me know).
2. What nationality were the founders of the Hunter’s Park area of Duluth?
I still miss this place. It was the cheapest place in Duluth to look at the lake. The replacement building isn’t the same — it’s louder and colder and you can’t see the lake from anywhere except your car.
Where in Duluth was this joint with a cool view of the lake?
I scored a box of Duluth Trivia cards at Savers.
Some of the questions include:
The first vessel to pass through the Duluth Ship Canal was named:
This past weekend was Chapel Con, a comics and pop culture convention in Albert Lea, Minn. Two Duluthians were guests — two of our favorite comics creators.
Trudy Vrieze has started a fascinating project documenting what it means to live in Duluth, who we are and why we are here. The Human Fabric of Duluth is a street-photography and storytelling project.
Last week I bicycled to Duluth’s Lakeside neighborhood with a friend — to Amity Coffee and BEER?
Today is the one-year anniversary since the law was revised. The Duluth City Council repealed a more than 125-year-old Lakeside liquor ban on June 27, 2016. Amity Coffee became the neighborhood’s first seller of alcoholic beverages four months later.
The most diverse workplace I have ever known was a nursing home kitchen with workers from age 18 to 82 of many races and genders.
Kitchens breed a complex affection. We saw each other every day, taking two or more meals together. I developed favorite coworkers — the washers who will plow through the dishes quickly, not the washers who realize they are paid the same no matter how many plates they wash in an hour. We celebrated each other’s joys. The cook might bake a small cake to celebrate a staff wedding, or streamers might appear outside the dietitian’s office on her birthday. On Friday we might go drinking — it was a special challenge to pressure the people working the dinner shift on Friday and the breakfast shift on Saturday to do a “turn and burn.”
It was on one of those Fridays that my coworker Erin told us she was pregnant, that it was unplanned and unwanted, and that she didn’t know what to do. She was likely, she said, to have an abortion.
On another Friday, in my home, maybe a week or so later, I had friends over — friends from both the kitchen and from college. I was 21, I was broke, and I was teased mercilessly for serving Milwaukee’s Best beer. Erin drank three of them in an hour, which I know wouldn’t make a koala bear tipsy. Nonetheless, I was young, I was stupid, and so I said to her: “You’re drinking?” I wasn’t sure she was 21 even, but I was sure she was pregnant.
