The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council has several openings on its board of directors. It is seeking applications from individuals who reside in Cook County, Koochiching County, Duluth, as well as one or two at-large representatives, and possibly one college student liaison.

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I was thinking of switching my cell phone to T-Mobile since it doesn’t require contracts anymore and has some decent prices. How good is the coverage? I would guess coverage is fine in Duluth/Superior, but how good is it as you head toward Ashland?

Let Nancy take you on a tour of the Music Resource Center and learn more about what goes on here. If you like what you see and would like to help us make it better you can donate online. Time is running short; we need to reach our goal by Friday! Please help if you can!

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

It’s Memorial Day. Go visit a cemetery.

Louis Jenkins and Mark Rylance will be reading poetry from Nice Fish and taking questions at the Teatro Zuccone on Tuesday.

The Duluth Superior Film Festival opens on Wednesday at several venues and runs through Sunday.

SocialCon 2013 is a social networking conference at Greysolon on Thursday.

This weekend the Amsoil Speedway opens for their summer season on Friday and the first ball of the Duluth Huskies 2013 season gets thrown out at Wade Stadium on Saturday.

You want dance? Desert Journeys, a belly dance concert, plays at the Washington Gallery on Saturday and Black Label Movement at Mitchell on Saturday and Sunday.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

NPR’s weekly sports show ended with a feature on the area’s whitewater kayaking.  Hear Only A Game’s story on SoundCloud.

Some terrific photos are on the show’s Flickr stream, too.

One week prior to the Hospital People morning-show spazzing, there was a brief fashion show on NewsChannel 3 This Morning to highlight what some of the uncool kids would be wearing to Geek Prom. Set the Wayback Machine to Spring 2003.

By the way, morning-show host Scott McLinden is in Texoma, Texas, these days, anchoring News 12 at Nine on FOX 12. (I can’t remember the name of the co-host in this clip). Geek Prom MC Jonathan Lee is at the desk with them. Fashion models are Scott Lunt, Amy Abts, yours truly Paul Lundgren, Michelle Rowley and August Rowley.

Last year the Northshore Inline Marathon debuted the Wheels Off Half Marathon running event to great success. This year, in addition to the Wheels Off, there will be the Tunnel 10k running event on I-35.

The race through the tunnels on I-35 starts at 8 a.m. on Sept. 14 at Fifth Avenue West on the northbound ramp. Learn more about this race and the six other events that weekend at northshoreinline.com. Come visit our booth at the Grandmas Marathon Expo for fun giveaways and drawings.

DragonDice

Day 1 of Berserkon was quiet… intimate…  Fox21 has the story, although this is not the “first ever” — just first at the DECC.  There were smaller events at Norway Hall, for example, in the early 2000s.
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Hello.  Long, long-time reader, from way back when the site was on the old blogging platform. I’ve never posted before. So, thanks to all of you long-time contributors for many years.

Can someone tell me what North by North is?

About a month ago, it seemed to be everywhere.  I’m not really a participant in the arts other than as an occasional attendee, but I think I understood what they were doing.  It was like an umbrella organization for Homegrown, the Dylan Festival, and other stuff, right?  That seemed cool and I thought it made a lot of sense, though I confess I was surprised that everyone in these organizations agreed to let go their independence and be under that umbrella.  I also was surprised because it seemed like the organization was run by some people I had never heard of.

Now, North by North is nowhere.  Is it gone?  What was it?  When I ask my friends in the arts about it, they just change the topic.

So strange that it was everywhere, and now it’s nowhere.

Can anyone help me understand?  I like Duluth, I like the arts in Duluth, and on the surface this seemed like a good thing.  Does it still exist?  Where did it come from, and where did it go?

Get ready for the Dusu Film fest. Each year, this thing gets better and better. I thought I’d share what I’m excited about. Actually it’s three things.

For those of you who were around while Iron Will took over the city in 1993, there’s a bit of a reunion. Mackenzie Astin will be back in town to help us all “put a poultice on it.” The reunion is Sunday and there’s a Facebook page about it. Seriously though, this will be the fun kids event of the festival. The event is free and a reception will be afterward in the Depot Underground.

Eric Tretbar, formerly of Minneapolis mods the Funseekers, has a friggan cool looking film about … um … well it’s called GirlMeetsBike … so it’s a girl and a motorcycle … and well, it just looks cool and he’s a suuuper nice guy so get your cafe ride on and ton-up to the Zinema to see that one.

Finally, Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show … Crispin Friggan Glover in Duluth??? WTF is with that? This looks to be even more surreal than an Iron Will reunion and a cafe biker movie … so Duluth .. no more bitchin’ that you ain’t cool!

Hey PDDers, the East High School Key Club is organizing a plant sale to help out the First Witness Child Advocacy Center. The Plant Sale is Saturday, May 25, starting at 8 a.m. And they need some donations of plants ASAP! Got any extra perennials? Hand them over! You can either email funds4roots @ gmail.com or you can drop off any donations of plants tomorrow morning from 6:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. at the Leif Erickson Rose Garden parking lot. Every penny raised will go to First Witness’ Roots of Hope emergency fund. Thanks and sorry for the last-minute plea.

The Key Club plant sale is part of the Duluth Flower and Garden Society’s 2013 plant sale at the Rose Garden.

Video by Hunter Gulan

Wildwoods was one of the guests at this event:

The guest speakers included Carol Andrews with the Arrowhead Chapter of Wild Ones, Jane Anklam with the West Wisconsin Land Trust, Paul Hlina with Leaning Pine native plants and Darienne McNamara with the city of Superior SAMP program.  Kate and Nancy, the Education and Volunteer Coordinator at Wildwoods, staffed a table for Q&A.  Kate described the event this way:  Although a small audience in attendance, the speakers provided valuable information regarding native plants, the importance of wetlands, and conservation of land for public benefit.

The event was organized by Wendy Up North.

Chester Creek Cafe is looking for a prep cook – great environment.

The husband-and-wife photography team of Dawn M. LaPointe and Gary L. Fiedler have a pretty sweet online photo gallery. The canoeing snow-people in particular caught my eye. LaPointe and Fiedler have work on display at two Duluth stores — Duluth Pack in Canal Park, and the Frame Corner & Gallery downtown.

Hannah and Curren, two musicians who have benefited from the Music Resource Center, were on The PlayList last week — young people doing their thing and being articulate and cool — what more can we ask for?

After you watch them talk about what they do, go here and donate to the Indiegogo campaign to make more of their and other young musicians’ work happen here in Duluth and Superior. The campaign ends in a little over a week — help them now if you can.

I am looking for a place to live, with my dog Jack. I’m not having any luck using conventional methods, so am going out on a limb to see if this route might help. I am 29 years old, employed full time, very handy, responsible and fairly quiet. Although I have a good job, I don’t make a lot of money so I don’t have a big budget, but I am a catch! I can fix stuff, mow, shovel, tell jokes and make good coffee. I have an adult, neutered, totally housebroken, not a barker, not a pit bull or pit-bull mix dog, my best friend actually, Jack. He has a scruffy face so is very cute to look at it, which is a bonus in a dog.

I can afford to pay $600 plus electricity and I would like some kind of green space for Jack. I do not leave him outside unattended but he is a dog.

Hoping someone might be interested in taking a chance on us. Jack and I have references.

Thanks,
Joe
wiacwli @ gmail.com

24-year-old receives sage counsel from venerable 27-year-old
DULUTH, MN—Generously bestowing the kind of wisdom that only comes with age, worldly and venerable 27-year-old Matthew Owen took the time last night to offer his enlightened counsel to 24-year-old family friend Dennis Paige.

Other Onion stories with Duluth datelines:

• National News Highlights (2010)

• Boy finds own real-life E.T. (2009)

• National News Highlights (2006)

• Offended customer’s huffy walkout goes unnoticed (2005)

• Antique dealer sick of appraising Smurf collections (2002)

• What this town needs is a really shitty community newspaper (2002)

• Struggling local theater space put out of its misery (1999)

• Eating enthusiast acquires chocolate eclair (1997)

… and there are probably some we missed.

I have been working as a radio producer lately, and I increasingly find myself in situations where I need to try and be even-handed and to try to represent different perspectives on nuanced issues. Racial diversity is one of those things that keeps popping up for me.

The issues surrounding racism and inclusion are loaded with bad history, a lot of grey area, and many answers that seem to pull good people in opposing directions. Potentially worst of all, people just stay with the status quo, trapped by indecision.

So on Friday I was out trying to cover this hastily announced press conference at UMD. (I got the announcement in my Facebook inbox sometime around lunch, and the gathering was at 4 p.m.) From the start I could see that this was a good topic for PDD. I intended to edit this up and add some captions and titles on Friday and post it here to see what folks had to say.

Then I left my laptop power cord at work and with gas at $4-something a gallon I decided to just let it go and try to just relax and spend some time with family this weekend. That was the right call because I did enjoy myself and had a great time with my wife and kids. Also, I did not have a response from the university until today.

The response from UMD Chancellor Lendley Black is posted below the video.

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