April 2014 Posts

Duluth Denfeld Sing-along Drone Video

Footage by Liftoff Aerials.

The Halls of Denfeld (alma mater)

Oh, we love the halls of Denfeld
That surround us here today.
And we will not forget,
Though we be near or far away.

My Duluth: Short film about saying goodbye

If you enjoyed it, please help me out and vote for this short film at rodemic.com. The grand prize is a bunch of really great film equipment, which would help me make more short films in the area and another feature! Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy it!

Usual pot hole complaint: What’s the deal?

Is there a schedule that I’m not aware of for pot hole filling? I feel like the weather has been warm enough lately for filling, but I have yet to see a single crew out. Are they waiting for all the snow to melt? Do they fear another snow storm and the plows it will bring? Have we decided to simply switch to gravel roads because they would be smoother?

My already fragile and poorly designed suspension is crying.

R.I.P. Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome

This week: Don Ness vs. Jim Carlson

  

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

The public schools are on “spring break” this week and there’s open ice skating, kickball, lacrosse and more at the Duluth Heritage Sports Center and movies (including Catching Fire and 47 Ronin) at the Public Library this week.

Eat Downtown Week, with its prix fixe lunch and dinner menus at participating restaurants, ends this Friday.

Hero/Villain/Savior/Scoundrel is an exhibition of portraits featuring Don Ness and Jim Carlson by various local artists. It opens at the Zeitgeist on Thursday.

Think of it as a catered yoga sing-along. There will be a Kirtan at Beaner’s Central on Friday.

Inuksuit” is an environmental musical piece in which 66 musicians will be spread over the grounds of Glensheen Mansion and the audience wanders through the piece. This happens on Saturday.

Daniel Tobin performs “An Iliad: A One-Man Odyssey” at Mitchell Auditorium on Sunday.

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

Enger Tower inside and out

The PDD Drone takes an up-close and faraway look at a Duluth icon.

Duluth Mystery Photo #12: Holt Caterpillar

This week’s mystery photo is an illustration, really, but the small print indicates it’s a “drawing from photograph.” The text of this 1922 advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post refers to Duluth, which leads one to assume the illustration is based on a photo shot in Duluth. Is it? Does anyone recognize this location 92 years later?

Icebox Radio Theater: Acting Internships

The Icebox Radio Theater is searching for performers for a two-week tour of public libraries in Northern Minnesota from June 2 to 13. We are in need of talented individuals willing to learn about a new form of theater while performing for kids and adults in a series of small shows in public libraries from Grand Rapids to Grand Marais. Must have own transportation to general area of events and for long weekend of rehearsals in International Falls. Per-show stipend plus lodging and mileage paid.

2014 Duluth Homegrown Field Guide

Read the 2014 Duluth Homegrown Field Guide online as a flip-through magazine. Band profiles, full schedule and lots of choice Homegrown deets.

Duluth Homegrown Music Fest Field Guide

2014 Duluth Homegrown Field Guide

Homegrown Field Guide 2014 is out!

The Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2014 is lukewarm off the presses. Most of them are in stacks of boxes at the Chicken Shack, 207 E. Superior St., and will be distributed around town in the coming days. As of 2:30 p.m. Friday there was one box at the Electric Fetus, so you might be able to grab a copy there at this very moment.

Duluth Band Profile: Wino, WI

Wino, WI drives hard rock back into Duluth. Greg Conley and Scott Millis explain how the band started as a reaction to folk. Click on the image above to hear the interview.

Three from LakeVoice: Crayon artist Tiona Marco, Mayor Don Ness and Giant Panda

A trio of highlights from the past week in Lake Voice News:

Lake Voice News is a student-run publication focused on bridging the gap between UMD students and the Duluth community.

New Perspective of Duluth

Ye Olde Duluth: Roller Skating Edition

Duluth's Frank Bryant (right) and Raymond 'King' Kelly after skating 348 miles to set a world distance record for a 24-hour two-man relay, 21-22 January 1915.

I ran across this on the Library of Congress’s Flickr Commons photostream today and got curious. Although the original caption suggests that Bryant and King’s record was set “on ice,” the wheels on the skates the men are wearing make me skeptical–as does the background material on the Frank Bryant collection at the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center.

So, here goes: From 1913-1916, Duluthian Frank Bryant was a dominant competitive roller skater, holding a world championship in speed skating. The photo here depicts the 25 year-old Michigan native with St. Paulite Kelly, with whom he set a world record distance of 348 miles for a 24-hour two-man relay event–the Minnesotan pair’s performance eclipsed the previous 203-mile mark set just two weeks earlier in New York. A knee injury in 1916 apparently ended his high-level skating career, but he continued skating competitively into the late 1920s. Bryant worked for Duluth’s Union Towing and Wrecking Company for 32 years, retiring in 1955; he died in 1961.

Duluth Man on the Street circa 1994

The low quality of this video is not just because it’s 20 years old; it’s also because I was the camera man and I probably neglected to white balance or something.

The low quality of the content is because it’s all made up on the spot. My then-UWS classmate Trent Jameson simply asked me to go shoot some video of people on Superior Street with him.

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