Month: September 2014
Homegrown Steering Committee Openings
The Homegrown Music Festival is looking to add new members to the Homegrown Steering Committee – the nonprofit committee responsible for the nuts and bolts of the eight-day festival. Ideal candidates have a love of local music and our community, and an eager commitment to continuing to improve the 16-year celebration of local music and culture. Committee terms are two years, with the opportunity to renew.
Deadline for application is Friday, Sept. 26.
Found Anthropological Artifacts from a Summer Beach Culture of Leisure
What strange, rock-skipping culture of leisure inhabits these Duluthian shorelines in the Lake Superior summers? This is a brief survey of structures and artifacts discovered in my anthropological investigations of 2013-2014.
PAVSA Art Auction seeking donations
The Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault is seeking artwork for its annual Art Auction. PAVSA serves victims/survivors of sexual violence throughout southern St. Louis County, offering free services like advocacy, medical-forensic exams, therapy and support groups. The art auction, held every fall, is PAVSA’s largest fundraiser of the year. A wide variety of local art is auctioned off, with proceeds going toward PAVSA programs, which provide crucial services to the people the organization serves.
Painters, potters, jewelers, knitters, or those who would like to donate a gift certificate for a gift basket are encouraged to call the PAVSA office at 218-726-1442 during office hours, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for more information. The deadline for art to be collected is the end of October.
Folks interested in attending the auction should mark their calendars for Friday, Nov. 14, for an elegant evening of art, dinner, live entertainment, community ally awards and more. All proceeds benefit PAVSA’s programs and the healing services they provide for survivors of sexual violence.
The Kid and Nic Show – “Little Darlin”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYhoAoJSTUg
A little doo wop on Duluth’s hillside, performed by the Kid and Nic Show.
This week: bamboo blasting, browncoats and balloons (maybe)
Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.
Summer isn’t over yet! Know how I know? Road construction is still going on! There are bridges out and roads closed. And while I’m on the subject, does anyone else who sees these construction signs marked “ITS” start humming Sousa’s “Liberty Bell March“? No? Just me?
On Tuesday you can join the Parks and Rec folks for Invasive Bamboo Blasting, which needs to be a band name or a game I can play on my iPhone. Someone get on that now.
Always wanted to learn to speak Norwegian? You can get your start at the Nordic Center this Wednesday.
Wise Fool Shakespeare opens its season with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing on Friday at the Teatro Zuccone. The show runs for two weekends.
And there is plenty of festing to be done this weekend with the Chester Bowl Fall Fest, Oktoberfest, Hawk Weekend Festival at Hawk Ridge and Le Festival des Montgolfières à Duluth (otherwise known as the “Where are the damn balloons?” festival).
And, for all you Browncoats out there, there’s gonna be a gorram Shindig at Glensheen mansion on Sunday with dancing and the world premier of a Firefly-themed spaceship bridge simulator. Shiny.
So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.
Getting to Fall Fest
Saturday, September 20th is the date for the 30th annual Fall Fest in Chester Park. Rain Date is Sunday the 21st. With construction happening right outside the park entrance, getting to Fall Fest will be a little different this year.
Click the map to see it larger.
If you’re not walking to Chester Bowl that day, everyone is strongly encouraged to park and take the free shuttle buses from UMD’s Lot B, next to the Administration building, at College & University. (See map) Road and bridge repairs continue immediately west of the Chester Bowl Park entrance thereby limiting access to just the eastern entrance. Pedestrians can enter from the east side, but Skyline Parkway will also be closed to cars from the east starting at Kent Road on the day of the event. Parking is prohibited along Skyline Parkway after Kent Road.
PDD will be at Fall Fest again this year in our luxurious canopy, giving away stickers, selling t-shirts, and whatever other shenanigans we devise between now and next Saturday. Look for us next to the playground.
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Freediving for Agates
August of this summer. This beach slopes off sharply just past the surf to like a 45 degree angle, so swimming out in a succession of dives quickly takes you deeper. Max in this video 15 feet? Not far from shore at all, undisclosed location. The dolphin-y noise @ 19 secs is air escaping from the camera pole. The mechanical drone in the background is an ore boat a couple/few miles away in the shipping lanes, which can also be heard in the first couple minutes of my recent vid Diving Among the Boulders and What I Found There.
Lolling across West Duluth and overseas
Loll Designs is moving its production facilities to 59th Avenue West and Waseca Street.
Duluth News Tribune: Loll Designs growing and on the move in Duluth
I bought several Epicurean chopping boards and a trivet where I live now in England over the years at various stockists. They’re great! Hopefully more product lines will be available. Just returned from Denmark and was chuffed to see Epicurean products in Copenhagen’s grandest department store, Magasin du Nord. It would be brilliant if Epicurean/Loll’s webshop could accept payments from international debit/credit cards and customers so I could Xmas shop online for Stateside relatives.
Oh, and every time I see my neighbor’s resin patio table and chairs in our shared back garden, I want to heave. God give me Loll Designs!
Perfect Coffee Shop: Beaner’s Central
A rash of new coffee joints have opened up in Duluth in recent years, but an old favorite was the clear winner in Perfect Duluth Day’s poll to name the best coffee shop. Beaner’s Central Concert Coffeehouse has been as much known for its live music and friendly vibe over the past 15 years as it has for the Alakef-roasted java blends served there daily. Not to mention the baked goods, soups, sandwiches, pizzas, random experimental breakfasts, beers, wines, art exhibitions, basement recording studio and whatever else the affable and eccentric owner and founder Jason Wussow decides to offer next. It’s no wonder Beaner’s dominated with 50 percent of the vote in the three-way race for Duluth’s coffee-shop crown.
Jefferson People’s House, which opened just three months before our poll, gave a strong second place performance with 28 percent of the vote. The not-quite-two-year-old Duluth Coffee Co. cafe and roasterie also performed well, pulling in 22 percent of the vote.
Split Rock Review, Fall 2014
The online literary magazine, Split Rock Review, recently released the Fall 2014 issue. Also, SRR is now accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, book reviews, graphic narratives, visual poetry, digital literature, and hybrid forms.
For more information about the magazine and submission guidelines, please visit the SRR website.
Rail sessions across Duluth
Featuring Cody Nehniba, Wilson Robinson, Tyler Murto, Kyle Juntunen and Isiah England.
Quick Change
A la 1970s Wonder Woman.
Venus DeMars embraces Sacred Heart
Venus DeMars has been busy. After finishing a national your with Against Me!, DeMars returns to her hometown on Saturday for a concert at Sacred Heart, where she will record her first acoustic album. In this interview, she explains how her new album will be a culmination of her musical experiences.
Wildlife News
Some updates from Wildwoods Rehabilitation:
There are three window-strike bird victims in residence — a northern flicker, a juvenile cedar waxwing, and a flycatcher. The flicker came in with a spinal bruise, and was unable to use his legs for several days. Fortunately, he’s made a full recovery after rest and anti-swelling meds, and is ready for release. In the meantime, he’s been pigging out on the mealworms, and has plumped out, just in time for migration, when he’ll need the energy!
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Toasty’s on East Ninth now open
The sign on the building has been up since last Spring, and now Toasty’s is open.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
Address: 1032 E. Ninth St.
Owners: Rachael and Tom Hagen
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Best Coffee Shop in the Duluth Area Poll (Final Ballot)
In our elimination round poll we pitted 11 coffee shops against each other. The top three now do battle in this contest to answer the question …
[poll id=”68″]
This poll is now closed. There results were:
Beaner’s Central Concert Coffeehouse – 50.4 percent
Jefferson People’s House – 27.8 percent
Duluth Coffee Co. – 21.8
Duluth Sunrise Silhouette
Photo by Manny Villanueva, shot this morning.
News about the arts from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council
Various bits for local artists, arts consumers, and art organizations:
- The next ARAC grant deadline is Oct. 31. The grant programs included in this deadline are: Two-year Operating Support for organizations, Rural and Community Art Grants for organizations and Career Development Grants for individual artists. Online applications for these grant programs will be available Sept. 19. ARAC will also be holding grant writing workshops on these programs in the weeks prior to the deadline.
- ARAC is accepting nominations for the 17th annual Arrowhead Arts Awards. The awards were developed to recognize individuals who have made important contributions to the arts in the region. ARAC gives out two awards each year: The George Morrison Artist Award and the Maddie Simons Advocate Award. The purpose of the awards is to recognize the work and contributions of individual artists and arts administrators, as well as raise the profile of arts in their communities. Nominations must be postmarked by Nov. 14.
- View the calendar of ARAC-funded events at aracouncil.org.
This week: birding, chili and trout fishing
Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.
It’s harvest time and that means a lot of action in area farmers’ markets (Downtown, UMD, East Hillside, Lincoln Park, West Duluth, and Two Harbors) and this week the Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank is looking for volunteers to help pick fresh produce.
On Tuesday there is a trifecta of business presentations with David Jaffe, CEO of the company that controls Maurices, speaking at Weber, Brian Hanson, CEO of APEX, at Clyde Iron, and Danielle Thralow, creator of binoculars.com, peepers.com and telescope.com, at WITC.
They say it’s going to get chilly this week by Wednesday, and we’re going to get chili on Thursday with the United Way Chili Cook-Off at the DECC. Yeah, I went for the obvious pun. Sue me.
Starting this Friday Clinton Nienhaus will be leading early morning birding strolls starting at Duluth Sky Harbor. These weekly walks will go through the end of October.
Venus DeMars (after a prolonged struggle with the Minnesota Department of Revenue over whether or not she’s an artist) performs as court-sanctioned, bona fide artist at Sacred Heart on Saturday.
The Red Herring Lounge celebrates the life and works of Richard Brautigan on Sunday with Trout Fishing in Duluth.
So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.
Amity Coffee is open in Lakeside
Amity Coffee opened on Sept. 6 at 4429 E. Superior St., serving up java from Duluth Coffee Co. The owners are Adam Swank and Patti Chuang.
The artwork on the walls is a selection of landscape paintings by Aaron Kloss.
Hours are 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursdays, 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
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Duluth Artist in the Black Hills
Duluth Artist Catherine Meier is back from an installation project in the Badlands.
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Diving the Breakwater Wall Ruins, 9/6/14
Duluth’s outer harbor, between the Vietnam Memorial and the red buoy, hides the submerged ruins of a hundred-plus-year-old wall (essentially stacked wooden cribbing filled with rocks) that predates the lift bridge and the canal. This is what they used to park ships behind for safe harbor — before its destruction in a gale. Been waiting to return here since last summer, finally got my window. Tried early in the day but the water was too cold. So I spent the day on Park Point beach, then hit it on my way back — water had warmed several degrees. Sun was going down so I had to act quickly. Similar imagery may be seen in my video of last year, “Freediving the Ruins of Duluth’s Outer Harbor.”
This current video represents going farther from shore (maybe halfway to the buoy?), and deeper than before (up to 15 feet or so as opposed to ~10). Next year maybe I will dive the buoy chain to the bottom (30 feet). It would have been nice to do this series of dives when I was fresher earlier in the day with more direct overhead sunlight (the water was clearer too), but it was simply too cold. By the time I got to it, I had walked several miles, was hungry, and had been given a beer and a couple slugs of wine (don’t ask). So I wasn’t as hardcore as I wanted to be — had to swim out far, then deep too, without benefit of a raft or anything, so I was pooped and not willing to risk any further depth. Next time!
Diving Among the Boulders and What I Found There
A series of dives one afternoon exploring a field of boulders.
One Book, One Community … One Local Author
Visit Duluth Public Library’s One Book, One Community page and cast your vote for a book to be selected for this reading program. My suggestion: Support, Linda Grover’s The Dance Boots. Grover is the only local author on the shortlist, and this award-winning set of stories is perfect for this honor. (You might also check out Grover’s hot-of-the-press novel The Road Back to Sweetgrass.)