June 2016 Posts

Denfeld Senior Graduation Video 2016

Denfeld GraduationA shot-by-shot re-make of Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feelin’!” produced by Denfeld High School’s graduating class of 2016.

PDD Quiz: Happy Birthday to Us!

Maria Bamford - Lady DynamiteJune 29 will be PDD’s 13th birthday. How much do you know about our 13 glorious years of being Duluth’s Duluthiest website? Take the quiz to find out.

And join us at Vikre Distillery on June 29 for PDDXIII: Perfect Duluth Day’s 13th Birthday Party. Here’s a link to the Facebook invite.

The next quiz will be out on July 3 and will be a review of June 2016. Send your questions and answers in to lawrence @ perfectduluthday.com by noon on Wednesday, June 29 to get them included.

Superior Siren – “Trying Too Hard”

Superior SirenSuperior Siren performing “Trying Too Hard” at KUMD last month promoting the Homegrown Music Festival. Listen to the interview at kumd.org.

Down Town

Saturday Essay - Dave Sorensen“I’m from New Jersey, I don’t expect too much
If the world ended today I would adjust.”
–John Gorka

New York, New Jersey. San Francisco, Oakland. Duluth and Soup Town. The Deep North, top of the map, and shallow end of the gene pool. Ugly sister-city. Can you feel the gravitational pull of the swamp it was built on? This force that bends us, slouching like the lowland willows. That drives water, beer and whiskey to seek the lower ground. Rains and fortunes falling, down and down. The banker’s son becomes a biker. The executive’s boy delivers pizza and sells dope well into adulthood. Sociologists call this “regression toward the mean.” Or maybe the swamp is pulling them. Down.

Of course the place tosses off an astronaut or Nobel winner once in a while. But folks mostly seem to understand they were born in second-place, and second place, as we know, is first loser. You get used to it. It helps to have negative role-models. Don’t do what he did. Look out for that. Rest in peace.

Walt Whitman’s Poem About Duluth?

There’s a new posting at the Reference@Duluth blog that involves a little literary detective work:

The Duluth Daily News of March 30, 1892, printed a letter offering an unpublished poem by Walt Whitman. The letter writer claims that Whitman had visited Duluth for his health the previous summer and had been so impressed with the Zenith City that he wrote a poem in praise of Duluth and had sent it to a friend in town.

Quiet (Singles) Night at the Depot

Duluth Singles Night at the Depot

I spent Wednesday night at the Depot.

It was singles night, a weekly event in June. The event included $1 Castle Danger beers and entertainment from DJ Trivia. The event included free tickets to local events from KQDS and some locally owned restaurants and some tickets to Tribute Fest (I won three — anyone want to go? I feel no desire to pay tribute to any of the bands being covered.). The highlight of the event: a package to Las Vegas.

Selective Focus: Nate Lindstrom

“Awaiting”, Sunrise along the North Shore

“Awaiting”, Sunrise along the North Shore

You may have seen Nate Lindstrom’s photography at art festivals or through his annual calendar. For this week’s Selective Focus, Nate tells us about his landscape photography.

NL: It felt like it took a lot of experimenting, some minor frustrations and a heap of learning to make landscapes my photographic focus, but in hindsight that interest developed a long time ago. I’ve always had a love of nature and being outdoors and moving to a very outdoor-centered area of Minnesota helped me look at my surroundings in a different way. I was spending more time on trails, on the shore, sleeping in our many state parks, living through the hottest 10 days of our summer and diabolical winters. All of these things inspire what I look for in a subject or composition, and shape my overall style.

Tennis courts by MacArthur School coming along

Tennis Courts MacArthur

Seven tennis courts and a discus/shotput-throwing area look to be almost ready at 725 N. Central Ave. The new courts and field will be used by tennis and track teams from Denfeld, as well as physical education students and other community members.

Cheng-Khee Chee profiled on The PlayList

Cheng-Khee CheeLast week’s episode of WDSE-TV’s The PlayList profiled renowned watercolor painter Cheng-Khee Chee. Colleagues and friends share their perspective on his work and his legacy.

Perfect Duluth Day Outdoor Summer Concert Primer 2016

Those who prefer the safe confines of walls and a sturdy roof can check out Kiss or the Beach Boys this summer at Amsoil Arena or David Liebe Hart at the Red Herring Lounge, but ’tis the season for music under canopies or wide open to the elements.

Bayfront Festival Park and Big Top Chautauqua are hosting the usual slew of major acts throughout the summer, along with local music being showcased through smaller concert series, such as the Chester Creek Concert Series and Bayside Sounds at Barker’s Island Pavilion. With multiple shows scheduled every week throughout the summer, it’s hard to choose which ones to make time for. Here’s a look at some 2016 outdoor concert highlights.
 

June 14
Teague Alexy
Chester Bowl Park
The Chester Creek Concert Series launches its 34th season with a performance by poetic rock musician Teague Alexy.

June 17
Grandma’s Marathon Big Top Opening Night
Canal Park
Multi-platinum rock band Smash Mouth headlines this year’s opening night to Grandma’s Marathon weekend.

June 18
Brandi Carlile
Big Top Chautauqua
Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile makes her way back for another year at the Big Top stage.

Woodblind – “Jubilee”

The ska duo of Veikko Lepisto and Jason Wussow perform “Jubilee” in KUMD’s Studio A.

Upcoming Woodblind gigs: June 9 at Beaner’s Central and June 27 at Thirsty Pagan Brewing.

J.M. Gidding & Co. | Gidding’s Millinery Duluth

The post “Duluth, the City of Electric Lights,” led me to wonder what the deal was with the Gidding’s building. A quick search of the internet produced the photo at left, which depicts the Knox Five and Dime fire of June 10, 1910, and shows the Gidding’s building at left.

Duluth, the City of Electric Lights

Duluth the City of Electric Lights

Circa 1907.

The Story of Charlie Parr

Tony Polecastro interviews Duluth musician Charlie Parr.

This Week: baseball, breastfeeding, Blitzen Trapper and more

Untitled design
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find in this week’s PDD Calendar:

Painter Moira Villard’s work gets a show and an opening reception at the Zeitgeist Arts Building, the Duluth Huskies baseball club faces off against St. Cloud at Wade Stadium, La Leche League International holds its monthly evening discussion about breastfeeding, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson and City Councilor Em Westerlund invite the public to a community listening session, Pete Fest 2016 kicks off five nights of music with an open mic and roast and Blitzen Trapper returns to Duluth with a show at the Red Herring.

The Tweed Museum of Art holds a grand reopening celebration, the fifth-annual Bash for Boobies softball tournament takes place, a film in which Colin Farrell tries to avoid becoming a crustacean opens at the Zinema, guitarist Darin Bergsven performs, the Red Herring Lounge celebrates two years in operation with two nights stuffed full of music, people are encouraged to Take a Kid Fishing this weekend and Big Top Chautauqua celebrates 30 years of existence.

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