One decade ago the springtime water-skipping action at Chester Bowl in Duluth was excellent. This video depicting the skiing, snowboarding, saucering, couching and so on that took place has gathered more than 32,000 views in the ten years since it first appeared on PDD in 2007.
According to this very vague story from the November 1921 issue of Popular Mechanics, Duluth may have been at the forefront of developing community garages. What happened? One of the garages shown in the magazine still exists today in the Morgan Park neighborhood.
As Garrison Keillor observes, “March is the month God created to show people who don’t drink what a hangover is like.” Did you retain anything from the hangover that is March? Take the quiz and find out!
The next PDD Quiz will cover Homegrown band names and will be published on April 16: start scouring those field guides! E-mail question suggestions to Alison Klawiter at [email protected] by April 13.
Chase Down Blue‘s folk/rock sound has evolved in a post-rock direction on the album, Red V. In this video, the band performs live in KUMD’s Studio A on Feb. 15.
Upcoming gig: May 3, 10:15 p.m. at the Kom-on-Inn during Homegrown
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“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” — Yogi Berra
Most days after work I pick up my wife and we spring her mom from memory care for a stroll around the block. According to my wife’s high-tech pedometer it’s almost exactly half a mile. There’s a view of the big lake, and the weather that goes with it, and for fifteen minutes or so the three of us are happy to be walking, and walking to be happy.
My dictionary’s third definition of “pedestrian” describes its figurative sense as, “ lacking in interest or imagination; prosaic, ordinary and dull.” While, at speed, the crosstown freeways of Minneapolis may not be dull, they are certainly ordinary, it being lost on us that driving seventy miles an hour is a violent act, and this we only realize when running into something. We could’ve toured as daredevils a hundred years ago. But existence in our rolling cubicles is mostly quite prosaic, and life encaged is dull.
When I was three years old my friend and I decided to walk to the Ashland A&W, a mile away and across an interstate highway. Hudda Martenson saw us traipsing outside the neighborhood, and gave us a ride home to strict punishment. Grounded! For three days! This proved walking was a precious freedom, indeed, whose revocation was a penalty most cruel and severe.
Sarah Priest lost her winter hat at former Duluth Mayor Don Ness’ farewell event in late 2015 at the DECC. Stacie Spaeth discovered it and wore it in a TV commercial. The rest is history.
Woman discovers lost hat through Miller Hill Subaru commercial
Daredevil downhilling in a video from Andrew Kilness, shot in Duluth’s Lester Park, giving new meaning to the phrase “multi-use trails.”
Matt Olin is one of those artists whose work is impossible to have not seen. We get a look at some of his other creations as well as the sense of humor that finds its way into many of his projects.
Please tell us about the medium you work in and how you came to work in your style.
I typically work in Birkenstocks. Most people would refer to wearing Birkenstocks year-round in Duluth as a stylistic choice, so I guess you could say I come to work everyday in my style. When at work, I teach Interactive Design at UMD and create both self-initiated and client-based design solutions in my Birkenstocks.
Fortune magazine’s list of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” includes Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau, a native Duluthian. Harteau is positioned at #22 on the list, just behind U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and just ahead of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Harteau graduated from Denfeld High School in 1982 and earned a law enforcement degree at Hibbing Community College before joining the Minneapolis Police Department at the age of 22. She was sworn in as chief in 2012.
Videographer David Cowardin tags along on a University of Minnesota Duluth Rec Sports’ spring break trip hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail in the state of Virginia.
Duluth Coffee Company is expanding its footprint on the 100 block of East Superior Street with plans for a major upgrade to its roasting operations and more space for events and education.
The coffee roasting business and over-the-counter java shop has occupied 105 E. Superior St. since 2012. Owner Eric Faust recently took over the former BB Makeup location two doors down at 101 E. Superior St. and renovation work there is underway. When the project is completed, Duluth Coffee will move its roasting operations into the new location on the corner of the block while retaining the original coffee-shop space.
A new posting at Vintage Duluth / Duluth Public Library (formerly Reference @ Duluth) is about “Duluth’s bid to become headquarters of the U.N.” in 1945.
An oddity circa the 1970s from the minds at Gallagher’s Studio of Photography in Duluth.
This past week, I went to see Gao Hong, Sarah Deer and Ed Downs give public talks, each a kind of rethinking for me.
