A Zenith City Ballad
I am studying abroad in Rotterdam, Netherlands via UMD. Today I missed Duluth a little more than normal and wrote a piece for my own blog, but I wanted to share it with you all because the PDD community inspired it.
I am studying abroad in Rotterdam, Netherlands via UMD. Today I missed Duluth a little more than normal and wrote a piece for my own blog, but I wanted to share it with you all because the PDD community inspired it.
Available now for free download on Bandcamp, 117 megabytes of local rawk and/or roll selected by Jim Hall. It’s the eighth mix in the Homegrown Music Festival‘s series of compilations highlighting music that has shaped the Duluth music scene.
Spring is the best time of year for exploring the white sand beaches of Wisconsin Point. The “white sand” is slowly melting and will soon be gone, opening up the true beach season … but it’s fun to climb the temporary icy cliffs while they last and watch the slush heave.
Of course, be careful out there.
This short art video by Payton MacDonald features paintings by Duluth’s Kenneth D. Johnson. Sonic Divide documents a performance-art piece in which MacDonald mountain biked more than 2,500 miles — from Mexico to Canada — while periodically stopping to perform music.
In this video from WDSE-TV‘s The Playlist, Hibbing native Paul Seeba returns to the Iron Range and the historic Mitchell Yards to share music inspired by the 1906 roundhouse. His 2014 album, Mitchell Yards, celebrates the now-endangered place and the role it played in handling ore during World War II.
Bonus sidebar: Dan Turner’s inside look at Mitchell Yards from his Substreet blog.
“You don’t know me,” I quavered, barely not crying, bereft of words for explaining who the hell I thought I was to show up in that place, at that time, wanting to ask those questions. “If you knew me you’d know that … it’s just that … I mean I … I just wish you knew me, because if you did …”
The Fond du Lac Ojibwe School principal loomed literally and figuratively large behind his desk. I think I can remember his first name; later I may look for both first and last, but even if I knew them now I wouldn’t type them here. I’m not trying to call him out. I’m trying to express gratitude and admiration toward him and his vice-principal.
At least I think that’s what her position was. She and I sat a few feet from each other in front of the principal’s desk. They’d squared their shoulders on me. Their steady gazes and admonishment and demands for explanation felt hard. I remember some parts of the situation clearly, especially how trembly-sick and shaken I felt. I recall other parts vaguely, if at all: how long I was there; whether I said anything intelligible; whether I’d ever felt so unwanted in a place I cared about being. I was 34 years old in the moment I’m trying to describe. I’m 46 now. I expect my brain to misremember some details from then. I also trust it not to protect me in these matters.
The view looking east from the corner of Second Avenue West and Superior Street in Downtown Duluth.
Melanie Schantz, a musician and visual artist from New Jersey, produced this music video for Duluth musician Gaelynn Lea. The song “Watch the World Unfold” features Al Church on guitar and is from the 2016 EP The Songs We Sing Along the Way.
Like many young entrepreneurs creating their own opportunities in Duluth, Amanda Belcher hasn’t had a straightforward career trajectory. She started studying exercise physiology at the College of St. Scholastica. Instead of continuing on to graduate school, she decided to become a professional baker.
Her Zenith Bread Project produces sweet treats sold at Amity Coffee, Duluth Coffee Company and Snooty Fox Tea Shop. Bagels and English muffins are also available at Whole Foods Co-op. Bent Paddle Brewing‘s taproom occasionally serves Belcher’s soft pretzels with beer, and Blacklist Artisan Ales features her doughnuts and pastries on Saturdays.
Ray Pirkola’s 1936 Ford Coupe debuted at the Million Dollar Motorcade car show at the Duluth Armory in 1955. Featuring 1940 Ford fenders and a hood grafted to a chopped and channeled 1936 five-window body, it was the first “full custom” car in the region. The song “Scandanavian Hot Rod” by the Hoot Owls celebrates the car and the self-determination of Ray Pirkola, father of the Hoot Owls singer and guitar player Barry Pirkola. The song is from the band’s 2010 album Alien Scrapyard.
As we do each year, PDD is putting out the call for some super skinny horizontal images to put in the banner at the top of the page during Homegrown.All the regular guidelines apply.
If you have your sights set beyond the PDD banner, the Homegrown committee and the Duluth Art Institute are currently accepting submissions for the show that will hang at the Red Herring.
From a hidden stairway to the original rail line servicing the city, Duluth is not “anyplace, USA,” the Duluth Preservation Alliance announced in a news release. “It is home to an abundance of historic buildings and sites.”
To bring awareness to some of the city’s most threatened properties, the DPA put out its list of “Duluth’s Ten Most Endangered Properties in 2017.”
1. Pastoret Terrace
131 E. First St.
What began as luxury townhouses in 1887 has since been divided into multiple apartments. In 2010, the Terrace experienced a devastating fire and currently sits as a fraction of its former glory. Now owned by the city, it could be razed, or it could be renovated and be a catalyst that helps revive First Street.
A post last week of a 1925 photograph of the steamship America led to a tip about this story from the 2nd Quarter 2012 issue of Nor’easter, the journal of the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association. The story, written by Gina Temple-Rhodes and used here with permission from the LSMMA, includes a more complete history of the vessel, including tales from Arthur Wright, a Duluthian whose father was a crew member on America. Wright was 99 at the time of the article; he died a year later at the age of 100.
