Month: March 2021
Postcard from Little Two Harbors
This undated postcard from Duluth Photo Engraving Company shows Ellingson Island at Little Two Harbors, the bay best known for its views of Split Rock Lighthouse.
Duluth Concert Archive: Blue Oyster Cult in 1977
From the archives. Were you in attendance? Also, does anyone know where/what Samahdi Sound was in Ashland?
The Slice: Moira Villiard’s “Madweyaashkaa”
Duluth visual artist and Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa descendant Moira Villiard reflects on her latest project: “Illuminate the Lock: Madweyaashkaa – Waves Can Be Heard,” featured in February on the St. Anthony Falls lock wall in Minneapolis.
In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.
Call for Performers: Welcome Home {Grown} | Live {Stream}
We miss live music! We all miss live music … right?
This will be the 11th year of 2104’s Soup Social, dubbed #SoupB4Supe. Last year we were forced into the Live Stream gig … and now Bryce Kastning and I, also with support from a few others, have been producing Music Live Stream’s since April 2020. If you haven’t listened to our streams … you can pick them up as often as you want, they are at youtube.com/duluthiscool or 2104.us. As of this writing, we have created 22 streams from 2104. (more…)
Frosted Flakes in Duluth
Duluth gets a quick and silly mention in the March 13 episode of Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, a weekly radio show produced by WBEZ in Chicago and National Public Radio. At the tail end of the clip embedded above, the panel talks about the virtues of pizza for breakfast instead cereal and jokes that people never argue about which city has the best cereal, resulting in the crack, “You haven’t had Frosted Flakes until you’ve had Frosted Flakes in Duluth.”
In case anyone needs another nuisance to deal with …
… here’s the annual reminder that the ticks are back.
PDD Quiz: Irish Twin Ports
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, this week’s quiz will focus on Irish (and Irish-adjacent) things in the Twin Ports.
The next PDD quiz, which will review this month’s headlines, will be published on March 28. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by March 21. (more…)
Race Week Jitters
You can die from running a half-marathon. A quick Google search results in roughly 72 million hits about super-healthy folks dropping dead from the exertion of running. Maybe they weren’t all healthy but many of them were in the best shape of their lives.
Welcome to race week jitters. The race day countdown is at three. My running plan strongly discourages any last-minute attempts at getting just one more training run in. I’ve discarded any last-minute hopes of ditching a few more pounds or somehow improving my time by a few more minutes. The momentum from my eleven-mile run is a distant memory. Instead, I’m full of fear.
Running logic says if you can run eleven miles one weekend, then the next step in training is 13.1 miles. There is absolutely no reason I cannot or will not cross the finish line. Except logic has taken a backseat to fear. All I can picture is getting to mile eleven, only to have my body give out on me. I visualize myself seeing the eleven-mile marker and then collapsing from exhaustion. (more…)
Another Day on the Beach with Two Wolf Packs
Another montage of excellent trail-cam footage from Voyageurs National Park. In this edition a variety of wildlife visit the beach in the September to January timeframe, but wolves are the main beach bums. Two different packs frequent the area — the Shoepack Lake Pack and the Nashata Pack.
The footage is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the park. The beach is about 120 miles north of Duluth.
Upset Duluth: Stormwater Fee Edition
Increases in commercial and industrial stormwater fees is the cause of the latest “Upset Duluth” shot in our series of Duluth News Tribune photos of people who are perturbed.
Story link: Duluth businesses question stormwater fee hikes
Don’t forget to check out the ever-expanding Upset Duluth Gallery.
Selective Focus: Nature’s Winter Artistry
Select Instagram photos showing a few of nature’s icy art projects. (more…)
Postcard from the Leif Erikson Statue and Viking Ship
This undated postcard from Gallagher’s Studio of Photography shows two Duluth relics. The bronze Leif Erikson statue was placed in 1956 and remains on display at Leif Erikson Park. The 42-foot Leif Erikson Viking Ship Replica was built in Norway in 1926 and sailed to Duluth, arriving on June 23, 1927. It was displayed in Leif Erikson Park until 2013, when it was placed in a warehouse until funds are raised to build a display structure to protect it from weather.
Perspective: A Review of Decennia by Jan Chronister
Unforgettable things happen to us. Those pivotal events take on new meaning with the passage of time. Jan Chronister looks closely at those events in her past in her latest collection, Decennia (Truth Serum Press, 2020). The title means “decades.” Chronister splits her life into five of them and examines each in detail. (more…)
New Plan: Trick the Archeologists of the Far Future
Mockup example of proposed bronze historical marker series
New plan is to commission pieces on bronze or stone that can survive longer than paper, longer than digital, to really communicate with the future. The alien surveyors of 5000 AD will ask themselves, “WTH was going on in Duluth?” I’ve reached out to a few locals with the right skills; I hope to be able to show a nice series by Fall.
Duluth Book Releases in 2021
Hands and Heart Together: Daily Meditations for Caregivers
Patricia Hoolihan
Jan. 19
Holy Cow! Press
Available at holycowpress.org
The Old West End
Nick Nerburn
February
Available at niknerburn.bigcartel.com
It Could be Worse: A Girlfriend’s Guide for Runners who Detest Running
Beth Probst
Feb. 1
Available at circletouradventures.com
Prax and the Hazardous Countdown
Matthew Francis
Feb. 17
Available at amazon.com
Mystery Photos #131-136: The Duluth Polka Dots?
This contact print of photo negatives comes from Ben Marsen, who many years ago acquired a collection of negatives of scenes from around Duluth. (See Mystery Photo #125 for more info on that.)
Marsen doubts he still has the negatives, so we have to squint a bit and work from the contact strip. Who are these musicians? (more…)
“How did you think this was going to turn out, mom?”
In the latest episode of “Do Not Attempt,” Casey Rice takes a ride on a Minnesota Point iceberg.
Life Parade – “A Little Bit Longer”
Duluth’s Cameron Mathews performs a preview of a song from the upcoming Life Parade album.
Ripped in 2001: Mary’s Place vs. Terry’s Place
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago he visited two Duluth bars — Mary’s Place and Terry’s Place. Both would later change their names. Mary’s Place became Clubhouse Sports Bar in 2005, then closed in 2014. The building at 132 N. 34th Ave. W. is now home to Stadium Pawn. Terry’s Place became Bergey’s in 2006 and remains in operation. Goodbuzz documented his experiences at Mary’s and Terry’s places for the March 7, 2001 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper.]
“I haven’t had my sled out in a month,” complains the dude across the bar from me. “I worked 60 goddam hours this week.”
I tell him that I also worked 60 hours this week. I don’t mention that drinking is my job.
Then my new friend starts complaining about what a lousy game he just bowled. He seems cheery though. Complaining seems to make him happy; each self-deprecating remark inspiring a grin and a nod in my direction to indicate he knows that my life also sucks. All our lives suck. We’re at Mary’s Place / Stadium Lanes on Wednesday night. (more…)
AP: University of MN Anomalies Department tests gravity-refracting material in Duluth
The Arthur M. Anderson fitted with gravity-refracting hull invented by Dr. Mallard McPurdy of UMD
AP: University of Minnesota Duluth – The university’s Anomalies Department worked closely with the local Institute for Sideways Research to develop the space-age material necessary for hovering ships, seen lately in the skies over this Midwestern beach town. The hulls of cargo ships (called “ore boats” on the inland seas) were irradiated with strangelet particles discovered by UMD’s Dr. Mallard McPurdy in 2018. These particles were later commercialized by the Institute for Sideways Research which specializes in gravity refraction. The Institute’s founder, Dr. Horace Zontal, explained, “With this innovative particle, we were finally able to refract gravity a full 180 degrees in the hull of the revered Arthur M. Anderson.” The shipping lanes of the world are expected to be revolutionized in the coming years to take advantage of the new phenomenon. Dr. McPurdy estimated, “Costs will be slashed by two-thirds leading to cheaper commodities for all humanity.”
Essay series by Jim Richardson
Art, literature, my relationship to Lake Superior, the secret history of Duluth, and other stuff. I keep this updated. New installments appear roughly monthly as part of PDD’s “Saturday Essay” feature, with more I post myself.
The Singing Wilderness: Summer to Winter in the Northwoods
This video contains all the wildlife captured by a remote camera from July 21 to Jan. 17 on a rocky island in the middle of a large bog in Voyageurs National Park. The camera is located in the center of the Cranberry Bay Pack territory and the collared wolves in the video are Wolves V083 and V084, the breeding pair of the Cranberry Bay Pack.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project put together the video and titled it after Sigurd Olson’s book The Singing Wilderness, a collection of essays on the different seasons in the northwoods.
Cranberry Bay is on Rainy Lake, about 125 miles north of Duluth.
Monthly Grovel: March 2021
As the masked, online and distanced events drag on, the PDD Calendar continues to catalog the options. Each month we reach out with one beggarly blog post to remind everyone that human beings and not machines are at work editing and publishing calendar events. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account. (more…)