For those who remember when little Thomas Demming from Duluth found his own real-life E.T. in 2009, well, now we have a 2022 sighting.
(The video is below the Read More button to keep it from slow-loading on the home page, because it’s a TikTok clip and those are a little clunky.)
One of the means of control my father used in his abuse (of my mother, my sisters, and me) was what I have come to think of as the “Public Complicity Trick.”
I’m going to describe this trick from my childhood, though I am a man now and it happened decades ago, because I need to speak about how I’ve seen what seems to be a similar effort recently from a man who I once thought of as a friend. This person chose to call into the podcast of a prominent national celebrity to enter the public sphere of discussion about cancel culture. I won’t repeat the details of his call; Allison Morse has outlined that story.
When I was young, my family would sometimes be out somewhere in the community, and my father would launch into one of his Big Lies. He would tell a friend about some great thing he had accomplished in his younger days—being a champion boxer in the military; or he would tell the head of the small-town Nebraska volunteer fire department that he had saved three people from a fire while serving as a volunteer during one of our cyclic moves between Texas (where he was from) and Nebraska (where my mother was from); or he would tell some new acquaintance from the evangelical church about a vision he claimed had helped him kick drugs and booze. (That brings back my memory of finding his jar of black capsules of some drug—not a prescription—in the kitchen cabinet when I was about 10. I carefully opened each capsule, dumped the powder down the drain, and closed the empty capsules to return them to the jar.)
Herb Bergson, mayor of Duluth from 2004 to 2008, and mayor of Superior from 1987 to 1995, died Feb. 10 of sepsis, a complication from a cancer surgery. He was 65.
This trail camera footage shows the various wildlife in the Kabetogama Peninsula of Voyageurs National Park, about 115 miles northwest of Duluth, from September to December.
Another monthly installment of wheeled-sneaker stunts by former Duluthian James Geisler, also known as the hip-hop artist JamesG.
This undated postcard, published by Northern Minnesota Novelties of Crosslake, Minn., offers a nice pre-freeway aerial view of Downtown Duluth on it’s upper image and a shot of the Aerial Lift Bridge and shipping canal on the lower side.
What’s all that noise in Duluth’s Endion neighborhood? Damn New Salty Dog is jamming in the kitchen again.
This video is more than three years old, but with the Super Bowl coming up this weekend it seems appropriate to get Duluth musician Alan Sparhawk’s take on the sport of football.
The video was shot during Low’s tour of the United Kingdom prior to the release of the 2018 album Double Negative. Luke Turner, editor of the rock music and pop culture website the Quietus met Sparhawk at the Barbican Centre in London to talk about football as part of the website’s “At Leisure” series, looking at musicians and their non-musical interests.
Sledding, paddling, lollygagging … drifting off on an ice chunk. Collected here are a few images from Instagram of simple winter pleasures.
The Lake Superior Freethinkers hosted Shane Courtland for a talk at the College of St. Scholastica. Courtland is a Superior native who completed an undergraduate degree at UMD, a PhD at Tulane, and now serves as a leader in the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.
Trampled by Turtles were joined by fiddler Suzanne Santo at Stubbs Waller Creek Amphitheater in Austin, Texas on Jan. 14 performing a cover of Gram Parsons’ “Ooh Las Vegas.” The video was shot by Evan Adamson and Scott Perry, edited by Scott Perry and mixed by Adam Krinsky.
Allouez Bay in Superior was recently the scene of a stock-car racing event, which might have seemed like a newish idea, but … the undated photo above has a handwritten message on the back that reads: “Taken on Lake Superior. Duluth in distance. Thousands on ice at time of races. A new sport. 24 in. of ice at time.”
To the angel who prepaid several people’s coffee at a mall-area coffee shop on Sunday — thank you. I appreciate the kindness.
Superior’s Shane Nelson plays his new song “Hold On” and shares what songwriting means to him and his love of performing. Nelson’s next gig is Feb. 12 at the Cast Iron Bar & Grill.
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.
“Keep it high, like this!” Michelle said, transmitting party wisdom over her shoulder with a cheerleader smile, holding a Marb red and a Schmidt can in one hand up near brunette Aqua Net bangs as she inched us through someone’s mom’s apartment packed with mostly white teenagers. I followed close in the crush, trying to protect my beer and not bump into her. She was a tiny junior glowing with charisma and cool. I was a six-foot sophomore with a spiked mullet and a forehead full of zits. So skinny. Still 15. Only 15. Not good at parties but wanting to be. It was a Saturday night in January 1987. Maybe early February.
In October a couple cops had taken me to detox after busting an outdoor party. The guys I was with ditched me because I was unconscious and ill and Steve, who I barely knew, thought I might mess up his immaculate brown Camaro. At the party, juniors and seniors I looked up to had laughed at me and pissed on me and tied my Reeboks to my Levi’s 501 belt loops while I laid in weeds on the edge of woods next to a nature center parking lot. I don’t know what else they did. They could have done much worse. I don’t know if anyone tried to help me. I’m not mad at anyone who didn’t. I wish more people would help, but I understand why they don’t. I can still smell the combination of vomit and Adidas cologne on my black and purple shaker-knit Oak Tree sweater.
