May 2022 Posts

Minnesota Historia: The Chief Buffalo Memorial Project

Artist Moira Villiard presents a tour of the Chief Buffalo mural and the origin story of Downtown Duluth.

Minnesota Historia is a six-part WDSE-TV web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.

Duluth 2022 Primary Election Primer

The filing period for Minnesota state and county offices closed on May 31. Below is a tally of candidates who filed for races pertinent to Duluth-area ballots. Names that appear in red are hyperlinked to the candidates’ websites.

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1978

This 10-minute documentary on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1978 was produced by Sam Fulton and Mark Rogalski for National History Day on the theme of “Debate & Diplomacy.” The process paper and bibliography is at mn.nhd.org.

PDD Quiz: May 2022

See how much of this month’s headlines you remember with this current events quiz for May 2022!

Baseball will be the theme of the next PDD quiz, which comes your way on June 12. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by June 8.

Johnny Depp – Amber Heard Trial vs. Ukraine War: A Mashup

Judge Azcarate agrees to a last-minute venue change and the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation trial moves to Ukraine. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard get in Russian T-90 tanks spray-painted with “Z”s to fight each other. One is in a Russian tank, and the other one is in a Russian tank appropriated by Ukraine. No one knows which is which. The celebrities pursue each other shooting high explosive rounds from the 125 mm smooth-bore tank guns. Their “cope cages” and reactive armor spectacularly fail. The roads clog with burned-out tanks as the battle takes longer than legal analysts expected.

Bogged down in the countryside by the infamous Ukrainian mud, the venue changes again. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard pursue each other through the bowels of the sprawling steel plant complex at Mariupol, on the north coast of the Sea of Azov. Miles of tunnels under the plant conceal what really happened in the fog of war. All we know is they are both actors on the destabilizing world stage, cogs in a grinding apocalypse.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard level each other’s cities in a great humanitarian crisis. Threats of a Johnny Depp chemical weapons attack haunt Amber Heard who puts on an aging gas mask and thinks, “This might be it” as she rushes into the fight. But the threats were a bluff: Johnny Depp has snorted all the nerve gas.

Postcard from Duluth’s Lincoln Park Pond

This 110-year-old postcard offers an illustrated view of the pond at Lincoln Park. The sender of this card, Anna Carlson, was kind enough to pencil her name on the front. The card is postmarked May 22, 1912 and the recipient is Mildred Wilkenson of Clare, Mich., courtesy of H. Hales.

Sean Kelly – “The Wreck of the Hotel Chris Swanson”

Pennsylvania-based parody musician Sean Kelly has a new song that is focused on Two Harbors Mayor Chris Swanson, who faces a recall election if he does not resign by May 31. Swanson has been accused of having conflicts of interest between his business pursuits and his role as mayor.

Best wolf pup howls from Voyageurs National Park

The Voyageurs Wolf Project is trying to raise $100,000 to continue studying 10 different wolf packs. If an adorable montage of the best wolf pup howls can’t get that done, nothing can.

The Voyageurs Wolf Project is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in Voyageurs National Park, about 100 miles north of Duluth.

Ingeborg von Agassiz – “My Little Red Heart”

A new song and video from Duluth-based electro-folk artist Ingeborg von Agassiz.

Minnesota Historia: Hunting for Ancient Agates

What is it about agates that cause such an obsession? Let the experts in Moose Lake, the Agate Capital of the World and home of the Agate Stampede, fill you in.

Minnesota Historia is a six-part WDSE-TV web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.

Have you seen Rollo, the Limit?

Big names have performed in Duluth in the past — you’ll find prideful mention of celebrities such as Louis Armstrong, Charlie Chaplin and Buddy Holly having graced our grounds with their talents. But alarmingly missing from this impressive list of notables is Rollo the Limit, the roller skating daredevil.

Dissonance Sessions: Charlie Parr

Duluth’s Charlie Parr is the featured artist on the first episode of Dissonance Sessions, a video series that is part art therapy session, part recording session. Parr discusses his experiences with depression, grief, anxiety and family dynamics while delivering intimate performances of songs from his most recent album, Last of the Better Days Ahead. The show is hosted by Sarah Souder Johnson.

Duluth aerial photos, then and now, compared and combined

Sometime back, I included an aerial photo in a PDD comment and realized that because they are taken from straight overhead, the photos on Minnesota Historical Aerial Photographs Online can be matched up pretty easily with Google’s current aerial imagery. And then I put that thought aside for quite some months until I finally came back to it and put together this seven-part series of aerial photos showing places in Duluth that have changed somewhat dramatically over the past decades.

Duluth Homegrown Kickball Classic 2022: A Short Film

Photographer Kip Praslowicz gets all artsy with this video showcasing Homegrown Music Festival kickball athleticism.

PDD Quiz: Duluth Parks III

With summer (hopefully) upon us, it’s time for a third quiz on Duluth parks (find previous entries here and here). As with the previous two entries, Duluth’s Historical Parks: Their First 160 Years, by Tony Dierckins and Nancy S. Nelson, was an invaluable source of information.

The next PDD quiz will cover headlines from May 2022; it will be published on May 29. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by May 26.

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