Jim Richardson (aka Lake Superior Aquaman)
Nautical Milestone for the Duluth Autonomous Navy
Announcing the formation of the Duluth Autonomous Navy, with co-Admirals Jim Richardson and performance artist Troy Rogers aka Robot Rickshaw. We want you. Every time you touch water, it becomes a naval engagement …
I would like to use my newfound powers of the co-admiralty to declare Troy a menace for his recent naval actions (see below), and I hereby issue a call to the new city attorney, who is a personal friend of mine, to charge him with sedition and place him under arrest before he causes an international incident. And then where will you be? I’ll tell you where: you’ll be in a room with the mayor and she’ll be saying, “Will you please just start listening to Jim Richardson, he’s Secretary of the Navy around here and in fact I’m giving him your office.” It’s a funny story, involving as it happens, my secret contact on the police force – another personal friend of mine – and what kind of superhero would I be if I wasn’t cultivating levers of law enforcement power from within the machine, a lot like Batman? I am all up in the Deep State of this chooch town.
Like I was saying, the public might recall the former autonomous-watercraft hijinks of this madman Troy and myself, from our iceberg ride, to going solo with my Flamingo Patrols. Then we were going to have a team-up for the Floaty Flotilla, the weather-sensitive non-event recently canceled at the last minute due to winds above 10mph, albeit blowing toward the Lakewalk – you’d be unlikely to blow out to sea, is the best I can say there. I’d had an irrational hope that the winds would dip below 10mph and perhaps be manageable. But there were whitecaps, and a small craft advisory and everything, so: no way. I found out later someone put in on some kinda floaty, and paddled it a short ways using shovels; I feel horrible and I shouldn’t be surprised these brave citizens didn’t get the message about the last-minute cancellation. So right there I’m like: I gotta quit doing this stuff. (more…)
Fourth of July Duluth Hillside citizen fireworks anarchy Coronavirus pandemic 2020
Official fireworks canceled, fireworks sales at all-time high, some visible across the lake distantly in Wisconsin around midscreen, the region is lit. That is a full moon hidden in the clouds. This mainly posted for the audio to give the insane flavor.
Short story about PDD blog comments’ infinite recursion of self-referentiality
With regards to a recent sarcastic comment by Vicarious about me posting on PDD about an interview I did about a PDD post, I was reminded of this Richardson brothers story. It was inspired by a war in the PDD comments section back in the old days, but the gist is infinite recursion in blog comments.
Robin Washington interviews Jim Richardson about PDD Confederate essay
Robin Washington interviewed me on Wisconsin Public Radio about the essay I wrote for PDD denouncing my white Confederate heritage.
Floaty Flotilla event canceled due to small craft advisory
Hi all. I am canceling the Floaty Flotilla at the last minute because the wind has kicked up enough for a small-craft advisory. Will reschedule for when the water is like glass. Thank you~
https://www.perfectduluthday.com/the-event/floaty-flotilla/
For Father’s Day I Denounce My White Confederate Heritage
I am disgusted by the Confederate flag, and by those white people who defend its display as “honoring their heritage.” I say this as a white native of the South, with deep Southern roots. I was born in Texas (slave state) to a mother from North Carolina (slave state) and a father from Georgia (slave state). I was raised below the Mason-Dixon line in Maryland (slave state).
The year I was born (1969), my father taught at an all-white private high school in Houston. The Civil Rights era raged. When the headmaster refused to desegregate the school, my father was part of a faculty exodus. My folks found a Maryland school that did not discriminate, and went to teach there. They raised me to believe in equality. But looking back through the history of the country, the full story of my family and race is a terrible thing: the Richardsons owned slaves for generations, and I can document it.
My dad was a Civil War buff. When I was a child, he told me many things about it, including: 1) there were Richardsons on both sides of the war, and 2) the Southern, slave-owning Richardsons were angry when their slaves were freed. (more…)
Dogs of Lake Superior
Twelve photos representing seven dogs and one Great Lake. The past few years, whenever someone’s dog is in the water, I ask if I can take underwater pictures of it. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don’t. Here’s the best ones, including three dogs of winter.
My Favorite Writers/Biggest Influences: Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem was born in 1921 in Lwow, Poland which is now Lviv, Ukraine. He died in 2006 in Krakow, Poland.
He was a Jew who survived the Holocaust, which in Poland was bracketed by two Soviet invasions. He went on to become one of the greatest science fiction writers in the world. His best-known work (in America) is the novella “Solaris,” which became a 2002 film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney. Lem sold more than 40 million books worldwide.
My Favorite Writers/Biggest Influences: J.G. Ballard
J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 to English parents living in Shanghai. He died in London in 2009.
King Garbage – “A Garbage Journey” (Official Video)
I directed this debut video for Duluth singer/songwriter King Garbage, aka Eric Lester. The song is “A Garbage Journey” from his EP Raccoon Heart.
My Favorite Writers/Biggest Influences: William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1914. He died in Lawrence, Kansas in 1997.
Ghosts of the French River: the book
My friend Erin Tope (now Sola) and I collaborated on these pictures in the French River a few years ago. From the first they suggested characters and supernatural narratives, which I initially put to a series of four wordless short videos set to music. That sparked years of subsequent imagining about who these ghosts are. Words have now been joined to pictures to form the final iteration of the project. In the absence of an actual physical publisher, I have posted them at their own site where I consider it a free 16-page e-book. I post them here as well for your enjoyment — although you may want to leave the light on.
New Richardson Brothers Podcast Episode: “Bar Fight”
“Bar Fight” is a Duluth-centric science fiction vignette in the style of William S. Burroughs. It reads like a hard-boiled noir tale of a private eye tailing a crooked cop to the bad part of town, ending in a scene of shocking violence — except the private eye is an interdimensional traveler in a space suit, the crooked cop is the god Osiris (now a beat cop for Jehovah), and the bad part of town is a bar in Limbo (modeled after the Pizza Luce bar). I performed this through a megaphone while speaking very quietly because it gives the feel of a distant transmission. I recorded this a couple years ago late at night, but abandoned it because I thought it was silly and I was a mess. Now I’ve viewed it again and it is making me laugh, so I’m posting it. There is a gap of a few seconds in the middle as I scroll my page down. This is the first video release on our podcast, which you can see if you click through but it’s just me reading at a table. The video has a surreal shuttering effect which was unintended but I like it. This story originally ran in the Transistor.
My Favorite Writers/Biggest Influences: Jorge Luis Borges
I read, and re-read, the same few authors. I find them impossible to put down. Here are my favorites, the biggest influences on my own writing — and why.
Jorge Luis Borges was born in Argentina in 1899. (more…)
Fish I Have Met
In my years of recording every moment in the lake (and the rivers and streams), I have encountered many fish. Here are some highlights.
Lake Superior Aquaman: Top 20 Videos
Top 20 list of my Lake Superior Aquaman videos, with commentary, from a billion years of posting at Perfect Duluth Day:
#1.) Official video for the Low song “Gentle.” 2015. My one paying video gig and crowning achievement. Low saw Lake Superior Aquaman footage I posted here and requested I fit it to this song. The imagery is of the collapsed column of Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum/The Icehouse in Duluth’s outer harbor off the Lakewalk.
Convivial Memories of an Epicurean Hedonist Con Mucho Gusto
My whole life was organized around going out for drinks. The party’s over.
The Duluth art and music scene seems preserved in amber. I can see it in my mind’s eye from every angle, but I can’t touch it.
Has the virus infected time?
I was days away from participating in a group art show in Duluth Coffee Company and its Roasteria taproom. The Facebook event page was hours from launching. All the art is on the walls. I left a hammer there I was going to go back for, just before the stay-at-home orders unfolded. It’s probably right where I left it, timelessly suspended as if let go by an astronaut in orbit.
The Embassy art-church had just opened, promising untold events, unseen sights, and unheard sounds. It reached as if for the hand of God in the Sistine Chapel — a frozen gesture. (more…)
Lake Superior Aquaman: Top 30 Photos
My favorite captures from a billion years of posting at Perfect Duluth Day. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram. (more…)
Apple Man: Duluth’s Depression-Era Action Hero
Reconstructed by the Richardson Bros. from records at the St. Louis County Historical Society
Full text below.
Richardson Bros. Ghost Story “The Haunted Groom”
“The Haunted Groom” is a supernatural adventure story set largely in the Duluth bar scene. It explores PTSD, addiction, abusive relationships, and the coronavirus lockdown. Full story below.
Part 1: I Married a Ghost. Part 2: Trapdoor to Hell. Part 3: The Demonizer.
Lake Superior Aquaman: My 100% True Adventures
#visitduluth #thx2transistor
Excerpts from my journals, which tell of my 100% true adventures and discoveries.
Contents
Part 1: The Nightmare Fish
Part 2: The Insane Reptiles
Part 3: It Came from Lake Inferior (more…)
Iceberg Ride one year ago today *Do Not Attempt*
Do Not Attempt
The Duluth Psychedelic Sermon
Sentient Duluth awakens! Praise it!
When did I come to consciousness? Its bars and venues the wombs I gestated in, the booths and stages framed my embryogenesis. Birthing me to myself, I walk between trees. Light and water conspire mysteriously. My shadow stretches to the lake and covers it in the setting sun. Praise it!
I am bridges staring down into darkness and depth. I am mirrored streams carving the hillside like molten silver from a furnace pour, the lake a great ingot. More than anything, I am the lake. Gleaming as if the sun has transferred its powers to Lake Superior in guardianship, Lucifer abandoning hell to an angel of water. The lake is a tectonic plate of fire subducting at the shoreline, trapping the light in water like amber, a bowl of liquid light. Golden honeyed light, silver light like photographic emulsion, sepia light. Ore boats sailing the surface of white stars, red giants, blue neutron stars. Ore boats sailing out of faded, flaking photographs. The lake like Io, blinding bright, sea planet of perpetual ice cover, Jupiter blots out the sky rising over Superior. The lake a reflecting mirror like a planetary laser defense system, peering into every south-facing window on the hillside, light pouring into every home as the lake searches them with its blazing eye. Praise it! (more…)
The 2005 Duluth Art Institute Riot
Academic and Critical Excerpts, collated and footnoted by the Richardson brothers (Jim and Allen Richardson) (more…)