I used stablediffusionweb.com to make these, using prompts like: “Lake Superior fish,” sometimes including “angler” and phrases like “catch of the day” or “look what I caught.” Then I switched to “a meal of Lake Superior fish,” “Lake Superior fish on a plate,” and so on. You will see some “breaded fried Lake Superior lampreys.” Bon appétit!
“This book is offered in the form of a poetry chrysalis to encourage us to think about how we are a part of nature and how our actions cause change,” Wildwood wrote on the note. (Photo by Rob Wildwood via Facebook)
Picking a new summer book just got easier. Duluth writer Robert Wildwood has taken the free library idea to new heights, offering up copies of his latest book of poetry to the public in a novel way. This month, chrysalides of poetry appeared in Chester Park trees, and they are a gift for you.
Anyone within the sound of my voice, the artworks of Max Moen must be found and saved. I interrupted his dying days begging him to grant me a custodial role regarding his body of work. I think mostly of his collages which I greatly admire, surrealist masterpieces. I told him I’d arrange a show and self-publish a collection at my own expense, because the world must know. At the time he told me they were boxed in a car in another state, and I feared I was taxing him as he fought the cancer. I think he got that car back but I let it go; he was too busy dying and I didn’t want to be that guy. At least I impressed upon him that I considered him an artist with a capital “A.”
Sadly I have none of his work to share with you today. He had some examples on his old Facebook page but he took it all down. I remember searching his photos to copy them but he’d already deleted the lot. He did that sometimes.
John Holden and Matt Norby warn that their latest video contains hyper-glazed data poisoning. “Do not upload it to sites that train modules on user submissions,” the YouTube video description notes. “It will degrade the overall system and cause generated output to be less stable and less accurate. You don’t want to be the one to ruin AI content for everybody.”
Photography exhibit in the windows of 313 West Superior St.
Kirsten Aune is preparing work for a group art show she co-organized with her sister for the Nordic Center for FinnFest. “Inspiraatioita: Finnish Art and Design in Minnesota” will be on display July 27-30. Read more about it from MPR News.
This weekend’s syndicated Classic Peanuts comic includes a mention of Duluth. The strip was chosen for Mother’s Day weekend because Snoopy speculates on the location of Woodstock’s mother, who “could be in Anchorage, or in the Caribbean or Duluth for all you know.”
Mn Artists, an arts-news platform of the Walker Art Center, has a feature on Duluth artist Moira Villiard, the 2022/23 Minneapolis College of Art and Design Jerome Fellow.
Stylistically it is appropriate to link Gertrude Stein’s experimental 1914 book Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms to Dadaism, because the book makes no sense. It pre-dates Dada’s 1916 anarchic language-destroying sound poetry, so we can’t say the Dadaists invented nonsense. Perhaps we can say the Dadaists invented “sheer nonsense.” Stein hadn’t taken it quite that far. But Tender Buttons began her mission to explore the strange new worlds of the sense/nonsense boundary.
Else Lasker-Schüler explored that same boundary in 1913, in her language-subverting experiments that also influenced Dadaism. The Dadaists paid homage to, and expanded, Lasker-Schüler’s work: her “nonsense sound poetry in Berlin cabarets, poems that would be used a few years later by the Zurich dadaists in the Cabaret Voltaire” (Baroness Elsa by Irene Gammel, pp. 146-147). Lasker-Schüler was the only woman in the inner circle of German Expressionist poetry, a Stein-esque figure in her own right who cross-dressed and ruled the Berlin nightlife. And one of her innovations was the performance of poetry that didn’t make sense.
For that reason, both she and Stein represent a proto-Dadaist spirit, even though technically Lasker-Schüler was an Expressionist and Stein was a Modernist. All the cool kids were doing it. Stein’s writing of Tender Buttons was contemporary with Lasker-Schüler’s nonsense performances, which Stein very well may have been aware of, her hyper-senses tuned to the avant-garde. Like the birth of calculus, many artists were developing similar approaches around the same time. Nonsense was in the air.
Sheila Packa was interviewed by Cathy Wurzer on Minnesota Public Radio. She asked her what poem made her want to become a poet.
Duluth’s Jonathan Thunder is the subject of a short film that aired nationally on PBS in November. Now, the feature is available via YouTube, and is embedded above.
About today’s essay, I told editor Paul Lundgren, “I love the April 1 publication date. This essay pulls back the curtain on my hoaxy stories, yet immediately discredits itself with the date. Beautiful!”
On March 31, in conjunction with the Twin Ports Festival of History, Duluth historian Tony Dierckins gave the presentation “Duluth’s Greatest Myths.” I am pleased and proud he included my Perfect Duluth Day writing in a brief mention. He was kind enough to share the slides, below. They list some of my efforts and I have annotated them.
As I told Tony, I draw a distinction between my fiction and my myth-making “essays.” Both are set in Duluth. But for instance “The Alworth Incident” presents as non-fiction, but quickly reveals itself to be a screwball superhero origin story. Maybe it could become a rumor, but it is not designed to be believed per se. However my “myth-making” material, such as Lake Inferior: The Underground Lake Beneath Lake Superior, is specifically designed to live on as urban legend. These myths have “tells” but readers may miss them. Also, I have tailored the stories so Duluthians want them to be true. Lundgren called them “Duluth fan fiction,” naming the new genre. Allowing me to publish them as “essays” aided the crime. They were also tagged as “Hoaxes – Fake News – Satire – Folklore.”
Location: The horizon, in the shipping lanes. Material: Reinforced treated concrete with steel superstructure. Height (above the waterline): 300 feet. Ships will have to navigate around this stunning monument.
The Committee for Building Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan (formerly the Committee for Building a Giant Colossal Statue of Bob Dylan) is pleased to announce its 12 finalists! Thanks to a generous anonymous donation, ALL of the statues in this post will be built in the next five years. Thank you to our state regulators who approved this project, and congratulations, Duluth!
