Wednesday: Crescent Moon
Thursday: Perfect Duluth Day’s 14th Birthday Party
Friday: Brooks West
Friday: A Winter Downpour
Saturday: Taste of Duluth
Saturday: Ziggy Marley
Saturday: Alma Afrobeat Ensemble
For a complete look at what’s happening today, tomorrow and on into infinity, visit perfectduluthday.com/calendar.
There’s nothing quite like kicking back to quaff a cold beer in the summertime. The warmest season ushers in plenty of chances for those craving craft brews to get outside, sit back and sample suds. We’ve done the legwork for you and compiled a list of some of the top tasting events and beer festivals in the Twin Ports area.
Summer is upon us (you can tell because that big hot bright ball is occasionally up in the sky), and that means a gaggle of outdoor concerts are in the PDD Calendar, ready for consideration. Of course, the usual suspects like Bayfront Festival Park and Big Top Chautauqua are in there, as are smaller series like Bayside Sounds, Chester Creek Concert Series and Summer (Mostly) Thursdays. Here’s a peek at some of the upcoming sure-to-be highlights:
June 16
Everclear
Canal Park
1990’s hitmakers Everclear, Vertical Horizon and Fastball perform during Grandma’s Marathon weekend in Canal Park.
June 16
Lake Ave Live 2017
Canal Park
Local original artists also get some tent time at this two-day tenttacular.
June 23
Warren Nelson
Big Top Chautauqua
The founder of Big Top Chautauqua, Warren Nelson, celebrates 50 years in show business with a concert of songs chosen from way back to now.
Team Friday celebrates after winning the 2017 Homegrown Kickball Classic.
DULUTH, Minn. – The Friday bands shut out Saturday to win 2017’s high-stakes Homegrown Kickball Classic 8-0, tying up the overall series record at 9-9.
Paul McCartney announced a set of U.S. summer tour dates yesterday. According to a City Pages story and comments on paulmccartney.com the press materials for the tour originally stated it “takes Paul to three cities and venues he’s never played before” including a July 13 show “at the Infinity Energy Arena in Duluth MN.” McCartney’s website has since fixed the error, clarifying that the Infinity Energy Arena is in Duluth, Ga.
A few snapshots from Sunday’s event at Peace United Church. Jim Perlman of Holy Cow Press organized the poetry reading, which featured Crystal Gibbins, author of Now/Here, and Gary Boelhower, author of Naming Rites. The event included musical interludes by Sara Thomsen.
It was good to go to the Empty Bowl event tonight. For $20, every year, I get a handmade pottery piece. I have more than a half a dozen of these small bowls holding change and keys and so on. I also get soup — tastings of clam chowder, chicken spaetzle, chicken noodle from the best restaurants in Duluth. A local food pantry receives the cash.
And this year, among the bowls, there was what appears to be a spoon rest for the stove top, or possibly a small bowl for after-dinner chocolates, or possibly just a cool thing. (See picture.)
If you know OAR, the signature on the back, mention I adore the work. It made me so happy. If OAR is a practicing artist, I’ll edit this to add info. Love the work.
Empty bowl was a salve. Empty Bowl reminds me that I can do the right thing, I can make positive change, in a way that rewards me and the world. Hoping for more of that.
The United States now boasts over 5,000 craft breweries as the thirst for quality beer continues. The Twin Ports are clearly part of the trend. Duluth and Superior are home to eight breweries, with two more planning to launch in 2017. Several others dot the north and south shores of Lake Superior. The great news for beer aficionados: there’s no shortage of local beer and opportunities to taste the latest batches. The next three major swillfests are highlighted here.
The Duluth Superior Film Festival is taking a call for entry for all forms of film presentation. No specific parameters. All submissions will be considered. Shorts, features, docs, narratives, animation, experimental. Festival dates are May 31 to June 4.
To be considered, send password-protected Vimeo links to [email protected] and/or [email protected]
The awesome poster was created by Duluth artist Jonathan Thunder.
I’ll be talking about art on Saturday at Zinema 2 in an event sponsored by the Duluth Art Institute, for the showing of American Splendor. Here is other writing of mine on art; if you like it, I hope to be this elegant Saturday.
A Woman Bathing in a Stream by Rembrandt
When I was 22, I took the bus to New York and visited the Rembrandt/Not-Rembrandt exhibit.
I learned that conservators struggle with Rembrandt’s work, because he added ground chalk and bits of glass to the paint to add texture and to speed drying. These practices make the paintings hard to preserve hundreds of years later.
… fragments of chalk and glass in an oil painting, causing the paint to crack over time.
Those fragments have become integral to identifying a Rembrandt — a painting without them starts from the presumption of forgery. The bits of glass have become a sign of authenticity.
It is impossible to admire a Rembrandt without admiring the cracks and breaks caused by the ground and broken things.
… so it is with falling in love.
This past week, I went to see Gao Hong, Sarah Deer and Ed Downs give public talks, each a kind of rethinking for me.
As we do each year, PDD is putting out the call for some super skinny horizontal images to put in the banner at the top of the page during Homegrown.All the regular guidelines apply.
If you have your sights set beyond the PDD banner, the Homegrown committee and the Duluth Art Institute are currently accepting submissions for the show that will hang at the Red Herring.
The 2017 Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide is off the presses. All three tons of the processed wood fibre will be distributed to various shops across the Twin Ports beginning this weekend. This year’s cover art is by Sarah Brokke, who was also the featured artist in yesterday’s “Selective Focus” on PDD. The photo above, shot by Kip Paslowicz, shows Homegrown Assistant Director Adam Guggemos standing atop a portion of the 20,000 copies of the 100-page promotional magazine.
This year’s Homegrown happens April 30 to May 6, with 196 bands performing over the course of the eight days.
