R.I.P. Posts

Downtown Ace Hardware closing

Losing Daugherty Hardware was bad enough. Now Ace Hardware downtown is closing. The big-box stores cannot compare, and downtown takes another hit. Poop!

R.I.P. Jaime Escalante (the teacher who inspired ‘Stand & Deliver’)

I don’t know about you, but he made me want to be a teacher to a bunch of really tough, overlooked but brilliant kids. And it worked, I did it. I even used his line about Mayans being first to popularize the zero to my own mostly Mayan descended students a few years after I saw the film when I was a volunteer teacher in Central America. Oddly enough the film didn’t do much to quell my fear of calculus.

I’m not sure how the film holds up now, 22 years later, but it was a great depiction of a great man. RIP, Maestro Escalante.

Alex Chilton 1950-2010

Alex Chilton of Big Star and the Box Tops died last night of heart complications at the age of 59. Here’s a eulogy from Rep. Steve Cohen (D) Tennessee, which he gave today before congress.

Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton
When he comes ’round
They sing, “I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.”
— The Replacements

Surely You Jest

R.I.P. Corey Haim

Poet Lucille Clifton Dies at Age 73

“homage to my hips”

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

*This is one of my favorite poems. Ms. Clifton. I have yet to develop an opinion on her last book of poetry, “Voices”. But she left many great works before her death.

Threaded Comments – Aborted

As explained in this post, Perfect Duluth Day experimented with threaded comments for a few days. The benefits of it seemed to be outweighed by the complications of it, so the experiment is now over and comments are back to working like they used to.

Since previously threaded comments are now unthreaded, we hope it won’t create too much confusion to readers who haven’t been following along.

Remembering the Ripsaw’s Transition

RipsawCovers1-6

It’s been 10 years since the Ripsaw published the last of its monthly scandal sheets and converted to an “alternative newsweekly” format. Here’s a look back at the old monthly editions of Duluth’s most infamous rag.

That’s Trouble of Some Kind, George

Previously unseen amateur video of Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

R.I.P. Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

zinnmain

Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States and many other books died this week.

Here are references I found to Duluth and Minnesota in “A People’s History of the United States”

Alas, Mr. Salinger is dead

The car moved west, directly, as it were, into the open furnace of the late-afternoon sky. It continued west for two blocks, till it reached Madison Avenue, and then it right-angled sharply north. I felt as though we were all being saved from being caught up by the sun’s terrible flue only by the anonymous driver’s enormous alertness and skill.

The Corporate Coup is Complete

SCOTUS

SCOTUS

Landmark Supreme Court ruling allows corporate political cash

MPR Remembers Bill Holm

BillHolmDec2005

Minnesota poet, essayist, memoirist and musician Bill Holm died earlier this year. (See PDD post from Feb. 26.) This MPR program features highlights from a tribute held at the Fitzgerald Theater on April 14, with Robert Bly, Emilie Buchwald, Barton and Ross Sutter and so on. Also, many clips of the man himself.

R.I.P. Lakeview Castle Duluth

Lakeview Castle Duluth

Word on the street is the Lakeview Castle will be closing it doors.

Suburbs Memories

If anyone has fun memories of going to a Suburbs show especially in Duluth please post them in the comments. I want to read them on my radio show today between sets of awesome Suburbs music.

R.I.P. Bruce Allen.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!