Image depicting artificial intelligence, created using Canva AI Image Generator.
With the use of artificial intelligence becoming more pervasive on the internet, it’s time for Perfect Duluth Day to issue it’s short and simple policy regarding the branch of computer science that will surely have many marvelous and horrible affects on humanity.
David Abazs at the Mount Royal Branch of the Duluth Public Library.
David Abazs, executive director for the University of Minnesota Extension Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, shared some insights on gardening at the Mount Royal Branch of the Duluth Public Library on Monday.
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the drunken compendium of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty-five years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to the West Duluth American Legion and composed this article for the April 4, 2001 edition of the Ripsaw newspaper.]
So I pop into the American Legion last Saturday night and it smells like 1987. People definitely have their Brut by Fabregé on — at least the hoards of 35-year-olds who take up the bulk of the room do. But they’ve all brought their grannies and their kids, too, since everyone is here to help “offset medical expenses” for some dude named Dave who has been treated for the big C. And it’s obvious from the wall-to-wall people that this guy is a well-liked and respected member of the community, whoever he is.
My maternal grandmother purchased a nice set of porcelain dinnerware in 1953. That was back when ladies got all giddy over fine china. One of my grandmother’s sisters had the same set of dishes. Perhaps they were thinking they could lend each other matching teacups if either hosted a large gathering.
I’m certain my mother told me all the details related to the fine china numerous times over the years, but I didn’t really pay attention because she was talking about fine china and no one cares about fine china anymore.
Ten days before I was born, in 1972, my grandmother died. It’s a strange kind of grief for me to carry, because it comes with a sense that it began in utero. The idea of my mother’s sadness transferring to the fetal version of me is a little silly, of course, and probably manufactured entirely in my imagination, but still, my grandmother holds a heavy emotional sway with me for someone I never met. It is at least true that I entered the world into a family in mourning. Learning about it later is enough to make it a memory. When I see a photo of my grandmother or hear a story about her, it punches me in the gut because we came so close to meeting but never did. If a story about my grandmother involves fine china, however, my mind will wander because there are few things less interesting than fine china.
Laurie Hertzel. (Photo by Doug Iverson)
Book reviewer and Duluth native Laurie Hertzel has been fascinated with memories, ghosts and reading since she was a child. Her third book and second memoir, Ghosts of Fourth Street: My Family, a Death, and the Hills of Duluth, details the quiet lives of the Hertzel family through the young author’s eyes — growing up in Duluth in the 1960s, scraping her knees, slumber parties and a Ouija board, a distaste for pineapple sundaes — and culminates in her family’s most private moment, the death of her eldest sibling, John Patrick “Bobby” Hertzel, and its aftermath.
Two canoeists paddled into the Duluth Ship Canal Thursday morning. They took turns standing up in the canoe, getting out and standing on a chunk of ice. They took photos of each other.
I have just learned that the Tolkien Society sponsors an annual Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. The text below is a press release. Would anyone like to help plan a Duluth event for next year?
Last month, I led a class at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s University for Seniors titled “The Pursuit of Better Possibilities.” We explored how all of us can lead more meaningful and resilient lives in our 60s and beyond. In the class, we talked about the importance and value of being creative and connected as well as discovering ways to simply be present and curious.
During the last session, I showed an interview with Dr. Jane Goodall on Netflix where she spent the last six minutes looking directly into the camera and shared her last message to the world. This interview was not aired until after her death. Goodall talked about how each of us has an important role to play on this planet and that our lives matter. She reminded us that we are part of the natural world and proposed that we can make a difference in addressing climate change and responding to the destruction of the biodiversity on the planet. She encouraged us to do everything possible to make the world a better place.
In that same session, I played a scene from the movie Patch Adams where the main character is standing before a medical review board defending himself and declaring his desire to become a doctor. When a member of the board addresses their concerns about his nontraditional approaches to helping patients and dealing with death, Patch states that death is not the enemy but that the most terrible disease of all is indifference.
The Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships program in the University of Minnesota is a model for university-community interactions, and I feel lucky to be a part of it. Our “statewide coordinating committee” meeting was held March 5, and the room was on fire.
Computer-generated illustration of A & Dubs in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood courtesy of the restaurant’s Facebook page.
Duluth’s iconic A & Dubs seasonal drive-in restaurant will reopen after sitting idle for two summers. The new owners, Mike Koralia and Ryan Spears, wrote in a post on the A & Dubs Facebook page they plan to announce an opening date soon.
Chris Arnade, a writer who is walking around the world and recently posted about “Walking Duluth,” references the Zenith City in his latest piece, “America and Public Disorder.”
Three weeks ago, in Duluth, half the riders on every bus I took were mentally tortured and/or intoxicated. The downtown Starbucks, pedestrian malls, and shuttered doorways of vacated buildings all housed broken people. Same in Indianapolis, El Paso, New York City, Jacksonville, LA, Phoenix, and almost every community I’ve been to in the U.S., save for those gated by wealth.
Arrowhead Community Garden has a 35-year history of growing fresh vegetables and building community by providing space for gardeners to grow food on land in Duluth’s Kenwood neighborhood. Openings are available for the 2026 season, so the group is seeking new members.
Introduction
Historic hotels worldwide falsely claim the globe-spanning author Joseph Conrad was a former guest. However, it should come as no surprise that, while struggling with the untitled manuscript that would become Heart of Darkness, Conrad stayed the winter of 1898-1899 in a top-floor suite of Duluth’s Spalding Hotel. It was a suite he destroyed with Mark Twain after the two writers met in the gilt-muraled hotel bar and things got out of hand. The incident might have been forgotten but for the young Duluth Herald reporter on the scene who wrote an article about it.
Conrad, 41, the Polish exile living in England, was stranded in Duluth because he’d missed the departure of his cruise ship. He’d dashed into town to get a tooth pulled and it simply took too long. He was going to catch the next steamer out, but the freighter Marchande wrecked at the mouth of the canal. Then winter arrived and shut down the shipping season anyway — and he was only interested in traveling by ship. So although he missed his wife of two years back in England, he decided to winter in the Spalding, dreaming up ideas for his manuscript, and hopefully, a title.
Former Duluthian Samantha Garbers, writing as S.M. Garbers, has published her first novel. Reaper of Resistance was released on Jan. 16 and develops Garber’s passions as a writer, student and human being.
Chris Arnade is walking around the world, publishing dispatches from different cities. The most recent stop on his “Chris Arnade Walks the World” website is Duluth, a place he calls “a fantastic underappreciated town.”
