MN Moder – “She Bhad”
Duluth-based hip-hop artist Zachary Moder, who performs as MN Moder, has a new album out titled Sweet Dreams. The track “She Bhad” is “the song you play when you’re thinking about that one girl who’s got it all,” according to Moder. (more…)
Minnesota Sessions: Dave Simonett at Wolf Ridge
In the Current‘s new video series, “Minnesota Sessions,” musicians perform in some of the state’s best natural offerings. In this edition, Dave Simonett of Duluth-based bluegrass act Trampled by Turtles, brings acoustic tunes to the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center. (more…)
Postcard from the Central Part of Superior Street
This undated postcard, published by the H. C. Wick Company, shows an aerial view of Downtown Duluth from about Second Avenue West looking northeastward down Superior Street. Perhaps the photo was shot from atop the Alworth Building. (more…)
Mystery Photo #140: Fourth of July Gals
All that is known about this photo is the information written on the back. “4th July Celebration in Duluth” gives us a date, along with the vague understanding that it’s from sometime in the early half of the 20th century. And we get the first names of the girls: Bonita (?), Rosemary, Helen, Jerry and Kathryn.
Can anyone figure out more? (more…)
Miniatures Display at the Nordic Center
The Nordic Center, 23 N. Lake Ave., is now open to public visits on Fridays from noon to 4 p.m.
The current display features miniature Norwegian churches and dwellings by Jerry Sime who passed away in 2012. The results of Jerry’s love of Nordic structures and woodworking are on full display for the next three weeks.
Selective Focus: Kirsten Aune’s North Coast Fashion
Kirsten Aune Textiles outfit
Kirsten Aune has lived in Duluth for a number of years, working in textile and garment design. She has a fashion show upcoming in her new showroom, Kirsten Aune Textiles, at 12 N. 21st Ave. W., in the heart of our blessedly reviving Lincoln Park Craft District. It goes down July 17, with two showings, one at 4 p.m. and one at 5 p.m. Most of the fashions being shown will be for sale or can be custom ordered. Mary Mathews, a master sewer, will be modeling her own creations out of Aune’s fabric. The showroom is stocked with household items as well as clothing, and Aune notes that you can order custom printed fabric by the yard there as well. (more…)
Video: Pictured Rocks cliff face plummets into Lake Superior
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IPpEMLXAyg
Jahn Martin and Brad Gustafson, along with two other passengers, were on a pontoon boat in the area between Miner’s Beach and Mosquito Beach at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last week when a 200-foot cliff face collapsed and slid into Lake Superior. The resulting waves put the boaters into panic mode, but everyone came out unscathed. (more…)
David Munyon – “Coffee in Duluth”
The song “Coffee in Duluth” is not available on the internet, but we nonetheless note its existence on Perfect Duluth Day … just because that’s what we do. (more…)
Chuck Haavik – “Still Raining”
Duluth’s Chuck Haavik has released his second song. “Still Raining” is “a lament from the Summer of 2020,” Haavik said. It’s available for download on Bandcamp.
The track is mixed and mastered by Dave Mehling, who also plays Hammond B3 Organ, bass and drums.
Video Archive: Duluth Bridge Tournament of 1978
Duluth’s bridge tournament in 1978 drew players from North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. Mary Ellen Miller had the story for KBJR-TV.
Northern Rhythms
June of ’71: UMD’s medical school gets initial accreditation
The University of Minnesota Duluth’s medical school took its first step toward academic accreditation 50 years ago. The June 30, 1971 Duluth Herald reported that Dr. Robert E. Carter, medical school dean, announced a letter of “reasonable assurance of academic accreditation” had been received from the Joint Liaison Committee on Accreditation of the American Medical Association Council on Education and the American Association of Medical Colleges. (more…)
The Slice: Cynthia Faith’s Animal Eyes
The Nemadji Review, Vol. 10
The tenth issue of the Nemadji Review, the University of Wisconsin-Superior’s literary journal, was released in May and a new website was launched. The publication was previously available only in print, but the 2021 issue can be viewed and downloaded online as a PDF file.
Happy 18th birthday to us!
What’s inside the PDD picnic basket? Treats for you, that’s what. Join us on the deck at Boreal House tonight at 5 p.m. for Perfect Duluth Day’s 18th birthday party. (more…)
June of ’71: Sheriff wants upgrades to county jail
The St. Louis County Board was asked by Sheriff Greg Sertich to extensively remodel the county jail 50 years ago. The June 29, 1971 Duluth Herald reported the proposed project included jail office and roof work; providing remote control televisions, air conditioning and security lighting; installing a metal detector in the lobby and other items such as plumbing and electrical upgrades. (more…)
Kip’s White Whale: Daddy, Jesus and Dale Earnhardt
Duluth photographer Kip Praslowicz tells the bizarre story of a long lost song.
Exploring the car and boat at the bottom of Lake Ore-be-gone
YouTube user “MNduro USA” explores the east side of Lake Ore-be-gone, the flooded mine pit in Gilbert, about 60 miles north of Duluth.
June of ’71: Leo Spooner wins Reidar Lund golf tourney
Fifty years ago Duluth’s Leo Spooner won his third Reidar Lund Skyline Memorial Golf Tournament at Enger Park. The victory came on June 27, 1971, and was reported in the June 28 issue of the Duluth Herald. (more…)
CBS Sunday Morning: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mäntylä House
A piece of Cloquet history popped up on CBS Sunday Morning today, but it’s in Cloquet no more. Mäntylä House, designed by visionary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, has been rebuilt at Polymath Park in southwest Pennsylvania. In the video, CBS Correspondent Lee Cowan talks with the park’s proprietors, and with the Minnesota couple whose home was moved, piece by piece.
PDD Quiz: June 2021 in Review
See how many of this month’s headlines you remember with this week’s current events quiz!
The next PDD quiz will test your ability to match historical buildings to their modern occupants; it will be published on July 18. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by July 15. (more…)
Ripped at R.T. Quinlan’s Saloon in 2001
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago he filed a report from R.T. Quinlan’s Saloon in Downtown Duluth. The article appeared in the June 13, 2001 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper. The last paragraph refers to a poster that disappeared from Quinlan’s men’s room wall a few years later. The word on the street back then was: “someone stole it, and he is a fucker.”]
Holy Christ, the rear entrance of this basement hooch joint is lurid. It’s like a nasty Minneapolis strip club, with about four cheap multicolored bulbs attempting to light up beautiful Michigan Street. The Superior Street entrance is … well … it sort of blends into Mr. Nick’s charburger joint, so no one sees it or uses it. When you go to Quinlan’s, you gotta take that long walk down Michigan with all of its homeless teenagers and homicidal paint-huffers, just to get yourself in the mood.
Quinlan’s is the gathering place of 40-year-old men who don’t want to deal with any bullshit. They’re not looking to enjoy live music, score with chicks, get into a bar fight or be entertained in any way other than a regular conversation or a little TV. They want a direct, nonstop, one-way ticket to oblivion, and tonight as usual I’m right there with them. (more…)
Video Archive: Desegregating Duluth Schools in 1971
In June of 1971, 50 years ago this month, WDIO reporter Stu Stronach did a series of special reports on the then-ongoing process of desegregating the Duluth public school system. This video is a compilation of those reports. (more…)