Duluth Blogs: How to Collect Baseball Cards
Today, I point to another blog by a Duluthian, this time John Boucha. You can tell because his name is the URL. (more…)
Duluth Reference on The Passage
The latest Duluth mention on a national television show is in season 1, episode 3 of the new Fox series The Passage, which aired on Monday night. (more…)
Ten Years of Perfect Duluth Day on WordPress
Hunkered down at PDD World Headquarters, problem solving the switch to WordPress in 2009: Cory Fechner, Scott Lunt, Paul Lundgren and Barrett Chase.
Ten years ago — Jan. 30, 2009 — Perfect Duluth Day made the big leap to the WordPress publishing platform. Specifically, the upgrade was from Movable Type version 3.2 to WordPress version 2.8. These days PDD is on WordPress version 4.9.9. But enough nerdspeak. (more…)
Duluth Blogs: Sister Scotland
I’ve been discovering blogs by Duluthians lately. Sister Scotland collects the observations of a Superior student as she studies abroad. Some observations, about the taste of haggis … well, I will never be okay with food cooked in a stomach. It feels like duplication of effort; we only need one stomach in this process. But others, they are just playful thoughts on life. (more…)
Share a joke for a chance to win Duluth Comedy Fest tickets
Duluth’s biggest weekend of comedy since the freighter Socrates ran aground at Park Point is coming up Feb. 15 and 16. Tig Notaro, Brian Posehn, Gary Gulman and Alex Edelman are all performing at the NorShor Theatre as part of Duluth Comedy Fest.
Perfect Duluth Day is giving away a pair of two-day passes — $158 value — to a randomly selected person who comments on this post. Make it interesting and share a joke. (more…)
Hoops Brewing’s Dave Hoops profiled in The Growler
Craft-beer pioneer Dave Hoops, owner of Hoops Brewing in Duluth, shares his views on finding a niche, avoiding trends and “promoting the Minnesota brand” in the latest issue of craft-beer lifestyle magazine The Growler.
Reference to Duluth on American Crime Story
Season two of American Crime Story, which dramatizes the five murders committed by Andrew Cunanan and is subtitled The Assassination of Gianni Versace, features a quick Duluth mention. The character David Madson is portrayed as an award-winning student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, which is sort of true. (more…)
PDD Quiz: January 2019 in Review
The first month of 2019 is nearly in the books; how much of it do you remember? Take this week’s PDD quiz and find out!
The next PDD quiz, on local sports teams and athletes, will be published on Feb. 10. Please email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Feb. 7. (more…)
Ripped During Swamping Hours in 2009
[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. Ten years ago the Sultan of Sot visited a trio of West Duluth bars and published this report for Duluth’s weekly Transistor.]
To borrow a term from the card game blackjack, I’ve decided to “double down” on my drinking today. What that means is, I’m at the Rustic Bar in West Duluth at 8 a.m. My goal is to get drunk by midday, go home and pass out, then wake up and go to the bars again. If I manage to get drunk twice, well, I’ve doubled my winnings.
On top of that, drinking while the buses are still running means there’s no need to spend valuable beer money on a taxi. In tough economic times, we all need to get thrifty, right?
For some reason it’s boiling hot inside the Rustic, which I didn’t expect on a January morning. There are four other guys at the bar, and two of them have stripped down to their T-shirts. Eventually, one of them asks the bartender why it’s so hot. She looks at the thermostat and tells us it’s set for 80 degrees. (more…)
Selective Focus: Mike Scholtz
Mike Scholtz makes movies about odd little things that no one seems to know about, but after watching them, you think, “Why didn’t I know about that?” Also, these are not little things, they are big parts of some people’s lives. The world premiere of his latest film “Riplist” at the Fargo Film Fest was just announced today. Mike talks about what drives him to dig into these stories and presents some trailers from his work.
I’m a documentary filmmaker who enjoys making funny films about serious subjects. Or serious films about funny subjects. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure which. But I do like to sneak up on an audience with a few laughs before I hit them with the soul-crushing realization that we’re all going to die in a cold, uncaring universe.
That’s how I approached my latest film, Riplist. It’s about a group of friends from Fargo who compete in a celebrity deadpool. It’s a contest where players draft celebrities they think might die in the next year, like fantasy football but with elderly presidents and ailing musicians. I hope people are as morbidly fascinated with this hobby as I am, because it’s premiering at the Fargo Film Festival in March. I suspect it will play at some other festivals in the area shortly after that. If you like your comedy as black as your soul, I think you’ll like this film.
(more…)
The Slice: Sliding at Pinehurst Park
Poll: What is the best new restaurant in the Duluth area?
In 2017 OMC Smokehouse was voted “Perfect New Restaurant” in our Perfect Duluth Day poll. The popular Lincoln Park establishment will soon be two years old. Since then, an array of eateries have opened and it’s time to name a new champ.
With help from our readers, we amassed a list of 25 recently opened eating establishments. It’s a runoff ballot, so options with the fewest votes slowly dropped off the list. The final three were: Corktown Deli & Brews, Martha’s Daughter and Pak’s Green Corner.
What’s the latest restaurant to win over hearts and bellies?
This poll is now closed. The results were:
Corktown Deli & Brews – 43 percent
Pak’s Green Corner – 33 percent
Martha’s Daughter – 24 percent
Well Below Zero
This video by Erik Wilkie documents a Jan. 20 surfing expedition on Lake Superior when the temperature was -15 Fahrenheit.
Lake Superior Magazine 2019 Photo Contest Winners
North Shore image by Like He
Canal Park image by Dan Lee Vander Ark
Duluthians took first place in two categories of Lake Superior Magazine‘s 24th Annual Photo Contest. Like He’s photo from Lake Superior’s North Shore landed top honors in the maritime category. Dan Lee Vander Ark had the favorite in the artsy/altered category for his photo of the Aerial Lift Bridge in winter. Galleries of all the winning photos and runners up can be seen on lakesuperior.com. The winners are featured in the magazine’s February/March issue. (more…)
Postcards and Relics from the Duluth Flame Restaurant
This undated postcard shows off one of Duluth’s best-remembered restaurants, the Flame, which operated off-and-on at multiple locations in various forms from the 1930s to the 1980s. At the time of the postcard above, the Flame was at 353 S. Fifth Ave. W., where the Great Lakes Aquarium is today. (more…)
Sketchbooks at Brooklyn Art Library: Daniel Levar
Daniel Levar was a Duluthian in Minneapolis at the time he submitted this sketchbook to the Brooklyn Art Library. (more…)
Nominees for Perfect New Restaurant Poll – 2019
OMC Smokehouse has enjoyed the “Perfect New Restaurant” title since winning Perfect Duluth Day’s poll in July of 2017 with an impressive 82 percent of the vote.
Since a flurry of restaurant activity has happened in the Twin Ports over the past year and a half, it’s time to launch another poll and give new establishments a chance to prove their worth. (more…)
A Tributary
I’ve been working on a medical humanities project. Some Duluthians are part of it, including local author Avesa Rockwell.
“As I child I could run out the backdoor and leap over tumbleweeds and sagebrush like a jackrabbit. By the time I reached tenth grade my body lost its buoyancy, and the open spaces around my house and in my mind were being leveled, fenced off, and cul-de-saced. I felt trapped by the prefabricated structures of school and its social hierarchies.”
Read the article at repository.stcloudstate.edu.
Mystery Photo #84: Building near Duluth Arena
Sitting awkwardly between the Duluth Arena and the Radisson Hotel in this photo by Perry Gallagher is a seven-story building that can’t be far from demolition. What was it? (more…)
Rivers
I’ve been working on a medical humanities project. Some Duluthians are part of it, including local artist Rob Adams.
Read the article at repository.stcloudstate.edu.
The Name and the Person
Growing up, I disliked my name. It’s a 1970’s-era “J name” — like Jennifer, Jessica, Julie, and Jason. It was partly inspired by the Scream Queen, Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred in Halloween in 1978, the year I was born.
Since Jamie is often a boy’s name, I got Boys’ Life magazine ads and Boy Scout fliers in the mail. On the first day of 7th grade, my homeroom teacher met me with an “oh!,” and said he was surprised I was a girl. These things greatly offended younger me.
My mother chose a cute, trendy name for a critical, contrarian child. I could only see the contradictions in Jamie the name: an androgynous name for a feminine girl; a plain name that has four or more different spellings; a common name that people misread as Janice and mishear as Janie.
My middle name was no better in my opinion. It is my mother’s maiden name, a last name. I would have liked a “real” middle name like Jamie Lynn or Jamie Lee, like Ms. Curtis. (more…)
Selective Focus: Esther Piszczek
This week, Esther Piszczek talks about her journey from attorney and doodler to artist and teacher. Be sure to check out the beautiful documentary produced by Lola Visuals toward the end of the post to see in real-time how she makes her intricate artwork.
EP: I am a pattern artist specializing in the Zentangle® method of pattern drawing. The Zentangle method, created by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts in Massachusetts, uses a .01 Sakura micron pen and pencil shading on a 3.5 x 3.5 inch paper tile to create intricate, beautiful, non-representational art. The method is contemplative and founded on the principle that there are no mistakes, only opportunities to create something unexpected. (more…)