Duluth native gears up for directorial debut on independent film
As much as I wish I was writing this about myself, I am glad my time has not yet come. No, I am not making my directorial debut, but I have been working as a production assistant for an independent feature film called Seed of Doubt. In fact, I like to believe it was my connection to Duluth that landed me said gig, and not the more likely scenario that I was the only one with free time that bothered to reach out. Although I do have video production experience, I have significant inexperience when it comes to independent feature films. And being a PA for a mere three months has taught me that indie film making, is completely nuts. What sits arguably at the top of the completely nuts castle, would be the film’s director. Producers certainly have no breezy time either, but when the cast and crew converge for production, even the producers are asking the director, “What’s next?”
Duluth Rudolph’s Furniture Store Fire of 1948
Duluth, Duluth, Duluth is on fire. On June 5, 1948, Downtown Duluth was recovering from the “worst commercial district blaze in history.” (more…)
Upset Duluth: The Ultimate Gallery
Young and old, rich and poor, Minnesota nice be damned, Duluthians can get just as upset as folks in the rest of the world. And their newspaper of record, the Duluth News Tribune, is there to document all the crossed arms and frowny faces. (more…)
Duluth’s Robot Rickshaw is the geekiest thing
Jeff Pesek of Tech{dot}MN celebrates Duluth’s Robot Rickshaw in the article “Robot Rickshaw is the geekiest thing in Minnesota’s tech scene.”
A rapidly-deployable, human-driven, two wheeled cart full of robots that play music. Piloted by a lunatic in a hazmat suit+teddy bear.
Rickshaw is Troy Rogers, and the article is cool.
Harbor Lookout: Duluth Port Ship Tracking
There’s a new website for those who like watching the ships roll in and then watching them roll away again. Saturn Systems, a Duluth-based software engineering firm, recently launched a shipping tracker at harborlookout.com. The site lists arrival and departure times and displays a map with icons showing ship locations.
Duluth News Tribune: New maritime website unveiled in Duluth
Harbor Square: Downtown Duluth’s shopping center on pillars
An important sidebar to the history of Sears, Roebuck & Company in Duluth is the fascinating tale of the shopping-center-on-pillars that wasn’t. A plan was hatched in the late 1970s for Harbor Square, a roughly $70-million, 574,000-sq.-ft. shopping plaza to be built on stilts over Interstate 35 in Downtown Duluth. Failure to lure Sears as an anchor store was a key element that led to the project’s downfall. (more…)
R.I.P. Sears, Roebuck and Company of Duluth
Sears, Roebuck and Company’s Downtown Duluth department store; 1963 photo from the Kathryn A. Martin Library’s Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections at UMD.
The news broke this week that Sears Holdings will close 15 Kmart stores and 48 Sears stores, including the Sears at Miller Hill Mall and the Kmart at the Spirit Valley Shopping Center in West Duluth.
Sears has been in business in Duluth since 1929, when Sears, Roebuck and Company opened a department store at 129 E. Superior St., the modern-day location of Fond-du-Luth Casino. (more…)
Hillside Breeders
“Ooohh, Poppy’s going to do it!”
Poppy is our seven year old’s Mini Rex doe rabbit. Poppy has a date with a buck named Frodo with velvet black fur and a dwarf gene. I hadn’t seen him in-person, but his owner up the hill texted me his photo. Electronic match-making extends to other species, too.
“Wait, Nibbit,” the ten-year-old asked her little sister, “Do you even know what ‘do it’ means?”
“Uh, well. Not exactly.”
I thought we had already gone over this, or I assumed the eldest would have filled her in. So much slides with a second child. It was time for dinner, so over tacos I described ovulation, intercourse, fertilization, implantation, etc. I couldn’t tell if the seven-year-old’s eyes were glazing over with boredom or embarrassment.
Her father Jeremy knows that if you want to get a kid’s attention you light up a screen. He found a video of rabbits mating. It is actually worth watching. Forgive me for the spoiler, but when the buck comes he actually goes into a momentary trance and falls over. (more…)
Selective Focus: Daniel Benoit
If you were out and about during Homegrown 2018 and saw the giant chicken on the front of the Blacklist Beer / Solve Entertainment building, you’ve seen some of Daniel Benoit’s work. He pulls together design, video, animation, projections, and all kinds of technology to create immersive art. He tells about how he started working with this relatively new and experimental medium.
DB: I work in multiple digital mediums, but lately my focus has been projection design for theatre and immersive design for escape rooms. The path to getting here has been long and winding. The short version is that my love of filmmaking, theatre, and graphic design all happened to converge in 2012 when I created projections for my friend Davey T Steinman’s play Bagman at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis. Davey introduced me to the software I still use today, Isadora, and that was it, I was hooked. (more…)
Duluthian Joe Klander on “America’s Got Talent”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KHMqskWMTs
Joe Klander, aka Uncle Clutch, aka Kinderchomper was on the season premiere of America’s Got Talent on Tuesday. Mike Scholtz’s documentary about Klander’s wrestling career “Kinderchomper” will be at the Duluth Superior Film Festival with other shorts on Friday, June 1, 6 p.m., at Teatro Zuccone.
Pak’s Green Corner in Superior opens June 1
Pak Williams – Photo by Lissa Maki
The wait is nearly over for Twin Ports Thai food fanatics. After a three-year hiatus from the restaurant business, Kamolpak (Pak) Williams will reopen Pak’s Green Corner in a new Superior location on June 1. (more…)
“Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry” premieres tonight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbF0WsgJmAM
The Duluth-Superior Film Festival is upon us, and that means it’s time for another premiere from Duluth’s budding film community. Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry, by first-time writer/director Samuel T. Weston, makes its debut Thursday night at 9 p.m. at Teatro Zuccone. As with all of the DSFF screenings, tickets are free. (more…)
Mystery Photo #67: Duluth?
A few years ago I came across this photo, saved it on my computer with just the title “Duluth,” and then forgot about it. I probably didn’t know much about it then, or maybe wasn’t even certain it was a photo of Duluth.
So … that’s all we’ve got to go on with this Mystery Photo. It looks 1800s-ish. Could be Superior Street. Can anyone verify this as a Duluth photo?
Facing lynchings from Duluth to Montgomery
From MPR News: Two guys named Carl walked onto a bus last month in Duluth, one black, one white. One of them was Carl Crawford, the other was Carl Huber. Together, they traveled to Alabama to visit the new memorial to the victims of lynching, and they became friends on the journey. After they returned, they talked together about what the trip meant to them.
Video and photos by Evan Frost.
Morgan Park coffee shop returning as Letica’s Iron Mug
Morgan Park’s only restaurant and beverage purveyor closed on May 25 after nearly four years in business. On June 9 it will reopen under new ownership. The Duluth News Tribune reports Mike Letica is the new proprietor of the Iron Mug. Johnny Northfield will manage the business. Building owner Paul Johnson, who founded the coffee shop, is a silent partner.
The DNT notes Letica plans to steer away from the Iron Mug’s previous food focus, pizza, and is instead planning inexpensive options like Taco Tuesday and 99-cent ice cream cones.
Interior designer expands into historic Lake Avenue building
Isola Design and Mavis Furniture principal and owner Jill Isola Johnson, holding her dog Pepper, stands with Assistant Designer Mireille Kidd, left, and intern Kyla Schulte in the new office furniture showroom.
An interior designer responsible for cutting-edge urban commercial properties like the Whole Foods Co-op and Canal Park Brewery is opening a new office furniture showroom in a historic Downtown Duluth building. (more…)
Bob Dylan: Duluth Ski Bum?
A profile on Roger McGuinn in No Depression, a quarterly roots music journal, opens with an interesting Duluth-related tidbit.
McGuinn says he and Dylan went skiing in Minnesota — near Duluth or Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing — during a Christmas break in Dylan’s historic 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue tour.
“He’s fast,” McGuinn recalls. “I was a beginning skier on the intermediate slope going down cautiously. I look to my right, and Bob goes vroom right past me.”
So, was it Spirit Mountain? Chester Bowl? Mont du Lac? Giants Ridge? Lutsen Mountains? Let the speculation begin.
A Delightful Cruise on the Chicago Queen or the Streamliner
An old promotional flyer for excursions on the “world famous Twin Ports Harbor and Lake Superior.” (more…)
Filmmakers of Duluth
A short documentary highlighting three filmmakers working in Duluth — Keith Hopkins, Robert Larson and Matthew Dressel. Directed by Wyatt Buckner.
Yu and J’s in the Miller Hill Mall — already gone?
I loved Yu and J’s Grilled Subs in the Miller Hill Mall. I loved that is was independently owned. I loved the tang of the bulgogi sauce (and wish we had more Asian alternatives in Duluth.)
… but the lights are out … I hope those tasty recipes will appear in a summer festival cart or a food truck or some other wonderful venue. Please let me know. (more…)
PDD Quiz: May 2018 in Review
As we continue our giddy march toward summer, let’s look back at the headlines from May 2018. Test your current events knowledge with this month’s quiz!
The next Perfect Duluth Day Quiz will review PDD lore and legend in honor of the blog’s 15th birthday. It will be published on June 10. Email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by June 7. (more…)
Conceptual designs for new WWI Memorial in West Duluth
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation division has been working with community members to gather ideas for a new World War I memorial to be built in Memorial Park in West Duluth. After surveying the public and hosting public discussions, the city’s consultant has drafted three conceptual designs based on submitted feedback and is once again seeking public input on three concepts. (more…)
Ripped at the Chinese Garden in 2008
[Editor’s note: This week we’ve pulled out another relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s connoisseur of drinking establishments from 1999 to 2009. In this essay we travel back ten years to a time before Duluth’s Black Water Lounge existed. A restaurant called the Chinese Garden occupied that part of the Greysolon Plaza, and our inebriated anti-hero paid a visit. This article was originally published in the June 30, 2008 issue of the Transistor.]
If there’s one thing I hate about being sober it’s how polite I become. Here I am, standing next to the cash register at the Chinese Garden, waiting for a fucken waitress to come over and choose a table for me. This wouldn’t happen if I were drunk.
Obviously, if had any spirits in me at all, my choice would be to flop into the closest available booth, even if someone else is sitting there. Tonight, that would mean interrupting what appears to be a magic night of romance for a pair of chubby 60-year-olds who are silently finishing their dinner.
The man, whose grey hair is pulled back into a ponytail, breaks their conversational lull by asking the woman, “So, are we going to stay here and drink all night?”
Her answer is, “I think so.” And so the stage is set. (more…)
Selective Focus: Ed Newman
Ed Newman is a prolific artist, writer and supporter of the arts in our area. His frequent blog posts at “Ennyman’s Territory” cover the work of other artists, events and issues around town. You can almost always count on seeing him at openings, and he’s also very involved with this week’s Duluth Dylan Fest. He talks about how all these passions and interests come together for him.
EN: I work in a variety of media. About four decades ago I re-defined myself as a “creative person” which opened up all kinds of channels for creative expression beyond painting and drawing. I became serious about my writing at that time, and have always been drawing and making art in the background of what has primarily been a career in advertising. (more…)
The new issue of Freshwater Review has been published
Internal Landscape oil painting by Natalie Salminen Rude
The new issue of Freshwater Review has been published. It is the College of St. Scholastica’s student-run annual journal of literature and art, including work by writers and artists throughout the region.