Missing Person: Julie Huntington
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing person. Julie Marie Huntington was last seen on the 300 block of South Lake Avenue in Duluth’s Canal Park district on Sept. 1 at approximately 7 p.m. She is described as a 34-year-old Caucasian female, 5-foot 7-inches tall, 300 lbs., blue eyes and blonde hair. Huntington was last seen wearing a grey tank top, black hooded sweatshirt and black leggings. The DPD would like to check the health and welfare of Huntington along with getting her home. Anyone who knows of her whereabouts is asked to contact the Duluth Police Department by calling 911.
I Hafe a Feller in Duluth
Presenting yet another “Dutch Kid” pennant postcard, similar to “Mit Best Wishes from Duluth,” “Vilkome to our city of Duluth” and “Iff you vill come to Duluth ve vill lock up all de cops.” This one was mailed from Duluth to Minneapolis on Aug. 20, 1913. Translating the written message on the back will win someone the Internet championship of the day. (more…)
Notes from the Wayback Machine
Most of us emerge from infantile amnesia around the age of three. Until then our memories are catch and release. After that some stick, some don’t, until, alas, we come full circle. Unsettlingly, what we do recall is not the original event, but our last memory of that event, not something etched in stone or set in amber, but fuzzing at the edges and swapping facts like stage props, our solo game of “Telephone” played across time.
My first memory, as far as I can remember, is being held on my mother’s hip as she stood in the water at a public beach on the south shore of Lake Superior. I was looking down her one-piece suit at her breasts. Having never been suckled, this may have seemed a novel and compelling sight. Something worth remembering.
Decades fly by and summers pass like weekends. But between the ages of three and thirteen time was much-expanded. Time lost, but if the trigger’s found it’s not for sure forgotten.
My family moved when I finished kindergarten so there’s a clear line defining before and after. Subtract my amnesiac beginnings and it hardly seems possible a home could hold so much. Here we lived in a frame house with a dirt cellar, damp and spidery. There was a big garden, a half a dozen apple trees and a play house near the garage. This was the center of a universe measured in a few city blocks. Occasionally the quiet would be broken by distant explosions at the Dupont plant, where, I was told, they were testing dynamite. (more…)
Selective Focus: Bryan Hansel
Bryan Hansel lives in Grand Marais, working as a photographer and educator. His photos have been published in many national magazines including National Geographic, and his classes take students to sites in the region and across the country to National Parks.
B.H.: I could say I developed my style from years of practice starting with three years of black & white photography in high school — I graduated in 1989. But, that’s not really how I came to do what I do. About ten or so years ago, I decided I needed to make my photos eye-catching and worked toward a style that accomplished that. Then about six years ago while reading a book on haiku I had an “aha” moment. I was reading about juxtaposition in poetry and it occurred to me I could do the same thing with photography. After messing around with the approach, I started teaching it at my photography workshops. Basically, it’s all about using simplicity to create flow and relationships in an image. Now I approach all my photos that way.
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Photo Archive: The Last Roar by the Shore
John’s Red Lion Bar closed on Aug. 31, 2007, after more than 35 years in business. The building at 220 E. Superior St. has pretty much always been a bar. It was built in 1910 to house the Albert Salter Saloon. From the early 1950s to late ’60s it was the Two-Twenty Lounge. Before it became the Red Lion, it was briefly the Diamond Lounge. (more…)
Portion of Chester Park Trail washed out
A segment of the hiking trail in Chester Park on the east side of the creek, between Skyline Parkway and the Eighth Street bridge, washed out during recent heavy rainfall. Trail closure signs are in place leading up to and around the area, along with orange fencing.
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division requests hikers avoid the washed-out area and instead use the trail on the west side of Chester Creek. The pedestrian bridge near Eighth Street is open for trail users to safely cross the creek to the west side.
Bob Dylan Hates Me
Absurd animated tales of encounters with Bob Dylan from filmmaker Caveh Zahedi.
Lyric Kitchen and Bar will replace Porter’s
Holiday Inn & Suites-Duluth and Lion Hotel Group announced today the name and concept for their new restaurant — Lyric Kitchen and Bar. It will open in October, following four months of renovations to the space in the Holiday Center formerly occupied by Porter’s restaurant.
The name is a nod to Duluth’s past. The restaurant is located at 205 W. Superior St. on the historic Lyric block in Duluth, which was once home to grand theaters and touring opera companies. (more…)
Winona LaDuke: Jingle Dress Dance for the Water
Winona LaDuke talks about the Jingle Dress Dance for the Water, held July 17 in Duluth. Video by Keri Pickett.
Log rolling in the Duluth Harbor, Summer 1911
The southeastern edge of the Aerial Lift Bridge can be seen in the upper left corner of this shot. The large building occupying most of the background is the Duluth Boat Club, built in 1903 at 1000 Minnesota Ave. on the edge of the Duluth Harbor. It closed in 1933 and was used to store boats until it was destroyed by fire in 1951.
Wisconsin Point Breakwater and Lighthouse
The PDD Drone takes a short flight along the west pierhead entrance to Superior Harbor at Wisconsin Point, cruising above the breakwall to the Wisconsin Point Lighthouse, also known as the Superior Entry Breakwater Lighthouse or South Breakwater Light.
What She Said! Short Play Festival Submission Call
The Underground theater is planning an event featuring short plays and monologues written by women playwrights celebrating women and what they have to say. The What She Said! Short Play Festival will be staged May 24-26. In the meantime, scripts for short plays and monologues written by women and people identifying as women, are being sought. (more…)
PDD Quiz: August 2017
How closely were you paying attention to August headlines? Click on the quiz and test your memory!
Our next quiz, on beers and breweries of the Twin Ports, will be published on Sept. 10. Email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Sept. 7.
Frog Circus
Dear Mrs. Harleminn,
I realize it’s been quite a long time since we spoke. I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch, but there is a relatively good reason for that. See, I have a confession. In 1982, I placed that four-pound coffee can full of tiny, lifeless frogs, covered in a thin layer of grape jelly, on your porch.
If you’ll indulge it, I’d like to explain.
I’ll start at the beginning. Eddy Griffenbackher and I were going to create a frog circus, wherein frogs would do short, but elegant gymnastic routines. You undoubtedly remember Eddy — he was basically notorious. I have a lot of Eddy stories myself. One time Eddy convinced me to ball up the fresh tar they used to seal cracks in the asphalt and hurl it at the backs of passing cars. Never satisfied with mere mischief, Eddy upped the ante to offer me ten extra points if I could hit Officer Cramer, who was on duty at the time. (That’s how my mom met Officer Cramer, actually. He’s a really forgiving man, and that uniform was a lot more expensive than you’d imagine. My mom knows how to get a lot of stains out of a lot of things, but gooey tar and trooper uniform are unfortunately not in that impressive number, and she owns at least one trooper uniform to prove it.) (more…)
Hansi Johnson’s “Photo that Won’t Die”
It was shot just a few hundred feet from Duluth’s Aerial Lift Bridge, but it evokes the spirit of being in a far more remote part of the planet. Hansi Johnson’s “photo that won’t die” is so-named because in recent years it’s been in Outside magazine, the Red Bulletin, the Italian news magazine Panorama, a few calendars and as Johnson notes, it’s “been ripped off and passed around more times than I care to admit.”
Add two more to the list: Men’s Journal recently included the image among its “25 Best Adventure Photos of the Past 25 Years.” The back cover of a new book from Outside magazine, “The Edge of the World,” also features the image. (more…)
Bubbling up in the craft district: Duluth Kombucha
Duluth’s Lincoln Park craft district has gained another fermented beverage maker. But this one won’t be competing with Bent Paddle and Lake Superior Brewing. Duluth Kombucha set up shop at the Duluth Folk School on Aug. 1. (more…)
Selective Focus: CSS Mural Initiative Project 2017
This winter and spring, Sarah Brokke Erickson from the College of St. Scholastica headed up a the art department’s 2nd collaborative mural project, with artist Shawna Gilmore, students from CSS, students from Harbor City International School, and Safe Haven. This short documentary shows the planning and process of the art. The finished murals will hang at Harbor City International School and in the Safe Haven shelter.
Jansen preparing to close the Main Club in Superior
Fox 21 reports the Main Club, Superior’s first openly gay bar, is closing after 34 years in business. Owner Bob Jansen told reporter Joey Nelson his last day of business will be shortly after the Duluth-Superior Pride Festival, which concludes with a drag show at the Main on Sept. 3.
Jansen said the bar has struggled in recent years because younger people feel less of a need for gay-specific bars.
“The younger crowd can go anywhere,” he told Fox 21. “So their support for some of the gay communities — institutions — have fallen by the wayside.” (more…)
Tom Isbell on Columbo, 1990
Tom Isbell, professor of theater at the University of Minnesota Duluth, has a lengthy professional acting resume spanning the years 1984-’94, which can be perused at imdb.com. Among his many roles on popular television shows is Sgt. Brady on the Columbo episode “Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo,” which originally aired March 31, 1990.
Classic.
West Duluth’s Alhambra Theater
West Duluth has three former theater buildings — the West, Doric and Alhambra. Of the three, the Alhambra is by far the least known. (more…)
Duluth’s First Public Mural by and for Indigenous Artists
Artist Votan Ik of NSRGNTS stands before the nearly completed mural.
To me, it’s rather astounding to think that Duluth has been without indigenous representation for this long. I imagine people from all over the world have been visiting Duluth as tourists and have only gotten to see one side of this place, unaware of the precolonial history that it’s tied to. This mural is a long-awaited step toward reaffirming our presence as indigenous people. It’s unapologetically native — an unmistakable vision that grew into fruition along the stretch of West Second Street, firmly declaring the presence of a people long pushed to the side from mainstream narratives. (more…)
Duluthian Sadik Hakim featured on Jazz Profiles blog
“In 1982, the music world lost a legend with the death of Thelonious Monk. At Monk’s funeral, thousands gathered to pay their respects. One of Monk’s former colleagues sat at the piano and played, according to legendary jazz writer Ted Joans, “a sad but soulful” version of Monk’s own “’Round Midnight.” That pianist was Duluth-native Sadik Hakim, who played and recorded with jazz icons from the 1940s to the 1980s. Down Beat magazine described him as “one of the unsung veterans who helped forge the bebop revolution.”
Sadik Hakim: A Remembrance by David Ouse