Lost and Found
It started to drizzle with the kind of fine mist that slicks the pavement into a mirror and seeps steadily through each layer of clothing. Almost simultaneously, the boy and I lifted up our collars, buried our shoulders to our ears, and started to walk without speaking. There was a deserted bridge in front of us. It was a massive steel thing, born of sinewy cables and bulging beams and it perched over the city reservoir. He led us on our way over it, placing himself between me and the edge as we squinted into the idea of the water below. We could hear its agitated turning, but the darkness was so swollen that we saw nothing but an inky black void.
We were so fucking lost.
The boy and I had been introduced to each other hours earlier. Our mothers talked over us with teasing voices while we both stood mutely by, shrinking into our 14-year-old selves and consenting to eye contact in short, apologetic glances as if to say, I know, I’m disappointed with me, too. (more…)
Summer 2017 Duluth-area Beer Festival Primer
There’s nothing quite like kicking back to quaff a cold beer in the summertime. The warmest season ushers in plenty of chances for those craving craft brews to get outside, sit back and sample suds. We’ve done the legwork for you and compiled a list of some of the top tasting events and beer festivals in the Twin Ports area. (more…)
Video Archive: 2007 Fire at True North Cedar on Duluth Harbor
At around 8 a.m. on June 22, 2007, a fire started in a waste conveyor machine at True North Cedar‘s manufacturing building on the Duluth Harbor. Employees attempted to fight the fire, but it was fed by sawdust and spread quickly. The warehouse, several boats and various equipment was quickly consumed in a huge smokey blaze.
Firefighters arrived at 8:17 a.m., but were unable to get hoses going until 8:50. It took a little more than an hour to put the fire out once water was available.
Lyte Source: Todd Luffa
In the pilot episode of a new “musical series aiming to explore sources of inspiration and intrigue,” Minneapolis-based soft-noise artist Todd Luffa performs on the beach at Minnesota Point in Duluth.
The Lyte Source series was created by director Gordon Byrd and producer Aubree Miller of Minneapolis, who “aim to bring performances to settings too intimate or bizarre for audiences to normally inhabit. To capture a sensory experience and transform it into a unique collaboration.”
Lost incline stairway pushed as historic trail
A group of history hikers follow the old incline railway stairs down Observation Hill.
A hidden stairway, once connected to a long-gone incline rail service between Downtown Duluth and its hilltop neighborhoods, is being celebrated by an organization that would like to see it designated a historic walking trail.
The Duluth Preservation Alliance led an Observation Hill history walk on May 31 over remnants of the 126-year-old incline stairs. More than 50 people attended the event and made the steep, downhill jaunt from Skyline Drive to Superior Street. (more…)
Postcards from Duluth’s Incline Railway
The Incline Plane Railway, a tram system operated by the Duluth Street Railway Company, began service in 1891. It carried passengers from a housing development at the top of the hillside into the downtown along Seventh Avenue West.
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“Colder than the surface of Mars”
Poet Dora Malech gets all Duluthy in a poem published in the May 29 issue of The New Yorker. It’s more that a reference — the poem is basically set in Duluth.
The text of “I Now Pronounce You” is available online, along with an audio track of the poet reading it.
Malech grew up in Bethesda, Md., and now lives in Baltimore. Her connection to Duluth is unknown, unless it’s as simple as the first line of the poem: “Our friends are getting married in Duluth.”
Soul Brothers: Big Wave Dave and the Ripples
WDSE-TV‘s The Playlist has released it’s 2016 documentary on Big Wave Dave and the Ripples for internet viewing. Here it is: 49 minutes and 34 seconds of funk, soul, rhythm and blues.
Reflection, refraction, dispersion: Duluth rainbow pics
Sun showers produced a Father’s Day rainbow in Duluth. Click the thumbnails to view the images at full size.
Photographers: Jamie Merideth (Duluth Harbor), Eric Dubnicka (Old Central High School), Tim Mlodozyniec (Denfeld clock tower) and Erin Anderson (Lake Superior).
Bob Monahan Naked
Well, it was a thing for a day, but now the privates are private. Apparently this video was a limited-time Father’s Day offering.
Antique photos: Denfeld High School under construction
Jay Sonnenburg found this photo in his grandfather’s collection. It shows Denfeld High School under construction on the lower edge, which puts the year of the image around 1926. The groundbreaking ceremony for the building was held March 6, 1925; it opened for classes on Sept. 8, 1926. (more…)
The Only Right that is too Often Exercised Alone
The most diverse workplace I have ever known was a nursing home kitchen with workers from age 18 to 82 of many races and genders.
Kitchens breed a complex affection. We saw each other every day, taking two or more meals together. I developed favorite coworkers — the washers who will plow through the dishes quickly, not the washers who realize they are paid the same no matter how many plates they wash in an hour. We celebrated each other’s joys. The cook might bake a small cake to celebrate a staff wedding, or streamers might appear outside the dietitian’s office on her birthday. On Friday we might go drinking — it was a special challenge to pressure the people working the dinner shift on Friday and the breakfast shift on Saturday to do a “turn and burn.”
It was on one of those Fridays that my coworker Erin told us she was pregnant, that it was unplanned and unwanted, and that she didn’t know what to do. She was likely, she said, to have an abortion.
On another Friday, in my home, maybe a week or so later, I had friends over — friends from both the kitchen and from college. I was 21, I was broke, and I was teased mercilessly for serving Milwaukee’s Best beer. Erin drank three of them in an hour, which I know wouldn’t make a koala bear tipsy. Nonetheless, I was young, I was stupid, and so I said to her: “You’re drinking?” I wasn’t sure she was 21 even, but I was sure she was pregnant. (more…)
Selective Focus: Patricia Canelake
Patricia Canelake is a painter and teacher who creates large, colorful paintings that combine figurative drawing with the spontaneous drips, layers and other effects of paint.
P.C.: My aesthetic is an aesthetic of attraction — both obvious and mysterious. Simple figurative, and animal subjects, leashed and unleashed, are the subjects of my work. That push and pull are recognizable experiences. My painting style is a fine balance between storytelling and the rough elegance of form, line and color. (more…)
Exploring Madeline Island’s Rocky Shore
Wading/rock-hopping up Madeline Island’s beautiful bay shore of sandstone boulders. My little love letter to the island.
Duluth artist Russell Gran dead at 81
Russell V. Gran, a Duluth native best known for his acrylic paintings and role as the unofficial “patriarch” of the Washington Studios Artist Cooperative, died June 14 of an apparent heart attack. He was 81.
“Endlessly curious and driven to create, his curmudgeonly exterior was merely a facade for a wonderfully humorous, sensitive and loving being,” fellow artist and friend Eric Dubnicka wrote on Facebook. (more…)
The Ballad of Clayton, Jackson and McGhie
Local musician Bill Nash produced this music video in May, recalling the June 15, 1920 lynching of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie. (more…)
Brew North: A Beer Story
WDSE-TV‘s recent documentary on the brewing history of northern Minnesota can now be viewed online … right here. Brew North: A Beer Story explores the many ways beer established a niche in the Duluth area and continues to leave its mark on the region.
2 Dope Queens discuss Justin Bieber’s Duluth chakra
At the very onset of episode #36 of the 2 Dope Queens podcast, hosts Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson drop a reference to Duluth while going over items on Justin Bieber’s tour rider. (more…)
Video Archive: Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad
This weekend (tentatively) the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad begins its 37th season of running 90-minute tours along the St. Louis River. This historical documentary was produced in 1983.
Fact Check: Matilda attacks Jimmy Hart’s Megaphone in Duluth
Prior to a Heavy on Wrestling card in Duluth this past weekend, “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart sat down for an interview on Fox 21. At the very outset he launched into an anecdote that seems to imply a tag team he managed, the Hart Foundation, wrestled the British Bulldogs in Duluth in the 1980s.
In the dressing room before the match, so the story goes, a dog named Matilda, the literal bulldog that accompanied the two wrestler “Bulldogs” to the ring, became agitated by Hart’s megaphone and unexpectedly attacked it. The summation of the story is that the surprise attack by Matilda in Duluth inspired planned antics by Hart at Wrestlemania III, the famous wrestling card that attracted 93,173 people to the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., considered at the time to be the largest audience for a live indoor event in North America. (more…)
Rolph, Wilson named head brewers at Earth Rider
Earth Rider Brewery in Superior has named Allyson Rolph and Tim Wilson as lead brewers. The craft brewery, founded by Tim Nelson, is expected to launch later this year. It will service bars, restaurants and liquor stores throughout the Arrowhead region. The project was announced in February. (more…)
Duluth relay of the Current moving to full-power frequencies
Minnesota Public Radio is moving the Duluth relay of its Twin Cities album-oriented alternative music station, the Current, to full-power frequencies at 104.3 and 94.1 FM.
The switch to 104.3 is already in effect; 94.1 will be in operation later this summer.
The tower for 104.3 is in Two Harbors. Broadcasting with an effective radiated power of 50,000 watts, the signal reaches Duluth’s eastern neighborhoods, but begins to break up in the Downtown area and is marred by static in most locations southwest of Lake Avenue.
Jen Keavy, senior communications manager at MPR, said the “reach is dependent upon topography and proximity to the tower in Two Harbors, which is why we will also launch 94.1 (which is in Duluth) once technical upgrades are made. It will help cover the gaps in the Duluth area.”
MPR purchased the two stations from Red Rock Radio for $300,000 in a deal that closed May 15. Both frequencies use the call letters KZIO and were previously branded by Red Rock as 94X “pure rock.” (more…)
Perfect Duluth Day Outdoor Summer Concert Primer 2017
Summer is upon us (you can tell because that big hot bright ball is occasionally up in the sky), and that means a gaggle of outdoor concerts are in the PDD Calendar, ready for consideration. Of course, the usual suspects like Bayfront Festival Park and Big Top Chautauqua are in there, as are smaller series like Bayside Sounds, Chester Creek Concert Series and Summer (Mostly) Thursdays. Here’s a peek at some of the upcoming sure-to-be highlights:
June 16
Everclear
Canal Park
1990’s hitmakers Everclear, Vertical Horizon and Fastball perform during Grandma’s Marathon weekend in Canal Park.
June 16
Lake Ave Live 2017
Canal Park
Local original artists also get some tent time at this two-day tenttacular.
June 23
Warren Nelson
Big Top Chautauqua
The founder of Big Top Chautauqua, Warren Nelson, celebrates 50 years in show business with a concert of songs chosen from way back to now.