Flackers and Kombucha
I’ve been eating pretty conscientiously lately. I have good reasons, so don’t get douchey. (Although, now that I think of it, when do people eat conscientiously for bad reasons? “Eff it. I’m gonna cut back on meat and sugar to really stick it to my mom. That’ll show her.”)
Some of the stuff has been pretty revelatory. For instance: spaghetti squash is better than pasta for pesto, in my opinion, and while pinto beans can still go straight to hell, cannellini beans are like little butter bombs full of protein and velvety goodness. I could drink olive oil, and 36 percent of my adipose tissue is actually guacamole. (My love handles are deeeeeeelicious.) Parsley is a vegetable and makes everything better, and although I respect you, vegetarians, grass-fed, farm-fresh ground beef is probably a good enough reason to at least seriously consider killing a cow. (Although, I’m not sure I could do that—they are really tall. Much taller than you’d think.) Kale chips are mouth-watering, Swiss chard wants to kiss your face (yes, with tongue) and don’t even get me started on what eggs can do. Don’t even.
However.
Have you ever had “Flackers?” or “kombucha?” Both are very strange. (more…)
Dead Man Winter on Conan
Because of security encryption issues, PDD can’t embed the Dead Man Winter performance of the song “Destroyer” from last night’s episode of Conan. The best we can do is offer a link to where it’s viewable on teamcoco.com.
Selective Focus: Catherine Meier
Catherine Meier pours time and detail into her large drawings, and then she puts even more time into animating them. She talks about the meditative process of making these large, quiet installations.
C.M.: My work is based in drawing. I suppose that drawing was my entry into art making. Since I was very young I have been able to draw well and it has been something that I have done throughout every phase of my life — even when I was a truck driver hauling cattle across the Great plains, I had drawings in progress. (more…)
Buying a Car in Duluth
I skipped my usual visit to listen to Darin Bergsven at the Blacklist brewery taproom downtown to visit Kia of Duluth in the West End. (more…)
Duluth Band Profile: Kat Fox
Rapper Kat Fox isn’t one to walk away from the mic. In her video “Kat Calling,” she questions not only the sexism in hip-hop, but also society’s gender norms.
Video Archive: Insane Clown Posse in Duluth
Crack open a Faygo soda and … do something other than watch this video if you know what’s good for you. Nothing of much interest happens, unless you are enough of a Juggalo that listening to professional wrestler Pat Tanaka talk about the size of Andre the Giant’s penis sounds appealing. Nonetheless, for the purpose of novelty if not entertainment, Perfect Duluth Day presents two segments from the earliest days of video blogging, when the Detroit-based horrorcore duo of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope brought their Insane Clown Posse to Duluth. (more…)
Suggestions for a cheap wedding photographer in Duluth
My fiancé and I are getting married in 2018 and we have done some searching and the prices for professional photographers are ridiculous. We are looking for a photographer for our wedding and we don’t want to spend more than $1,000. Perhaps someone who does it part time and has some wedding photography experience. Any suggestions?
New Canal Park beer hall among largest in Minnesota
Hoops Brewing founder Dave Hoops and Head Brewer Melissa Rainville pose in front of recently installed equipment. Hoops Brewing plans to open in late May or June.
Seven stainless steel tanks and a catwalk preassembled with pipes and pumps were lifted off flatbed trucks and squeezed through the stone doorway of a former Canal Park restaurant on March 21.
The equipment, including four huge fermentors and two beer tanks, was hauled inside on heavy duty carts and laid on a new custom-built floor like tipped-over beer bottles. The massive move, which stopped traffic outside 325 S. Lake Ave., was a major step in plans by longtime Duluth brewmaster Dave Hoops to open Hoops Brewing, a beer hall that will match the largest in Minnesota. (more…)
2017 Duluth Superior Film Festival seeking submissions
The Duluth Superior Film Festival is taking a call for entry for all forms of film presentation. No specific parameters. All submissions will be considered. Shorts, features, docs, narratives, animation, experimental. Festival dates are May 31 to June 4.
To be considered, send password-protected Vimeo links to [email protected] and/or [email protected].
The awesome poster was created by Duluth artist Jonathan Thunder.
Fragments of chalk and glass in an oil painting
I’ll be talking about art on Saturday at Zinema 2 in an event sponsored by the Duluth Art Institute, for the showing of American Splendor. Here is other writing of mine on art; if you like it, I hope to be this elegant Saturday.
A Woman Bathing in a Stream by Rembrandt
When I was 22, I took the bus to New York and visited the Rembrandt/Not-Rembrandt exhibit.
I learned that conservators struggle with Rembrandt’s work, because he added ground chalk and bits of glass to the paint to add texture and to speed drying. These practices make the paintings hard to preserve hundreds of years later.
… fragments of chalk and glass in an oil painting, causing the paint to crack over time.
Those fragments have become integral to identifying a Rembrandt — a painting without them starts from the presumption of forgery. The bits of glass have become a sign of authenticity.
It is impossible to admire a Rembrandt without admiring the cracks and breaks caused by the ground and broken things.
… so it is with falling in love.
Duluth helps Uncle Sam kick the Kaiser off the map
This photo was shot about a century ago, outside the American Exchange National Bank at 230 W. Superior St. in Duluth — where Wells Fargo Bank has its main Duluth branch today. (more…)
Missing Person: William Saker
Update: Medical examiners have identified human remains found Sept. 28, 2017, along the Duluth Lakewalk as that of William Saker, a Duluth man who hadn’t been since March 10. (Duluth News Tribune: Remains found along Lakewalk identified as man missing since March)
Original post: The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating missing person William Robert Saker. Saker is a 50-year-old white male, 6-ft. 2-in. tall, 200 lbs., has brownish blonde hair and blue/grey eyes. He was last seen on Friday, March 10, leaving his residence in the 800 block of Upham Road and has not returned. There is urgency in finding Saker due his need for prescribed medications. Anyone aware with information about Saker’s whereabouts is asked to call 911.
Duluth passes rideshare ordinance; opens city to Uber, Lyft
Duluth City Councilors adopted an ordinance Monday establishing regulations for transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft to operate within in the city.
The measure passed 7-1, with Fifth District Councilor Jay Fosle casting the dissenting vote. The ordinance goes into effect April 27.
The video above is the full 35-minute discussion of the issue. It opens with four citizens speaking in opposition to the ordinance. Comments by city councilors begin at the 9:40 mark.
Dong Dot Surgery – “Bound for Glory”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9ftb7kXiH0
Electronic weirdness by John Holden and Matt Norby. They play the Barrel Room on May 1 at 9:45 p.m. during the Homegrown Music Festival.
Duluth Band Profile: Àlamode
Àlamode brings us back to the pop and funk mixture of the Minneapolis sound. Nathan Holte and Ned Netzel explain why the song “My Mistake” isn’t a mistake. Click on the image above to hear the podcast.
Duluth portion of Munger Trail to close for construction
A 5-mile stretch of the Willard Munger State Trail between Grand Avenue and Becks Road in western Duluth will be closed for an extensive construction project from mid-April through August, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
The project will stabilize parts of the treadway damaged during the Historic Solstice Flood Disaster of 2012 and bring that section of the trail up to current standards that call for a wider surface and shoulders. Because heavy equipment will be operating in the area, the section of the trail will be closed to all traffic throughout the project.
The Munger Trail is a collection of three trail segments accommodating multiple uses, including bicycling, walking, horseback riding and snowmobiling. The 70-mile Hinckley–Duluth segment is completely paved — other than the damaged areas — and passes through three state forests and Jay Cooke State Park.
Below are images from spring 2017 showing damaged sections of the trail in Duluth.
Video Archive: Water Skipping at Chester Bowl in 2007
One decade ago the springtime water-skipping action at Chester Bowl in Duluth was excellent. This video depicting the skiing, snowboarding, saucering, couching and so on that took place has gathered more than 32,000 views in the ten years since it first appeared on PDD in 2007.
Popular Mechanics: Duluth adopts system of community garages
According to this very vague story from the November 1921 issue of Popular Mechanics, Duluth may have been at the forefront of developing community garages. What happened? One of the garages shown in the magazine still exists today in the Morgan Park neighborhood. (more…)
PDD Quiz: March 2017
As Garrison Keillor observes, “March is the month God created to show people who don’t drink what a hangover is like.” Did you retain anything from the hangover that is March? Take the quiz and find out!
The next PDD Quiz will cover Homegrown band names and will be published on April 16: start scouring those field guides! E-mail question suggestions to Alison Klawiter at [email protected] by April 13.
Chase Down Blue – “Skin & Bones”
Chase Down Blue‘s folk/rock sound has evolved in a post-rock direction on the album, Red V. In this video, the band performs live in KUMD’s Studio A on Feb. 15.
Upcoming gig: May 3, 10:15 p.m. at the Kom-on-Inn during Homegrown
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One Foot After the Other
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” — Yogi Berra
Most days after work I pick up my wife and we spring her mom from memory care for a stroll around the block. According to my wife’s high-tech pedometer it’s almost exactly half a mile. There’s a view of the big lake, and the weather that goes with it, and for fifteen minutes or so the three of us are happy to be walking, and walking to be happy.
My dictionary’s third definition of “pedestrian” describes its figurative sense as, “ lacking in interest or imagination; prosaic, ordinary and dull.” While, at speed, the crosstown freeways of Minneapolis may not be dull, they are certainly ordinary, it being lost on us that driving seventy miles an hour is a violent act, and this we only realize when running into something. We could’ve toured as daredevils a hundred years ago. But existence in our rolling cubicles is mostly quite prosaic, and life encaged is dull.
When I was three years old my friend and I decided to walk to the Ashland A&W, a mile away and across an interstate highway. Hudda Martenson saw us traipsing outside the neighborhood, and gave us a ride home to strict punishment. Grounded! For three days! This proved walking was a precious freedom, indeed, whose revocation was a penalty most cruel and severe. (more…)
This is soooo Duluth
Sarah Priest lost her winter hat at former Duluth Mayor Don Ness’ farewell event in late 2015 at the DECC. Stacie Spaeth discovered it and wore it in a TV commercial. The rest is history.
Woman discovers lost hat through Miller Hill Subaru commercial
Duluth Trail Skate
Daredevil downhilling in a video from Andrew Kilness, shot in Duluth’s Lester Park, giving new meaning to the phrase “multi-use trails.”
Selective Focus: Matthew Olin
Matt Olin is one of those artists whose work is impossible to have not seen. We get a look at some of his other creations as well as the sense of humor that finds its way into many of his projects.
Please tell us about the medium you work in and how you came to work in your style.
I typically work in Birkenstocks. Most people would refer to wearing Birkenstocks year-round in Duluth as a stylistic choice, so I guess you could say I come to work everyday in my style. When at work, I teach Interactive Design at UMD and create both self-initiated and client-based design solutions in my Birkenstocks. (more…)
Duluth native on Fortune’s list of world’s greatest leaders
Fortune magazine’s list of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” includes Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau, a native Duluthian. Harteau is positioned at #22 on the list, just behind U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and just ahead of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Harteau graduated from Denfeld High School in 1982 and earned a law enforcement degree at Hibbing Community College before joining the Minneapolis Police Department at the age of 22. She was sworn in as chief in 2012. (more…)