PDD Quiz: February 2017
Despite being the shortest month, February was full of stuff and things. How much do you remember? Take the PDD Quiz to find out!
Our next PDD Quiz, on the subject of Duluth in popular culture, will be published on March 12. E-mail question ideas to Alison Klawiter at [email protected] by March 9.
What’s in the box? A gift I’ll never open
Someday, hopefully years from now, someone will face the task of going through all the “stuff” in my office and will find a box.
It is postmarked April 2, 2010. It has an address label on the side:
From: John Hatcher
To: Sam Cook
Here’s my request: Don’t open it.
Here’s why.
If you simply have to know what’s in it, I can just tell you that part: It’s one of those sporty Nalgene water bottles. I can’t honestly remember what color or what style, but I do know it has a University of Minnesota Duluth logo on it. What the box contains isn’t why I’ve kept it unopened for nearly seven years now.
The water bottle was a gift, not to me but from me. The intended recipient was Sam Cook, longtime (that’s polite for old) journalist and columnist for the Duluth News Tribune. It was a way of thanking him for coming to my journalism class. (more…)
Veggies by Subscription: CSA signup season underway in Duluth
It might seem too early to be thinking about fresh local vegetables. The growing season around Lake Superior doesn’t generally start until May, but area farmers are already busy planning their crops and ordering seeds. The signup period has begun for most farms offering community supported agriculture subscriptions. The online CSA Signup Day is today, Feb. 24; Duluth’s CSA open house is March 19.
Farm shares offer a direct method for consumers to access fresh food from local growers. Members buy a seasonal “share” from the farm. During harvest time, which is generally mid-June to mid-December, members go to a designated spot each week to pick up a box of mixed seasonal produce. (more…)
Selective Focus: Stack Prints
Please tell us about the medium you work in, and how you came to work in your style.
Stack Prints is a pizza-eating boy band of four Duluth-based graphic designers, Cody, Taylor, Stephen, & Tyler. We run an online store, pull squeegees in our screen print shop, and advocate for art & design education. We’re kinda like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (more…)
Dong Dot Surgery – “Computing 4eva!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrPKEBjwfsE
More spoken word by John Holden with electronic weirdness by Matt Norby.
Duluth Album Releases in 2017
Matt Ray
Minnesota Moon
(Jan. 1)
Available on CDBaby
IW/M/DK
Ghostship
Xero Music (Jan. 12)
Available on Bandcamp
The Farsights
Traffic
(Jan. 17)
Available on Bandcamp
Video Archive: Umbrella ice sailing on Lake Superior
As the failing winter of 2016-’17 continues, we take another look back to a decade ago and the amazing freeze over Lake Superior. In this video from Feb. 22, 2007, “Duluthom” skates the big lake, accelerated by wind power and a simple umbrella.
Escape
Keegan Burckhard directed this video as a part of his senior exhibition as a digital art and photography student at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It was projected in the Tweed Museum of Art Feb. 14-19.
Overhaul of USS Duluth at Swan Island, 1985
Sept. 29, 1985 — Dawn Kee, with daughter Melissa, 4, and holding son, Jeremiah, 2, shouts to husband, Chief Signalman Rick Kee, who is among crew arriving at Swan Island for overhaul of USS Duluth. She said she was living in a motel until the family found housing but was “excited” about living in Portland.
Photo by Joel Davis of The Oregonian.
USS Duluth was a Navy ship named for the city of Duluth. It was launched in 1965 and was scrapped in 2014. Its anchor was salvaged and installed along Duluth’s Lakewalk.
Dong Dot Surgery – “Flo Juice”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba2IgxPibfI
Spoken word by John Holden with electronic weirdness by Matt Norby.
Duluth art scene finds place in Lincoln Park craft district
Duluth Pottery co-owners Tom Hollenhorst and Karin Kraemer pose in the loft of their new art studio with partner artist Luke Krisak. Duluth Pottery is remodeling the former P&J Paint building in the West End.
The art world is quickly carving out space for itself in an ambitious neighborhood revitalization project in Duluth’s West End neighborhood.
An established Twin Ports potter, a new gallery and retail store with studio space and an arts arm of an American Indian social service organization have all recently announced plans to renovate and open buildings on West Superior Street. All three projects fall within the boundaries of the Lincoln Park Craft District, a rebranding and redevelopment effort organized by neighborhood businesses last year. (more…)
Squelching local efforts toward earned sick and safe time
I’m watching the action at the Minnesota State Legislature with an eye toward what is happening in Duluth, too.
I look at these two initiatives. I wish I had some principle here, like “local control is always best” or something like that, but I don’t. I just prefer the results of the Duluth ordinance over the results of the state law. If I liked the results of the state law better, I would prefer that.
What do you think, comparing:
The work of Duluth’s “Earned Sick and Safe Time Task Force,” which “gathers information, collects public input, proposes the best options for implementing ESST policies and brings forward policy recommendations.”
vs.
SF 580 as introduced – 90th Legislature (2017 – 2018)
A bill for an act relating to employment; providing uniformity for employment mandates on private employers;proposing coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 181. (more…)
The Lincoln Tribune – Dec. 17, 1985
Oh, the random relics that land on the kitchen table at the Perfect Duluth Day Headquarters. We’ve also scanned all 15 interior pages of this issue of Lincoln Park School’s fancy old newsletter, which appear below, but take heed in the warning that it’s pretty dry stuff in general — everything from mazes and recipes to the school lunch menu. One thing of note is page 2, which is a ridiculously long list of items in the lost and found. (more…)
Big Jig Ice Fishing Contest 2017
Does anyone know why it’s not going on this year? I can’t find any info.
Pornography, or, Worst First Dates
In 1999, my ex-husband gave me a computer. I was pretty glad to get it. I had mastered emailing, and was ready to move on to the really exciting things, like AOL and internet porn.
Let’s get this clear right away: I’m not a huge porn fan. My porn experience at that point was limited to the following:
1. A couple of magazines unearthed by a 13-year-old me, in ~1985 in my mom’s friend’s attic. They were evidently from the 1970s. My suspicion was based largely on the unusual prevalence of mustaches and floppy boobies. (Throw in a headshot of Spiro Agnew and my argument is airtight.) They were disturbingly graphic and unaltered. Sans digital enhancement, the naked people all looked like slabs of pork tenderloin. With mustaches and floppy boobies.
2. A porn movie a boyfriend rented to watch with me. Everyone seemed really, really angry in it. With the volume down, their sexing faces all looked like they were watching Newt Gingrich pole dance in assless chaps and an American flag tank top. (He has bootstraps tattooed on his inner thighs, by the way. Interesting tidbit.)
3. My parents’ copy of The Joy of Sex, which was hidden under some sweaters in my dad’s closet. Finding that book in that spot was the single best abstinence education any parent could possibly provide. The idea of my disgusting parents contorting their old disgusting bodies into those disgusting and inexplicable configurations was enough to keep me from so much as holding hands until I was 16 years old. (more…)
Video Archive: Ice Cracking on Lake Superior
The 2016-’17 winter hasn’t been great for ice on Lake Superior, but ten years ago was one of the most magical freeze-overs in modern memory. In this video from Feb. 18, 2007, Zac Bentz captures the sounds of shifting and cracking ice off Park Point.
Teague Alexy’s new “Wisecracks & Roadside Flats” podcast
Wisecracks & Roadside Flats is a news podcast featuring American stories and folktales from musician, author and storyteller Teague Alexy. The debut episode, “Million Dollar Magic Take,” is Teague’s experience with the classic Bob Dylan and the Band album The Basement Tapes. Teague first hears the album on a solo road trip and years later finds himself as part of a tribute show to the album in Bob Dylan’s hometown of Duluth.
Subscribe to the Wisecracks & Roadside Flats podcast for free on iTunes and Stitcher.
This debut episode features unreleased music from Teague Alexy, Marc Gartman, Sarah Krueger, Lee Martin and Veikko Lepisto performing as the Duluth Basement Tapes Band. Get their recording of “Million Dollar Bash” exclusively when you pre-order Teague Alexy’s new album Circuit Sessions (release date April 7) at teaguealexy.com. See the Duluth Basement Tapes Band perform live on Bob Dylan’s birthday Wednesday, May 24, at Rex Bar as part of the seventh annual Duluth Dylan Fest and Thursday, May 25, at Pioneer Place Theater in St. Cloud.
Selective Focus: Heidi Ash
This week’s Selective Focus subject is our most delicious one yet. Heidi Ash has made chocolate her medium of choice.
H.A.: My goal is to make life more beautiful and delicious one truffle at a time. I work with French chocolate, hand-made caramel sauces, and the best ingredients possible. What gets left out is just as important: preservatives, corn syrup and RBST from the whipping cream and butter.
185Chocolat is a culmination of passions. The 185 represents the number of my heart transplant at the Mayo Clinic, which not only saved my life but altered the quality of it for the better in ways I could not imagine. (more…)
R.I.P. Farmer Hank
The Duluth News Tribune reports Farmer Hank Bos died Feb. 4 after battling lung cancer. He was 79.
Bos was known in West Duluth for selling his produce on Grand Avenue near the Minit Mart convenience store, formerly known as Little Store. The DNT reports Bos “for decades faithfully drove the 94 miles from his Shell Lake, Wis., farm to western Duluth daily from July to late October to sell produce from next to his pickup truck.”
What is this brick pillar in the sidewalk?
The above image landed in my inbox this morning with the following question from a fellow named Ben: “Any idea what this is? It’s on West Superior Street at 17th Avenue West. There’s nothing on it or attached to it.”
Well, it just so happens I have a pretty good idea what it is. (more…)
Augustus B. Wolvin and the Duluth Stoker Co.
This advertisement is from The Directory of Licensed Stationary Engineers of the State of Ohio, 1903, published by the Engineers Directory Co. of Columbus, Ohio. It highlights the features of the Duluth Stoker, a mechanical stoker designed for use on steamships. (more…)
The Boomchucks – “Birkie Fever”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEbADJDXYC8
A silly little ditty by Duluth band the Boomchucks, all about the North American Birkebeiner.
Duluth and Beyond
Thomas Hays of Minneapolis produced this video of highlights from a recent trip to Duluth, Two Harbors and Gooseberry Falls. Perfect Duluth Day probably publishes about eight of these “trip to Duluth” videos a year, but this one has a pretty distinct style compared to others.
Tuesday at Lutsen
The days of fresh, fluffy powder seem rarer and rarer. Ben Olson and Barry Buhr took advantage at Lutsen Mountains last week, before the heat wave set in.