Where in Duluth?
It’s been a while since someone has posted one. I took this photo today, Jan. 15, in Duluth.
PDD Quiz: Ringing in 2017
Out with the old, in with the new; this quiz looks ahead to coming attractions in 2017.
Our next PDD Quiz, which will be published on Jan. 29, will review the notable things that happened in our area during this first month of 2017. E-mail question ideas to Alison Klawiter at [email protected] by Jan. 25.
Duluth is a Giant Ice Skating Rink, Park Point/Canal Park Edition
With underwater pancake ice.
Sixteen Years on the Superior Hiking Trail: Leaves, Needles, Mud
By the fall of 2014 I had fewer than 50 miles of walking left to complete the Superior Hiking Trail. That might seem easy enough to knock out in a couple days, but it wasn’t a single stretch I had to cover, it was short segments stretched out over hundreds of miles. So I was picking them off three miles here and eight miles there.
An example of how it sometimes broke down: Rather than do the 6.4-mile Rossini Road to Fox Farm Road segment with cars at each end, or hike through and then go all the way back, I chose to break it into two trips on two separate days — Rossini Road to the West Branch of Knife River, then Fox Farm Road to the same spot, going both directions on each hike, turning it into a two-part 12.8 miler.
Of course, by driving one car to the same area twice, instead of two cars once, I didn’t save any gas or spare the environment any emissions — and I doubled my time spent in the car — so it was a dumb thing to do … even though it seemed intelligent at the time.
The highlight of that first hike in early September was either a mushroom or some kind of yellow porcelain trailside birdbath. (more…)
Bue headed to Taos, releasing EP in May
City Pages reports former Duluthian Mary Bue will soon be living in an adobe casita at Taos, New Mexico, as part of a three-month artist-in-residence program offered by the Wurlitzer Foundation. She’s performing a send-off show Saturday at the Icehouse in Minneapolis with Alan Sparhawk and Molly Maher. In May she’ll release an EP, The Majesty of Beasts, which was recorded in Nashville.
City Pages: Mary Bue powers through band split, divorce with desert session, yoga
Selective Focus: Ashley Kolka
Ashley Kolka is a collage artist who makes small-scale pieces, mostly about small towns and rural settings.
A.K.: I make miniature cut paper collages from recycled magazines. My best one-line summary of what I do is that I make small works about small places. My logic for working small is both philosophical and practical. Small works create a sense of intimacy with the viewer and can be purchased at an accessible price. Most people in the Duluth art community know me in my role as the grants manager at Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. That job takes most of my time; working small fits the space in my life that I have for art making! (more…)
Is it cruel to post summer swim footage in the depths of winter?
On those summer days when the water is clear and warm, Lake Superior becomes the greatest swimming pool in the world. Remember, summer is coming back in just a few months!
“Duh-looth”
Thanks to howtopronounce.org we now have this clip to use as a sample in electronic instrumentals. Who would like to be the first?
Having a Bully Time in Duluth
V. O. Hammon Publishing Company of Chicago put out this postcard in the early 1900s. The image does not necessarily reflect a Duluth scene; the company also put out a “Having a Bully Time in Minneapolis” postcard with the same art … and there are probably others.
The amazing sensation of being airborne
Mary Netta Abe tagged Perfect Duluth Day on Facebook with this image. She was born in Duluth, but her family moved away.
“I still have dreams with the old, familiar images of my childhood,” she writes. “I have flying dreams, which are my favorite; I can feel the amazing sensation of being airborne. In one dream, I soared over the Aerial Bridge! As an artist, I used that dream as an inspiration for this drawing! I will always love Duluth!”
The Boat Club Restaurant & Bar to replace Midi
Jason Vincent
After one last New Year’s Eve celebration, Midi shuttered its doors for good. But the prime location the restaurant occupied in the lower level of the historic Fitger’s Brewery Complex, with its patio and unparalleled lake view, won’t be dormant for long.
Renovations are already underway for the Boat Club Restaurant & Bar, a fine dining establishment set to open in Midi’s old space Valentine’s Day weekend. (more…)
Wanted: Exhibit Artist / Graphic Designer
The Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wis., is seeking a graphic designer to complete artwork for its upcoming exhibit. Find out the details at cablemuseum.org.
Backyard LED Hockey Rink
The list of oddball Minnesota hockey rinks is growing. In December Liftoff Aerials showed off PDD’s pond hockey rink shaped like the North Star State. Now, Gopher Aerial presents Shawn Carlon’s backyard rink in Maple Grove, which uses LED lights for added nighttime fun.
HF 41: Student Physical Privacy Act
Posted without comment:
1.1 A bill for an act
1.2 relating to education; establishing the Student Physical Privacy Act; proposing
1.3 coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapter 121A.
1.4 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
1.5 Section 1. [121A.35] STUDENT PHYSICAL PRIVACY ACT. (more…)
Aqua Kids: Lake Superior Stormwater Management
Aqua Kids, a nationally syndicated television series created to educate young people about “ecology, wildlife, science and how it all relates to them,” shot several episodes in the Duluth area last summer. In this edition, the Aqua Kids get an up-close look at how Superior handles storm-water runoff. From retention ponds to engineered wetlands, the Aqua Kids don waders and headlamps to climb into the storm drains of Duluth to help divert toxic road runoff from entering a trout stream.
PDD Herzog Zone
If you’ve followed Perfect Duluth Day for any length of time you know one of the more prolific commenters is “Helmut Flaag,” who for a five-year stretch went under the handle “Herzog.” I’m often curious about whether people enjoy his contributions or find them annoying.
Personally, and as one of the moderators of PDD, I have mixed feelings. I often find Helmut/Herzog’s remarks to be well crafted and amusing, but they occasionally consist of a flurry of antagonistic threadjacks about how lumbersexuals are destroying rock and roll with their old-time banjo music.
So it’s time to start a thread specifically dedicated to our mysterious opinionated friend. (more…)
R.I.P. Francine York
Aurora, the Iron Range city about an hour north of Duluth, was home to Francine York. “From the 60s and into the 70s, she was a guest-star on dozens of series, with some of her most remembered roles from Batman, Lost In Space, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Streets of San Francisco.”
Bleeding Cool has the obituary for this Northland celebrity.
To the Battlements, Wherever and Whatever They Are
I think about September 11th a lot. More, lately.
I was working at Duluth’s now-defunct Ripsaw newspaper at the time, and we were confounded for the first hours. Do you remember the world in which an attack on U.S. shores was impossible? The idle impenetrability of the United States? We invaded. The world was our bully pulpit. But that day, the paradigm shifted as surely and as immediately as that of a new mother, who, in the second her child leaves her body finds her heart, her worst fears, vulnerable and exposed to the worst the world has to offer. You could almost hear it, the snap of collective consciousness as the reality became apparent, over the day. One hour at a time, our perceived security, the luxury of our superiority, rolled away like so many layers of fog.
My sister came and picked me up. We drove around, listening to the soundtrack from the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and tuning in to the news for updates. We smoked a million American Spirit cigarettes. We felt scared.
Later, I stood on the balcony of my third-floor apartment, on the phone with my best friend. “We’re going to war,” he said.
“Definitely,” I replied. (more…)
(It’s all about that) Duluth Bass Player Adam Booker
Woot for the local artist, internationally recognized. In the Contrabass Conversations podcast from Prague, Duluth bassist Adam Booker is interviewed about …
- traditional jazz bass lines and what notes were really being played
- confessions from a former string neurotic
- what surprised Adam the most about academia
- Stefon Harris and his description of scales as a collection of emotions
- hanging up on Milt Hinton … and then watching Jeopardy! with him
- not just creating great bassists, but creating great people
Selective Focus: Kristina Estell
For the first Selective Focus of 2017, we start off with Kristina Estell’s sculpture and installations which depend on form and material but are also defined by their locations around the world.
K.E.: I studied sculpture in undergrad at Herron School of Art and in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Very early in my art education, I knew I was interested in making serial sculptural work that interacted with architectural and outdoor spaces as opposed to singular traditional forms that lived on pedestals. In recent years, I have become primarily an installation artist who creates dimensional work with a variety of materials, processes and spaces. My work is often site-specific or site-responsive … making projects that consider a particular location and/or context. Silicone molding rubber, natural stones, fabric, live plants and gold leaf are a few of my favorite mediums. In between larger projects, I love taking up the process of watercolor painting and have an ongoing series based on bubble wrap packaging material. (more…)
The cost of adding solar panels to a Duluth home or business
The Duluth Shines! solar application launched this week, allowing Duluthians curious about the viability of including solar in their home or business energy mix to use an interactive map to find results for installation sizing and cost. UMD’s Geospatial Analysis Center is in the process of digitizing a few remaining neighborhoods in the city, and expects the application to cover all buildings in Duluth by February. (more…)
Brief Summer Swim Shot
Been waiting to post this for deep winter: a few seconds of crystal clear underwater summertime Lake Superior.