Sketch Bomb with John Hoban at UMD
Local artist John Hoban organized a Sketch Bomb at UMD.
John Hoban, creator of Captain Artichoke, Apocalypse City, and Night of the Smurfing Dead, lead a Sketch Bomb at UMD on Monday. The event was planned by Pat Maus of the Archives and Special Collections area of UMD’s Martin Library. (more…)
Kip’s Memory Card Dump #6
Duluth photo-raconteur Kip Praslowicz has published another memory-card dump video, this one covering December 2015 to March 2016, including the Duluth Art Institute’s Annual Membership Show, the Bernie Sanders rally and on and on.
Commerce on the River: Loll Designs
In a manufacturing facility a few hundred feet from Stryker Bay in West Duluth, Greg Benson leads a company dedicated to making outdoor furniture “for the modern lollygagger.” Before launching Loll Designs, however, Benson built skateboard ramps. He started out in his neighbor’s garage and eventually worked with municipalities to design and implement custom skate parks. The excess materials turned out to make attractive and durable Adirondack-style chairs, and a new business was born.
“A lot of people assume that I must have been a skater, but really I enjoy hiking, kayaking, camping and being outdoors much more,” Benson says. He and his brother Dave, both University of Minnesota Duluth graduates, along with Tony Ciardelli , founded both Loll and Epicurean, a company that makes cutting boards and other kitchen products. They sold TrueRide in 2008 to a California company and took what they had learned and ran with it. (more…)
2015-2016 Duluth Shred
A somewhat lengthy montage of face-planting, ball-busting, spine-scratching ski and snowboard stunts from the past winter, compiled by Will Smyth.
Duluth Band Profile: Emily Haavik
Emily Haavik looks like any other person you could see on the street. But when she’s on the stage, you hear something larger than life. Click on the image above to hear the interview.
Homegrown Banner Submissions
We’re looking for Homegrown-related banners for that funky horizontal space at the top of the page. The image must be 1135 pixels wide by 197 pixels high.
To submit a banner photo, e-mail your JPEG file to: banners @ perfectduluthday.com
We’ll run the banners during the Homegrown Festival next week.
Postcards from the Swinging Bridge at Jay Cooke State Park
The text on the back of old-school Swinging Bridge postcards tends to read the same no matter what the image: “This unique Swing Bridge spans the St. Louis River in Jay Cooke State Park, 4,000 acres of rugged picturesque beauty along the rapids of the St. Louis River, extending from Carlton, Minn., to Fond du Lac, a suburb of Duluth.” (more…)
This just in: It’s windy
It kind of looks like the Superior Entry Breakwater Lighthouse is going to blow over in this video via Richard Hoeg’s 365 Days of Birds. (more…)
Denfeld Lip Dub 2016: “We Run this Town”
UPDATE: As is plainly visible, a copyright claim on the music used in this video resulted in it being pulled from YouTube after one day. Follow this link to see an updated version without the Jay Z track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euwPRIJcASc
Denfeld High School 2016 lip dub project. Full disclosure, I work at Denfeld as some kind of educator. The third annual all-school lip dub dropped today, something students and educators worked on closely for the past couple of months. It’s a mash up of Beyoncé and Jay Z’s “Crazy in Love” and “We Run this Town.”
If this is the future of Duluth, I think we can all be very hopeful and proud. Particularly noteworthy for me is the way that we see strong, confident and successful women portrayed prominently in the video.
R.I.P. Walt Pederson
Walter H. Pederson, a Duluth native and member of the Plaisted Arctic expedition, died Friday in St. Cloud at the age of 88.
Pederson served as mechanic on Ralph Plaisted’s crew, which reached the North Pole by snowmobile in 1968. The subject gained new attention last month when the New York Times published an account of the expedition. In early April the Hollywood infotainment website Deadline reported Will Ferrell will star in film about the Plaisted expedition.
Pederson’s obituary in the St. Cloud Times notes he was a “sailor, cowboy, mechanic, racer, teacher, businessman, inventor, explorer, author, politician, entrepreneur, scientist, private eye, hero, friend, husband, father and grandfather.” Services will be held Friday in Milaca.
NorShor Theatre: A Look Inside Before the Restoration
Dan Turner spelunks the NorShor Theatre and Temple Opera Block in the latest feature on his Substreet website. From the projection room to the roof to the squatter’s apartment in the basement, it’s one of the last chances to see things as they were/are. Construction will be begin soon to renovate the NorShor, which will be operated by the Duluth Playhouse.
This Week: Sharks, stories, songwriters and more
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find on this week’s PDD Calendar:
UWS holds a forum on sexual assault that includes a film screening, UMD invites young entrepreneurs into its Shark Tank, the St. Louis County Historical Society welcomes author Megan Marsnik to its 94th annual meeting, the United Way holds its Live United Luncheon, new Duluth mayor Emily Larson gives her first State of the City Address, Wisconsin Public Radio presents a public reading of stories about the St. Louis River and “investigative songwriter” Dave Lippman comes to town.
It’s time for Wine and Chee’s at the Depot, a number of local poets read at Barnes & Noble, the Duluth community is invited to ask questions of the finalists for police chief, the comedy Seminar opens at Teatro Zuccone, the annual Spring Book Sale takes place in Superior, the new Northern Waters location holds its grand opening and Woodblind releases its debut album with two shows.
Snowmelt 2
Snowmelt 2 shows the same area of Chester Creek as Snowmelt 1, but preceding it chronologically, so this video should really be called Snowmelt 1.
Duluth Book Releases in 2016
In and Out of Context
Photography by Tim White
With excerpts from 21 northland writers
inandoutofcontextbook.blogspot.com
(Jan. 21)
The Duluth Grill Cookbook II
Written by Robert Lillegard
Photography by Rolf Hagberg
duluthgrill.com/cookbooks
(Feb. 29)
Wing Young Huie on Immigration
Found at a local antique shop for fifty cents: An issue of Lake Superior Port Cities magazine (now Lake Superior Magazine) with an article and photos by Wing Young Huie. (more…)
St. Louis River at Hudson’s Bay Company
This postcard, sent from Hibbing on Sept. 9, 1907, to Miss Hanna Backman of Ironwood, Mich., depicts, a “scene on the St. Louis River” in Duluth’s Fond du Lac neighborhood, “where the Hudson Bay Co. established a trading post about the year 1640.”
The Hudson’s Bay Company in general, however, wasn’t founded until 1670, so, as usual, take postcard caption information for what it is worth. (more…)
Actual Wolf – “Thinking of You”
In this video, WDSE-TV’s The PlayList captures Actual Wolf performing “Thinking of You” as an opener for Trampled by Turtles at Bayfront Park on July 11, 2015.
Upcoming gig: Actual Wolf plays Rex Bar at Fitger’s on Saturday, May 7, during the Homegrown Music Festival.
Barbarian
My friend John and his wife Chieko left John’s son from his first marriage behind at Stone Farm. Stone Farm, Suffolk, is all I need to write as an address on the letters and postcards I send to him twice a year in the United Kingdom. The family home (occupied by John, Chieko, John Jr., and John’s mother) is older than the United States. When the bowing timbers used to frame the home were cut, the colonies were still colonies.
John spent a week in Duluth. He was to give lectures at the Alworth Institute about energy policy in the U.K. And of course, ostensibly, he was here to visit his friend, David. But John was a fisherman. You don’t cross the Atlantic to talk about U.K. dependence on natural gas to Minnesotans. You come to fish.
We visited Gooseberry, and John took romantic photos under the falls. We ate smoked fish and lobster — John ate at Red Lobster so many times because the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar was so favorable. (more…)
Price Check: Pint of Bent Hop
Bent Hop is a golden India pale ale brewed in Duluth’s friendly West End by Bent Paddle Brewing, a 30-barrel production brewery and taproom that uses water from Lake Superior. Bent Hop has a big citrus bitterness with a medium malt support. The alcohol by volume is 6.2 percent. Compare that to the domestics with an average ABV of 4.2%, and you have yourself a craft beer that’ll bend you over during hoppy hour.
For the purposes of this price check, we compared prices of Bent Hop on tap rather than in a can.
Here lies the sixth feature for the Price Check series where we compare prices of products — from bars and restaurants in this case — in Duluth and Superior. The prices below reflect the rate the establishment charges with tax included. For the most part, bars factor the tax into a flat, rounded off price. Many restaurants, however, don’t mind picking up pocket change. Duluth establishments charge 13.125 percent tax on alcoholic beverages; Superior establishments charge 5.5 percent tax. Since the taxes are extra complicated on this Price Check, we break them down at the end of the list. (more…)
Walter Whitehead’s Last Fight
One time, way back in 1909, two pugilists who’d been exchanging “hard words” around Duluth, tried to evade the law by conducting a prizefight on a scow in the middle of the St. Louis River. This is the story of regional boxing champion Walter Whitehead’s last fight.
Selective Focus: Marian Lansky
Marian Lansky is part of the team the operates the Kenspeckle Letterpress, one of the most interesting, fun studio/shops in town. It combines centuries-old art processes with modern technology to create loads of great work. There will be an Earth Day open studio and shop on Saturday, April 23, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the second floor of the DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace, an opportunitity to stop in and see the work and meet the artist. Marian and her husband, Rick Allen, will also be a part of Siivii’s Earth Day show, just across the alley from DeWitt-Seitz.
Below, Marian explains her work and process in her own words. (more…)