Steve Solkela & Party Marty – “Carol of the Bells”
Accordionist Steve Solkela performs the popular Christmas song “Carol of the Bells” with Party Marty working the guitar and wine glasses.
Torment – “Die Alone”
Duluth band Torment is releasing a new EP, The Pain, on New Year’s Eve at Pizza Lucé. The “Die Alone” video was recorded and edited by Adam Tucker at Signaturetone Recording in Minneapolis.
Selective Focus: Swerty’s Visual Art
Behind the scenes putting together the layout of Duluth-based zines and poetry collections is a visual artist creating works in several mediums. Sabrina Wertman, or Swerty, has paintings and other artwork available at Alt Creative, The Loch Cafe and Games, and recently had a display up at Wussow’s Concert Cafe. They created the poster for the 2024 Boubville event, where attendees can interact with a new art installation they’re curating. Their visual art can continuously be found in issues of On the Record, a local arts zine that they contribute comics and complete the layout process for. Photos of their artwork and an interview with Swerty can be found below. (more…)
Duluth deserves better than a mismanaged tourism marketing contract
The city of Duluth is at a crossroads with its tourism marketing. After years of underwhelming performance from an out-of-town marketing firm, city leaders promised a better process and outcome this time.
City mismanagement, however, undermined that commitment. A poorly-planned and hastily-executed request-for-proposal process, confusing guidance and unnecessary delays have left Duluth with a troubling outcome: A recommendation to hire another out-of-town agency with no knowledge of the city’s tourism industry and significant client conflicts to lead Duluth tourism marketing for the next two years. (more…)
Postcard from Duluth’s Carnegie Library in 1914
This postcard was mailed Dec. 2, 1914 — 110 years ago today. It shows Duluth’s Carnegie Library at 101 W. Second St. Constructed in 1902, it was Duluth’s main library until 1980. The building has since served as an office building. (more…)
Naomi has a Substack
If you have lived in Duluth a long time, you know (and maybe miss) the voice of Naomi Yeager. Naomi was an editor of the now-defunct Duluth Hillsider and also led the Budgeteer. It was under Naomi’s editorship that I got a lot of my non-PDD writing lessons — she was a great editor.
Naomi now maintains a SubStack. Link below if you want to hear her unique voice again. (more…)
Ice Spikes on Kingsbury Creek in West Duluth
From Wikipedia: “An ice spike is an ice formation, often in the shape of an inverted icicle, that projects upwards from the surface of a body of frozen water. Ice spikes created by natural processes on the surface of small bodies of frozen water have been reported for many decades, although their occurrence is quite rare. … Natural ice spikes can grow into shapes other than a classic spike shape, and have been variously reported as ice candles, ice towers or ice vases as there is no standard nomenclature for these other forms.”
PDD Geoguessr #31: Gridlock
An intersection of grids along North Central Avenue near Denfeld (image from Google Earth)
Duluth formed from the merger of multiple smaller townships, with these townships themselves comprised of multiple different housing additions. These additions were almost always laid out on a grid, but the orientation of that grid was often effected by the often challenging elements of Duluth’s geography, such as rivers, streams, hills, and Lake Superior, as well as the existence of other grids. In the early days of Duluth, the different grid systems had gaps between them, but as the city grew, the gaps closed, resulting in some novel intersections and street patterns. This Geoguessr looks at the conflict between different grid systems in Duluth. (more…)
Illustrating Hunger and Homelessness: Aparna Katre
Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.
Food insecurity, housing insecurity, poverty and social justice are intertwined, a knot of problems facing our community. Thirteen percent of Duluthians face food insecurity, and more than 54% of renter-households are rent burdened. Often these difficult social problems are addressed by nonprofit organizations that run food pantries or housing shelters. They build affordable housing and support people living on the street. While these workers are heroes, they are also human, and their stories are also intertwined with larger issues like poverty and social justice. These frontline workers are also often former college students who enter the job market with the consequential task of supporting those who others have left behind. (more…)
Duluth Panorama Circa the Early 1960s
This Duluth Panaroma is from the Cliff’s Barber Shop Collection. It was likely shot in 1962, but might be from ’63 or ’64. At center is the Aerial Lift Bridge in the up position. (more…)
Big Into “Tundra Monstera”
When a tropical climbing-plant monster emerges on the shores of Lake Superior, the Iron Range nerd-rock band Big Into is ready with a the musical soundtrack.
Ingeborg von Agassiz – “Over the River and Through the Wood”
Duluth’s Ingeborg von Agassiz has a new single with a Thanksgiving theme. The full version of “Over the River and Through the Wood” is available for listening and downloading on Bandcamp. The song is based on a poem written in 1844 by Lydia Maria Child.
Video Archive: Minnesota Trivia Tour, 1984
This clip from the WDIO-TV archive is from 40 years ago today — Nov. 28, 1984. It features Duke Skorich asking questions from the then-new Minnesota Trivia Tour game. (more…)
Iron Range Outlaw Brigade – “Rednecks, White Trash, and Blue Collar Blues”
Iron Range Outlaw Brigade has a new single, “Rednecks, White Trash, and Blue Collar Blues.” It’s the band’s first release with John Lamar on drums; Glen Mattson has moved from drums to guitar. The video was directed by singer/guitarist Kirk Kjenaas. The rest of the band is made up of John Peterson on 10-string pedal steel and Fred Hanson on bass.
Getting Involved in Regional Sustainable Development
I spent two days this fall with the University of Minnesota Extension’s Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, which brings community leadership to the table with the research and educational resources of the University of Minnesota. I’m the last half of that sentence, I guess. (more…)
Martin DeWitt: Expressing Life With Creativity
One can hear the anguish in Martin DeWitt’s voice as he talks about artists who are suffering. When Hurricane Helene hit Asheville, North Carolina in September, the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers came together with powerful force. The flooding devastated Asheville’s entire River Artist District.
DeWitt, who lived and worked in the Asheville area for more than a decade, had followed the hurricane’s path. “It wiped out the first and second floors of galleries and shops … the water totally demolished them,” he said. “Over 20 galleries and studios … the artwork of over 200 artists, were all destroyed.” The artists were DeWitt’s friends and colleagues. (more…)
PDD Quiz: November 2024
Get your brain in gear and test your memory of current events with this week’s quiz!
A holiday-themed PDD quiz skis your way on Dec. 15. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Dec. 11. (more…)
Video Archive: Duluth Commercials from 2004
It can be intolerable to watch a two-minute commercial break in any era, during that era, but somehow watching 13 minutes of them can be moderately entertaining with the passage of time. When commercials are fresh, the cheesiness is just too close; it’s embarrassing to our humanity. As the decades pass, the novelty supersedes the shame.
And so Perfect Duluth Day dusts off the VCR to reluctantly present a thick montage of 20-year-old TV spots. (more…)
Postcard from Duluth to David Letterman
This unmailed postcard, published by Erickson Postcards & Souvenirs, shows an early 1980s (or perhaps late 1970s) scene of boats clustered outside the Duluth Harbor. The card must have been commissioned for promotional use by KDLH-TV in the 1990s or later, however, because it is preaddressed to David Letterman, courtesy of what was then the local CBS affiliate. Late Night with David Letterman ended its run on NBC-TV in June 1993 and the Late Show with David Letterman launched on CBS two months later. (more…)
Selective Focus: Clowns, Jesters and Mimes
A group of clowns at Cherry Koch’s clown karaoke birthday celebration at The Embassy. Photo by Jess Morgan.
Various arts experiences featuring clowns, mimes, jesters and circus-inspired shenanigans are having a moment in the Twin Ports arts scene. Some of those fools happen to be on the payroll at Perfect Duluth Day, which makes it the perfect journalistic inside-job for a feature marking the 10-year anniversary of PDD’s Selective Focus arts feature. (more…)
PDD Gift Guide 2024
It is the most wonderful time of the year — the time of giving and gifting to all the people in our lives. This holiday season is also an opportunity to shop local and support Twin Port businesses. Perfect Duluth Day’s nifty gifty gift guide features items from 15 local artists, shops and creators whose products could make the perfect present for anyone on your nice or naughty list. (more…)
Two Takes on Best Songwriter in Twin Ports and Minnesota
Recently, in my “Minnesota Writers” class at the University of Minnesota Duluth, we spent a week discussing songwriting, and as an exercise in fun, students voted on their favorite songwriter. Then, to get a different perspective, I went to the Music Resource Center and had the same conversation. I thought I would share the results. (more…)
Torment – “Swallow Your Teeth”
Duluth band Torment has a new music video for the title track to its 2022 album Swallow Your Teeth. The group is releasing a new EP, The Pain, on New Year’s Eve at Pizza Lucé with special guests Southpaw, Unfit, Frag and Chippy.
PDD Geoguessr #30: Minnesota and the Presidential Election
Minnesota 2024 presidential election results by county.
Minnesota’s electoral college votes have gone to the Democrats since 1976, longer than any other state. But unlike Washington D.C., which went 90% for Harris and has given its three electoral votes to the Democrats since 1964 (but is not a state), Minnesota’s politics are a bit more complicated. In its most simplistic form, the strongly left-leaning Twin Cities metro area counters the right-leaning Greater Minnesota population, with a few urban areas creating pockets of blue. But that’s the simplistic version. This post looks at the Minnesota results at the precinct level and includes three Greater Minnesota Geoguessr challenges. One visiting the precincts where Trump had the highest margins of victory, another for the precincts that went most strongly to Harris, and a third for precincts split right down the middle. (more…)