Bobby Aro: King of the Great Northwoods
WDSE-TV presents this one-hour documentary on Bobby Aro, the famed 1950-90s Northern Minnesota disc jockey, singer/songwriter and entertainer who put St. Louis County’s Highway 7 on the map. Aro’s Finn-glish novelty songs are well known throughout the Finish communities of the United States and Canada.
January 2005 in Review
- Low releases The Great Destroyer. (Video by Starfire.)
- The Twin Ports Music and Arts Collective closes.
- Nutty Meg’s closes.
- Eric Ringsred and his son Miles plan to open a drinking establishment called the Cider House at the old Snyder’s Superstop. (It never happens, and instead Dubh Linn Irish Pub opens there in 2006.)
- The Red Star Lounge is under construction at the Fitger’s Brewery Complex.
- Mike Neal opens Splash Beach Club in the former Western Tavern. It briefly serves as Duluth’s only alcohol-free weekend dance club.
- Management of the NorShor Theatre transfers from Chip Stewart and Craig Samborski to J.P. Rennquist.
Duluth Grants Available
The Duluth Legacy Endowment Fund is issuing more grants this year. The endowment has already donated almost $34,000 over the years. Go to the website for information and application information. Deadline to apply is Feb. 1.
The DLEF supports valued Duluth community programs. Anyone from a group involved in these areas should consider applying:
- Arts and culture
- Beautification
- Education
- Environment
- Human service
- Parks and recreation
Selective Focus: Vintage
Ava Francesca Battocchio, “Nopeming”
Not an oenophile or single-malter in the house, eh? Not to worry, lots of other great takes on “vintage” this week. I even took some liberties to pair my Grandma Mohrbacher, on what looks like the Duluth pier (anyone?), with myself and my Grandpa’s Electrolux- a company he sold door-to-door for while living here in the ’20s. Fun facts. (more…)
Pixel Farmer Yields Big Harvest for Locally Laid
Friend and local pixel farmer Lucie Amundsen yielded a big harvest when she wrote a reply to a letter complaining that her actual farming operation (“Locally Laid”) was too spicy for the grocery aisle.
She’ll be on the Daily Circuit (MPR) today; the story has been picked up regionally here and here and here.
Duluth creativity (and Duluth passion for sustainability) on the map!
Perfect Day Duluth
Is it just me or do you notice that a lot of people refer to this blog as “Perfect Day Duluth?”
1) What’s up with that? Why do people make that mistake?
2) When they do, do you correct them? How do you correct them without sounding like a pretentious know-it-all? I am a pretentious know-it-all, so that’s why I ask.
Poll: Best Play or Musical of 2014 (Elimination Round)
The nominations are in and it’s time to vote. Which Duluth-area theater production made your little Greek mask laugh or weep last year?
[poll id=”78″]
This poll is now closed. These two plays advance to the final poll:
Les Misérables – Duluth Playhouse
Red – Renegade Theater Company
Reel North film and video call for entries
Reel North is a new film and video series at Zinema 2 that asks people to bring in any film/video they’ve made for a screening in front of an audience of their peers. It’s open to absolutely everyone and anyone who wants to see their work up on the big screen. The first event will be Tuesday, March 31, from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is free. (more…)
Ken Marunowski @Zeitgeist
My friend, colleague and local artist Ken Marunowski has art on display at the Zeitgeist.
It’s a new body of work, and it’s worth a look.
Duluth-area Matchbook Collection
Perfect Duluth Day presents the Duluth Matchbook Collection — a gallery of small cardboard folders with a striking surface on one side, featuring images promoting select enterprises of the Arrowhead region. (more…)
Best Play or Musical of 2014 Nominations
It’s time again to look back at the previous year of locally produced theater and choose the nominees for Best Play or Musical. In 2013, the Duluth Playhouse Children’s Theatre’s production of Cats took top honors. What was your favorite play of 2014?
Wood Blind featuring Teague Alexy — “Working Man’s Song”
“Working Man’s Song” is the B-side to Wood Blind‘s recent 7-inch single release, “Big Voice.” Teague Alexy composed “Working Man’s Song” roughly 15 years ago; it appeared on the Teague Alexy with Medication album Sun, Moon and Heaven. Alexy provides lead vocals on the Wood Blind version, with Jason Wussow on guitar and Veikko Lepisto on upright bass.
This Week: candy, didgeridoo, comedy legends and more
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find on this week’s PDD Calendar:
Lots going on, in this third full week of January 2015. There’s the MLK March and Rally on Monday morning, a Library Luau for kids, an opportunity to find out if you own valuable antiques, a big photography show and a chilly Nerd Nite.
Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka, Jr. opens this week, Cheech and Chong and War bring the funk and the cannabis humor to the DECC, pond hockey is happening all weekend and Adam Sippola releases an album with a Sacred Heart show.
Certainly, there’s plenty of trouble to get into, this week.
Robert Adams on Display
I stopped by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth, on College Street, to see the art on display by Robert Adams.
The exhibit includes didactic panels that really opened up Rob’s art to me. It made clear the conscious efforts to blend the formalism of Josef Albers and the playfulness of Rosenquist (or at least of pop art like Rosenquist’s) with a public commitment to the environment and a personal exploration of identity. (more…)
Walking to Duluth
We have no idea if Julian Holenstein is really walking from Thunder Bay to Duluth via frozen Lake Superior or if the title of his video is a joke, but either way he’s worth a few awesomeness points.
PDD Video Lab: 1972 Birnamwood Homecoming Parade footage
Birnamwood, Wis. is in the vicinity of Wausau, a roughly four-hour drive from Duluth, but this 43-year-old parade footage is lovely enough to share anyway. Kudos to Duluth’s Kip Praslowicz for digitizing his grandfather Emil’s fine film work. Below are some possible soundtracks to go with the film.
Selective Focus: Perilous
Richard Narum, untitled
Mother Superior seems to have held a prominent place in the psyche of many of you who considered our “perilous” theme. It conforms to a theory of mine regarding what makes this area so unique; when you’re daily reminded that life is tenuous, highs and lows are more pronounced, and halcyon days are more precious. (more…)
Cooking on the Car: Northern Pike on the Manifold
This is the second episode of Cooking on the Cars’ west coast road trip.
Leaving Duluth: Feel free to write your own caption
“Leaving Duluth” postcard image from Arcade studio, roughly a century ago.
The Really Angry Bear Who Almost Upset the World
As this gem appears to have little if any local coverage whilst topping the list of our truly closest encounters, I’d like to explore it now and see if anyone in the community has memories or knowledge of this exciting chapter in history.
One of my favorite pastimes has to be pretending that ‘man’ hasn’t come as close as he has to setting this Garden of Eden ablaze, returning it to its former self of one giant cinder cone that only the smallest rodents underground survive. The itchy-trigger-fingers of sociopathic generals (immortalized in such films as How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) illustrate the kind of antics that happened right over the hill from here one fateful evening. (more…)
Macho Madness Day in Duluth
To mark the occasion of “Macho Man” Randy Savage being inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame, Eyewitness News Sports Director Dan Williamson dipped into the PDD Photo Archive and recalled the time Duluth Mayor John Fedo declared “Macho Madness Day” in the city of Duluth.
(more…)
Darkhood – “Destination”
According to the blurb on YouTube, the Duluth band Darkhood recorded this single in the 1960s.
“These lads allegedly recorded this at Chess Studios in Chicago and then subsequently lost most of the copies of this 45 when it melted in one of their cars,” the video description reads. “The flip side is great, too. Fuzz guitar and catchy garage from the Northlands; ain’t nothing better.”
The tune was ripped for YouTube from the original 45 by the Hold Tight DJ crew in St. Paul.
The Piedmont Smelt Incident
Aside from the occasional monster wave, there is no finer display of the raw and natural violence of her majesty’s beauty than the Lake Superior Cyclone. Air is churning over the water’s surface in a melee of suction and force that would clean the beard on a Lumbersexual or the balls off a beaver. They were visible near Stoney Point on New Years day of 2010 where you could see them toward Wisconsin pulling through gravity and time, swaying in the distance of a sunny cold afternoon.
Then I heard this fishy tale from a neighbor:
Coming home from kindergarten in about the spring of 1960, after school and dressed in his spacesuit rain gear, he sees funnel clouds over the lake. As the storm passes and nearing home he notices on the lawn a patch of small silver fish, then another yard with more of them, telling his dad who doesn’t believe him a tornado could siphon a school of smelt off the lake into the hills of old Piedmont.
Tin Can Gin – “Duluth” (live on the PlayList)
From season six, episode one of WDSE-TV’s The PlayList, bluegrass band Tin Can Gin performs the song “Duluth.”