Mary Mack ribs Duluth on Tonight Show
Comedian Mary Mack performed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Friday. During the set she mentions her mother is “from that very bland Scandinavian country called Duluth, Minnesota.”
Mack’s parents are both Duluth natives and Mack herself was raised in Webster, Wis., about 50 miles south of Duluth.
PDD Quiz: Holiday Tunes
Whip up a Tom & Jerry, spin a festive record, and settle in for this week’s quiz about local(ish) holiday tunes!
The final PDD quiz of the year will look back at headlines from 2022; it will be published on Dec. 25. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Dec. 21. (more…)
Traditional Christmas folk musical stylings of Goat Hill Quartet
On Saturday, I was at Wussow’s for coffee, and midway through the morning Goat Hill Quartet appeared. The group’s traditional Christmas folk musical stylings raised money for Loaves and Fishes.
Media Excavation: WHYZ in the Age of the Seaway
WHYZ was the ABC affiliate in Duluth — I think it would become WDIO? Or did WDIO begin after WHYZ died? (more…)
Alyson Hannigan: Duluth Streetwalker
During its nine-season run on the CBS television network, the sitcom How I Met Your Mother dropped numerous references to Minnesota, the home state of one of the show’s primary characters, Marshall Eriksen. In season 8, episode 10, titled “The Over-Correction,” Duluth finally got mentioned.
The episode aired 10 years ago today — Dec. 10, 2012. (more…)
Boots: A Love Story
“A hoarder is someone with an unusual ability to see beauty in the ordinary.” I heard Malcolm Gladwell say that during a harvest, and had to pause and write it down (the Dragon Psychology 101 episode, which aired at the midpoint of 2020).
Exactly two years and twenty days ago, I rescued these ancient Red Wing boots from the trash. The sound of the garbage truck trundling down the alley produced a pang of regret, so I pulled them from atop a frozen bag of excrement at the last possible moment:
Reunion with these works of art wrought rhapsodic joy. A rabbit hole opened. I dove way down, even though I knew it didn’t make much sense. Every drop of value had been squeezed from them already, or so I thought.
I set them in the sun, and admired them. My adoration, combined with the angling sun’s illumination, bordered on the beatific. I shot several photos. Perhaps that would be enough to say goodbye. Sensing more, however, I kept going. (more…)
KDAL sells the Duluth-Superior-Iron Range market
KDAL 610 AM is a commercial talk radio station in Duluth, owned and operated by Midwest Communications. There was also a KDAL-TV, which later became KDLH and then merged with KBJR. (more…)
Selective Focus: Mana Bear Bolton’s Paintings and Murals
Mana Bear Bolton live painting on Tower Avenue in Superior in August 2021. (Photo by Jess Morgan)
Between colorful murals, acrylic paintings of beloved pets, playful watercolors and flow arts, Mana Bear has been making the Twin Ports region and beyond more beautiful for nearly a decade. Learn more about Mana’s work in the interview below. (more…)
Media Excavations: Ojibway Publications
Well, I’m not sure how to feel about posting this advert pulled from the Media History Digital Library, because the name of the company bears no connection to the people, that I can tell …
… but Ojibway Publications was a nationally significant trade-magazine publisher located in Duluth. (more…)
Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural: Art in This Present Moment
The Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural in Duluth, led by artist Moira Villiard, visually tells the story of a community and the descendants of Chief Buffalo, remembered as a prominent figure that led the Anishinaabe to permanent resettlement in northern Minnesota. Started in 2019, this project also features work from other artists such as Michelle Defoe (Red Cliff Ojibwe), Awanigiizhik Bruce (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe) and Sylvia Houle (Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe).
Video via the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, a community foundation that serves all of Minnesota with nearly $2 billion in charitable assets for community good.
Duluth, a Cosmopolitan City
Advertising campaigns for Duluth’s KDAL radio in the trade press were intent on revealing the cosmopolitan dimensions of Duluth. These ads both reveal Duluth’s unique industries and reveal that some of Duluth’s retail, especially, can stand shoulder to shoulder with other major urban areas. (more…)
Trampled by Turtles with Alan Sparhawk – “When I Go Deaf”
Alan Sparhawk joined Trampled by Turtles for a performance of the Low song “When I Go Deaf” two weeks ago at the Armory in Minneapolis. Gina Nagler Smith captured the performance in this video. (more…)
Media Excavations: Duluth-Superior Television Revolution
This ad campaign, luring businesses to advertise on TV in Duluth/Superior uses a picture of supporters of the Revolutionary government of Cuba manning a machine gun post overlooking one of the main streets, Zapata Avenue, into the heart of Havana, Jan. 4, 1959. (more…)
Loiselle Liquor ends 88-year run; new owners plan name change
Loiselle Liquor Store, 413 E. Fourth St., was owned and operated by the Loiselle family for 88 years. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske).
The oldest liquor store in Duluth has changed hands and will take on a new name for the first time in nearly nine decades.
Loiselle Liquor Store, 413 E. Fourth St., was sold by the Loiselle family this spring to Matthew Krueger and Katherine Eagle of Cloquet. St. Louis County property tax records showed the sale price at $360,000 for the two-story building — which was constructed in 1893 as the Goering Block. (more…)
“They Want Culture but Won’t Watch It”
Radio and television audiences in Duluth were surveyed in 1961. While the general demographics could be useful for media historians, it might surprise the readers of Perfect Duluth Day that, in 1961, the category of “first generation Scandinavian immigrants” was statistically significant in a survey like this. We are not so far away from the days when Duluth was a rich community built from immigrants, with all the magic and tension that follows from immigration.
Information from Media History Digital Library. (more…)
Colleen “Boss Mama” Myhre with New Salty Dog at Radio Waves
Colleen “Boss Mama” Myhre and New Salty Dog teamed up at the 15th annual Radio Waves Music Festival in Grand Marais back in September. The video was shot by Bear Witness Media for WTIP North Shore Community Radio, with an audio mix by Will Moore.
Media Excavations: KDAL and WEBC
Briefly, Duluth-Superior radio stations KDAL and WEBC advertised together. I found these joint ads while scouring a database of media trade publications. (more…)
Media Excavations: WEBC
I’ve been excavating media magazines for references to Duluth. Some of them are adverts for WEBC 560 AM, which is presently branded at “Northland Fan” and broadcasts Duluth-area sports interspersed with statewide sports talk from KFAN in Minneapolis and national sports talk from FOX Sports Radio. (more…)
Great Lakes Now episode: “Great Lakes Wildlife”
This contains several segments including one about Enbridge Line 3 (@17:15), and a mention of Duluth’s “Water is Life” festival (@24:58).
Lord, to be 35 Forever
I wish I could remember more about the first Hold Steady concert I saw. I know it was in 2005 at the Duluth Pizza Lucé. I know I went alone. I’ll never forget how Lucé felt during shows back then. But beyond that I’ve got almost nothing. No memory of specific songs they played or how big they sounded in that small room or what happened in my body and brain while it was going on.
I can’t even remember why I went. I wasn’t a Hold Steady fan. For most of 2004 I’d seen music magazine stories about how supposedly great they were, and that was my reason for ignoring them. I was early-30s going on 15 in some ways. One way was that I resisted music other people liked, as I’d done since junior high, because how would anyone know how special I was if I didn’t oppose things other people supported? (Ask me how I still feel about U2, REM, Faith No More, and INXS.) Maybe I went because curiosity wore down my resistance and misjudgment. Maybe I’m remembering it wrong and I’d been listening to them for a while.
A fan site says the show was on March 12 (a Saturday). I think I remember Lucé being full but not as packed as I’d seen it for the Black-eyed Snakes, Brother Ali, Dillinger Four, or Trampled by Turtles. Not chaotic like those shows. I think it was for sure the first time I’d heard any Hold Steady songs. Did I get bored? Sometimes that happens if I don’t know the songs, even when a band is good. Could I make out any lyrics? I had to like the actual music, which sounds like classic rock, punk, power pop, and other genres the Gen X music omnivores in the band would have inhaled while growing up. (more…)
The War Widow from Duluth Who is Worried About Frances
Forty years ago today — Dec. 3, 1982 — the dramatic film Frances premiered in American theaters. In addition to featuring Cloquet native Jessica Lange in the leading role as Frances Farmer, the film also includes a reference to Duluth. (more…)
Duluth Central High School 1920 Zenith Yearbook
Archive.org has the 1920 Duluth Central High School yearbook, Zenith, available for perusal online.
“Bird Love Song” by Cory Coffman
Duluth’s Cory Coffman composed what he calls “this super cheesy love song from a musical that doesn’t exist.” Alexander Sandor is on piano, Adam Sippola sings and Alyssa Johnson of Blind Spot Creatives handles the video work.
Select Images from the 1941 Denfeld Oracle
The Internet Archive hosts the 1941 edition of the Denfeld Oracle. My friends’ grandparents — those are the folks I am looking for in here, I think. And a nod to “then and now.” (more…)
Climate>Duluth: Bruce Jennings of Vanderbilt University
Climate>Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews Bruce Jennings of Vanderbilt University. Jennings speaks to Health Policy and the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at VUMC, his former professor and mentor William Patrick Ophuls, Economics for the Anthropocene as well as the Centers for Humans and Nature.