His Body
It was his 73rd birthday. He’d been taken into inpatient psychiatric care the night before, a phone call I had received while out at a bar with a group of friends. We were watching a Minneapolite musician, Dessa, play at Pizza Lucé in downtown Duluth. I liked Dessa’s music, but I really liked her writing. She’d detailed her experience rewiring her brain to forget a dangerous, almost obsessive love affair: the mechanics of love, told in poetry and electromagnetic imaging. Before the psychological intervention, she said, she had a kind of wild and inevitable connection to this man who could not be trusted with her heart. They were incendiary together, in good ways and not: a fire started with a glance, burning down the house with everyone inside. I’ve never had a love like that, but I could feel it anyway — her despair, her passion, and the terrible realization that whatever was happening in her was above or beneath her conscious mind, scratched into her whole brain. Every thought she had about anything traversed the rough path of that scratch — removing him from her heart was reductive: she needed to remove him from the apparatus of her Self, the thing that made her her.
I didn’t understand why this was so moving to me at the time, but now I do. (more…)
Postcard from Lakeside Presbyterian Church
Lakeside Presbyterian Church was founded in 1890 and the building shown in this undated postcard went up at 4430 McCulloch St. in 1921, replacing the church’s previous building there. (more…)
Shippee – “Moonlight”
Duluth’s Blake Shippee has a solo album titled It All Started from a Whisper. The second music video release is directed by Shane Nelson. (more…)
The Slice: Fall Colors at Downer Park
A look at the fall colors and the general peacefulness of the season in Downer Park, a 17-acre undeveloped space in Duluth’s Woodland neighborhood.
In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.
OMG, that’s a lot of smoke in this video
I’m plunking about in the Archive.org site, and this video shows the Duluth harbor as a dystopian nightmare of smoke at about 2:30.
What an amazing transformation how we fuel our ships and how we imagine our port.
Meet the Candidates: Duluth General Election 2022
Meet the Candidates offers up to five minutes for candidates on the Duluth General Election ballot to speak to their platforms. (more…)
Maya Hawke – “Sweet Tooth”
The latest reference to Duluth in song comes from Maya Hawke, daughter of actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. She released her second album, Moss, in September. The song “Sweet Tooth” mentions an empty theater in Duluth around the 30-second mark. (more…)
Mystery Photo: Duluth Home Builders
Who are they? Where are they? When was this? The only clues come from a few scribbles on the back of the photo. (more…)
Former St. Louis County Jail renamed Leijona
The Duluth News Tribune reports that remodeling of the former St. Louis County Jail is near completion. It is expected to open in January as a 33-unit apartment building named Leijona, the Finnish word for lion.
PDD Quiz: Halloween Happenings 2022
Get your spooky on with this week’s quiz about upcoming Halloween events! For more seasonal hijinks, check out the Halloween filter on the PDD calendar.
The next PDD quiz will review this month’s headlines; it will be published on Oct. 30. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Oct. 26. (more…)
Know Your Candidates: 2022 County Sheriff Race
As promised following the initial coverage of the St. Louis County Sheriff race in the primary election, the embedded PDF below contains in-depth interviews with the two remaining candidates, Jason Lukovsky and Gordon Ramsay, about issues that are important to LEAN Duluth. The Law Enforcement Accountability Network is a volunteer-run data-analysis group and public communications resource for organizers working for police accountability. (more…)
Video: Fall Colors at Enger Park
Videographer Adam Jagunich captures the fall colors around Enger Tower in Duluth via his Yuneec Typhoon H Plus hexacopter.
Dick Anthony: Basement Popcorn Entrepreneur of Duluth
Dick Anthony of Duluth made popcorn in his basement circa 1952 for distribution to local stores, where it was sold in dispensers. The video clip is from the television series “Industry on Parade,” which was created by the National Association of Manufacturers and ran from 1950 to 1960. (more…)
Climate>Duluth: Kat Soares of Deep Adaptation Forum
Climate>Duluth host Tone Lanzillo interviews Kat Soares of Deep Adaptation Forum, which offers free events and online platforms for people who are seeking and building supportive communities to face the reality of the climate crisis.
Big, fat black bear montage / wolves eating blueberries
The folks at the Voyageurs Wolf Project keep rolling out the hits with their trail camera videos. Above, clips of the chubbiest bears in Voyageurs National Park this summer. Below, rare footage of wolves eating blueberries — and perhaps the first footage of a mom and her pup foraging for blueberries together.
‘The bridge between Duluth and Superior’
“The bridge between Duluth and Superior” appears at just after the 1-minute mark in the circa-1957 short film Al-Can Trailer Trek, which promotes trailer traveling. After the quick bridge shot, zoom, it’s straight to International Falls.
This bridge is the Duluth/Superior Interstate Bridge, which was replaced when the Blatnik Bridge opened in 1961. Parts of the Interstate Bridge still exist as a fishing pier on Rice’s Point. (more…)
Admiral Fallow and El Niño IPA
Ten years ago today — Oct. 11, 2012 — the Scottish alternative rock band Admiral Fallow performed on KEXP-FM in Seattle, Wash. What does that have to do with Duluth? Well, note the familiar-looking shirt worn by singer-songwriter Louis Abbott. (more…)
Northeastern Minnesota Book Award Winners for 2022
Ojibwe homesteads, shipwrecks and working class haunts provide just some of the backdrops for works honored by this year’s Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards. (more…)
Shippee – “Jolene”
Duluth’s Blake Shippee, known for his work as front man of the bands Boxcar and Glen’s Neighbor, has a solo album set for release Oct. 12. His new music video is for a song about anxiety. It’s directed by Richard Medek of Bones & Wire. Familiar scenes in the video include the West Theater and Pizza Lucé.
Spooked in Duluth
Oopsy Annie tells spooky tales from her recent visit to Duluth — featuring ghostly tales from Fitger’s, Old Central and Glensheen. (more…)
The Slice: Who cleans the statues?
The Institute for the Study of Light and Water reviews endless summer 2022
Records of Spring: Spotty
Lightbeams solid enough to climb pierce the windows of the Institute for the Study of Light and Water, rousing my eye like a hibernating bear. Dawn presents a temporal crisis. Borges said no one staying up all night welcomes the dawn. So the arrival of spring at the Institute. Records of spring are spotty. The brook babbled after a long vow of silence. The snow was gone which meant April had definitely passed. Cautious leaves popped out. Then the Institute blinked and endless summer began.
Walt Dizzo on ‘The Local’ spinning Duluth oldies
Longtime KUWS radio host Walt Dizzo crossed the bridge to appear on WDSE “The North” for the Sept. 28 episode of “The Local.” Joining the show’s host, Malachy Koons, Dizzo dove into rare finds from his personal collection to share on the show, which generally features more modern local music. Three tracks were from the present millennium, but most of them were golden oldies. The episode is archived online an can be listened to at thenorth1033.org. (more…)
Postcard from Skyline of Business District from Harbor
This postcard from the mid-20th century shows Duluth’s business district as seen from the harbor. (more…)
Low Concerts on the Internet Archive
There are an array of Low concerts available on the Internet archive. Joy joy joy while also vaguely restful.
The master list of recordings is at archive.org/details/lowmusic. (more…)