PDD Quiz: April 2022
Review this month’s happenings and headlines in this current events quiz!
The next PDD quiz will be the third installment in the series on Duluth parks. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by May 11. (more…)
Postcard from Arch Street in Cloquet, 1912
Sidney Dahl of St. Cloud was the recipient of this postcard mailed 110 years ago today — April 23, 1912. The sender’s name was Ingga. (more…)
LineCheck: Nat Harvie
Duluth native Nat Harvie recently performed for the Current’s video series LineCheck. Above is “Waiting Song” and below is “No Ash.” Both tracks are from Harvie’s new EP, Married in Song. (more…)
Trampled by Turtles and Elizabeth Cook – “Old Shoes”
Trampled by Turtles were joined by country singer Elizabeth Cook for a cover of Tom Waits‘ “Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards)” on March 26 during a concert at GLC Live at 20 Monroe, a concert hall in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The video was shot by Justin Razmus, Heather Kanig and Cooper Baumgartner, and edited by 616 Media. The sound was mixed by Adam Krinsky.
It’s LTD Duluth!
This Twin Cities Public Television documentary, broadcast circa 1980, has a brief but kind-of-sexy Duluth moment. A clip from a Northland Ford commercial at the 12:12 mark of the video shows actors playing a Duluth couple standing in front of the Ford product chosen to represent the Zenith City — an LTD Country Squire station wagon with simulated woodgrain siding. (more…)
MMA Squirrel Fighting: Rat Face Ricky vs. Scum Bag Mac
Another mixed martial arts backyard battle in Duluth. In this edition Rat Face Ricky and Scum Bag Mac show off some of their Kung Fu moves. Video by Brian Luoma of Wild Cam North.
The Slice: Breaking Ice
Nelson Family Music
This documentary about the musical Nelson family was produced at the end of 2021 as part of the North by North Film School‘s Documentary Film Production class. It was directed by Carolyn Nelson-Kavajecz (more…)
Thoughts about the new ad campaign
The new campaign to increase tourism for Duluth had, I guess, a “soft open” this week, covered in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and on Fox 21. (more…)
Ripped at Shooter’s Saloon in 2002
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. The Sultan of Sot visited Shooter’s Saloon, 624 Tower Ave. in Superior, and composed this article for the April 3, 2002 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper. Shooter’s went out of business circa 2009.]
Shooter’s Saloon is a really nice place. The people who work there are efficient and friendly. The drinks are reasonably priced. The room is large and there are pool tables and a video hunting game with a big orange shotgun. Every time I go to Shooter’s, a live band is performing for no cover charge. Yet, it’s still the kind of a scene a judgmental guy like me looks at and says to himself, “How can I wreck this by weaponizing my prejudice?”
See, Shooter’s is a country-western line-dancing bar, and country-western line-dancing people love to go there. This is the one, only and perfectly acceptable reason why I’m bothered by Shooter’s and want to wreck it. I want to go up to any of the ridiculous posers there and say, “Howdy pardner. Nice belt buckle. You look like Nick Bockwinkel. Is that the AWA belt or World Class? Say, I have a question for you. I was just thinking about how Halloween was five months ago, yet you are still dressed up like you’re in a gay bar in Nashville, which got me to wondering, have you ever once milked, roped or gutted anything? Have you even shot a BB gun at a beer can? I mean, come on Hoss, we’re on the boozebelt of Superior, Wis. Who are you kidding?” (more…)
Seeking information on late local musician Lew Orsoni
I recently opened up an old binder of burned CDs and came across a much loved recording I had forgotten about attributed to Lew Orsoni. It sounds like a live recording. Wonderful ballad about Lake Superior, among other great tunes. I believe I got it from Lew’s son, who used to bartend at the old Twin Ports Brewing Company (predecessor of Thirty Pagan) 20 years ago. I recall Lew had passed away recently at that time. Just looking for info on the CD, Lew Orsoni’s music, and if others have memories of his performances around here.
Postcard from the Opening of Navigation Season
This undated postcard shows a freighter entering the Duluth Shipping Canal at some point in the early 1900s. (more…)
Sydney Hansen – “Somebody’s Nobody”
Duluth’s Sydney Hansen released this music video today, shot at Spurs on First and directed by Bo Allen of Bopro Video. Hansen cowrote the song with Nashville’s Bill DiLuigi.
Lake Superior College Wolf Fair
I attended the wolf event at Lake Superior College. It was awesome, a blending of art, science, and indigenous cultures, with representatives from the International Wolf Center, the Wildlife Science Center, Timber Wolf Alliance, Wildwoods, and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. (more…)
Graffiti Graveyard
The video by Shawn Donovan that previously was embedded here is no longer available.
Mystery Photos: Wide Awake and Green Dragon Studios
The three gentlemen in the photos above appear to be the same guys in different positions in front of different backgrounds with different cowboy outfits. They also are at two different Duluth photo studios, according to the ink stamps on the back. The first is from the Green Dragon Studio at 18 E. Superior St., and the second is from the Wide Awake Studio at 10 E. Superior St. (more…)
A look at the two-level infill house in West Duluth
Enter, a digital biweekly publication from the creators of Architecture MN magazine, takes a look at “a new prototype for building affordable houses on narrow lots in Duluth.”
Cry on Cue – “Sweetheart Like You”
The video for the first release from the fifth album in the Duluth Does Dylan series — Free Wheelin’ Duluth Does Dylan — is by Cry on Cue, featuring Bernie Larsen on vocals and various instruments, Alan Sparhawk on “big guitar” and Erik Koskinen on drums. The video is directed by Larsen and features Cassidy Linder.
Freewheelin’ Duluth Does Dylan will be released by Spinout Records on May 26 during the Duluth Dylan Fest.
1930s Footage of Duluth’s Streetcars and Incline Railway
The Minnesota Streetcar Museum presents this rare collection of Duluth streetcar footage from the 1930s — much of it in color — including scenes from West Duluth, Woodland and Downtown. The video was written, produced, narrated and directed by historian Aaron Isaacs, with production assistance from Bill Olexy.
Duluth’s streetcars were replaced by buses in 1939. (more…)
PDD Quiz: Homegrown 2022
Grab your field guide and start getting (cautiously) excited about the return of the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival with this week’s quiz!
The next PDD quiz rolls your way on April 24; it will cover this month’s headlines. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by April 21. (more…)
Bury Me in Hot Sauce
There is a Medieval legend of the honey mummy: holy men consuming nothing but honey until their excreta and fluids turn to honey, whereupon they die and are sealed in honey-filled stone caskets for a hundred years. Bites of their candied flesh are said to have curative powers, mystically evading definitions of cannibalism.
When I am 75, I will stop eating and drinking anything except hot sauce. After a month, my bodily fluids will become hot sauce. I will poop fiery chili paste like a sambal. The endorphins released with every bowel movement will keep me high as a kite. I will pee siracha sauce squirting like a squeeze bottle. My seminal fluid will be an organic salsa verde. My salivary glands will secrete tabasco. Weeping serrano tears from cayenne eyes, everything I see will have an apocalyptic tint. The interstitial fluid between my cells will run with fermented habanero. Since an all-out hot sauce diet is unsustainable, I will die. Fill a stone coffin with artisan ghost peppers, pureed scotch bonnets, Trinidad scorpions, jalapenos aged in wooden casks, vinegar, salt, lime, onions, and garlic. Place my body inside. Then seal it for 100 years. (more…)
Selective Focus: Emily Koch
Left: Photograph of Emily Koch. Right: “Self Portrait” 20×28. Oil on wood panel.
Emily Koch is a surrealist painter from Duluth. She studied fine art at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, graduating in 2020 and has worked as a freelance artist since then. She is drawn to all things queer, feminine and counterculture. (more…)
Hotel Pikku, an early Lincoln Park revival project, is up for sale
The building at 1923 W. Superior St. was constructed in 1899 and houses the Hotel Pikku and Hemlock Leather works. (Photo: gregfollmer.com)
A small, stylish boutique hotel that opened in a renovated historic building and helped transform Lincoln Park into a hip, trendy neighborhood is now for sale.
The three-suite, second-floor Hotel Pikku, 1923 W. Superior St., opened after owners Chelsy Whittington and Andy Matson purchased the building in 2016 and spent more than a year remodeling it. Hemlock Leatherworks, a custom shoemaker, is located on the ground floor. (more…)
Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2022 has arrived
The 24th annual Homegrown Music Festival is less than a month away. The 100-page Field Guide is off the presses and will be available at Duluth-area bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days. (more…)
Monthly Grovel: April 2022
Zlata Chochieva? 311? Trampled by Turtles? Weird Al? The only reliable tool to help weigh the upcoming concert options is the PDD Calendar.
Each month we reach out with one beggarly blog post to remind everyone that human beings and not machines are at work editing and publishing calendar events. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account. (more…)