Not Bluegrass
Old-time music is better than it sounds. Old-time, not bluegrass. Of course it’s futile to argue tastes in music. Foolish to judge the listening choices of another. Folly to debate ones’s aesthetic preferences. But having said that, may I add: bluegrass sucks.
Ha! Just kidding, bluegrass. You know we only tease you out of envy for your fancy shirts, and amazing chops, displayed in those talent attacks had most every solo. And you’ve got as many virtuosos per capita as any genre out there, though they be virtuosos with the souls of bean counters. Ha! Did I say that? Just kidding, bluegrass.
Of course there’s some overlap between the styles, bluegrass having “evolved” out of old-time, around WW II. It’s not like there’s a tidy trench between the two, over which we lob our slurs and brickbats. But for the most part bluegrass emerged around 1945 as Earl Scruggs (forgive him Lord) invented his 3-finger style of banjo picking that, along with fairly specific instrumentation, defines the style. Still, the term “bluegrass” is often misused to label anyone playing that assortment of stringed instruments. There’s a local pop band most always labeled “bluegrass” because of the instruments they play, but it ain’t so. How do I know? They don’t suck.
Sorry. I really should see a shrink about this hot-lick envy. Treat these deep-seated fears of Stetsons and bolo ties. Having spent so much of my life high and lonesome you’d think I’d better appreciate those mountain harmonies. (more…)
Thank You for Your Service
Still from Thank You for Your Service
This is partially a reflection on a movie seen at the Duluth 10 Cinema, partially a survey of important Duluth resources, and partially a reflection on the way I wish the world would be. (more…)
Duluth’s Frozen Wiener Storm of 2017
Photo by Shawn Thompson
The city of Duluth is advising the public that locations in Canal Park may not be accessible due to windy conditions and high waves causing water to flood some areas. The Marine Iron Parking lot located closest to the canal, some segments of Canal Park Drive and Harbor Drive have standing water. The city has put up barricades where the areas are not passable. (more…)
Selective Focus: Joellyn Rock
Multimedia artist and digital art professor Joellyn Rock has been combining traditional graphic art techniques, classical imagery and storytelling, and video and digital technology to create animations, interactive installations and other experiments. Her art takes advantage of and blends quickly evolving technical opportunities, and her curiosity draws her into constant new challenges.
J.R.: My creative medium has shifted dramatically over the years, evolving from traditional art forms like painting, drawing and ceramics to digital media formats such as web narrative, experimental video and interactive installation. One thread of continuity: I seek new ways to tell old tales. I often borrow from fairy tales and mythology, choosing to update an old story with social commentary or a revisionist spin. For me, old tales provide an anchor when working in digital media, offering the viewer a cozy narrative, reinvented for the distress of our digital age. I use a visual vocabulary that harkens back to the storytelling on ancient pottery or vintage children’s books … graphic compositions, intense colors, set off by crisp silhouettes of characters in action. Those familiar forms get remixed, layered with historical references or contemporary ephemera, juxtaposing ancient story with modern dilemma, part comfortingly old-school, part shock of the new. (more…)
Coyote – “Quicksand” (Live from Studio A)
The Electric Witch – “Hallowed”
Just in time for Halloween, the Electric Witch released its first official video, “Hallowed.”
Produced by Mike Scholtz and Valerie Coit. Music by Zac Bentz. Lyrics and vocals by Marcus Matthews.
View of Minnesota Point from Duluth Hilltop
Photographer unknown, year unknown. This appears to have been shot from near the edge of the parking lot at the hilltop Central High School location.
PDD Halloween Banners
Got any spooky, silly or stupid Halloween photos you’d like to share with the world? It’s time for our annual call for Halloween banners for the top of the page. Keep in mind, the photos get cropped to extreme horizontal proportions. If you want to crop ’em yourself and send them, that’s fantastic, or you can send them uncropped and I’ll do my best to make them fit.
Click here for complete submission guidelines, but the basics are: 1135 pixels wide by 197 pixels high, e-mail them to [email protected]. We’ll put them in rotation in the next few days.
High Bridge Comedy expands Duluth-area stand-up offerings
From left: Chad Gallo, Joe Mosier, Danielle Thralow, Alex Meyers and Scott Zank
Stand-up comedy is not one of the more glamorous forms of entertainment in Duluth. A group of comedians called High Bridge Comedy is trying to change that. (more…)
Duluth: Birthplace of pie à la mode?
According to Wikipedia, pie à la mode was “invented and named by John Gieriet in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1885.” And there seems to be a preponderance of evidence backing up that claim. Yet it’s not a historical tidbit people in Duluth seem to know about.
Is it true? Well, let’s look at the facts and claims involved.
The March 26, 1885 issue of the Duluth Daily Tribune featured a grand opening advertisement for the Hotel la Perl which showed a menu that included vanilla ice cream and blueberry pie. And that, so the story goes, is the oldest known reference to pie à la mode.
Though the Wikipedia entry provides numerous references, none of that support material seems to be available on the internet … until now. This Perfect Duluth Day post is serving as a collecting ground for items helping to prove or debunk the unheralded legend. The first thing we need is a copy of the 1885 newspaper ad. (Update: It has been found and can be seen below in the second comment to this post. (more…)
It’s not Mars; it’s my streets.
On Facebook, I saw a picture that could have been from Mars, or from Hibbing (where the earth has been gutted by mines in a monstrously, sublimely beautiful way).
But it wasn’t. It was a Duluth street.
(On Facebook the photo is cropped without the yellow line. This makes it look even more out-of scale Martian.)
In the next election, I understand, there is something to be done about it.
C.J. Ham’s “Fullback Life”
A tweet this morning by Duluth’s C.J. Ham shows the bent upper rim of his face-mask after the Minnesota Vikings hard-hitting victory over the Baltimore Ravens. Fullback life indeed.
Duluth Ferry by Francis Chapin
Lithograph published by the Walker Galleries of New York, circa 1938.
Autumn at Split Rock Lighthouse
Dawn LaPointe and Gary Fiedler of Radiant Spirit Gallery recently captured these scenes of Split Rock Lighthouse.
Mystery Photo #55: Duluth Miniature Farm
Thanks to the labeling we know this miniature farm was located at a Conrad Service Station in Duluth. But where specifically in Duluth? And when?
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
I will do almost anything to avoid ironing. It’s the truth — I will. I don’t know what it is about ironing that is so abhorrent to me, but I will consider almost any other method of getting wrinkles out of my clothes.
Maybe it’s the ironing board. It’s all big and squeaky, and inexplicably hard to operate. Mine has not one, but two security features — you have to compress this metal … thing … while applying downward pressure on the legs to get it to close. Then, it catches on the second security contraption, which requires that you, maintaining aforementioned downward pressure, and compressing the first metal thing, also compress a second metal thing. It’s next to impossible. It’s actually easier to remove a Volvo 850 engine or a human heart. I know irons are hot and dangerous. But a double lock? There are nuclear silos with less integrity.
As an added feature, or possibly as evidence of the degradation of the ironing board over time, this security feature also activates while you are opening the ironing board, locking the board halfway open, approximately three feet off the ground. Three feet off the ground is too far below my natural waist for me to comfortably iron there, and slightly too high for me to iron at from a kneeling position (ask me how I know) so I must begin a reverse version of the closing the board/security catch deactivation process: I clench both metal doobobbies like I am falling off a cliff, and vigorously shake the whole thing up and down until the legs finally release, like a huge metal crane, and snap into ironing board, full-height position. (more…)
Earth Rider beer on tap at Cedar Lounge
For the first time in 50 years, suds are flowing at a production brewery in Superior. The inaugural beer by Earth Rider Brewing — a pale ale — went on tap Oct. 20 at its nearby taproom, the Cedar Lounge. Take-home 32 oz. crowlers are also for sale. (more…)
Where in Duluth? (Stone Edition)
Who knows where this carving exists in Duluth? Bonus points: what is it depicting and why?
Selective Focus: Eric Dubnicka
Eric Dubnicka is an artist working in multiple materials with fascinating abstractions and textures. It’s always fun and surprising to see what pops up on his Instagram feed.
E.D.: Currently my artworks are focused on the energy that exists and interacts between two people, which has been a fun challenge to conceptualize and the result is a series of paintings of ephemeral core bodies with a carved sculptural element demonstrating the connection between them. I’m fascinated by the process of abstraction and my works have run the gamut of sardonic caricatures to field color paintings, but the underlying concept is the energy that drives us as individuals or in relationships. The forms I’m working with currently lean heavily on the biomorphic lines, have a human anatomical subtext and are relatable to microscopic snapshots that can be found in nature or among the stars. I enjoy allowing for broad interpretations of my work and allow the materials to speak and interact, creating surfaces that are tactile, textured and carry an aesthetic strength that allow accessibility. (more…)
Bent Paddle 14° ESB grabs gold at Great American Beer Festival
Bent Paddle Brewing won Duluth’s first Great American Beer Festival gold medal two weeks ago. It was the third time 14° ESB won a medal in the Extra Special Bitter category. It took the silver medal in 2015 and the bronze in 2014. (more…)
Local writer wins national audience
Jayson Iwen, associate professor of writing at UW–Superior, has landed a piece in Tikkun magazine. His story “Night Running,” was also a Glimmer Train “very short fiction” honorable mention. (more…)
Welcome back to Duluth, Denny Hecker
Former Twin Cities automobile mogul Denny Hecker, now seven years into a 10-year sentence for fraud, has been relocated to Duluth’s low-security Federal Prison Camp. Toward the front end of his sentence he spent nearly a year in Duluth, a period spanning March 2011 to February 2012.
Hecker once owned a network of car dealerships in the Twin Cities. He pleaded guilty in 2010 to hiding assets in bankruptcy and defrauding lenders.
The Great Target Parking Lot Flood of 2007
Five years before Duluth’s most famous flood came Duluth’s least famous flood. Ten years ago today — Oct. 18, 2007 — heavy rainfall caused Miller Creek to swell and parking lot runoff to form a pool on the outer edge of Duluth’s Miller Hill Target store property. One driver managed to land in a sink hole; two Perfect Duluth Day contributors snapped photos. (Top photo by yours truly Paul Lundgren; bottom photos by Barrett Chase.)
