Lake Superior Aquaman Archives - Page 5 of 246

Wild Ice

Jan 19, 2021 2 Comments

Outdoors, Photos Lake Superior, Lake Superior Aquaman, North Shore of Lake Superior

Drain Lake Superior

Jan 02, 2021 No Comments

Somebody peed in it.

Drain Lake Superior Facebook page

Photos, Politics Lake Superior, Lake Superior Aquaman, North Shore of Lake Superior

Avant-Garde Women: Michele Bernstein, Queen of the Situationists

Dec 31, 2020 2 Comments

The video below is from a 1960 French TV interview about Michele Bernstein’s subversive novel “All the King’s Horses”. Yes this is in French, which I cannot follow. The auto-translation isn’t much better. It’s sort of a friendly verbal chess match. At around 2:30 the interviewer asks her something about having respect for her literary forebears. She replies: “We each import our own small stone to the cathedral.” Asked what novel she can compare hers to, she replies, “I don’t know; if it is simply a novel we can compare it to all that exist.”

More of My Indie Rock Guitar Goddess She-roes

Dec 20, 2020 No Comments

There is a vein of singer-songwriters I refer to jokingly as “weepy folk.”

Music, Random Lake Superior Aquaman

Avant-Garde Women: The Shakespearean Tragedy of Peggy and Pegeen Guggenheim

Dec 10, 2020 No Comments

The story of Peggy and Pegeen Guggenheim, as told by the Situationist painter Ralph Rumney, reads like Shakespeare: court intrigue, backstabbing, madness, and suicide. Rumney’s book The Consul provides a critical point of view on this fraught mother-daughter relationship cracking up at the cutting edge of the art world.

Avant-Garde Women: Eliane Brau, the Invisible Icon

Dec 04, 2020 4 Comments

Born Eliane Papai around 1935 in Spain, Eliane married her way into a couple other last names; she is mostly referred to as Eliane Brau, using the last name of her second husband. I think of her simply as Eliane, in deference to her singularity. Below I argue that her role in the “Letterist” movement of early 1950s Paris has been diminished; conversely, the achievements of the Letterist men have been overblown. It has been too easy to write her off as a passive “muse” for these men who indeed loved her fiercely. She deserves parity. Sadly, unlike her lovers, there is a distinct lack of information about her on the internet. I cannot even determine if she is still alive. Eliane is an invisible icon.

Bailey is Short Rap

Nov 30, 2020 No Comments

This is basically an in-joke between friends but local and fun enough to post. A diss track inspired by my short friend Bailey. She dared me to do this, is how I remember it.

Music: “Young Thug Type Beat 2018 – ‘Sippin’ | Trap Instrumental 2018” by MADEBYFLOWERZ

Art, Music Duluth Songs, Lake Superior Aquaman

Some of My Indie Rock Guitar Goddess She-roes

Nov 21, 2020 5 Comments

My favorite musicians are women. Who’s the coolest member of the Pixies? Kim Deal! You don’t even have to think about it for a second. And my favorite genre is indie rock. Indie is not major label, and not pop enough to score strings of giant hits. The term is frequently applied to punk-lineage garage-y guitar bands, but not exclusively.

The past few years I’ve discovered many indie chick rockers and all-female bands. Here are some highlights. This (not comprehensive!) list showcases indie women who play guitar or bass, either solo or in bands, who have been active in the past five years. Therefore many of my classic faves have been excluded — for instance a suite of 1980s and ’90s rockers. I will write about them one day, but here the focus is on contemporary artists.

My descriptions are fleshed out with links to music videos, interviews, rig rundowns, and live performances. This part one of two, and I plan to give Duluthians their own essay in part three. Here goes — some of my indie rock guitar goddess she-roes:

Schrodinger’s Beer: A Refutation of Quantum Physics from the Duluth Bar Scene

Nov 01, 2020 No Comments

Latest Richardson brothers podcast episode. Full text below the jump.

The Musician as Inventor

Oct 17, 2020 7 Comments

The recent passing of Eddie Van Halen reminded me of a favorite topic: the musician as inventor. I refer to the invention of objects, techniques, and concepts. It’s invention in the service of an art form. For instance, musical instruments are invented, then shaped with further inventions which make additional modifications possible. Musicians have always been inventors. Here are some of my favorite examples.

Rock and Roll Itself

The invention of rock music, with its pedigree of blues, gospel, and so on, is these days commonly attributed to Chuck Berry in the early 1950s. Berry produced the musical mutant that would conquer the world when he combined rhythm and blues with country and western guitar licks, then packaged it with guitar solos and other showmanship. His signature duck walk may be considered a lasting invention, still in use by Angus Young of AC/DC who credits Berry for, well, everything. Berry was influenced by Sister Loretta Tharpe, whose 1944 song, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” is sometimes considered the first rock record.

Lake Superior Aquaman: Trench Lyfe

Sep 11, 2020 No Comments

Things the camera saw looking out of a Lake Superior trench.

Outdoors, Videos Lake Superior, Lake Superior Aquaman, North Shore of Lake Superior

Phallus Impudicus

Sep 07, 2020 No Comments

The “impudent phallus.” Like many mushrooms, they have both uh masculine and feminine qualities; in their egg stage they are called “witch eggs.” They also have qualities of both life and death: although uh generative in appearance, they have the strong stench of carrion — which attracts the flies which spread their spores. Wikipedia entry.

Outdoors, Photos Creepy, Lake Superior Aquaman, North Shore of Lake Superior, Phallic Symbols

My love affair with Tischer Creek continues

Sep 04, 2020 1 Comment

Outdoors, Photos Lake Superior Aquaman, Tischer Creek

Duluth Navy Meme

Sep 01, 2020 No Comments

Random Lake Superior Aquaman

Sharkgate: The Lake Superior Bull Shark Conspiracy

Aug 29, 2020 2 Comments

I confess to creating and posting the “Lake Superior Bull Shark Encounter” video which has rocked this community, even though, as is widely known, I have no credibility. This essay offers a full accounting of the affair, which caused a four-day firestorm as the video propagated online, through the media, and into the hallowed halls of academia. I will debunk my own video to demonstrate it is, in fact, a poorly-made fake. In addition, I will carefully document my utter and total lack of credibility. Hopefully this will be enough to assuage an alleged army of enraged Redditors devoted to my destruction, the undead army I accidentally raised when I strapped on a toy shark fin.

My confession begins with my purchase of the toy. On Aug. 8, I posted a picture of myself wearing it on my personal public Facebook page and my public “Lake Superior Aquaman” Instagram account. The text of those posts reads, “It’s unclear where these rumors of sharks in Lake Superior originate. But I will be swimming up and down the beaches until I get to the bottom of it.” It was an open joke, a lark, an entrant to a well-established Duluth tradition of joking about sharks. You see variants on local bumper stickers such as “Shark-Free” on a map of Lake Superior. Keeping Lake Superior shark-free has even become a running joke among the mayoralty.

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