Recommendations
Selective Focus: UMD Bathroom Reviews
Students and faculty may not be on UMD’s campus for a few more weeks due to Coronavirus concerns, but you can enjoy a virtual tour thanks to the UMD Bathroom Reviews Instagram account. (more…)
Guide to Duluth-related Blogs in 2020
While social media platforms with single-sentence content and auto-deleting videos get all the hype, old-school blogging remains as popular as ever. A cataloging of Duluth-related web logs reveals there might be more of them than ever. So if you’re interested in following the musings of those who do more than tweet, snap, tik and tok, read on. (more…)
Duluth blog brings Bible to Recent Events
I follow Paving Stones Ministries, and I love the new post about “All Lives Matter” from a scriptural perspective.
There are people in today’s society for whom racism and marginalization are a constant and persistent problem. I have seen it on the streets of our cities. I have seen it in the hallways of our universities. Unfortunately, racism is alive and rampant in our country, and there are people who are being crushed to powder under its millstone. They are broken, they are hurting, and they are weary. THEY are the ones who need our ministry right now.
Duluth Urban Design Project: Highway 61 Revisited
What better time could there be for sharing grand expensive visions than during a pandemic, when Duluth and virtually all municipalities are under tremendous financial duress?
Hey, ideas are just ideas, right?
A group of designers and unofficial community planners known as the Duluth Waterfront Collective has been working on a “what-if?” project called Highway 61 Revisited. The basic task is to redesign the I-35 corridor where it splits Downtown Duluth and the Canal Park Business District. (more…)
Tim Kaiser is performing live online on Sundays
… and the shows have been amazing.
Kaiser is a nationally recognized composer, musician and instrument builder. That he is digitally in my home every week is a blessing.
Local Poet on Social Distancing: “Viral Two-Step”
Julie Gard’s prose poem on social distancing, “Viral Two-Step,” appears in issue 25 of the online poetry journal Unbroken. You should read it.
Fairhaven Farm: Segment 1 of Northern Roots 2: Revitalizing Local Food in the Western Lake Superior Region
Local food is where it’s at! This video profiles Fairhaven Farm, an organic farm featuring an outdoor pizza oven located near Duluth. Information about how to sign up for community-supported agriculture shares is at fairhaven.farm. (more…)
Charlie is Antiviral
We washed dishes while watching the best concert ever.
I reviewed Charlie Parr’s March 25 Duluth Cider concert. We’re lucky to have him. Check it out here: Charlie is Antiviral.
Yellow Bikes Adjacent to Swimming Pools
Photos by Yellow Bike Coffee.
I went to the Hermantown YMCA, which is somehow, I don’t entirely understand how, co-branded with Essentia. It’s an amazing complex, not least of which because it contains, as well, a Yellow Bike Coffeeshop. (more…)
Selective Focus: Holiday Pop-ups
The Thanksgiving weekend blizzard wreaked havoc on Small Biz Saturday and some of the Pop-Ups in town, but we have tried to update this list with the rescheduled events.
These are the true “get ’em while you can” offerings, pop-up markets where a wide variety of art, food products, clothing products and more are on display. There are usually snacks, maybe some hot chocolate, and lots of other people milling about, so the atmosphere is a lot more fun that adding things to your online cart.
Some are small, some are huge. Each market has its own vibe, check the websites and event pages for special instructions on parking, hours etc.
Let us know what markets we’ve missed in the comments, or by sending an email.
(more…)
PDD Gift Guide 2019
Happy ho ho holidays. It’s time once again for the Perfect Duluth Day Gift Guide, a list of nifty gifty things made locally or with a connection to the area. We’ve highlighted 15 items; if you know of others, let us know by dropping us a note or add suggestions in the comments. (more…)
Countdown to Halloween: Duluth Paranormal Society
The Duluth Paranormal Society has been featured in the Duluth News Tribune. Most interesting is its research into Sir Benedict’s Tavern on the Lake.
The DNT article includes links to other resources:
Happy Halloween. 🙂
Countdown to Halloween: Nopeming
https://www.travelchannel.com/videos/nopeming-sanatorium-preview-0229492
Nopeming has a special place in the paranormal of Duluth. The Travel Channel sent a team in 2015, as featured in the link above. The Duluth News Tribune covered its history in a 2017 article.
The Nopeming facility was in use until Nov. 25, 2002. Friends of mine have laughed that rooms and spaces shown on ghost hunting shows holding tormented souls were, in fact, the places they worked as food service workers in high school.
Countdown to Halloween: Twin Ports Paranormal Society
The Twin Ports Paranormal Society will “investigate the paranormal for people in need of help at no charge. Confidentiality will be respected.” (more…)
Countdown to Halloween: Lady Ocalat’s Paranormal Investigations
I’ve been to Lady Ocalat’s Emporium once, to buy some fake dove blood for purposes of writing with my new fountain pen. I don’t know entirely the relationship between the tarot reading services and the paranormal investigations, but Lady Ocalat’s website maintains a record of past paranormal activity, bigfoot sightings and UFO sightings.
Countdown to Halloween: International Paranormal Society
Gloria Doescher (left) shows Chris Julien (center) and Adrian Lee a photo of what her thermal imaging camera picked up during one of the vigils at Fairlawn Mansion and Museum in Superior. The three investigated the mansion along with other members of the International Paranormal Society, the first time in more than a dozen years that ghost hunters were allowed into the mansion. (Maria Lockwood / Superior Telegram)
The International Paranormal Society has visited Duluth multiple times. One of its visits included time on the SS William A. Irvin, another the mansion at Fairlawn. Adrian Lee, its founder, has a pretty unique gimmick — he talks about working at the intersection of history and paranormal science, spending time in archives to track historical records that help him make sense of the data his heat sensors and ghost boxes find. Triangulation yields truth, apparently. (more…)
PDD Gift Guide 2018
Find something for everyone on your gift-giving list with PDD’s annual curated gift guide. It’s a bit different than most gift guides in that it’s not a list of stores that advertise with PDD — it’s a list of items created in our region, chosen simply because they are nifty. (more…)
Barmuda Triangle of West Duluth
Sure, you’ve heard stories of mysterious and unusual disappearances in West Duluth. What exactly happened to old so-and-so last night? Well, there’s a good chance your friend slipped into the Barmuda Triangle. (more…)
Summary of Make Canal Park Pop! and 2001: A Space Odyssey
I spent part of Friday at Make Canal Park Pop! and Saturday at 2001: A Space Odyssey. The events felt oddly similar, and my experience of both was disjointed if not entirely cynical. (more…)
The Realistic Joneses
I left Panera for the Realistic Joneses at the Zeitgeist while, it seemed to me, a woman was in a tree. I’m not entirely sure about the tree part — I know she was in the woods, alongside the creek behind the parking lot separating the Panera from the Aldi complex, and I know that the police and EMTs were looking upward as one of the pines was shaking. I didn’t see her. I could only hear her voice, sadly crying that people believed that something was wrong with her. I felt a sadness that mirrored hers. There was no way for this story to end which didn’t fulfill her words. I wished there were a way for people to just turn their backs and let her leave, if that would be what she wanted. (more…)
Free Range Trials of Cecilia Ramon and Kathy McTavish
“In farming terms, field trials are an opportunity to determine effectiveness of experimental techniques in agriculture.”
On Sunday I went to the Free Range Trials at the Food Farm in Wrenshall. Free Range Trials is a lab for artistic process and creative experimentation through the exhibition of work by Kathy McTavish and Cecila Ramon. The lab will be open daily between 2 and 5 p.m. through Sept. 3. To learn about Ramon, you can listen to KUMD here. (more…)
Ice Cream Delicacy in West Duluth by Denfeld
I tasted T-Icy Roll Ice Cream yesterday at 4602 Grand Ave., next to an old favorite, Zhong Hua. (more…)
Looking for a French tutor in Duluth
A group of Duluth-area senior women is looking for a fluent French speaker to help with language sessions. Two-hour sessions; twice monthly. The six ladies have advanced-beginner to intermediate levels of French. Willing to pay tutor. Merci bien!
Writer Reads … in Ashland and on the Radio
Duluth authors Avesa Rockwell, Lucie Amundsen and other Duluthians I don’t know all read in the annual “Writer’s Read” event at Northland College on Jan. 26.
Avesa’s memoir, Children of the Earth, was selected by judges for its relevance to this year’s theme of “gut instinct.” Her story describes a disturbing incident from her adolescence in New Mexico and the tension between acquiring wisdom and maintaining innocence. (more…)