Five years after it opened, Red Herring Lounge slated to close

Red Herring Lounge owner Bob Monahan posted on Facebook today that “barring some sort of wildly unforeseen circumstance” his music club in Downtown Duluth “will close its doors permanently on June 10.” (more…)

Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2019 has arrived

The 21st annual Homegrown Music Festival is just a month away. The 100-page Field Guide, with all the who/what/when/where/why was trucked in from the printer this morning and will be available at local bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days.

This year’s Homegrown will feature about 190 musical acts at more than 40 venues in Duluth and Superior. The festival runs April 28 to May 5. An updated schedule is on the Homegrown website at duluthhomegrown.org/schedule. (more…)

DM&N Railway Ore Docks in West Duluth, early 1900s

This photo of the Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway ore docks in West Duluth is from Detroit Publishing Company. The Library of Congress dates the image as “between 1900 and 1915” and notes it shows “probably Dock No. 1 at left” and lists the three freighters in the foreground as George H. Russell, Sultan and James E. Davidson. (more…)

Perfect Fish Fry: The Breeze Inn

Competition to name the Perfect Duluth fish fry was fierce but the The Breeze Inn managed to angle ahead of the others to claim the title with 36 percent of the vote among the final three.

Do country-bar fish fries fare better? It’s notable that the three top-ranked fish fries are all just outside of Duluth city limits. Breeze Inn is in Rice Lake Township while Billy’s in Lakewood Township was the runner up with 33 percent of the vote. Wabegon in Superior Township came in third with a respectable 31 percent. Among establishments within Duluth city limits, Bridgeman’s had the most votes. (more…)

Storming the Radisson

… with Emily Rose Olson and Emily Hayes.

Duluth Children’s Museum latest to buy into Lincoln Park

The Lincoln Park Cafe building, former home to Randy’s Cafe, was recently sold to the Duluth Children’s Museum. Long range plans call for the museum to relocate into the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Add a museum to the list of new attractions and amenities planned for Duluth’s booming Lincoln Park neighborhood. Duluth Children’s Museum purchased the former Randy’s Café building at 2125 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park March 18. Minnesota Department of Revenue records show longtime building owners Michael and Rochelle Delich of Superior sold the property for $345,000. (more…)

Selective Focus: Spring Ice Breaking


Photojournalist Derek Montgomery and MPR News bring amazing images of the annual breaking of the ice on the Duluth Harbor.

Click here for the full MPR Story and more photos.

Don’t Tell Mom

Frank Hoolihan sent this postcard to Mrs. Galivan in Buffalo, NY imploring her to tell Sarah not to let anyone know that he’s in Duluth. He doesn’t want his mom to find out. I suspect he sailed up the Great Lakes to Duluth to get away for some reason. Or maybe he was just on a lark. It does raise a few questions. I can’t make out the year in the postmark but I’m guessing around 1909 or so. (more…)

Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks – “Duluth Polka”

Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks released “Duluth Polka” in 1954 as a 7-inch 45-RPM single and as a 10-inch 78-RPM “promotion record” on the Columbia label (as seen in the video above). (more…)

More video from the best thing that ever happened

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.

Underwater views of ice sheet breaking up

 

New Study Indicates Science Wrong about ‘Pretty Much Everything Health-Related’

A recently published study in Scientific Facts Daily has scientists around the world shaking their heads in befuddlement and dismay. Marshaling the combined data from more than 50 years and 73,000 scientific papers summarizing more than 100,000 scientific studies, the work concludes that scientific studies on the efficacy of consuming more or less of certain food types, adding nutrients or nutritional supplements to one’s diet, or using certain medicines to treat disease are all “pretty much wrong.”

“Like, almost completely wrong, every time,” chief researcher Dr. Martina Ferkes-Boothe, an international expert on hypertension, indicated. “Seriously,” Ferkes-Booth continued, “If I wasn’t a scientist myself, I’d think someone was making this shit up. First, we tell everyone not to eat fat or cholesterol, or they’ll have a heart attack and die. People were choking down those cardboard Lean Cuisine low-fat pizzas for like a decade. Totally wrong. Could have been eating real cheese, instead of that weird soy snot, the whole time. And don’t even start in on butter made out of yogurt. So many fucked up mashed potatoes. I feel just awful about it now.” (more…)

Taqueria El Oasis Del Norte open in Superior pub

Eduardo Sandoval - Photo by Lissa maki

Eduardo Sandoval – Photo by Lissa Maki

Everyday options for authentic Mexican food in the Twin Ports have vastly improved. Earlier this month, El Oasis Del Norte food truck started serving up items like tacos, burritos and tortas at Average Joe’s Pub in Superior. (more…)

What makes Lake Superior ice look blue?

In this edition of WDSE-TV‘s The Slice, Jay Austin from the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Large Lakes Observatory explains why Lake Superior ice has a blue hue.

Saturday Essays in Book Form

I have self-published a small book containing 15 essays. They comprise the lion’s share of the 17 essays which Perfect Duluth Day so kindly ran as part of the Saturday Essay series. It is available at Zenith Bookstore on Central Avenue in West Duluth next to Beaner’s Central.

Game Changer: A Watershed Moment

vimeo.com

Duluth-based Blue Forest Films produced this short feature about Alyssa Nelson’s transition from UMD Bulldogs athletics to fly fishing and nature education. Game Changer was screened last weekend during the Great Water Fly Fishing Expo at Hamline University in St. Paul.

Another Blue Forest Films production, Bigotry to Brook Trout, screens on Friday in Duluth during the Watershed Arts & Film Fest.

Jacob Mahon & the Salty Dogs – “Dazed and Confused” and “Whole Lotta Love”

[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]

New video by Illy Killy featuring footage of Jacob Mahon & the Salty Dogs from last fall’s Duluth Does Zeppelin concert at Sacred Heart Music Center.

Postcard from a Lumber Raft in Duluth

Kathy McTavish named an inaugural Jerome Hill artist fellow

The Jerome Foundation has announced the first recipients of the new Jerome Hill Artist Fellowships program. Duluth-based artist Kathy McTavish was among the artists chosen from 1,172 applications. (more…)

Doughboys on Duluth: “Campaign in the Ass”

Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants, mentions Duluth in episode 77, “Cold Stone Creamery with Kevin T. Porter,” released Nov. 2, 2016. (more…)

Poll: What Duluth-area restaurant has the best fish fry?

Who is serving up the Perfect Duluth-area fish fry? In our latest poll, we’re counting on our readers to help suss out the answer to this important question. (more…)

Tons of People’s Free Skate Rink Freakout Footage

Video by Lane R. Ellis

Mystery Photos #88-89: Hardware Store Women

I recently came across two photos of a couple strong Duluth women in an unidentified Duluth hardware store on Minnesota Reflections. There is no accurate date or known specific location (there is a guesstimate year span on this one of 1918-1925, which seems quite unlikely due to their stylish high-collar/big sleeve clothing). Who were they? What year was this? And would they tolerate any nonsense? Unlikely. (more…)

Saturday Essay and Selective Focus Programming Note

Like a bunch of old timers stuck in some newspaper-era, schedule-oriented, deadline-consumed mindset, the brain trust at Perfect Duluth has been locked for several years in the notion that every Friday we need to publish our Selective Focus feature and every Saturday we need to publish our Saturday Essay. No more. It was fine for a while, but we’re done with that rigid scheduling. (more…)

Selective Focus: Justin Christopher Ayd

Justin Christopher Ayd has a close relationship with movies and film. He is working on a feature documentary project shot on the North Shore on super 8 and 16mm film, and explains why in a very digital age, celluloid is the right medium for this project. If you’d like to help out with the project, links are included below.

JCA: I work professionally in two fields simultaneously – filmmaking and film projection. Both aspects of film were introduced to me at a young age, filmmaking and the exhibition side, and by 1992 I knew I wanted to not only make movies, but be the person in the shadows running motion picture film for audiences. (more…)