Pizzaghost – “Someone Died”
Noise rockers Pizzaghost performed in KUMD’s Studio A on June 9, just before the band went on hiatus.
Found pink Next bike in Cloquet
Found a Next Pretty in Pink girls bike by Aspen Arms Assisted Living. It has to be missed by the kid who lost it or had it stolen. If anyone knows of a child in Cloquet who this bike belongs to please spread the word. I moved the bike onto my property and it will be here safe to be claimed.
New 7 West Taphouse on Tower Avenue could open in September
A delay in financing stalled interior design work several months, but owners of the 7 West Taphouse in Superior say they plan to open their burger and beer business in mid-September. (more…)
Selective Focus: Moheb Soliman
This week we stretch the boundaries of Selective Focus — both geographically and conceptually. Moheb Soliman is a poet who will be installing his writing in the form of very official looking signs throughout Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and the four other major Great Lakes national parks at trails, vistas, and beaches as part of the National Park Service centennial celebration. Some of the installations are already done and this month he will be finishing up at Isle Royale National Park. (more…)
Duluth Gate and Wayfinding Master Plan
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division is in the planning stages of a Gate, Wayfinding and Trail head/Orientation Plan. A public meeting took place in June where the city’s consultants provided five concept designs to be used for park entries, trail heads, information kiosks and historical markers. The city is seeking additional input from the public until July 20 using an online survey, after which a summary of the survey will be provided to the Duluth Parks Commission.
The five concept designs and additional background are online at duluthmn.gov.
Direct link to design options PDF | Direct link to survey tool
Mystery Photo #35: Frank Lundgren and Joe Marceau
This mystery photo was sent by Ryan Sanders, a distant relative of the man at left in the photo above, Frank Lundgren. (Yours truly, Paul Lundgren, is no relation.) Standing next to Frank Lundgren is his brother-in-law Joe Marceau. The photo was shot somewhere in Duluth around 1918. The mystery we are looking to solve is where specifically the photo was shot. (more…)
Pokemon Go Duluth Update
Does anyone have any crazy Pokemon Go Duluth stories? I see tons of evidence that the Rose Garden is overrun with Pokemon. And I saw eight kids staring into their phones at Pizza Lucé, which is a Gym across the street from a PokeStop or whatever it is.
Mix 108 has a list of sites. So does Reddit. And so does Duluth.com.
Remember, injured and orphaned wildlife should be brought to Wildwoods. Even Pokemon.
Sidewalk Days: Parklets, Pies, Pops; Meatless Meatballs and Mermaids
View of Sidewalk Days after dinner time, looking toward Lake Avenue from Superior Street.
We stopped at the parklet in front of Lake Superior Bakehouse. Parklets take a few parking spots on the main drag and turn them into plywood green spaces. We (a group of nerds including Duluth’s own Nifty Nerd) were hunting for refreshment, and the Bakehouse had beverages and a blueberry cinnamon roll that was amazing. The woman staffing the table was kind enough to mention reading and liking an earlier essay I wrote. I blush to think that people read my work, but it was the tastiness of the treats that won our hearts. (more…)
Duluth Alligator Conspiracy #CrookedEmily
Footage sent to the Duluth News-Tribune and leaked here in the wake of Jim Richardson’s disappearance.
Recommendations For Alligator Removal Service?
Can anyone recommend a good alligator removal service? My brother and I own Duluth’s Best Bread and have had quite a few guests and workers eaten in the past month. I think they are coming in through the pipes or something.
I was planning on ignoring it but OSHA says if we don’t get the gators out in 90 days we have to pay like a $200 fine.
Bob and Joan
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]
Bob mentions a couple of northland towns at the beginning of their first song.
Underwater Optics Slideshow
Some early underwater photography experiments, Lake Superior 2012. Pictures taken with a Kodak Playsport.
Music Shopping in Duluth
I am drained; I just want to appreciate things today. It’s almost Sidewalk Days in Duluth. Makes me appreciate all I can walk to downtown. Today, I am gushing about music.
I was walking downtown enjoying the summer and stopped in to Electric Fetus. There, I picked up the new Jean Michel Jarre CD (a double-disc, actually), Electronica 1&2. On the set, Jarre collaborates with hip, exciting new artists I have never heard of, as well as Cyndi Lauper, Laurie Anderson, Edward Snowden, Edgar Froese, John Carpenter … an eclectic batch of voices. I look at the disc and see the Orb as a collaborator and realize the Orb is already “old school” to today’s music what my parents’ music was to me. The entire package is a reminder that I am (approaching) middle age. I said “approaching.”
But it also reminds me how lucky I am that the Electric Fetus is around. And it got me thinking hard about record stores in the Twin Ports. (more…)
Kids Rolling Things Down a Hill
Hillside
A funny thing happened on the way home from the Duluth Airshow … or is a crash landing not a funny thing?
From the Isanti County Sheriff’s Office:
On July 9 at 6:50 p.m., the Isanti County Sheriff’s Office Communications division received a report of a plane crash in Stanchfield Township, close to the address of 38045 Lever St. NE. All emergency personnel were started to the crash.
After several minutes we received information that there were no injuries and the pilot and copilot were out walking around.
Upon arrival it was determined that a retired U.S. Navy 630 Bi-plane, yellow in color, had engine failure while flying from Duluth to Anoka. (more…)
Poll: Best Restaurant on the North Shore
Last week we compiled a list of nominees for the best restaurant on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The specific territory: Knife River to Grand Portage — basically anything in Lake or Cook counties was eligible for nomination.
Obviously several Duluth-area restaurants are technically “on the North Shore” — in particular the winner of PDD’s Perfect Restaurant Poll: New Scenic Café. For this poll we’re looking at places that are, at the very least, a serious bike ride from the Zenith City.
What’s the Perfect North Shore Restaurant? Vote now and have a say. Keep in mind that this is a runoff poll, so as time goes by the number of options will reduce. If the restaurant you initially voted for is eliminated, you may vote again among the remaining options.
We started with 27 nominees, then whittled it down to the Final Four: Angry Trout Café, the Crooked Spoon, Gunflint Tavern and Vanilla Bean.
This poll is now closed. The results were:
Gunflint Tavern – 35 percent
Angry Trout – 26 percent
Crooked Spoon – 22 percent
Vanilla Bean – 17 percent
This Week: baked goods, brews, Boku and more
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find in this week’s PDD Calendar:
Local vendors sell produce, baked goods and other items at the Hermantown Farmers Market, the Backpacker Magazine Get Out More Tour visits Trailfitters, Kenny Ahern brings his Kaleidoscope show back to the Duluth Public Library, folks can learn about whitetailed deer at Gooseberry Falls, brews and literature are paired up at the Red Herring Lounge, Boku Frequency plays as part of the Chester Creek Concert Series and an adaptation of one of the most beloved action films ever comes to the Zinema.
Downtown Duluth’s Sidewalk Days are happening once again, Red Mountain plays on the pier at Glensheen Mansion, Hermantown is the place to catch live music and grab some suds and grub, glam metal meets Broadway at the Duluth Playhouse, forty artists are featured in the Duluth Art Institute’s outdoor-painting festival, Lake Place Park is the site for two evenings of dance, the Hilltop Obstacle Fun Run goes down at Marshall School and the Bayfront Reggae & World Music Festival returns.
Reflections on Race and Community-oriented Policing
This is going to begin in Milwaukee, pass through St. Paul, and end in Duluth.
When I was a kid, the Milwaukee Police Department gave away baseball cards. The cards were printed for the police with the Milwaukee Brewers as the celebrities. Each officer carried two, and you had to talk to more than one officer over the summer to collect a full set. It was a great strategy for bringing families and police together. My favorite Brewer was Rollie Fingers, because he had a handlebar moustache. I didn’t know anything, any damn thing at all, about baseball.
The baseball cards were part of a “community-oriented policing” initiative. I was a kid; I barely understood what that meant, but I understood the problem it was meant to address.
In 1981, when I was nine, Ernest Lacy was arrested on suspicion of rape in Milwaukee. According to an account in The New York Times, Lacy was taken into a police van, where “two of the officers then held his legs down by placing their feet on his legs, and a third officer placed his knee between Mr. Lacy’s shoulder blades, forcing him to lie face down with his left cheek pinned to the ground. … Then, one of the policemen pulled Mr. Lacy’s arms up beyond his shoulder blades and over his ears [with] one violent, convulsive seizure and then the black man was absolutely still. … [T]he extension of Mr. Lacy’s arms toward his head interfered with the flow of oxygen to his lungs. … [T]his was fatal.” Lacy was taken alive into a police van and was removed dead, a victim of police brutality.
(Another man was convicted of the rape, if that matters to anyone reading this. It shouldn’t for Ernest Lacy any more than it did for Clayton, Jackson and McGhie.) (more…)
The Trio’s Trek to (almost) Canada
‘Tis the season for North Shore hiking videos. This one is by Jake Oswald.
Selective Focus: Plein Air Duluth-Paint Du Nord
Next week the Duluth Art Institute will be hosting its second annual outdoor painting festival, Plein Air Duluth: Paint du Nord, from July 10 – 16, 2016. (more…)