The Vintage Kitchen serves up cheap eats and antiques
Ron Garatz and Wally Berg, owners of the Vintage Kitchen
A charming little diner in Duluth’s Endion neighborhood is serving up homestyle food on colorful, classic Formica tables. But what truly makes the Vintage Kitchen distinctive is that antique furnishings and décor are also on the menu. (more…)
Slow TV: Winter Share Packing at the Food Farm
See your Food Farmers pack up February’s share of vegetables and experience a phenomenon I like to call “maximum mesmerization.”
Review: Ken Bloom’s Public Domain
Should we think about these photographs or their subjects? Yes. Do we consider the art of them or the culture they depict? Yes, both. And perhaps composition or feeling? Again, yes.
Ken Bloom’s exhibition Public Domain: Street Photographs of Japan 1976-78 at the Duluth Art Institute shows three years of his work from the mid-1970s in city areas of Japan. Most are black and white; a few later ones are in color. The compositions are tight. The subject is people in their time and environment. Movement (striding, shopping, riding, jumping, talking, gazing) and waiting (for the ferries, for the trains, for the kids, for the work day to begin) are the subjects of many. (more…)
Drain Duluth
This is fascinating and frightening. It’s from “Draining Zenith City” a blog entry by Dan Turner, a photographer, urban explorer and historian. The name of his blog is Substreet. The picture here is Chester Creek, somewhere under the Rose Garden. Turner has also documented other places around Duluth and Superior, and industrial and abandoned spaces across the country.
Price Check: Oil Change
The light on the dashboard catches your eye. Add an oil change to your list of mundane, human deeds to complete in the near future: file taxes, buy milk and diapers, DMV to renew tabs, post office for stamps, gas, and now, an oil change.
Here lies the start to a new series where we compare prices on basic, practical products and services around Duluth and Superior. First off, oil changes.
The prices below reflect the rate the establishment charges with tax included. Wisconsin and Douglas County sales tax total 5.5%. Minnesota and Duluth sales tax total 7.875%. (more…)
Old Eighth Street Market building’s days are numbered
The former Eighth Street Market building at 5702 W. Eighth St. is slated for demolition. (more…)
A journey along the edges of the Land of Wonder
At the Duluth Art Institute, right now, exists a portal into other worlds and an alternate way of being. Head on over to Ed’s Big Adventure for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into artist Shawna Gilmore’s art studio, images from this show that appeals to children and adults alike, and more. Also included is Shawna’s painting that’s featured on Charlie Parr’s next album cover, due out on April 15.
Bent Paddle launches new seasonal: Hop Forest Double IPA
Bent Paddle Brewing adds another seasonal beer to its rotation this week. Hop Forest Double India Pale Ale, weighing it at 8.9 percent alcohol-by-volume, will be on tap at Bent Paddle on Wednesday, available in 750-milliliter bottles on Friday and later find its way into liquor stores in 4-pack cans.
Hop Harvest will also be available at Beaner’s Central in time for Friday’s first-of-three CD release parties for the latest One Week Live compilation.
The text on the can reads: “Standing in a hop field brings forth a sense of solitude and wonder one can find in a forest. Hop Forest Double IPA provides full hop coverage with a tremendous load of tropical citrus and piney hop aromatics. Malt sweetness intertwines with the American hop varieties to create a balanced shade of flavor that invites one to sit down and enjoy the view.”
This Week: Buddy, Broadway, gore and more
Here’s a bit of what you’ll find on this week’s PDD Calendar:
Duluth MakerSpace is holding a class on glass-etching, the Duluth Public Library is screening the kids’ film Inside Out, members of the public can get their antiques appraised at the Depot, the director of the cult film Microwave Massacre comes to town to talk about stuttering and the Duluth Playhouse opens the Neil Simon play Broadway Bound.
The Clean Water Gala 2016 is raising funds at Clyde Iron Works, the St. Scholastica theater department is putting on the bass-fishing-concerned Zara Spook and Other Lures, there’s free pleasure-skating at the Heritage Center, Beaner’s Central celebrates the release of its latest compilation album with three concerts and a long-running musical about Buddy Holly lands at the DECC.
Sticking Camera in Underwater Holes
Wait for it.
PDD Quiz: Roses are red. Violets are blue.
[This post originally contained an embedded quiz created on the platform Qzzr. It is no longer available at its source.]
Next week’s theme is “Presidents in Duluth” in honor of Presidents Day. Send your suggested quiz questions (and answers) to lawrence @ perfectduluthday.com by noon on Wednesday, Feb. 17.
Coming Home to Mother: Feb. 13, 1969
Safe at Home
Somewhere at sea: Two landing craft ease their way — side by side — through the wide opening at the stern of the USS Duluth. The craft employs almost all the room available on coming aboard. After the boats are tied down, the ballast tanks are emptied and the wall is drained.
(U.S. Navy photo via United Press International)
Bicycling the Hillside
The climb feels endless. Tattered concrete fills my field of vision — taunting and mocking my painfully slow bike ride up the hill. My legs ache and are starting to shake. My lungs burn and seem to collapse a bit more every time I turn the pedals over and try to suck in a great, heaving gulp of oxygen.
The front wheel wobbles for lack of momentum, forcing me to cross back. Now I’m shamefully zig-zagging across the steep avenue, which both relieves the burdensome pitch, but quadruples the length of the climb. There is a deep desire in me, immutable by logic or maturity, to ride the whole way, steep inclines notwithstanding.
Then the moment of kinetic equilibrium arrives in which the depleted energy of my legs can no longer overcome gravity’s backward force and for the briefest moment my bike and I are stuck in suspended animation. I dismount at the very moment gravity begins to prevail. With humility washing over me, bike and I switch roles as I become the vehicle delivering the two of us up the hillside. (more…)
WITC-Superior welding students create sculpture
Superior Business Improvement District, Wisconsin Arts Board, the National Endowment for the Arts and WITC-Superior welding students unveiled their public sculpture in the vacant lot adjacent to Sclavi’s Restaurant on Tower Ave. in Superior.
The Wishing Tree is a community art participation project. Thirteen welding students of WITC-Superior, under the direction of Aleasha Hladilek, were asked to create a 7-foot sculptural metal tree. These 13 students are enrolled in the full time technical structural welding course. (more…)
North Shore 2016
Video by Chad Kirsebom.
Selective Focus: Sweet
Sarah Jean, untitled
Given our theme, this week’s images could easily have veered into cloying territory. Thankfully I received many uniquely interpreted shots, and some that are even exceptionally moving. I’m grateful how this feature included our older loved ones; a population often disregarded in visual art. Let’s remedy that next week by dedicating a theme to our “elders.” (more…)
Mushroom Hunting in Duluth
Video by Squawk Productions — Sam Thompson and Caitlin Hargarten of Minneapolis.
No Interest at the Speakeasy
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at its source.]
Hardcore punk band No Interest, performing in a Duluth basement that was recently taken off the party market.
Updated concept plan for Lake Superior Zoo
Click the image to view a PDF of the full plan.
The latest concept plan for improvements to Fairmount Park and the Lake Superior Zoo was presented by a consultant last night at the Duluth Parks Commission meeting. The concept envisions a renewed zoo in a roughly 10-acre footprint that includes ADA accessible pathways, renewed and repurposed exhibits damaged by the 2012 flood, enhanced visitor services, and converts a portion of the existing zoo into public park space. The plan is estimated at $15 million and has $2.7 million of half-and-half funding allotted to it.
Comments can be submitted to Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division until Feb. 15 to allow the consultants to analyze them for the upcoming Feb. 22 presentation and public hearing at 5:15 p.m. in the Duluth City Council Chambers, to be followed by a Parks Commission public hearing in room 303.
Red Cowboy Hat (featuring Jim Hall) – “Duluth Blues”
Jim Hall recently brought his Red Cowboy Hat trio to the KUMD studios for a Live from Studio A session. They performed this tune, perfect for a sub-zero windchill day in Duluth. Audio of the full session with Jim and company is available at kumd.org.
Northern Waters restaurant open on Woodland Avenue
Fans of all things cured and smoked will rejoice in knowing Northern Waters Smokehaus has opened its much-anticipated Woodland Avenue location in the Chester Park – UMD neighborhood. While the new restaurant offers some familiar lunch items from the Smokehaus, the menu is more expansive and includes alcoholic beverages. (more…)
Epicurean and Loll represent Duluth in The Atlantic
In the March issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows once more talks up Duluth while town-hopping across the country, this time as an example of “hopeless” places reinventing themselves (full article). Scroll down to the subheading “Despite the ‘Big Short,’ Talent Dispersal is Under Way,” where he uses Epicurean/Loll to illustrate the same kind of deliberate migration that Lucie Amundsen so elegantly described in her Saturday essay.