Smashing ice at the Duluth Curling Club
[This post originally contained an embedded video that is no longer available at the source.]
If the spring weather has you frustrated, perhaps you’ll find this video cathartic.
PDD Banners
On June 29 PDD will be awarding $100 to the person who submits the best new banner. Everyone who has submitted one since Jan. 1 will be eligible. Pre-2013 banners will be pulled from rotation on June 29, but will be kept in archival storage and maintained by nice librarians with white cotton gloves at Google Plus. Banners from 2005-2009 can be found here.
We’re also looking for new Homegrown banners. Those submissions will be eligible for the same $100 prize. For full details on banner submissions, click here. The basic info is the image must be 960 pixels wide by 167 pixels high. The Perfect Duluth Day logo will be added by PDD’s art department. Send them to banners @ perfectduluthday.com
“The Main” Trailer
In 1982 Bob Jansen was fired from his job as a college professor for being gay. After suing the institution that fired him, he took his settlement money to open the first openly gay bar in the Duluth/Superior region: The Main Club. The Main follows Jansen’s history and the history of the bar while exploring social trends that may threaten the continued existence of historically significant queer spaces like the Main Club.
Directed by Julie Casper Roth.
Recent comments feature maybe sort of fixed, we hope; PDD mobile version turned off temporarily
The little spot over in the left column that highlights which posts have new comments should be working properly now. Let us know if it’s doing anything funky for you.
We broke it three weeks ago while fixing something else. Now that it’s fixed, the new problem is that it leaves an ugly gap in the left column if you’ve read all the recent comments. We’ll fix that soon and then watch what breaks the minute we do.
Also, as those of you who read PDD on your phones or tablets may have noticed, we turned off PDD’s mobile version. This is a temporary measure. The mobile version was whacking out our regular site … yadda yadda … we’ll get the geeks on it eventually, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Yakima Hack
Through some horse trading and good luck, I’ve acquired two Yakima Rocket Boxes. I would like to mount them both on the current touring rig for our upcoming summer travels, but they both hinge the same direction. I really don’t want to mount one backward, and therefore am trying to figure out if the hinges can be switched with any success.
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This week: smelt, bowls and vinyl
Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.
This week is Eat Downtown Week with $10 and $20 prix fixe menus in participating downtown restaurants.
The annual Empty Bowl fundraiser for Second Harvest Food Bank is Tuesday with a silent auction today at the Depot.
The Duluth Public Library is unloading all of its vinyl on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Godspell, a modern musical based on the stories and teachings of Jesus, goes up at the Duluth Playhouse on Thursday and runs for three weekends. It will be performed in the round.
Wise Fool Shakespeare presents James DeVita performing In Acting Shakespeare at the Fitger’s Spirit of the North Theater on Thursday and Saturday.
You have a choice of Vagina Monologues on Friday at AICHO and UMD.
You can sing along with the Sound of Music at CSS on Saturday.
Saturday is Bat Appreciation Day at Gooseberry Falls.
The second annual Run Smelt Run Parade is Sunday starting at the Lift Bridge in Canal Park.
So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.
More on the Publishing Conference that Wasn’t
Mitch Ogden had arranged for an army of undergrads from UW-Stout’s Journalism and Digital Humanities programs to attend the UMD Conference on Publishing. At 6 a.m. we called the bus dispatcher to tell them to turn around. But the dispatcher crossed wires with the bus, and so three hours later, the students were here.
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Cooking on the Car: Beer Cheese Soup Finale
Cooking on the Car serves up Beer Cheese Soup in Washburn, Wis.
Minnesota withdraws from mercury pollution project
The Duluth News Tribune reports the state of Minnesota is withdrawing from a research project regarding mercury pollution in the St. Louis River, even though much of the river’s fish are inedible to women and children, and despite the fact that 1 out of 10 North Shore infants have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.
The article states that sources of mercury in the environment are well known. They include power plants, taconite plants and sulfate pollution (like the pollution from sulfide mining).
Officials from the MPCA said the state first needs more research on how mercury behaves in nature, but later in the article the proposed study is said to have included new research on how mercury behaves in the environment. Huh? It seems this research would be especially timely due to proposed copper-sulfide mining in Northern Minnesota.
The Publishing Conference that Wasn’t
Yesterday, were the weather to have cooperated more, there would have been a Publishing Conference at UMD. But it all started badly. It ended amazingly, though, and it’s worth some reflection. Parts of it (including an awesome talk or two by Roy Booth and by David Wong) are still to come, if you can join us. (more…)
Poetry Motel’s Don’t Know Shit
Patrick McKinnon’s Poetry Motel released Don’t Know Shit on Bandcamp the other day.
Good used-car dealerships for unfortunate souls with bad credit?
My husband and I currently own a beat-up 2002 Aztek. The car is a piece: bad wiring, broken speedometer, and endless dinging from a malfunctioning brake monitor. It wasn’t a problem when my job provided a fleet of cars to me for my travels as a social worker, I just drove the hunk of junk to work and used their car to transport clients. At my new job I’m required to use my own car for this while driving about 30 miles one way to work every day. I really need to get a new car before this one dies on me completely and leaves me high and dry.
I was wondering where one might find a reliable used car dealership in town. Our credit isn’t the greatest from old hospital bills and the like, but we make good payments and have improved our budgeting skills since getting out of college and realizing hey … bills don’t disappear if you ignore them like an idiot.
If the kind people of PDD have any ideas I’d be extremely grateful!
Miigwech.
This Week in LakeVoice
This week, LakeVoice releases its fifth spring issue, featuring stories on Mentor Duluth and its search for volunteers, the Re-Leaf Duluth program and its plan to replenish the city’s landscape, the Duluth Transit Authority’s plans for a new station and the changes that are coming to next year’s Bentleyville season.
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Sh-Boom no more
https://youtu.be/H0gnO8LPy9w
The Duluth band is retiring after 24 years.
Second chance for entry to the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon
Security Jewelers is auctioning one of its sponsor entries to Grandma’s Half Marathon on eBay. One hundred percent of proceeds go to the Salvation Army.
Blustery out at the Congdon’s today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x12THpgHgg0&feature=youtu.be
Be careful out there
DTA buses are sliding all over the place and bus service might be stopped before the end of the work day.
The Duluth Police Dept. reports that slippery conditions and poor visibility have contributed to over 20 crashes within the past two hours. The department is asking that residents stay home and only travel if necessary.
The zoo is closed. Goodwill is closed. Open skating at the Heritage Center is cancelled. The Duluth Parks and Rec clean up event at Chambers Grove Park is cancelled. Assume most things aren’t happening.
Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2013
Word has leaked out via Instagram that 17,500 copies of the Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2013 have arrived. Distribution might be slowed by the storm that is supposedly happening today, but — hot tip — the Electric Fetus is usually one of the first places you can find it.
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Duluth librarian/author on Slate
Article on slate.com, part of a series on camp. Shout out to Paul Roen, Duluth librarian, for his book High Camp.