Mystery Photos: Wide Awake and Green Dragon Studios
The three gentlemen in the photos above appear to be the same guys in different positions in front of different backgrounds with different cowboy outfits. They also are at two different Duluth photo studios, according to the ink stamps on the back. The first is from the Green Dragon Studio at 18 E. Superior St., and the second is from the Wide Awake Studio at 10 E. Superior St. (more…)
A look at the two-level infill house in West Duluth
A New Prototype for Building Affordable Houses on Narrow Lots in Duluth — ENTER
FEATURE A New Prototype for Building Affordable Houses on Narrow Lots in Duluth
entermn.com
Enter, a digital biweekly publication from the creators of Architecture MN magazine, takes a look at “a new prototype for building affordable houses on narrow lots in Duluth.”
Cry on Cue – “Sweetheart Like You”
The video for the first release from the fifth album in the Duluth Does Dylan series — Free Wheelin’ Duluth Does Dylan — is by Cry on Cue, featuring Bernie Larsen on vocals and various instruments, Alan Sparhawk on “big guitar” and Erik Koskinen on drums. The video is directed by Larsen and features Cassidy Linder.
Freewheelin’ Duluth Does Dylan will be released by Spinout Records on May 26 during the Duluth Dylan Fest.
1930s Footage of Duluth’s Streetcars and Incline Railway
The Minnesota Streetcar Museum presents this rare collection of Duluth streetcar footage from the 1930s — much of it in color — including scenes from West Duluth, Woodland and Downtown. The video was written, produced, narrated and directed by historian Aaron Isaacs, with production assistance from Bill Olexy.
Duluth’s streetcars were replaced by buses in 1939. (more…)
PDD Quiz: Homegrown 2022
Grab your field guide and start getting (cautiously) excited about the return of the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival with this week’s quiz!
The next PDD quiz rolls your way on April 24; it will cover this month’s headlines. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by April 21. (more…)
Bury Me in Hot Sauce
There is a Medieval legend of the honey mummy: holy men consuming nothing but honey until their excreta and fluids turn to honey, whereupon they die and are sealed in honey-filled stone caskets for a hundred years. Bites of their candied flesh are said to have curative powers, mystically evading definitions of cannibalism.
When I am 75, I will stop eating and drinking anything except hot sauce. After a month, my bodily fluids will become hot sauce. I will poop fiery chili paste like a sambal. The endorphins released with every bowel movement will keep me high as a kite. I will pee siracha sauce squirting like a squeeze bottle. My seminal fluid will be an organic salsa verde. My salivary glands will secrete tabasco. Weeping serrano tears from cayenne eyes, everything I see will have an apocalyptic tint. The interstitial fluid between my cells will run with fermented habanero. Since an all-out hot sauce diet is unsustainable, I will die. Fill a stone coffin with artisan ghost peppers, pureed scotch bonnets, Trinidad scorpions, jalapenos aged in wooden casks, vinegar, salt, lime, onions, and garlic. Place my body inside. Then seal it for 100 years. (more…)
Selective Focus: Emily Koch
Left: Photograph of Emily Koch. Right: “Self Portrait” 20×28. Oil on wood panel.
Emily Koch is a surrealist painter from Duluth. She studied fine art at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, graduating in 2020 and has worked as a freelance artist since then. She is drawn to all things queer, feminine and counterculture. (more…)
Hotel Pikku, an early Lincoln Park revival project, is up for sale
The building at 1923 W. Superior St. was constructed in 1899 and houses the Hotel Pikku and Hemlock Leather works. (Photo: gregfollmer.com)
A small, stylish boutique hotel that opened in a renovated historic building and helped transform Lincoln Park into a hip, trendy neighborhood is now for sale.
The three-suite, second-floor Hotel Pikku, 1923 W. Superior St., opened after owners Chelsy Whittington and Andy Matson purchased the building in 2016 and spent more than a year remodeling it. Hemlock Leatherworks, a custom shoemaker, is located on the ground floor. (more…)
Homegrown Music Festival Field Guide 2022 has arrived
The 24th annual Homegrown Music Festival is less than a month away. The 100-page Field Guide is off the presses and will be available at Duluth-area bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days. (more…)
Monthly Grovel: April 2022
Zlata Chochieva? 311? Trampled by Turtles? Weird Al? The only reliable tool to help weigh the upcoming concert options is the PDD Calendar.
Each month we reach out with one beggarly blog post to remind everyone that human beings and not machines are at work editing and publishing calendar events. So if you appreciate it, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account. (more…)
The colors of water
Red: Whiteface Reservoir. Orange: French River. Yellow: French River. Green: Lake Superior. Blue: Lake Superior
MMA Squirrel Fighting: Crazy Carl vs. Buster the Beast
Wild Cam North — a production of Duluth’s Brian Luoma — presents this classic mixed martial arts backyard squirrel battle. It’s a no-holds-barred contest in which Crazy Carl defends his championship against Buster the Beast.
Exploring the Cramer Tunnel
Duluth Urbex recently took an icy trudge through Minnesota’s longest train tunnel. The Cramer Tunnel, about 70 miles northeast of Duluth, connected the former LTV Steel Hoyt Lakes taconite plant with its ore dock at Taconite Harbor.
Minnesota Wolf Pack Sauntering Through a Winter Wonderland
The Cranberry Bay Pack of Wolves at Voyageurs National Park strolled past a trail camera about two weeks ago during a snowstorm. (more…)
Ingeborg von Agassiz – “Winter Dreaming”
Duluth-based electro-folk artist Ingeborg von Agassiz performs a new original song. Catch her at Clyde Iron Works on May 4 during the Homegrown Music Festival.
The Return of the Handshake
There was a brief minute at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when I thought I might never shake another person’s hand again. And I was fine with that. If we could take just one positive thing out of the widespread death, illness and cultural disturbance that began in 2020, it might be ridding ourselves once and for all of the compulsion to rub our palms together.
But even when I was in the middle of a long no-handshake stretch, full of wishful thinking about the future, I knew deep down that the germ clutch would soon return. And of course it did.
My prejudicial prediction was that most people wouldn’t want to return to handshaking, but a bunch of insistent jackasses would refuse to let it die. Then it would slowly become normal again and we’d all live with it. I was wrong. Pretty much everyone started extending their hands the moment lockdowns and mandates were eased. There was no resistance. (more…)
Surf and Slide – Great Lakes Now
Detroit Public TV produces Great Lakes Now. The show speaks to me of what we share with other Great Lakes residents and how we should quit fighting about whether or not Lake Superior is the Greatest Lake. This episode focuses on ice sailing, and lake surfing (specifically the Surfistas): “It’s about stoke.”
Mary Bue – “Bones and the Marrow”
Former Duluthian Mary Bue released “Bones and the Marrow” today, a track that will appear on her forthcoming full-length album The Wildness of Living and Dying. Bue is marking the song release with a livestream on Sunday at 3 p.m. CDT on YouTube and Facebook!
Quoth the artist: “The song is a reflection on the quest for finding love not only in a pandemic, but also in a wild and brutal post-divorce dating jungle. Ultimately it’s a healing journey of the broken heart — to slowly, gingerly allow the light to stream in.”
Diving into North Shore Photography with Christian Dalbec
For the new Twin Cities Public Television web series Outside Chance, host Chance York ventured to Two Harbors and Split Rock State Park for photography adventures with Christian Dalbec.
Jiminy Glick on hanging out with O. J. Simpson in Duluth
Twenty years ago today — March 30, 2002 — Jiminy Glick shared with Andy Richter his story of hanging out with O.J. Simpson in Duluth.
Jiminy Glick, of course, is a character played by comic actor Martin Short. The scene is from season 2, episode 6 of Primetime Glick, a series that aired on Comedy Central.
Black with Filth: Kip’s Dirty Snow Photo Adventure
Duluth photographer Kip Praslowicz offers pro tips for hunting dirty snow in spring, capturing the majestic beauty with his Sony Mavica FD7.
Selective Focus: Aaron Kloss
Aaron Kloss is a Duluth-based landscape painter with a distinctive, contemporary style. He draws inspiration from the natural world, particularly North Shore forests and wildlife. (more…)
PDD Quiz: March 2022
See how many of this month’s headlines you remember with this week’s current events quiz!
The next PDD, coming your way on April 10, will look ahead to the Homegrown Music Festival. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by April 7. (more…)
Stock Lake Superior with Seals and Orca Whales: A Modest Proposal
To the Mayor of Duluth and the City Council: I propose that the city stock Lake Superior with seals, and a community of orcas to keep the seals in check. This plan increases annual tourist revenue by $300,000,000. I outline my proposal below with expenditures.
Seals can live in freshwater. The only population of exclusively-freshwater seals is native to the ratchet Lake Baikal in Russia, the Baikal seals. But geopolitical issues preclude obtaining breeding pairs. Therefore we need to look closer to home: Quebec has harbor seals in a couple lakes, a subspecies of the common seal called the Ungava seal. But, the Ungava is endangered so if we import them, we should establish a breeding program, increasing expenses.
Fortunately, Iliamna Lake in Alaska has a population of common seals trapped there. I suggest we capture and import specimens from that population to get ours started. Technically saltwater seals, the common seals’ adaptability to freshwater has been proven which will give them a head start in Lake Superior. I’ll throw in a couple Ungavas on the house to increase genetic diversity. Estimated cost of capturing and importing 100 breeding pairs of seals from Lake Iliamna: $3,500,000. (more…)