AJ Mclean praises and damns Duluth on TikTok
@ajmcleanofficial I have never seen something so serene and beautiful in all my life and quiet a little taste of heaven before I go to bed. Big day tomorrow!
AJ Mclean, the singer, actor, dancer and model best known as a member of the Backstreet Boys, was in Duluth this weekend for a wedding, according to videos on TicTok. In his first Duluth post, from the edge of Lake Superior, he notes he has “never seen something so serene and beautiful” in all his life and calls it “a little taste of heaven.” In the second post, however, he’s a bit miffed that there are no Ubers available. There is also a third post with some wedding-day fun. (more…)
Hey, Are You Married?
I had just crossed lazily through the intersection toward Wells Fargo Center, gently swinging my bag in the late afternoon heat. I had also decided that day to make friends with the hips I had developed over the past six months and lean into them … literally.
I saw him, 30-ish, scruffy, with a dirty T-shirt and a backward hat, leaning against the building. Our city has its contingent of panhandlers. They add a little paprika to our lives and I didn’t pay him any mind — until he called out to me as I passed by him.
“What?!” I asked, incredulously while laughing, stopped in my tracks.
‘I asked if you were married,” he answered with a crooked smile.
“Yes,” I replied and started to walk away. He wasn’t done, though. “Can I get your number and text you?” he yelled at me.
I turned around. “HAPPILY married!” I shot back and spun around on my heel and walked off, laughing. (more…)
Heely Tricks with JamesG
Another installment of the latest wheeled sneaker stunts by former Duluthian James Geisler, also known as the hip-hop artist JamesG.
Postcard from the Coal Docks in 1911
This postcard was mailed Sept. 18, 1911 — 110 years ago today. For some reason it took more than a month to reach it’s destination. It bears a second postmark of Oct. 26; indicating it took 38 days to travel about 250 miles from Duluth to Miss Martha Moe in Wood Lake. (more…)
Mystery Photos: Undeveloped Roll of Film from 2004
Duluth photographer Kip Praslowicz occasionally acquires old point-and-shoot cameras that still have a roll of film in them. In this video he shows off black-and-white images from a Samsung IBEX 3x camera.
Clues in the background of two of the mystery photos indicate the images might be from the Minnesota State High School League Region 7AA Visual Art Festival in early 2004. That’s as much as we know so far.
The Gentleman Out of Duluth
Have you heard about the gentleman out of Duluth who developed his own word processor? You should have heard about him seven years ago in episode 9 of the television drama Halt and Catch Fire.
The clip above features the Duluth mention, which aired on the AMC cable network on July 27, 2014.
The Fishing Wolves of Voyageurs National Park
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV10To7JqDo\
The discovery that wolves in Voyageurs National Park hunt freshwater fish came in 2017 and was reported in the Duluth News Tribune, New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio and other outlets in 2018, when the first videos emerged. (more…)
Mary Bue – “Tequila Song”
Mary Bue has a new music video for a track from her 2020 album The World is Your Lover. “Tequila Song” is produced by Jon Hain. (more…)
Postcard from the College of St. Scholastica, 1931
This postcard of the College of St. Scholastica was mailed Sept. 13, 1931 — 90 years ago today. Robert Strauss of Snyder, N.Y. was the recipient. The message on the back is from his parents, who write: “Hello Boy. On our way to Seattle.” (more…)
Warrior Brewing’s stout takes silver at Great American Beer Fest
Co-owner and head brewer Ben Gipson and his wife Emily show off Warrior Brewing’s silver medal from the Great American Beer Festival. (Photo via Warrior Brewing Company)
Duluth’s newest brewery is also its newest medal winner. Warrior Brewing Company was awarded the silver medal for its Barbarian Imperial Stout at the Great American Beer Festival. The Lincoln Park neighborhood business released its first batch to liquor stores in June.
It’s the fifth year in a row that a Duluth or Superior brewery has won a medal at the festival. (more…)
PDD Quiz: Duluth Laws
How well do you know the finer points of Duluth’s legislative code? Dive into this week’s trivia and test your legal smarts.
The next PDD quiz, on current events, will be coming your way on Sept. 26. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by Sept. 22. (more…)
Monthly Grovel: A Decade of the PDD Calendar
It was 10 years ago today — Sept. 12, 2011 — when PDD officially launched its event calendar. Since then our team of PDD Calendar cruise directors have published an estimated 68,000 listings of Duluth-area happenings — from concerts and plays to blood drives and cribbage tournaments.
In recent years we’ve reached out once a month with a beggarly blog post to remind everyone that human beings and not machines are at work editing and publishing calendar events, and that’s what this anniversary edition of the Monthly Grovel is about. So if you appreciate the event calendar, drop a few bucks in the PayPal account. (more…)
Attack on America
It’s Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, 10:30 a.m. I’m standing in my kitchen munching on an apple. Suddenly, a huge man who looks like the professional wrestler Razor Ramon comes thundering through the front door announcing that he is an employee of the Water and Gas Department and needs to read the meter.
Without asking for identification or taking any security precautions whatsoever, I show him to the basement stairway and resume chomping on my apple. Soon, my basement housemates greet Razor Ramon and he starts talking to them about how the country is at war.
“We’re at war, dude,” I hear him say. “Haven’t you turned on the TV or the radio yet?”
I turn on the television in the living room and see a huge cloud of smoke and debris where the World Trade Center once stood. The news anchor explains that two hijacked passenger jets smashed into the towers, causing them to collapse. (more…)
9/10
I’m still talking around 9/11 as I write this series of posts. I am worried that any effort I put into converting my experience into words will diminish that experience.
Perhaps that’s what I see most of all in the Congressional records one year after 9/11. Below are bits and pieces from a joint session of Congress, held in New York, on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, where most everyone, except maybe Paul Wellstone, talks around 9/11. (more…)
Low – “White Horses”
The new album by Duluth band Low is out today. Hey What is the band’s 13th full-length release in 27 years.
“White Horses” is the fourth video from the album. It is directed by Shane Donahue.
Video Archive: Vietnam Protest in Duluth, 1969
On Oct. 15, 1969, a “Peace March and Moratorium” was held in Duluth to protest the Vietnam War. Participants marched from the campus of the University of Minnesota Duluth to the Duluth Civic Center. This clip is raw 16mm film of the event pulled from the WDIO-TV archives.
Postcard from First Methodist Episcopal Church
The written message on the back of this century-old postcard is dated Sept. 9 by “Aunt Martha,” but has no postmark or other indication of the year. The card shows First Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of Third Avenue West and Third Street in Duluth. The building stood there from 1893 to 1969. (more…)
Missing Person: Raechelle Monique Long Elk
Update: Raechelle Monique Long Elk was located in Superior.
The Duluth Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in locating Raechelle Monique Long Elk. She was last seen in the Duluth area on Friday, Sept. 3.
Long Elk is described as a 34-year-old Native American and Hispanic woman. Her family is concerned about her well-being as she was previously experiencing homelessness and substance-abuse issues.
Anyone with information on Long Elk’s whereabouts is asked to call the Duluth Police Department’s Violent Crimes Unit at 218-730-5050.
PDD Video Lab: Inside the Wolf Den
In this edition of the Perfect Duluth Day Video Lab we nabbed another clip from the Voyageurs Wolf Project and made some minor manipulations. Specifically, we slowed it down a tad and added Mary Duff singing “The Nearness of You.” (more…)
The Slice: The Many Tales of Laughing Fox
Michael Charette, also known as Tales of Laughing Fox, is a flute maker and player, animal mask maker and more. He lives in Red Cliff, about 60 miles east of Duluth.
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.
On patrol: Boat propeller blades
While on patrol I found these two big iron flower petal things not too far offshore, wedged among the rocks. They were about 50 feet from each other in around ten feet of water. I think they may be blades from a large boat propeller. Yes I wore a shark fin for this patrol — a couple years ago I encountered a three-foot muskie in this area, and felt it best I should shark up. (more…)
Denfeld High School: Tower of Opportunity
Although this brochure for Denfeld High School has a 1991 copyright, the photos appear to be circa 1987-88. Alert eyeballs will spot current Denfeld principal Tom Tusken and Duluth School Board member Alanna Oswald as students in the photos. (more…)
9/6
After 9/11, I taught a class in the World Trade Center collapse, looking at it as a trauma but also as a failure of engineering. Mostly, this reflects my mental state in the years after the event:
How did this happen?
If it seemed a miracle to me that there could be two towers, reaching 110 stories into the sky, it seemed even more unthinkable that they fell down. (more…)