Saturday Essay
Last Call at the Pilot House
Duluth Herald late-edition special report
Thursday, Jan. 28, 1915
By Joe Crisp, Senior Shipping Reporter
A famed local maritime drinking establishment has shut its doors. This is the ship’s pilot house on the tip of Timber Point in the harbor. For 16 years it has operated as the Pilot House bar. Initially serving a clientele made up exclusively of members of the Great Lakes Life Saving Service, soon it caught on with sailors and dock workers. Older Duluthians recall its origin, as the pilot house of the doomed Marchande which stuck out of the water in the shipping lanes for weeks in 1899. She had sunk by the stern as her cargo shifted, but her nose bobbed up. Using a floating crane, the Life Savers salvaged the pilot house and installed it on Timber Point. There they collectively owned and operated it as a business, until last night.
Because today, as the war in Europe heats up, the 45-year-old Life Saving Service has been officially subsumed into the Revenue Cutter Service. The resulting compound organization forms the newest branch of the armed forces, the United States Coast Guard. The Pilot House is a casualty of new regulations and a wave of retirements. Some old-timer Life Savers don’t wish to adapt, nor to compete against much younger men in basic training, to re-qualify for what will be different jobs. Many jobs are being eliminated. All three of Duluth’s Life Saving stations — at Park Point, Lester River, and Stony Point — have been officially replaced by the single new Coast Guard station in the harbor. The oars and battered wooden surfboats of the Life-Savers have given way to a steel steam-powered Coast Guard cutter, and a modern Life-Saving station complete with radio equipment and a machine shop. Among the sweeping changes are rules prohibiting Coast Guard personnel profiting from salvage. And since all the booze served at the Pilot House was salvaged from local shipwrecks, this effectively puts the bar out of business. Last night was last call. (more…)
Minnesota Land Surveyor’s Deathbed Confession, 1907
The text below is reproduced from a handwritten document that slipped out of a book of maps at the Minnesota Historical Society. Its authentication remains in progress.
I die happy seeing the completion of the Minnesota land survey, and the dissolution of the Office of the Surveyor General. He surveyed himself out of a job. We all did, the great work of our lives. It took five decades. But holes were chopped through the state that cannot be filled. I discovered a flaw in the measurements in the summer of 1855 when we were still just a territory. And I have knowledge of the disappearance of my hated competitor as he fell between the parallels, in the woods of what is now northeast Duluth.
Many surveying companies were employed by the Surveyor General. Mine was one and I was sworn in as a deputy surveyor. Rough work. We camped away from home for months, in 10-man teams: axe-men, chainmen, cooks, and muleskinners. Our families didn’t know if we were alive or dead until we returned (or failed to) for the winter break. (more…)
Gang of Thieves
Every time he comes into the public library, Marv is mumbling to himself, engaged in an angry conversation with the assholes who live inside his head. Six feet tall, hard faced, his vibe is intimidating, but when he speaks to library staff, Marv’s hissed swearing ceases; unfailingly, he is respectful. Mostly, he’s there to use the computers, and once he’s settled inside the massive downtown building, Marv stays, sometimes spending more than half a day in the climate-controlled, well-lit shelter that is the main library in Duluth, Minnesota. At closing time, he’ll bid workers “Good night!” before he and His Mumbles head outside to unlock whatever bike he’s riding that week.
When Marv leaves the building, he’s accompanied by a library technician, someone who will unfasten and remove the eight-pound chain and small u-lock that protect his bike from theft during his long hours of poking around the internet. Marv doesn’t own a lock. Likely, he doesn’t own the bike. But it’s his for as long as he’s got it, and checking out a library lock assures he’ll have a means of getting to whatever passes as “home” at day’s end. (more…)
The Grateful Dead vs. The Velvet Underground
The 2024 death of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh reminded me: I discovered the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground at the same time. The bands still exist as a unity in my mind, even after I figured out they were polar opposites.
My 1980s high school girlfriend was from the Northeast around Connecticut and New York City. She fused goth, punk, and hippie vibes. When we were 18, we took acid in her Austin, Texas shack. That’s where she DJ’d for me, on vinyl, the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground.
I’d heard the bands but never listened. She played the 1970 Dead tune “Box of Rain,” written by Lesh about the death of his father. Then we listened to “Rock & Roll,” the 1970 VU tune by Lou Reed about music as refuge, with Sterling Morrison on lead guitar. It all sounded like sheer Americana to me.
In the 1990s I became more of a Velvet Underground guy, from the band’s proto-punk stuff. But then I dated a Deadhead in Berkeley, and she took me to some Dead shows. That’s when I really got what the Dead fuss was about. I enjoyed my first show plenty, just for the carnival atmosphere, not having a deep knowledge of their discography. But then they covered “Johnny B. Goode” and the top of my skull lifted off. The secret of Dead shows is they piled crescendo on crescendo until you hit peak bliss, then they kept climbing. Yes I was on mescaline. (more…)
The Most Read Saturday Essays of 2024
For the fourth year in a row, Jim Richardson has dominated the top of the charts. He has authored four of the five most read Saturday Essays of 2024. (more…)
Ripped at Lost in the ’50s in 2004
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to Lost in the ’50s, 1809 N. Third St. in Superior, and composed this article for the December 2004 edition of the Ripsaw, which was the last issue of the publication in its monthly magazine format.]
Of the five bars located at the receptacle end of Tower Avenue, Lost in the ’50s is the shyest and most understated. Other bars in the neighborhood are known for their horseshoes or their burgers or for being a place to quietly drink yourself to death. Lost in the ’50s offers cheap drinks, a decent juke, bad karaoke and, as the name would suggest, a smattering of velvet Elvis art. For some reason, few people bother to take them up on the offer.
Location has as much to do with it as anything else. The layout of the Tower Avenue/North Third Street intersection tends to lead the drunken eye to the east, away from Lost in the ’50s and toward more dubious places, like Jo D’s Corner Oasis, JT’s or the deathly Tom’s Cedar Lounge. Besides, most people, once they get as far as the Anchor or maybe Molly’s, don’t even think of venturing any farther, because they assume they have all they need. They’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you why. (more…)
Ripped at O’Gilby’s in 2004
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to the O’Gilby’s, 511 E. Fourth St. in Duluth’s Central Hillside, and composed this article for the November 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. O’Gilby’s closed in May 2008; the location is now a parking lot.]
The great thing about being an alcoholic in a region with so many bars is that there is one to fit each of my moods. No matter what I feel like doing, there is an establishment that caters to that specific type of fun. O’Gilby’s isn’t the kind of place you go to see live music. It isn’t the kind of place where you go to try to pick someone up. It isn’t a place where you go to dance or to participate in illegal gambling. No, O’Gilby’s is the kind of place you go to when you just want to get plastered and sit around like an Ethiopian with flies on your face. And tonight I’m having the time of my life. (more…)
These Extraordinary Days
In the introduction to their book The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, the authors wrote, “The world is on fire, from the Amazon to California, from Australia to the Siberian Arctic. The hour is late, and the moment of consequence, so long delayed, is now upon us. Do we watch the world burn, or do we choose to do what is necessary to achieve a different future? Who we understand ourselves to be determines the choice we will make. That choice determines what will become of us. The choice is both simple and complex, but above all it is urgent.”
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac talk about the various climate events that have contributed to a more fragile planet over the past fifty years. The populations of mammals, fish, reptiles and birds have declined by 60%. Half of the world’s coral reefs have disappeared. Also, the Arctic summer sea ice is rapidly shrinking.
Over the past several months, we’ve been reading about the extensive wildfires in California and Canada as well as the ever rising temperatures in Phoenix and other parts of the Southwest. And now, we’re watching wildfires in Oklahoma, historic heat records in the central region of the United States, new hottest night records in Indonesia and Thailand, and a year’s worth of rain fell in 8 hours in Valencia, Spain. (more…)
Two-headed Calf and the Power of Stories
I own thousands of books and comic books. I own fewer books than comics — I have grown disenchanted with the novel, as a form of storytelling, because it sucks me away from the world that I want to be part of, to find meaning in. So my shelves are filled with nonfiction books that I can reference, instead of read cover to cover. They are filled with poetry books and prose poems, writings by mystics and cranks. And they are filled with comics.
Comics read quickly but reward reflection — I can zoom through 20 pages while waiting for a teenager who takes forever to kiss their girlfriend goodbye, or I can slowly reflect on a page or two that tugs at my heart and makes me think.
The Laura Gilpin poem, “Two Headed Calf,” has become the source for a lot of internet comics.
For example, the two-page comic below by Little Tunny (their name on Twitter and on Patreon). (more…)
Ripped at the Duluth Athletic Club in 2004
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to the Duluth Athletic Club Bar & Grill, 402 W. First St., and composed this article for the October 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. The Duluth Athletic Club closed in 2008 after it was flooded by a toilet overflow.]
Tonight, in an effort to mentally prepare you for the upcoming presidential election, I ask this question: Where in the Twin Ports would George W. Bush go to get drunk? The answer, of course, is nowhere. Bush doesn’t drink. He used to drink, but then he flip-flopped and turned into an evangelical traitor to the cause.
John Kerry, on the other hand, might go to the Duluth Athletic Club Bar & Grill. After all, the DAC is a nice, clean, all-American place where any political figure could spend a quiet night without any controversy whatsoever. And a rich sonuvabitch like Kerry could certainly afford the overpriced drinks. (more…)
Football
Since early September I’ve been really wanting to throw a football around with someone. It makes sense given the season, but until a few weeks ago I bet it had been 25 years since I’d even thought about it. After the last throw or catch on some early-’90s day I’ll never remember, after throwing and catching footballs every autumn day and a lot of others from elementary school until college, I just didn’t do it anymore. I don’t even know the last time I picked up a football before recently. And now, for no reason I can discern, I’m lost in thoughts of throwing a soft, arcing spiral to someone, watching the ball into my hands after they throw it back to me, and repeating that process over and over and over.
I played organized football from elementary school until college. Fourth grade until sophomore year. Age nine to age 20. Eleven years. I’m 53 and the 11 years from here back to 42 feel like a blip. Nothing. Pretty sure I turn 64 next month. I’ll be 75 a week or two after that. But when I was 20 those 11 years were half of forever and Football Player was most of what I had known myself to be. Elementary school, junior high, high school, and the first two years of college. Each an eon that feels more heavy and definitive the older I get. The past won’t stop being present. Those 11 years have lasted so much longer than their actual length. (more…)
Synchronicity in Action: How I Met the Late Ralph Abraham
Among the mind-blowing coincidences of my life is how I met the countercultural chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, who died on September 19. He was a huge influence on me and the moment we met was extraordinary.
Coincidence is not technically the same thing as synchronicity. To believe in synchronicity, you must believe in meaning. And I did.
It was the 1990s and I was a young hippie newlywed in Bonny Doon, the backwoods of Santa Cruz, California. Like a lot of folks, my wife and I lived at the end of a long winding dirt road at the end of another long winding road. It was like a miles-long driveway. People with land out there had sprinkled the place with trailers and shacks, and they let people rent them cheap on the down low. One of those shacks was home sweet home. You could hear the ocean in the distance. The outhouse had no walls or roof, it was just … out. (more…)
Thoughts on Caesarean Section
Until recently, my vision of childbirth was driven by television. Situation comedies taught me to imagine a woman reclined in a bed. The husband stands slightly behind her and to the left, holding her hand, which is squeezed every time the birthing mom hears “push!” from the doctor.
Nearly every part of that picture was fabricated for television.
I have only recently come to understand that, while we imagine the mother or birthing person to be the center of the picture of birth in the United States, in fact, she is sometimes pushed to the side while the doctor takes over. (more…)
Hoodies Are Stupid
I have four hooded sweatshirts in my closet. That’s probably not an unusual number, because the hoodie is a popular shirt style. It also seems like a very practical garment, designed to keep people warm and cozy. It’s like an indoor/outdoor jackety blanket for people who don’t want to feel weird about wearing a jacket inside or a blanket outside.
Though I sometimes wear hoodies and appreciate the idea behind the design, I don’t actually like them. The reason is that there are really only two things that differentiate a hoodie from a sweatshirt — the hood and the kangaroo pocket. And both of those things are stupid.
Yet, somehow, hoodies are far more popular than regular sweatshirts. The reason, I think, is because most people believe they sincerely like the hood and the jumbo single-pocket abdominal pad. But really, they don’t. They just can’t.
Surely hoodie lovers have been waiting for decades for someone to come along and explain how stupid they are. Well, here I am. Society is now just a few paragraphs away from the end of the hoodie, because everyone is going to agree with me, change their ways immediately, and heap praise upon me for freeing them from their misguided perceptions of fashion and comfort. (more…)
Sir Duluth and Father Hennepin on Mushrooms
Letters exchanged between Father Louis Hennepin and Daniel Greysolon, Sir Duluth. From a special collection at Northern Illinois University, translated from the French by Peter S. Svenson.
To: Daniel Greysolon, Sir Duluth
Montreal, New France
From: Father Louis Hennepin
Rome
Date: August 23, 1701
Dear Duluth,
Remember our exchange when you rescued me from my kidnappers? I asked you, “Do you have to look so much like a French musketeer?” And you replied, “I am literally a French musketeer. Do you have to look so much like Friar Tuck?” Forgive me. An old man on my deathbed, let me put things right. I anticipate my reward but I look back at the enemies I made. I hope you were not one. I only spent a short while in New France. And we did not know each other well. But we tore it up, didn’t we? I should think they will name a city after you someday. I will be content with a street or two named after me, perhaps a bridge. One doesn’t wish to be prideful. But you deserve your glories.
One thing bothers me. Please tell me what you remember of our time on Lake Superior, our final full day together. My memories of the event are confused. We caught no fish yet we were out there for hours.
Please accept, dear Sir, the expression of my most sincere feelings.
Louis
Ripped at Tom’s Burned Down Café in 2004
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to the Town of La Pointe on Madeline Island and composed this article for the September 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine.]
Holy crap is it a beautiful night out here on Madeline Island. It’s warm, with a cool breeze coming off the lake, and I’m sprawled out on the sidewalk polishing off a 40 of Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor and watching the Northern Lights burn across the entire sky, like the good Lord himself is vomiting white Russians all over the universe. I’m thankful to be alive. I’m lucky to be alive, too, as there are a lot of ways to die on this island, all of them alcohol related.
The downtown La Pointe area is small and concentrated, so it’s not unusual that a cop car has cruised by me a few times now. Each time I wave, and the cop waves back, because everything is fine; the speed limit here is 40 oz. See, unlike most of the United States of America, it’s perfectly legal on Madeline Island to walk around town with a beer in your hand, as if you live in a free country. You can carry your bottled or canned brew from one bar to the next, or just sit on a hollow log in front of the Chamber of Commerce and chug away. This place has everything Duluth has an ordinance against. (more…)
Ghost Dogs
“The safest way to heaven is to be eaten by beautiful dogs.”
— Kamchatka proverb
My family had a pair of little dogs like on the Black and White scotch whiskey label: a black Scottish Terrier and a West Highland White Terrier. My folks got the Scottish Terrier first, when I was in fourth grade. Being English teachers, they thought it was hilarious to name her Macduff, after the character who kills Macbeth in “the Scottish Play.” Four years later we gave Dad the white Westie for Christmas. He named the dog Budger. Dad died that summer.
Three years passed. It was the summer after eleventh grade. My brother and I ate some LSD after Mom and our sister left the house for the day. This was my first acid trip. We walked to the ice cream shop until we started feeling weird. Returning home we flopped down on the living room carpet and let the dogs come to us. We lay there laughing while Macduff and Budger licked our faces and wagged their tails and sniffed in our ears. I had what felt like a genetic memory of people playing with their dogs back down through the stone age and into deep time. The black and the white dog symbolized more than themselves, and I did too. (more…)
Victims of the Wreck of the Wilson Should Have a Memorial
A recent push to place a memorial to the Edmund Fitzgerald on Barker’s Island got me thinking about the local oft-forgotten wreck of the Thomas Wilson. My 1995 edition of the book Shipwrecks of Lake Superior (edited by James R. Marshall) calls the Wilson “Duluth’s doorstep shipwreck.” The author of the Wilson chapter is legendary local scuba diver Paul von Goertz, who says on page 75 that “The Thomas Wilson ‘sails the bottom’ less than a mile from the ship canal.” A 308-foot whaleback steamer loaded with ore, the Wilson got T-boned in 1902 and sank within three minutes.
What bothers me about the wreck is that it may hold the remains of seven crew members:
“Of the 20 men that comprised the Wilson’s crew, nine were lost. Only two of the nine bodies were recovered. The remaining seven are entombed to this day in the hull of the Wilson … [the wreck] remains in pretty good shape …. To the best of my knowledge, entry has not been gained into the turret housing the boiler room. A safe guess would be that the men entombed in the wreck might be found in the boiler room, as this was the compartment nearest the actual point of collision. The preservation qualities of ice cold Lake Superior have protected the old wreck well … On one dive, I examined some wooden planking near the stern. The wood was not in the least rotted and even the putty in the seams was intact … One could safely speculate that the cold water would also preserve the remains of the seven sailors entombed in her belly.” (Lake Superior Shipwrecks, pp. 76-77) (more…)
Three Seconds to Escape a Pillowing
Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to discover a pillow is being pushed down over your face. Just like in the movies. How would you react?
Well, perhaps you can learn from me. I recently woke up to find myself being smothered, and I survived. How I escaped is less interesting than what went through my head in the first three seconds.
The human brain can perform quickly in these situations. It can sort through dozens of scenarios instantly. This is partly because our thoughts can be morbid at times, leading us to plan ahead for how to respond to things that are very unlikely to happen. We are also influenced by movies, television, books and other forms of storytelling that warn us there really are people who, randomly or premeditatedly, are stabbed, shot, strangled or otherwise rubbed out. If it happened to them, it can happen to you, right?
Being suffocated by someone pushing a pillow into your face should rank pretty low on the list of ways you might think you could be killed, even though it’s something that frequently happens on TV. It just seems so stupid. Why would someone planning a murder choose such a potentially flawed option? And why would anyone acting impulsively choose a pillow as the best available murder weapon? Are there really no blunt objects in the room? Is it really possible in the United States of America to enter a bedroom without passing a gun rack or a kitchen with a vast array of knives? Or is the murderer really limited to seeking out an extra pillow, decorative and fluffy, near the one under the head of the victim? (more…)
The Wreck of the Ophelia
Testimony of Mary Nettleton, from the 1898 Annual Report of the United States Life-Saving Service, chapter heading “Log of the Park Point, Duluth Station” (Lake Superior Maritime Museum archives):
I sailed for a year aboard a sunken ship, the wooden schooner-barge Ophelia. She sank on October 15, 1897 in Canadian waters, downbound for Duluth from Thunder Bay. I was finally rescued from the air pocket in her drowned saloon on October 12, 1898, having drifted 150 miles underwater to Duluth. The Ophelia arrived a year behind schedule, crossing the open border between the living and the dead. As to my miraculous survival, doctors and scientists set upon me to solve it. I have become an object of curiosity; fear also.
Sinking
I first encountered the Ophelia on a dock in Buffalo where I signed to be the ship’s cook. I was the only woman aboard. Originally a passenger ship, she couldn’t compete against steam power, so her owners ripped out the passenger suites in favor of three large cargo holds. The windjammer-turned-barge retained classy touches like her oversized saloon. We sailed three of the five Great Lakes in tow of the wooden steamer Harlow, who rode heavy before the gale that snapped the towline and drove us apart. The blow ripped away what rigging could be raised and then downed both our masts. But it wasn’t the mountainous seas that sank us. It was a spar snapped off the deck of the Harlow that staved a hole in our bow. The pumps couldn’t keep up. (more…)
Ripped at Shotz Bar in 2004
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to Shotz Bar in Gary-New Duluth and composed this article for the July 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. Shotz closed in April 2023.]
I refer to Commonwealth Avenue as the region’s Karaoke Belt not because there’s more karaoke in Gary than in the rest of Duluth and Superior, but rather because there’s the best karaoke there. If you want to hear people who can actually sing, go to the Alpine Bar. If you want to hear people who can’t sing well at all, but still bring a touch of art to their performance, go to Shotz.
There are a lot of pictures of bikers lining the walls of Shotz, which might make you think it’s a biker bar. A quick look around the room tonight, however, reveals only two patrons dressed like members of the Black Widows. The rest are wearing CSI Las Vegas caps, warm-up pants and various articles of clothing earned by collecting UPC symbols on cigarette cartons. (more…)
Saturday Essay: Paved Paradise
Oh, good. There are some open spaces in the lot, so I won’t have to go rogue and park illegally next to the dumpster. With six garbage bags of clothes to donate, I’d been worrying I’d have to hoof them, biceps trembling during multiple trips, for a block or more.
I give an appreciative mental pat to the convenient parking lot with its open spaces. Well done, little lot. My lazy biceps thank you for your service.
Sliding into a space a hundred yards from the door, I turn off the car and sigh, bracing myself. Okay, now where do I go with these donations? (more…)
Ripped at Ray’s Bar in 2004
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to Ray’s Bar in the Town of Superior and composed this article for the June 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. The establishment was more recently known as the Shortstop Bar, but is presently not in operation.]
About a year ago, I took a little tour of South Superior where, after wiping his piss on my neck, the drunken bartender at the Rusty Nail advised me to head down the road to Ray’s Bar. “Ray will shit on you for sure,” he said, inadvertently describing South Superior hospitality to a tee.
Now I didn’t exactly just fall off the turnip truck. I know some people are into that sort of thing, and I’m sure a lot of them haunt the thickets of South Superior. But as for me, I’m not much for excrement. Nonetheless, when faced with the choice of dealing with the Paris Hilton wannabes and renegade security guards at the latest version of the NorShor Theatre or wrestling with a psychotic South Superiorite wielding his own crap, I’ll head out on the highway every time. (more…)
Garbage, Dog Turds and Polyethylene Owls
When I’m out walking and I see a plastic bag stuck in a tree, I always point it out to anyone who might be around and say, “Hey look, a West Duluth owl.” It’s a stupid joke that doesn’t get much of a reaction, but hey, so am I.
Making cheesy remarks might be the best action in that situation. There’s a clump of ugly garbage stuck in a beautiful tree, and my options for how to deal with it are to climb the tree or use a long device of some kind to somehow remove the bag, ignore the situation altogether, or pretend like I wanted that bag to be there all along to support the comedy of life.
I have similar statements I repeat all the time. If my childhood friend is telling me about her cancer diagnosis, for example, I’ll say, “I told you not to go swimming downstream of the steel plant.”
The tragedy behind the comedy boils down to something pretty simple: I want a clean environment, but I know that’s unrealistic. It’s also confusing, because a clean environment contains a lot of dirt. And seriously, a clean planet and a polluted planet are made up of the same things; the difference is how those things are arranged. (more…)
Build a Goddamn Bob Dylan Statue Already
For real, I think there needs to be more serious discussion about a Duluth Bob Dylan statue. He’s the (checks notes) greatest songwriter in the world (the Nobel Prize people compared him to Homer and Blake), and Duluth is his (checks notes again) literal birthplace. Where did I read — perhaps buried in the epic comments of this PDD Facebook post — that local/regional Dylan relatives disfavor statues, as opposed to a nice plaque or something? An MPR article cites “a Dylan family member” who states a preference for educational work instead. I get it. But Dylan must have dozens of relatives, did we ask them all? Do we have to ask any of them, since Dylan belongs to the world?
I also get that statues are falling out of favor and may become problematic. The meaning of a statue can change. Maybe it would be better to just name a street, or a music center, or erect a plaque — something you can quietly change up or take down in a hurry if history reverses on you. But respectfully, I worry that plaques and manhole covers are simply too boring to honor the greatest songwriter in the world besides Taylor Swift.
You think Taylor Swift will only get some nice manhole covers? You think they won’t build a statue in her hometown by the time she’s Dylan’s current age of 82? (more…)