Bring the Sing Duluth – “Draw the Circle Wide”
Footage from MPR Classical’s “Bring the Sing” mass choral singing event held in April.
Footage from MPR Classical’s “Bring the Sing” mass choral singing event held in April.
I have a few friends doing G.I.S.H.W.H.E.S., hosted by Misha Collins of I think the TV show “Supernatural.” From gishwhes.com:
We’re proud to have broken several Guinness World Records including: the most global hugs, 108,121; most pledges to commit charitable Acts of Kindness, 93,376, which we did in partnership with our friends at the non-profit Random Acts (www.therandomact.org); and of course, let’s not forget the prestigious Longest Safety Pin Chain – over a mile long! We’ve also: delivered thousands of items to the homeless; raised the money to completely furnish every room of a home for a wounded veteran and his family (we’ll be posting videos for this soon!); had a Mars rock named after us by NASA; made Christmas trees fly; and have been reported on by news organizations around the world, including Al Jazeera.
Who in Duluth is in? There is still time to join, I think.
July 2016 is almost in the books. What happened around Duluth? Think you know? Let’s find out.
Thanks to Paul Lundgren for his contribution to the quiz.
Send your idea for quiz topics and questions to lawrence @ perfectduluthday.com.
Twenty years ago, fresh out of college, I began my career in journalism. Everything was about to change in the industry, but it hadn’t changed yet. Print was king, profits were good and the prospect of any local news organization developing a website was the subject of a conversation that started and ended with the phrase “probably next year.”
I was hired as news editor at the Duluth Budgeteer Press, a weekly community paper that produced just enough news content to avoid being considered a “shopper.” Actually, for many years it was considered a shopper, but then another paper came along that was more of a shopper, and the Budge started to be considered a newspaper.
Manny’s Shopper was the weekly coupon rag that lowered the bar and lifted the Budgeteer to prominence. Although no one these days seems to know who Manny was or much else about what became of his shopper, one thing was important 20 years ago: it had committed what is probably not the biggest, but quite likely is the most hilarious, print media blunder northern Minnesota has ever known.
It’s as clear as 100-proof vodka that the first bar in the long-temperate Lakeside neighborhood of Duluth will be located on East Superior Street. The commercial corridor bends almost three miles from Northland Country Club to the Lester River. The road cuts through the heart of a bedroom community that includes close to 10,000 residents. It’s a neighborhood that has never seen a neon Leinenkugel sign or heard a last call.
This week, we profile the multi-talented Dave Kirwan, an illustrator, animator, designer and film buff. Dave talks about how he got to the point where people pay him to draw silly pictures and the changing industry.
DK: I am today what I have been for the past forty-nine years, a commercial illustrator. People pay me to draw pictures that tell a story.
My first professional gig began on my sixteenth birthday when I was asked to augment my main duties as a cut and paste keyliner on a small weekly shopper with original cartoons and illustrations. Later on I worked at television stations, printers, publishers, was even a partner in an prominent Twin Ports ad agency for eighteen years. Yet despite official job titles of graphic designer or creative director, I have always pursued my primary avocation… I’m the guy who draws little men with big noses. Print ads, animation, even a couple of stints at national syndicated cartooning, I’ve always had a pencil in hand ready to sketch out the next idea.
Felisha Johnson and her father-in-law, Paul Johnson
When Morgan Park School closed in 2012, the neighborhood seemed to be in decline. Two prominent businesses, Advantage Emblem and Park State Bank, had already moved out. The grocery store and post office were long gone. Nothing new seemed on the horizon.
Paul Johnson and his son Brandon, owners of the Lakeview Store Building, felt the area needed a gathering place. In 2014 they opened Iron Mug Coffee House in the building’s southern end at 1096 88th Ave W. July marks the two-year anniversary of Iron Mug’s opening, while the historic building that served as one of the first indoor shopping malls in the United States recently celebrated its 100-year anniversary.
First Presbyterian Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, First M.E. Church, Pilgrim Congregational Church and United Protestant Church.
Is this the most boring video ever shot at the Food Farm? Or the most mesmerizing?
You be the judge.
In the summer of 1994, a group of West Duluth kids met with a group of senior citizens from the neighborhood and wrote down their stories for a booklet. Here is the entirety of When West Duluth Was Young: An Intergenerational Writing Workshop, with thanks to Aunt Becky for passing it along.
Shot by Dave Zbaracki in the Congdon neighborhood. (Via Facebook.)
Thunder Bay native Paul Shaffer is bringing his “Late Show” band to perform in the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium on Oct. 7 to mark the concert hall’s 30th anniversary. Lake Superior Magazine’s Bob Berg scored an interview for the magazine’s Aug/Sept issue.
The audio embed is a slow loader, so it appears after the jump.
Sitting up in Woodland going on 128 hours with no electricity. Where is the cool aerial drone footage of the damage at Hartley Park (or anywhere else, for that matter)?
Why no Grill Wars this year?
John Edward Roemer wanted to build a system of moving sidewalks up Duluth’s steepest hills. The power to run the system would come from storage batteries buried in chambers beneath Superior Street. Tunnels would be dug beneath cross streets so the sidewalks could pass under the streets. At the top of the hill where the moving sidewalk system terminated, Roemer proposed building a pavilion and an aerial rail line extending to Fond du Lac, with stops in the West End, West Duluth, New Duluth and Ironton.
Read more at the public library’s Reference@Duluth blog.
