April 2017 Posts

Homegrown Music Festival 2017 Primer

Apr 30, 2017 No Comments

If this isn’t your 19th time attending the Homegrown Music Festival, here are some links that might be helpful:

Homegrown website
Homegrown schedule
PDD Chicken App schedule for smartphones
Homegrown Facebook page
Homegrown Twitter page
Seasons 1-4 of Seth Langreck’s Duluth Band Profiles

Admission wristbands are $30 for the full eight days of music, but there are also many free-admission events.

There are 199 bands on the schedule. A 100-page Field Guide is available to help navigate the festival. Pick one up at any Homegrown venue or various random locations.

The hashtag for this year is #hgmf17. The same hashtag applies for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

This is the first Homegrown in which a ridesharing service is available. The Lyft app has been functioning in Duluth since April 27.

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Music

PDD Quiz: April 2017

Apr 30, 2017 No Comments

Duluth SchoolAnother perfect Duluth April is in the books. Take the quiz to see how much you remember about this month’s happenings!

The next PDD Quiz, on zoo history, will be published on May 14. E-mail question suggestions to Alison Klawiter at [email protected] by May 11.


News and Current Affairs

Duluth is the best something or other of 2014 or ever

Apr 29, 2017 1 Comment

Remember back in 2014 when Outside magazine named Duluth the “Best Town Ever”? It’s referenced in a new story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

“How Duluth became the outdoor capital of the Midwest”

But what exactly was Duluth named by Outside magazine? The headline of the 2014 article calls Duluth the “Best Town in America.” But then the subhead calls it the “Best Town Ever.”

The online poll referred to the contest as ““Best Towns 2014.” Outside also published a countdown article of “The 16 Best Places to Live in the U.S.: 2014,” listing Duluth as #1.

Destination Duluth often referred to the online poll as “Best Outside City,” while at the same time using a graphic referring to it as the “Best Place to Live.” Both MPR News and the Star Tribune reported in 2014 that Duluth won the “Best Outdoors Town” poll.

The only conclusion one can draw from all this is that Duluth is the Best Outside or Outdoors City or Town to Live in or in General Throughout the Midwest and America or the World in 2014 and Forever.


Random ,

The Large Hadron Collider, or, I Have Never Met Father John Misty, Irrespective of What This Essay Might Imply

Apr 29, 2017 1 Comment

I’ve had a rough couple of years. My dad got sick, then my husband got sick, and I became a lot more curious about the nature of being than I was before. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Large Hadron Collider. In case you are not also wedged firmly between a rock and a firm location, devouring particle physics literature like a Kardashian hoarding Us Weekly, the Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It’s the largest single machine in existence, built in collaboration with more than 10,000 scientists and engineers from around the world.

Maybe I have felt, over the past two years or so, a little sympathetic to the lead electron at the nose of that high-speed electron beam, roaring around an accelerator ring at nearly light speed, every lap incrementally nudging closer to a head-on collision with an opposing electron beam, traveling at equal speed. But, less dramatically, I’ve been thinking more about what scientists have found.

The intent of the Large Hadron Collider is to investigate the structure of the atomic nucleus. (I copied that from the LHC website). But it’s been doing more than that. Like any scientific investigation of the unknown, it has the potential to change everything by altering our perception of the nature of stuff. If, for example, the LHC reveals that energy becomes matter in describable and predictable circumstances, or becomes matter by describable and predictable mechanisms, it would radically change how we see the universe. It’s literally an infinitesimally tiny change, but it would be a boundless change, philosophically.

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Random

A double dose of the Little Black Books

Apr 28, 2017 No Comments

Former Duluth rawk and/or roller Mark Lindquist has released two new videos — “They’re Never Wrong” and “Fading Captain” — to promote his band the Little Black Books‘ midnight gig on May 5 at Rex Bar during the Homegrown Music Festival. In recent years Lindquist has lived in Crow Wing County, near the geographical center of Minnesota, so Duluth gigs have been rare. He plans to reunite with drummer Jim Hagstrom and guitarist Bob Olson for this year’s Homegrown show.


Music, Videos

Selective Focus: Dann Matthews

Apr 28, 2017 No Comments

SF-Teaser-DannMathews

Dann Matthews is a designer and illustrator who blends pop-culture knowledge, humor and sharp skills into a mashed-up style for print, product design and more.

D.M.: Most of my work is digital. I’ll sketch and scan an illustration and finish the piece in either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. I have done a ton of designs prepped for screen printing, so I’m most at home in Illustrator. I started designing tees for Threadless.com’s ongoing T-shirt design competition back in 2005. It became my hobby, then my obsession, then my side-hustle. I would usually create 4-6 designs a week and never use two of them for anything.

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Art

New short film shot in Duluth with a local cast, crew and musicians. Casting more films soon!

Apr 27, 2017 No Comments

Videos

Creamy Stouts on the Brule

Apr 27, 2017 No Comments

Clint Massey plunges down the Brule River in this short video by Brian Robin and Jesse Credille, shot April 22.


Outdoors, Videos ,

Duluth Band Profile: Dance Attic

Apr 27, 2017 No Comments

Dance Attic dusts off the antiques from your grandparents’ house. Jimi Cooper and Suzi Ludwig explain how their ablum Cabin Fever creates its own type of magic. Click on the image above to hear the podcast.


Music ,

Where in Superior?

Apr 26, 2017 6 Comments

Where in Superior


Random ,

Duluth Workforce Center Call for Artists

Apr 26, 2017 No Comments

Call-for-Artists-Duluth

The Duluth Workforce Center has put out a call for art.

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Art

Paul McCartney booked to play Duluth … Georgia

Apr 26, 2017 1 Comment

Paul-Mccartney

Paul McCartney announced a set of U.S. summer tour dates yesterday. According to a City Pages story and comments on paulmccartney.com the press materials for the tour originally stated it “takes Paul to three cities and venues he’s never played before” including a July 13 show “at the Infinity Energy Arena in Duluth MN.” McCartney’s website has since fixed the error, clarifying that the Infinity Energy Arena is in Duluth, Ga.

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Events, Music, News and Current Affairs

In Duluth, it helps to have clothing that is “bigger than weather.”

Apr 26, 2017 No Comments

Patrick-Bigger-than-weather


History

Welty hints at seeking another term with “this shaky video”

Apr 25, 2017 No Comments

Welty Thank YousAt-large Duluth School Board member Harry Welty wrote on his Lincoln Democrat blog about digging into a box of thank yous last night and spreading them on his office floor “to make a little campaign video for a campaign webpage.” And then he posted “this shaky video.”

Welty’s term ends Jan. 8; Duluth candidates officially file to seek school board positions between July 5 and July 18.

“Years ago I attended some session during which a presenter made a good suggestion,” Welty wrote. “She warned her listeners that it was easy to get discouraged and she suggested that we all collect thank yous and such. She thought that when we got down we could look in the old thank yous and remind ourselves that we weren’t such bad folks.

“Until I got on the School Board in 1996 my little sunshine folder wasn’t very big. Then I started reading to classrooms.”


Politics, Videos ,

Where in Duluth?

Apr 25, 2017 5 Comments

WhereinDuluth4-17


Photos