October 2017 Posts

PDD Halloween Banners

Got any spooky, silly or stupid Halloween photos you’d like to share with the world? It’s time for our annual call for Halloween banners for the top of the page. Keep in mind, the photos get cropped to extreme horizontal proportions. If you want to crop ’em yourself and send them, that’s fantastic, or you can send them uncropped and I’ll do my best to make them fit.

Click here for complete submission guidelines, but the basics are: 1135 pixels wide by 197 pixels high, e-mail them to [email protected]. We’ll put them in rotation in the next few days.

High Bridge Comedy expands Duluth-area stand-up offerings

From left: Chad Gallo, Joe Mosier, Danielle Thralow, Alex Meyers and Scott Zank

Stand-up comedy is not one of the more glamorous forms of entertainment in Duluth. A group of comedians called High Bridge Comedy is trying to change that.

Duluth: Birthplace of pie à la mode?

According to Wikipedia, pie à la mode was “invented and named by John Gieriet in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1885.” And there seems to be a preponderance of evidence backing up that claim. Yet it’s not a historical tidbit people in Duluth seem to know about.

Is it true? Well, let’s look at the facts and claims involved.

The March 26, 1885 issue of the Duluth Daily Tribune featured a grand opening advertisement for the Hotel la Perl which showed a menu that included vanilla ice cream and blueberry pie. And that, so the story goes, is the oldest known reference to pie à la mode.

Though the Wikipedia entry provides numerous references, none of that support material seems to be available on the internet … until now. This Perfect Duluth Day post is serving as a collecting ground for items helping to prove or debunk the unheralded legend. The first thing we need is a copy of the 1885 newspaper ad. (Update: It has been found and can be seen below in the second comment to this post.

October Clouds

Today’s clouds over West Duluth, 5ish p.m.

It’s not Mars; it’s my streets.

On Facebook, I saw a picture that could have been from Mars, or from Hibbing (where the earth has been gutted by mines in a monstrously, sublimely beautiful way).

But it wasn’t. It was a Duluth street.

(On Facebook the photo is cropped without the yellow line. This makes it look even more out-of scale Martian.)

In the next election, I understand, there is something to be done about it.

C.J. Ham’s “Fullback Life”

A tweet this morning by Duluth’s C.J. Ham shows the bent upper rim of his face-mask after the Minnesota Vikings hard-hitting victory over the Baltimore Ravens. Fullback life indeed.

Duluth Ferry by Francis Chapin

Lithograph published by the Walker Galleries of New York, circa 1938.

Autumn at Split Rock Lighthouse

Dawn LaPointe and Gary Fiedler of Radiant Spirit Gallery recently captured these scenes of Split Rock Lighthouse.

Mystery Photo #55: Duluth Miniature Farm

Thanks to the labeling we know this miniature farm was located at a Conrad Service Station in Duluth. But where specifically in Duluth? And when?

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

I will do almost anything to avoid ironing. It’s the truth — I will. I don’t know what it is about ironing that is so abhorrent to me, but I will consider almost any other method of getting wrinkles out of my clothes.

Maybe it’s the ironing board. It’s all big and squeaky, and inexplicably hard to operate. Mine has not one, but two security features — you have to compress this metal … thing … while applying downward pressure on the legs to get it to close. Then, it catches on the second security contraption, which requires that you, maintaining aforementioned downward pressure, and compressing the first metal thing, also compress a second metal thing. It’s next to impossible. It’s actually easier to remove a Volvo 850 engine or a human heart. I know irons are hot and dangerous. But a double lock? There are nuclear silos with less integrity.

As an added feature, or possibly as evidence of the degradation of the ironing board over time, this security feature also activates while you are opening the ironing board, locking the board halfway open, approximately three feet off the ground. Three feet off the ground is too far below my natural waist for me to comfortably iron there, and slightly too high for me to iron at from a kneeling position (ask me how I know) so I must begin a reverse version of the closing the board/security catch deactivation process: I clench both metal doobobbies like I am falling off a cliff, and vigorously shake the whole thing up and down until the legs finally release, like a huge metal crane, and snap into ironing board, full-height position.

Earth Rider beer on tap at Cedar Lounge

For the first time in 50 years, suds are flowing at a production brewery in Superior. The inaugural beer by Earth Rider Brewing — a pale ale — went on tap Oct. 20 at its nearby taproom, the Cedar Lounge. Take-home 32 oz. crowlers are also for sale.

Where in Duluth? (Stone Edition)

Who knows where this carving exists in Duluth? Bonus points: what is it depicting and why? 

Selective Focus: Eric Dubnicka

Eric Dubnicka is an artist working in multiple materials with fascinating abstractions and textures. It’s always fun and surprising to see what pops up on his Instagram feed.

E.D.: Currently my artworks are focused on the energy that exists and interacts between two people, which has been a fun challenge to conceptualize and the result is a series of paintings of ephemeral core bodies with a carved sculptural element demonstrating the connection between them. I’m fascinated by the process of abstraction and my works have run the gamut of sardonic caricatures to field color paintings, but the underlying concept is the energy that drives us as individuals or in relationships. The forms I’m working with currently lean heavily on the biomorphic lines, have a human anatomical subtext and are relatable to microscopic snapshots that can be found in nature or among the stars. I enjoy allowing for broad interpretations of my work and allow the materials to speak and interact, creating surfaces that are tactile, textured and carry an aesthetic strength that allow accessibility.

Bent Paddle 14° ESB grabs gold at Great American Beer Festival

Bent Paddle Brewing won Duluth’s first Great American Beer Festival gold medal two weeks ago. It was the third time 14° ESB won a medal in the Extra Special Bitter category. It took the silver medal in 2015 and the bronze in 2014.

Local writer wins national audience

Jayson Iwen, associate professor of writing at UW–Superior, has landed a piece in Tikkun magazine. His story “Night Running,” was also a Glimmer Train “very short fiction” honorable mention.