June 2018 Posts

Duluth native gears up for directorial debut on independent film

Jun 06, 2018 1 Comment

As much as I wish I was writing this about myself, I am glad my time has not yet come. No, I am not making my directorial debut, but I have been working as a production assistant for an independent feature film called Seed of Doubt. In fact, I like to believe it was my connection to Duluth that landed me said gig, and not the more likely scenario that I was the only one with free time that bothered to reach out. Although I do have video production experience, I have significant inexperience when it comes to independent feature films. And being a PA for a mere three months has taught me that indie film making, is completely nuts. What sits arguably at the top of the completely nuts castle, would be the film’s director. Producers certainly have no breezy time either, but when the cast and crew converge for production, even the producers are asking the director, “What’s next?”

Cut to: Will Cox.

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Art ,

Duluth Rudolph’s Furniture Store Fire of 1948

Jun 05, 2018 3 Comments

Duluth, Duluth, Duluth is on fire. On June 5, 1948, Downtown Duluth was recovering from the “worst commercial district blaze in history.”

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History

Upset Duluth: The Ultimate Gallery

Jun 04, 2018 1 Comment

Young and old, rich and poor, Minnesota nice be damned, Duluthians can get just as upset as folks in the rest of the world. And their newspaper of record, the Duluth News Tribune, is there to document all the crossed arms and frowny faces.

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Photos ,

Duluth’s Robot Rickshaw is the geekiest thing

Jun 04, 2018 No Comments

Jeff Pesek of Tech{dot}MN celebrates Duluth’s Robot Rickshaw in the article “Robot Rickshaw is the geekiest thing in Minnesota’s tech scene.”

A rapidly-deployable, human-driven, two wheeled cart full of robots that play music. Piloted by a lunatic in a hazmat suit+teddy bear.

Rickshaw is Troy Rogers, and the article is cool.


Music ,

Harbor Lookout: Duluth Port Ship Tracking

Jun 03, 2018 No Comments

There’s a new website for those who like watching the ships roll in and then watching them roll away again. Saturn Systems, a Duluth-based software engineering firm, recently launched a shipping tracker at harborlookout.com. The site lists arrival and departure times and displays a map with icons showing ship locations.

Duluth News Tribune: New maritime website unveiled in Duluth


News and Current Affairs

Harbor Square: Downtown Duluth’s shopping center on pillars

Jun 02, 2018 1 Comment

An important sidebar to the history of Sears, Roebuck & Company in Duluth is the fascinating tale of the shopping-center-on-pillars that wasn’t. A plan was hatched in the late 1970s for Harbor Square, a roughly $70-million, 574,000-sq.-ft. shopping plaza to be built on stilts over Interstate 35 in Downtown Duluth. Failure to lure Sears as an anchor store was a key element that led to the project’s downfall.

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History , ,

R.I.P. Sears, Roebuck and Company of Duluth

Jun 02, 2018 No Comments

Sears, Roebuck and Company’s Downtown Duluth department store; 1963 photo from the Kathryn A. Martin Library’s Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections at UMD.

The news broke this week that Sears Holdings will close 15 Kmart stores and 48 Sears stores, including the Sears at Miller Hill Mall and the Kmart at the Spirit Valley Shopping Center in West Duluth.

Sears has been in business in Duluth since 1929, when Sears, Roebuck and Company opened a department store at 129 E. Superior St., the modern-day location of Fond-du-Luth Casino.

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History, R.I.P. ,

Hillside Breeders

Jun 02, 2018 2 Comments

“Ooohh, Poppy’s going to do it!”

Poppy is our seven year old’s Mini Rex doe rabbit. Poppy has a date with a buck named Frodo with velvet black fur and a dwarf gene. I hadn’t seen him in-person, but his owner up the hill texted me his photo. Electronic match-making extends to other species, too.

“Wait, Nibbit,” the ten-year-old asked her little sister, “Do you even know what ‘do it’ means?”

“Uh, well. Not exactly.”

I thought we had already gone over this, or I assumed the eldest would have filled her in. So much slides with a second child. It was time for dinner, so over tacos I described ovulation, intercourse, fertilization, implantation, etc. I couldn’t tell if the seven-year-old’s eyes were glazing over with boredom or embarrassment.

Her father Jeremy knows that if you want to get a kid’s attention you light up a screen. He found a video of rabbits mating. It is actually worth watching. Forgive me for the spoiler, but when the buck comes he actually goes into a momentary trance and falls over.

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Random

Selective Focus: Daniel Benoit

Jun 01, 2018 No Comments


If you were out and about during Homegrown 2018 and saw the giant chicken on the front of the Blacklist Beer / Solve Entertainment building, you’ve seen some of Daniel Benoit’s work. He pulls together design, video, animation, projections, and all kinds of technology to create immersive art. He tells about how he started working with this relatively new and experimental medium.

DB: I work in multiple digital mediums, but lately my focus has been projection design for theatre and immersive design for escape rooms. The path to getting here has been long and winding. The short version is that my love of filmmaking, theatre, and graphic design all happened to converge in 2012 when I created projections for my friend Davey T Steinman’s play Bagman at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis. Davey introduced me to the software I still use today, Isadora, and that was it, I was hooked.

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Art ,