September 2018 Posts

The Realistic Joneses

Sep 07, 2018 No Comments

I left Panera for the Realistic Joneses at the Zeitgeist while, it seemed to me, a woman was in a tree. I’m not entirely sure about the tree part — I know she was in the woods, alongside the creek behind the parking lot separating the Panera from the Aldi complex, and I know that the police and EMTs were looking upward as one of the pines was shaking. I didn’t see her. I could only hear her voice, sadly crying that people believed that something was wrong with her. I felt a sadness that mirrored hers. There was no way for this story to end which didn’t fulfill her words.  I wished there were a way for people to just turn their backs and let her leave, if that would be what she wanted.

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Art, Recommendations

Selective Focus: Nik Nerburn

Sep 07, 2018 No Comments

Photographer and filmmaker Nik Nerburn has a show at Hemlocks Leatherworks and a show opening next Thursday at Duluth Art Institute. His photos are spontaneous glances that grab and pull you in, wondering about the rest of the story.

NN: I’m a documentary storyteller. I make movies and take pictures. Most of my work is about life in the upper Midwest, mostly rural areas, small towns, and places that are changing. I’m currently working on a photo essay about the shifting politics and culture of Duluth and the Iron Range, a documentary film called The Great American Think Off about a philosophy contest in New York Mills, Minnesota (population 1,119), and a photo book called The Grand Terrace Photo League, which is a documentary collaboration between myself and the residents of an apartment building in Worthington, Minn., which houses mostly recent immigrants who work at a nearby pork processing plant. I care about expanding the common life and finding ways to relate across great differences.

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Art, Photos ,

Duluth-area Theater Primer 2018-2019

Sep 06, 2018 No Comments

PDD Theater Primer Logo
As the leaves start to turn and the smell of fall starts to waft through the air, local theater companies are springing to life. It’s time for the Perfect Duluth Day theater primer. If it’s on the stage, it’s in our calendar.

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Art

Jim Richardson is Dead: Long Live Lake Superior Aquaman

Sep 05, 2018 2 Comments

Just kidding, I’m not really dead. But it has been a summer without an Aquaman. Some might call me Lake Superior Absentman. I’m sorry I went dark for a while. After several years of spending nearly every summer day at the water’s edge, this summer I barely touched it. There are many reasons why and the PDD community is the place to unpack them.

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Outdoors, Random

Mystery Photos #72 and #73: Duluth in 1926

Sep 05, 2018 4 Comments

Tim Winker of Saginaw found two 1926 Duluth photos while going through his family’s collection. “Any guess as to where on the hillside these might have been taken?” he asks.

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History, Photos

Video Archive: Illgen Falls Huckamania

Sep 05, 2018 No Comments

Andy McMurray uploaded this video to YouTube ten years ago today — Sept. 5, 2008. It shows a group of Duluth kayakers plunging down Illgen Falls at the Baptism River, about 60 miles northeast of Duluth. The video also details the work a video crew went through to set up shots — rigging highlines, pulleys and ropes.

The video was described on Perfect Duluth Day in 2008 as “tightrope walking meets kayak boating.”


Outdoors, Videos , ,

Alex Frecon – “I’m From Minnesota (The Minnesota Anthem)”

Sep 04, 2018 No Comments

This new video from Minneapolis hip-hop artist Alex Frecon features a few scenes shot in Duluth.


Music, Videos

BusinessNorth owners purchase Lake Superior Magazine

Sep 04, 2018 No Comments

Left to right above: New Lake Superior Magazine owners Beth Bily and Ron Brochu, former owners Cindy Hayden and Paul Hayden

Two longtime, Duluth-based media organizations with a combined 66 years in existence are now under the same ownership following the Aug. 31 sale of Lake Superior Magazine and its associated books and merchandising operations to the publishers of BusinessNorth and Scenic Range News Forum. The entities announced the sale in a news release today.

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News and Current Affairs , ,

The 4ontheFloor – “Radio Edit [Explicit]”

Sep 04, 2018 No Comments

Minneapolis band the 4ontheFloor, featuring occasional Duluthian Gabriel Douglas, has a new music video out, a new album on the way and a Kickstarter campaign nearly wrapped up.

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Music, Videos ,

Alice Cooper – “Remarkably Insincere”

Sep 03, 2018 2 Comments

Alice Cooper drops a reference to Duluth on this song from his 1982 album Zipper Catches Skin.

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Music

Mystery Photo #71: Duluth Eagles Club Summer Home

Sep 02, 2018 2 Comments

There doesn’t appear to be much information on the internet about the Duluth Eagles Club in general, much less the summer home shown on this old postcard. When were the Duluth Eagles formed? When did the club disband? Where is Grand View Beach / Aeire Lake? And where was the club’s main lodge in Duluth?

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History , ,

Congdon Pumphouse highlights historic home tour

Sep 01, 2018 1 Comment

A 19th Century Duluth pump house was converted into living space by Elisabeth Congdon in 1937. The property will be open during the Duluth Preservation Alliance Historic Property Tour Sept. 16.

Duluth has dozens of spectacular waterfront properties with amazing Lake Superior views but only one home has a front porch featuring metal wave deflectors and living room windows equipped with hurricane shutters.

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News and Current Affairs ,

Postcard from the Steamer Thomas F. Cole

Sep 01, 2018 No Comments

This postcard depicts the Thomas F. Cole in the Duluth shipping channel on her maiden trip to Duluth. The message on the back of the card appears to be dated Sept. 1, 1908.

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History ,

1,186 Days

Sep 01, 2018 3 Comments

It’s been three years since I drank alcohol. More, actually: in fact, for the past three years, two months, 29 days (counting today — I’m feeling optimistic) I have abstained from alcohol. For 1,186 days, I have not had a single drink. Not a single beer, shot of tequila — not one lone glass of wine.

Which is sort of amazing, because during the 20 years before that I drank my face off.

Typically, I drank between three and five beers a night. By the last year I was drinking, most weekend nights, I drank five. I’m not the Incredible Hulk over here, either. I’ve always been a tallish, thinnish lady, and I never had miraculous, superhuman tolerance, like Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Marion in that bar in Nepal. Five beers made me drunk. Which was the whole idea. I was a heavy drinker.

In spite of my volume of alcohol consumption, I’m not an alcoholic. Some of you might be thinking, “So, you just quit drinking for nothingAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH???” And I get that. I’ll give you a moment to shriek into the throw pillows of nearby Barcaloungers for a moment while you assimilate that terrible and inexplicable chunk of information.

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