Here it is, the annual PDD Holiday Gift Guide. We’ve always been proud to highlight items with a local connection. This year it seems even more important to support local, take advantage of online ordering, and spread the word on what’s offered from our own community. Below are 15 items; feel free to add to the suggestions in the comments, or email us at info @ perfectduluthday.com with things we may have missed and we’ll continue to build this list.
Sadly, the ski jumps at Chester Bowl were demolished in 2014, but the memories live on in this coloring exercise.
Use the link below for a printable PDF for your coloring and drawing pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Chester Bowl Ski Jump
Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.
The historical TV drama The Right Stuff mentions Duluth in episode 7, which premiered Nov. 13 on the video-on-demand service Disney+. The series is loosely based on the 1979 book by Tom Wolfe. There is also a critically acclaimed 1983 film adaptation of Wolfe’s story.
My favorite musicians are women. Who’s the coolest member of the Pixies? Kim Deal! You don’t even have to think about it for a second. And my favorite genre is indie rock. Indie is not major label, and not pop enough to score strings of giant hits. The term is frequently applied to punk-lineage garage-y guitar bands, but not exclusively.
The past few years I’ve discovered many indie chick rockers and all-female bands. Here are some highlights. This (not comprehensive!) list showcases indie women who play guitar or bass, either solo or in bands, who have been active in the past five years. Therefore many of my classic faves have been excluded — for instance a suite of 1980s and ’90s rockers. I will write about them one day, but here the focus is on contemporary artists.
My descriptions are fleshed out with links to music videos, interviews, rig rundowns, and live performances. This part one of two, and I plan to give Duluthians their own essay in part three. Here goes — some of my indie rock guitar goddess she-roes:
This week, a quick update on two artists we’ve featured earlier this year. Carolyn Olson and Annelisa Roseen both started projects at the beginning of the pandemic, and are still regularly producing pieces based on the theme and guidelines they set for themselves. Carolyn Olson paints and draws essential workers in their settings, and Annelisa Roseen takes a selfie each day in make-up and costume of an interesting person born on that day.
Russell Lee shot this photograph of a Duluth junkyard in May of 1937 for the United States Resettlement Administration, predecessor to the Farm Security Administration, which eventually became part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency.
Here’s the latest from former Duluthian James Geisler, aka hip-hop artist JamesG.
This undated postcard image from the Gallagher Studio of Photography shows the St. Louis County Courthouse and Duluth City Hall behind the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the Duluth Civic Center. The card is perhaps a bit older than another postcard of the Civic Center featured on Perfect Duluth Day, which shows a more expansive garden.
OMC Smokehouse turkey – Photo by Rolf Hagberg
The pandemic will quash many extended family and group gatherings this Thanksgiving. Opting out of cooking entirely and ordering takeout is a totally reasonable option for the smoldering dumpster fire that’s left of 2020.
A bevy of Twin Ports restaurants are offering Thanksgiving meals to go, so no one has to miss out on a full turkey dinner with all the traditional trimmings. Below is Perfect Duluth Day’s list of options to soothe the cumulative stress induced by the past nine months with some savory comfort food.
Try to muster up some gratitude. Whatever you do, leave room for pie.
Top: Kozy Apartments on Nov. 17, 2010 — two days after a fire.
Bottom: Kozy Apartments on Nov. 17, 2020 — 16 days after a fire.
The number of miles of groomed cross-country ski trails in Duluth is given as 24 in this 1993 activity book page. The Duluth Cross-Country Ski Club reports the modern-day figure as more than 50 kilometers, or roughly 30 miles.
Learn more about the history of Superior Central High School and its alumni in this week’s PDD Quiz! Central A to Z: The History of a Superior School by Kathy Laakso and Teddie Meronek was an integral resource in writing this quiz; it can be found at both the Duluth and Superior Public Libraries.
The next PDD quiz will be published on Nov. 29 and will review this month’s headlines. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Nov. 26.
Duluth’s symbol of 19th Century opulence and 21st Century blight is the subject of this recent aerial video by Jack Rendulich. Pastoret Terrace is best known in modern times as the Kozy Apartments and Bar, which closed after a major fire ten years ago today — Nov. 15, 2010.
[Editor’s note: For this week’s essay we’ve once again pulled out a relic from the archive of Slim Goodbuzz, who served as Duluth’s “booze connoisseur” from 1999 to 2009. The Sultan of Sot documented his experience at the Anchor Bar in the Nov. 29, 2000 issue of the Ripsaw newspaper.]
At the northern edge of the United States lies the state of Wisconsin, which leads the nation in alcohol consumption. At the northern edge of Wisconsin lies the broken-down city of Superior, which features the famed Tower Avenue, a street lined with dozens upon dozens of cheap dives. And at the northern edge of Tower Avenue lies the Anchor Bar, the Queen Mother of all dives, a place that represents everything good in the world.
The Anchor Bar is the love of my life. The beer selection is extensive, the food is excellent and both are cheaper than hell. And though all appearances indicate that it is a bar for thugs, there are no thugs there; the tough women behind the bar ran them out years ago. Fortunately, they grudgingly tolerate the hooligans and drunks, such as myself, who remain. Decorated in early pigsty, the place is dark and greasy-smelling, and is populated by the kind of people who just want to drink beer and act like real humans.
