Postcard from Duluth to David Letterman

Paul Lundgren Nov 22, 2024 No Comments

This unmailed postcard, published by Erickson Postcards & Souvenirs, shows an early 1980s (or perhaps late 1970s) scene of boats clustered outside the Duluth Harbor. The card must have been commissioned for promotional use by KDLH-TV in the 1990s or later, however, because it is preaddressed to David Letterman, courtesy of what was then the local CBS affiliate. Late Night with David Letterman ended its run on NBC-TV in June 1993 and the Late Show with David Letterman launched on CBS two months later.

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History , ,

Selective Focus: Clowns, Jesters and Mimes

Jessica Morgan Nov 21, 2024 No Comments

A group of clowns at Cherry Koch’s clown karaoke birthday celebration at The Embassy. Photo by Jess Morgan.

Various arts experiences featuring clowns, mimes, jesters and circus-inspired shenanigans are having a moment in the Twin Ports arts scene. Some of those fools happen to be on the payroll at Perfect Duluth Day, which makes it the perfect journalistic inside-job for a feature marking the 10-year anniversary of PDD’s Selective Focus arts feature.

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Art , ,

PDD Gift Guide 2024

Izabella Zadra Nov 20, 2024 No Comments

It is the most wonderful time of the year — the time of giving and gifting to all the people in our lives. This holiday season is also an opportunity to shop local and support Twin Port businesses. Perfect Duluth Day’s nifty gifty gift guide features items from 15 local artists, shops and creators whose products could make the perfect present for anyone on your nice or naughty list.

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Recommendations

Duluth suckers are skinned

Paul Lundgren Nov 20, 2024 2 Comments

Front page of the Nov. 20, 1924 Duluth Rip-saw.


History ,

Two Takes on Best Songwriter in Twin Ports and Minnesota

David Beard Nov 19, 2024 No Comments

Recently, in my “Minnesota Writers” class at the University of Minnesota Duluth, we spent a week discussing songwriting, and as an exercise in fun, students voted on their favorite songwriter. Then, to get a different perspective, I went to the Music Resource Center and had the same conversation. I thought I would share the results.

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Music

Torment – “Swallow Your Teeth”

PDDTV Nov 18, 2024 No Comments

Duluth band Torment has a new music video for the title track to its 2022 album Swallow Your Teeth. The group is releasing a new EP, The Pain, on New Year’s Eve at Pizza Lucé with special guests Southpaw, Unfit, Frag and Chippy.


Music, Videos

PDD Geoguessr #30: Minnesota and the Presidential Election

Matthew James Nov 17, 2024 No Comments

Minnesota 2024 presidential election results by county.

Minnesota’s electoral college votes have gone to the Democrats since 1976, longer than any other state. But unlike Washington D.C., which went 90% for Harris and has given its three electoral votes to the Democrats since 1964 (but is not a state), Minnesota’s politics are a bit more complicated. In its most simplistic form, the strongly left-leaning Twin Cities metro area counters the right-leaning Greater Minnesota population, with a few urban areas creating pockets of blue. But that’s the simplistic version. This post looks at the Minnesota results at the precinct level and includes three Greater Minnesota Geoguessr challenges. One visiting the precincts where Trump had the highest margins of victory, another for the precincts that went most strongly to Harris, and a third for precincts split right down the middle.

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Politics

Ripped at O’Gilby’s in 2004

Slim Goodbuzz Nov 16, 2024 No Comments

[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. Twenty years ago the Sultan of Sot paid a visit to the O’Gilby’s, 511 E. Fourth St. in Duluth’s Central Hillside, and composed this article for the November 2004 issue of the Ripsaw magazine. O’Gilby’s closed in May 2008; the location is now a parking lot.]

The great thing about being an alcoholic in a region with so many bars is that there is one to fit each of my moods. No matter what I feel like doing, there is an establishment that caters to that specific type of fun. O’Gilby’s isn’t the kind of place you go to see live music. It isn’t the kind of place where you go to try to pick someone up. It isn’t a place where you go to dance or to participate in illegal gambling. No, O’Gilby’s is the kind of place you go to when you just want to get plastered and sit around like an Ethiopian with flies on your face. And tonight I’m having the time of my life.

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History ,

Complete Auto Repair & Service Review

Chester Knob Nov 16, 2024 No Comments

The auto shop known as “CARS” on Howard Gnesen Road in Rice Lake, across from a cemetery full of Zimmermans, is really great.

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Recommendations ,

The Well Informed Choose Ice Refrigeration

Gina Temple-Rhodes Nov 15, 2024 3 Comments

A recent post about a curious-looking implement with the Duluth Coolerator brand name led me down a surprisingly challenging research path. When did people (in Duluth and elsewhere) stop using “ice boxes” and start using modern electric refrigerators?

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History

Illustrating Hunger and Homelessness: Mary Baumgartner

David Beard Nov 15, 2024 No Comments

Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.

A group of University of Minnesota Duluth faculty, students, and community artists came together to explore strategies to communicate the stories of frontline workers in housing and food insecurity. For example, UMD students met Mary Baumgartner who worked at the Chum Food Shelf in Duluth.

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Random

If a dog farts in Duluth …

Paul Lundgren Nov 14, 2024 No Comments

The television miniseries Category 6: Day of Destruction premiered on the CBS network on Nov. 14, 2004. Part one includes a reference to Duluth at the 21-minute mark.

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Videos

Philosophy and Dungeons & Dragons

David Beard Nov 14, 2024 No Comments

Four philosophers and a philosophy student composed a panel discussing “Philosophy and Dungeons & Dragons” at Loch Cafe & Games on Nov. 13.

The juiciest talk was about the attempts to grapple with “race” in fantasy gaming. In the 1980s, in the Basic Edition of D&D, races and classes were conflated into a single descriptor. One could be an elf or a wizard or a dwarf or a fighter. “Professions” were sorted out from “races,” allowing an elf wizard to exist, but also leading to conversations about racial essentialism.

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Random

Chalamet utters the word Duluth in recent interview

Jim Richardson (aka Lake Superior Aquaman) Nov 13, 2024 No Comments

Around the 43-minute mark, Timothee Chalamet talks for a couple minutes about visiting the region, specifically the Duluth-Hibbing axis. He made the trip alone while preparing to play Bob Dylan in the current biopic. The Bob Dylan house gets a mention around the 47-minute mark.


Videos ,

Mithrandir Trail Wildlife Footage: Winter 2024

PDDTV Nov 13, 2024 No Comments

A single trail camera in Voyageurs National Park captured an array of critters from January to May during the mildest winter on record at the park

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Outdoors, Videos ,