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.
I snagged a ton of cassettes at Gabriel’s Used Bookstore. I wanted them because they were uniform in their design. They were, in other words, a “collection,” and I love being able to look over a collection.
If you have lived in Duluth a long time, you know (and maybe miss) the voice of Naomi Yeager. Naomi was an editor of the now-defunct Duluth Hillsider and also led the Budgeteer. It was under Naomi’s editorship that I got a lot of my non-PDD writing lessons — she was a great editor.
Naomi now maintains a SubStack. Link below if you want to hear her unique voice again.
Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.
Food insecurity, housing insecurity, poverty and social justice are intertwined, a knot of problems facing our community. Thirteen percent of Duluthians face food insecurity, and more than 54% of renter-households are rent burdened. Often these difficult social problems are addressed by nonprofit organizations that run food pantries or housing shelters. They build affordable housing and support people living on the street. While these workers are heroes, they are also human, and their stories are also intertwined with larger issues like poverty and social justice. These frontline workers are also often former college students who enter the job market with the consequential task of supporting those who others have left behind.
I spent two days this fall with the University of Minnesota Extension’s Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, which brings community leadership to the table with the research and educational resources of the University of Minnesota. I’m the last half of that sentence, I guess.
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.
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.
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.
Recently, I wrote on this site about Caesarean section, trying to nail down my thoughts and my questions around C-section, especially the ways that it seems statistically over-prevalent in the United States. I am trying to wrap my brain, too, around questions of consent — what does it mean to consent to C-section in a context where a doctor recommends it.
Below are photos from the Duluth All Souls Night poetry reading. The event was held at Studio 4 (formerly the Underground) at the Depot on Nov. 1.
I own thousands of books and comic books. I own fewer books than comics — I have grown disenchanted with the novel, as a form of storytelling, because it sucks me away from the world that I want to be part of, to find meaning in. So my shelves are filled with nonfiction books that I can reference, instead of read cover to cover. They are filled with poetry books and prose poems, writings by mystics and cranks. And they are filled with comics.
Comics read quickly but reward reflection — I can zoom through 20 pages while waiting for a teenager who takes forever to kiss their girlfriend goodbye, or I can slowly reflect on a page or two that tugs at my heart and makes me think.
The Laura Gilpin poem, “Two Headed Calf,” has become the source for a lot of internet comics.
For example, the two-page comic below by Little Tunny (their name on Twitter and on Patreon).
Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.
Food insecurity, housing insecurity, poverty and social justice are intertwined, a knot of problems facing our community. Thirteen percent of Duluthians face food insecurity, and over 54% of renter-households are rent burdened. Often these difficult social problems are addressed by nonprofit organizations that run food pantries or housing shelters. They build affordable housing and support people living on the street. While these workers are heroes, they are also human, and their stories are also intertwined with larger issues like poverty and social justice. These frontline workers are also often former college students who enter the job market with the consequential task of supporting those who others have left behind.
When I served on the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, I was lucky enough to meet photographer and photography instructor John Gregor. John, through his company Coldsnap in Two Harbors, reviews equipment, leads classes and photography tours around North America, and of course takes amazing photos.
He has recently posted a video sharing his insights into taking night panoramas. It’s a great complement to his video introducing panoramic photography.
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.
UMD students met Noah Chan, community engagement coordinator at Agate Community Services in Downtown Minneapolis. Learn more about the Agate Housing at agatemn.org.
Until recently, my vision of childbirth was driven by television. Situation comedies taught me to imagine a woman reclined in a bed. The husband stands slightly behind her and to the left, holding her hand, which is squeezed every time the birthing mom hears “push!” from the doctor.
Nearly every part of that picture was fabricated for television.
I have only recently come to understand that, while we imagine the mother or birthing person to be the center of the picture of birth in the United States, in fact, she is sometimes pushed to the side while the doctor takes over.
