There are a whole lot of talented young people in our community and the upcoming Twin Ports Youth Talent Show is a great way for kids to get involved while friends and family enjoy an evening of live entertainment.

Neighborhood Youth Services and the Music Resource Center are presenting the Twin Ports Youth Talent Show on Monday, Aug. 19. Youth up to age 18 can still register to compete in any of the three categories: preteen, teen or mixed (preteen and teen in same act). Both individual and group performances are allowed. Prizes will be awarded for each category. Limited to first 20 acts. Acts must register by Wednesday, Aug. 14.

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

This is the last week of the regular season for the Duluth Huskies at Wade Stadium, so you only have a handful of chances to take in a game.

Tomorrow night is National Night Out with neighborhood get togethers all over Duluth. Get out and meet your neighbors.

The Nettleton World Beat Drummers are playing with Mu Daiko at Bayfield this Wednesday. With Nettleton School now closed, I’m guessing this will be one of the last performances of the group. Anyone knowing differently, let me know in the comments.

Renegade‘s Burnt Part Boys, a musical about mining in West Virginia, opens at the Teatro Zuccone this Thursday and runs for three weekends.

At the Duluth Playhouse Metamorpheses and Grease open on Thursday and Friday and run for two weekends. These plays are part of the Summer Youth Intensive program where the cast for one show is the tech crew for the other show, so the kids you see on the stage on Thursday, will be running the show behind the scenes on Friday.

Bayfront Blues Festival is this coming weekend, running Friday through Sunday.

This weekend will also be the Festival of Fine Art and Craft at Glensheen on Saturday and Sunday.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

After you wave goodbye to the last of the tall ships today you can go to the Grand Opening of the New Lester Park Playground tonight.

Revisit all the awkward hilarity of The Dating Game but with live Duluthians playing for love and big prizes at The Underground on Tuesday.

Spirit Valley Days starts up on Wednesday with music, a classic car show, and the Miss West Duluth Pageant and runs through Sunday with plenty of stuff happening every day.

Want to shake your family tree? There’s a free genealogy workshop at the Public Library on Thursday.

Every Friday during the summer (well, part of the summer anyway) there’re Movies in the Park at Leif Eriksen Park and this week’s movie is The Amazing Spiderman.

There are 34 events listed on Saturday and about half of them are free. You choose what you want to highlight, ’cause I can’t choose. Let us know in the comments.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

Kate and I have often said that, if there were a suitable academic job there for both of us, we would move in a second to Washburn — halfway between Bayfield/Madeleine Island and Ashland, and so just close enough to wonderful things, but just far enough, away, too, to enjoy the quiet things: the best used bookstore north of Minneapolis and of Madison, one of the best bakeries (although there are so many great bakeries in northwestern Wisconsin, it is hard to choose), a cultural center with antique shops, local arts and crafts, and a gallery space that, among other things, hosted the awesome “No Reservations” exhibit last year. And a DQ. Every small town has a DQ.

Last night, I got a taste of the next best thing in Washburn:  StageNorth Theater.

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

Learn about identifying and collecting agates today at the Public Library.

A restored version of “Journey to Italy” starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders plays at the Zinema 2 on Tuesday as part of the Explorer’s Club series.

After years of anticipation, the Tall Ships Festival kicks off on Thursday and runs through Monday.

The annual Free Range Film Festival runs this Friday and Saturday showcasing plenty of independent, organic films, produced outside the factory film system, and lovingly shown in a barn outside Wrenshall.

Who’s on First is a live stage event encapsulating 50 years of Doctor Who in 50 minutes. See it at the Teatro Zuccone Friday or Saturday before it heads to the Minnesota Fringe Festival.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

Today is the biggest single-day golf event Duluth has to offer-the Charter-Chamber Golf Classic.

The Explorers Club at Zinema 2 shows a film tomorrow about a soul singer who waited 48 years to make it.

Pack a picnic and loiter in the Glensheen lawn to hear Gaelynn Lea and Dan Dresser’s duo The Getarounds play a Concert by the Lake Wednesday.

On Thursday, Andrew Lloyd Weber’s rock opera Evita opens at the Playhouse.

Mama Mia! Friday there’s an ABBA tribute band playing Big Top Chautauqua. My, my.

Check out what are literally being called “the most extreme obstacle course races imaginable” at the Spirit Mountain Mudman Race on Saturday. Apparently they’ve never been in line for dinner at one of my family reunions, am I right?

The last day of the Chalk.a.Lot Sidewalk Chalk Festival is Sunday in downtown Two Harbors. Hey, maybe you can get there on this train.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

This month AJ Atwater will be doing a 30″ by 30″ painting in public starting today in a storefront window at Perry Framing, downtown Duluth.

Tuesday at the Zinema 2 the Explorers Club presents a film shot in northern Minnesota – “Pollywogs.”

This summer Glensheen Mansion is hosting a series of free Concerts by the Lake starting this Wednesday with Sentimental Journey.

This Fourth of July there’s a lot going on before the fireworks. You can go to Bayfront for a free concert, check out the free Folk Music Festival in the Fitger’s Courtyard (which runs through Saturday), or see a Huskies baseball game at the Wade.

The Twin Ports Bridge Festival at Bayfront this Saturday includes Cloud Cult, Snöbarn, Mason Jennings and more.

And, we haven’t mentioned it lately, but every Sunday is Fencing with Kris at the Lotus Center taught by Duluth’s own preternaturally young Legolas lookalike, Kris “Lithis” Nelson.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

PS – I’m going to be incommunicado as I will be on monastic retreat for the next two weeks so the very cool and capable Emily Haavik will be doing the Monday morning communiques in my absence. Have fun, Emily!

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

It’s been a year and we’re still sorting out the mess. A public hearing of the Flood Recovery Grant Amendment is tonight at City Hall.

You can see three real life and really live newlywed couples compete for fabulous prizes at the Underground‘s reboot of the Newlywed Game on Tuesday.

Wednesday is United Way‘s Day of Caring, matching up volunteers with community needs.

The Chamber of Commerce hosts a Newer to Town Vista Cruise on Thursday.

This Friday is the Northland Frisbee Invitational in Cloquet.

Get your hoe down at the Barn Dance Weekend at the Brule River Barn Friday through Sunday.

This weekend is the Park Point Art Fair on Saturday and Sunday.

Happy birthday to us! Perfect Duluth Day turns 10 this Saturday and you are invited to a big free shindig at the Underground before the Trampled by Turtles and Atmosphere Concert at Bayfront so you can hit both.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.

Here’s a sampling of what you have to look forward to this week on the PDD Calendar.

What do theater and basketball have in common? UWS has youth camps for both starting today.

Charlie Parr is back from Europe and playing a free concert at Chester Bowl on Tuesday for the Chester Creek Concert Series.

Farmers’ market season is in full swing with regular market days in the East Hillside and UMD on Wednesdays and Lincoln Park on Thursdays.

And it’s Grandma’s Marathon weekend with lots of music in two tents – the Grandma’s parking lot big top and the DeWitt-Seitz parking lot big top – on Friday and Saturday.

And if marathon weekend is just too much for you, you can escape to 48 hours of techno/electro/house music and camping at the Mystic Moon Festival just outside Ashland, Wisconsin this Friday through Sunday.

So what are you doing this week? Can we tag along? Any upcoming events that you want to promote? Let us know.