Random Posts

Attention Billionaires: Get Bent

Mar 30, 2024 6 Comments

“And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.”

― William Gibson, Count Zero

Attention billionaires: get bent. As the recent “Cheerios” kerfuffle illustrates, Minnesota billionaire Karen Kathy Cargill is acting like a terrible neighbor in Duluth. Google her name to see the universally bad press she has unleashed upon herself. Basically, Mayor Roger Reinert had the temerity to point out that Cargill was not actually being helpful, and she ran crying to the Wall Street Journal, like ya do. It was there Cargill laid bare her toxic billionaire’s view of the world: “The good plans that I have down there […] forget it […] I think an expression that we all know — don’t pee in your Cheerios — well, [Reinert] kind of peed in his Cheerios right there, and definitely I’m not going to do anything to benefit that community.” Imperious much? Get bent.

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Park Point Land Grab

Mar 27, 2024 4 Comments

This Duluth News Tribune article talks about Kathy Cargill’s comments about Duluthians in the Wall St Journal.

Said a billionaire Heiress named Kathy
“The locals are yokels
Their houses are crappy”

No accounting for taste
She bulldozed in haste
And wonders why the neighbors aren’t happy


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Do I own this star now?

Mar 19, 2024 2 Comments

I picked this up in a thrift store. The frame is worth as much as I paid for it — the certificate is a bonus.

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Saturday in Canal Park

Mar 18, 2024 1 Comment

Some kids appeared to be having fun in Canal Park Saturday.


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The Nerd Habit of Collecting Signatures

Mar 12, 2024 2 Comments

As I mentioned in a previous post, at MarsCon in Bloomington last weekend the son of a nerd who had died was selling his father’s collection of media, books, games and ephemera.

I picked up the Doctor Who cookbook from the previous century, some trading cards, all for pennies on the dollar. Perhaps the best find, or at least the one I can’t ever imagine finding again, was the single by the actor who played the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, “Who is the Doctor?”

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Signatures for a Nerd

Mar 11, 2024 No Comments

At MarsCon in Bloomington last weekend, the son of a recently passed nerd was selling his father’s collection of media, books, games and ephemera. I picked up the Doctor Who cookbook from the previous century, some trading cards, all for pennies on the dollar.

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Random

Duluth Island

Mar 09, 2024 No Comments

The discovery of a scale model of Duluth, carved from black coral on a desert island in the South Pacific, sent shockwaves through the scientific community. The miniature cityscape lay in a hand-excavated chamber under the sand, on an uninhabited, unnamed island only half the size of a city block. The flat, round expanse of sand, if noticed at all by distant ships, seems featureless. At twenty feet above sea level, it fully submerges in some storm surges, and might not survive climate change’s rising seas. First appearing on maps in 1941 with a numerical designation, it was not explored until 2015. That’s when a team of American biologists, following a tagged sea turtle, navigated a black reef and set foot on what is now known as Duluth Island.

Sea turtles and sea birds liked the island well enough. It had no trees or flora visible from off its tiny shores, but up close it was seen to support beach grass and some shrubs. The thought of human habitation was so impossible it didn’t cross anyone’s mind until one of the team noticed a square slab of black coral in the island’s dead center. It measured thirty inches by thirty inches and was at least a few inches thick, set into the sand. It was either subsuming into the sand or emerging from it. The object, obviously the product of human labor, remained unexplained as the biologists departed.

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PDD Shop Talk: Help Perfect the Perfection

Feb 28, 2024 No Comments
(Enter the amount of your choice.)

For more than 20 years, Perfect Duluth Day has remained committed to serving up its content with no paywalls and without overly obtrusive advertising. That doesn’t make paying the bills easy, but with modest income from sidebar advertising and the generous contributions of readers we continue to get it done.

So if you appreciate the thorough listings of hoopla on the PDD Calendar and/or the features on the PDD Blog, kindly drop a few bucks in the PayPal account.

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Minnesota Historia: Surf Rock on the Iron Range

Feb 27, 2024 No Comments

After Minneapolis rock band the Trashmen scored a Top 10 hit with “Surfin’ Bird,” surf rock swept through Minnesota like a tidal wave, reaching up to Virginia on the Iron Range. Relive the rapid rise and tragic fall of Virginia band the Vaqueros on a very special musical episode of Minnesota Historia.

Minnesota Historia is a PBS North web series dedicated to Minnesota’s quirky past. It is hosted by Hailey Eidenschink and produced/edited/written by Mike Scholtz.


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Austin Castle and the Northern Pines – “Saratoga”

Feb 26, 2024 No Comments

Austin Castle and the Northern Pines perform “Saratoga” in this video shot at Castle Danger Brewery in Two Harbors. The footage was recorded by Jose Leon of KTWH Two Harbors Community Radio and edited by Castle.

Austin Castle and the Northern Pines have a string of sporadic Saturday gigs at Castle Danger beginning March 30. Castle also performs monthly “Sunday Strumday” shows with bassist Ashe Burton at the Cedar Lounge; the next one is March 17.


Music, Random, Videos ,

Wings as a Fashion Accessory

Feb 24, 2024 1 Comment

Back in 2019 I was invited to speak at an arts-centered retreat called “Life is a Verb Camp” in North Carolina. My speech happened to fall on Halloween, so this camp organizer (author Patti Digh) had set a bunch of costume pieces out on a long table and told folks they could wear them.

I approached the table and there they were, shimmering: a large, green, sparkly pair of butterfly wings with two little arm straps. I fell in love instantly, and asked my husband Paul if he could hang them on the back of my chair. They slipped over the handlebars easily and suddenly my wheelchair was transformed into a fantastical thing of beauty. It’s like it had been waiting for the wings forever.

I wore them all weekend, long after my speech had ended, and the wings not only filled me with delight, but they brought cheer wherever they went. People would grin whenever I’d turn to the side, revealing the wings behind me. I realized, for the first time in my life, my wheelchair was finally a true visual expression of my internal aesthetic. If you could see the color palette of my soul you’d know it has a lot of sparkles, rainbows, flowers, and jewel tones.

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Riley Grace Brett at Gabriel’s Book Store

Feb 19, 2024 No Comments

I met a new local author in the wild over the weekend at Gabriel’s Book Store in Lakeside. Riley Grace Brett volunteers there; she has also released a new novel.

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Pączki Day (and Ash Wednesday) in Duluth

Feb 14, 2024 1 Comment

Hello from a former Catholic who misses life in Milwaukee, where Pączki Day was a thing. Ash Wednesday was a day when you could walk the streets and see your tribe, and Duluth seems to have none of that. Maybe I walk the wrong streets.

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Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards 2024 Call for Nominations

Feb 01, 2024 No Comments

Lake Superior Writers is seeking nominations for the 2024 Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards. NEMBA celebrates books that substantially represent the history, culture, heritage or lifestyle of northeastern Minnesota.

The six categories are: nonfiction, fiction, children’s literature, middle grade / young adult, poetry and memoir.

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The Northland Sportsmen’s Club Wild Game Dinner

Jan 27, 2024 3 Comments

Review by Max Grace, former professor of molecular gastronomy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Northland Sportsmen’s Club Wild Game Dinner
40th Annual All You Can Eat
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2023. Dinner at 6 p.m., drawing at 7.
Duluth Farmers Market, Duluth MN — as fine a farmers market as you could find in the U.S.!
$15 adult, $5 children under 10

~Silent Auction~
All proceeds to charity

Serving venison, bear, beaver, pheasant, duck, goose, salmon and other fish, along with wild rice and many other exotic dishes.

Thank you for your support!

Raffle: Ticket price $5. Tickets available from club members and at the dinner.
– 1st Prize: Henry Golden Boy brass-framed 45-70 lever action rifle
– 2nd Prize: Deep-fryer kit ($800 value)
– 3rd Prize: $200 cash
Many other prizes will be drawn at the Wild Game Dinner

The long rustic-red Farmers Market shack stood on bare dirt. A sunken glade of lower Chester Creek gurgled down below the treeline at the edge of the lot. The trees, conflicted about turning, flirted with the idea. Under a Jovian umber and orange cloudscape, I bought ticket #452 at a gate of day-glo-pink plastic web fencing.

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