This is the new Richardson brothers project, a Youtube channel devoted to the dollhouse city we built with our lifelong toy collection. The channel is just getting started but we’ve already got a ton of Dollhouse City content on Allen’s Instagram @blackobelisk. Here is how we describe it on Youtube:
When I’m out walking and I see a plastic bag stuck in a tree, I always point it out to anyone who might be around and say, “Hey look, a West Duluth owl.” It’s a stupid joke that doesn’t get much of a reaction, but hey, so am I.
Making cheesy remarks might be the best action in that situation. There’s a clump of ugly garbage stuck in a beautiful tree, and my options for how to deal with it are to climb the tree or use a long device of some kind to somehow remove the bag, ignore the situation altogether, or pretend like I wanted that bag to be there all along to support the comedy of life.
I have similar statements I repeat all the time. If my childhood friend is telling me about her cancer diagnosis, for example, I’ll say, “I told you not to go swimming downstream of the steel plant.”
The tragedy behind the comedy boils down to something pretty simple: I want a clean environment, but I know that’s unrealistic. It’s also confusing, because a clean environment contains a lot of dirt. And seriously, a clean planet and a polluted planet are made up of the same things; the difference is how those things are arranged.
This undated postcard, published by Cartwheel Company of St. Paul, shows five images of Duluth circa perhaps the early 1980s.
Grand Rapids-based Americana band Wild Horses launched its summer tour on Saturday at Milk & Honey Ciders in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Gina Nagler Smith captured this video of the song “Man in the Mirror.”
Wild Horses will play a halftime show at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center Arena when the Duluth Harbor Monsters arena football team faces the Iowa Woo on June 29.
Blake Romenesko talks about the new Twin Ports history zine Lake Gossip, the first edition of which tells the quirky story of Duluth ice houses.
In its series The Slice, PBS North presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.
Bart Sutter in the apple trees.
“Lake Superior is God.” Bart Sutter wrote that declaration in his 1998 book Cold Comfort, a collection of essays about “life at the top of the map.” The work was well received by readers, culminating in a Minnesota Book Award for creative nonfiction, and Sutter’s permanent status as a northern force.
No fewer than five pennants hang on the wall in the photo on this undated postcard. Three are illegible, but one clearly indicates someone is a fan of Duluth. Another pennant represents the Withee Farmers Market of either 1912 or 1913. Withee is a village in Wisconsin, about 140 southeast of Duluth.
Duluth’s sister cities
Five of the previous six Geoguessr challenges have looked one by one at Duluth’s sister cities: Ohara Isumi, Japan; Rania, Iraqi-Kurdistan; Växjö, Sweden; Petrozavodsk, Russia; and Thunder Bay, Canada. As a Geoguessr game has five rounds, it only makes sense to conclude the series with a challenge that includes all five cities.
For real, I think there needs to be more serious discussion about a Duluth Bob Dylan statue. He’s the (checks notes) greatest songwriter in the world (the Nobel Prize people compared him to Homer and Blake), and Duluth is his (checks notes again) literal birthplace. Where did I read — perhaps buried in the epic comments of this PDD Facebook post — that local/regional Dylan relatives disfavor statues, as opposed to a nice plaque or something? An MPR article cites “a Dylan family member” who states a preference for educational work instead. I get it. But Dylan must have dozens of relatives, did we ask them all? Do we have to ask any of them, since Dylan belongs to the world?
I also get that statues are falling out of favor and may become problematic. The meaning of a statue can change. Maybe it would be better to just name a street, or a music center, or erect a plaque — something you can quietly change up or take down in a hurry if history reverses on you. But respectfully, I worry that plaques and manhole covers are simply too boring to honor the greatest songwriter in the world besides Taylor Swift.
You think Taylor Swift will only get some nice manhole covers? You think they won’t build a statue in her hometown by the time she’s Dylan’s current age of 82?
This postcard was mailed June 1, 1924 — 100 years ago today. It shows the St. Louis County Courthouse in Downtown Duluth, which opened in 1909.
“Dad Worked Hard” is the third song Duluth native Rachael Kilgour performed during a recent studio for a session at the The Current hosted by Radio Heartland’s Mike Pengra. All three songs are from her 2023 album My Father Loved Me.
Nichol and Tony Hommerding, owners of The Vintage Hideaway. (Submitted photo)
A thrift and antique store in Hermantown has brought a fresh take on antiquing and thrifting in the Twin Ports. The Vintage Hideaway focuses on uniquely staging items, restoring pieces looking for a little bit of love and creating a welcoming environment by offering coffee and snacks in its pantry.
This video of a mountain lion just south of Voyageurs National Park was captured on April 16. The trail-camera footage is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the park. This is the third video of a mountain lion the project’s cameras have captured in the past three years. All three animals seemed to be wandering through and were only caught on camera once before they appeared to leave the area.
The filing period for candidates running for federal, state and county offices in Minnesota is from May 21 to June 4. The primary election is Aug. 13; the general election is Nov. 5.
