A Show Stopper for Debbie in Duluth

PDDTV Oct 13, 2023 No Comments

Duluth is mentioned on the Hulu comedy mystery series Only Murders in the Building. In season 3, episode 3 — titled “Grab Your Hankies” — actress Linda Emond plays the role of Donna DeMeo, an investor in a Broadway musical who believes strongly in the importance of show-stopping songs that will draw in people like “Debbie from Duluth.”

Longtime PDD readers will recall that Steve Martin, co-creator of Only Murders in the Building, posted a clever Duluth tweet in 2012 after playing a concert at Bayfront Park.


Videos

The Junk Food Film Festival – April 2024 at Zinema

Matthew Dressel Oct 12, 2023 No Comments

Hey all, this is my festival; I run it with my partner Marin. We used to host a film series called Midnight Movies at 7 at the Zinema and this will very much be in the same vein. We’ll be giving away prizes, have special guests, and eat a ton of junk food.

Please make sure to follow us on Facebook; we’ll be revealing the lineup in the months ahead as we get ready.


Events, Videos

Mystery Photo: McDowell Sisters

Paul Lundgren Oct 11, 2023 4 Comments

This old cabinet card photo, for sale on eBay, was shot in Duluth. Several details are provided, but some mysteries persist.

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History ,

Selective Focus: Brittany Plachecki

Jessica Morgan Oct 10, 2023 No Comments

Applying their studies in art history, excitement for horror and queer theory, Brittany Plachecki creates colorful character designs. One of their most recent projects was co-founding Pride Walks Superior, a collaborative initiative to get LGBTQIA2S+ youth involved in an affirming, creative, and kid-friendly-setting. Pride Walks also helped introduce young artists to the process of doing gallery shows, documenting their work, and selling it. Brittany’s pieces are perfect for getting into the spirit of fall and spooky season. View photos of their art and a recent interview about their work below:

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Art ,

Beyondbless – “Born Deaf”

PDDTV Oct 09, 2023 No Comments

The latest from Superior-based rapper David Kittelson, aka Beyondbliss, is the title track from his recently released album Born Deaf. The video uses artificial intelligence to take a trip through a human ear and experience sound for the first time as Kittelson raps about what he went through as a child born deaf.


Music, Videos

Gunnar Birkerts and Intuitive Synthesis: The Place of the Duluth Public Library in the History of Modern Architecture

Matthew James Oct 08, 2023 7 Comments

Duluth Public Library in the November 1980 issue of Architectural Record.

Last month, an article appeared in the Duluth News Tribune about the decision to demolish the Duluth Public Library and replace it with something smaller in a shared building. The reasons provided for demolition instead of restoration mostly involve challenges to reprogramming and subdivision created by structural pillars, expensive building systems like insulation in serious need of replacement, and other issues related to years of deferred maintenance.

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History, News and Current Affairs ,

The History of Cloquet, Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur and Duluth’s Missing Vermeer

Jim Richardson (aka Lake Superior Aquaman) Oct 07, 2023 3 Comments

Excerpts from Scions of Cloquet by Jean-Michel Cloquet (1946, out of print)

“In 1820, when he was 17 years old, the Frenchman Pierre Cloquet boarded a packet ship in Le Havre and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. He was trying to escape his father, like many of us try to do, perhaps all of us. He just wanted a little peace and quiet. By a certain measure, he found it in the territory eventually known as Minnesota. Pierre (or Grandpère Cloquet as my brother and I refer to him) became a legendary voyageur and fur trader 20 miles southwest of Duluth, trapping, hunting, and occasionally bear-wrestling. Over two decades of working for the American Fur Company, he built his own trading post where metal tools shipped in and beaver pelts shipped out. He gradually adopted native dress, and he married into a Black-Ojibwe family out of Michigan, sought-after guides and translators. And, right around the collapse of the beaver pelt industry in 1843, he inadvertently founded the town of Cloquet.

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History , ,

Breanne and Anya Tepler – “It’s Time to Go to Bentleyville”

PDDTV Oct 06, 2023 No Comments

It’s not quite time to go to Bentleyville yet, but members of the Tepler family have a new music video ready for when Duluth’s annual holiday light display opens Nov. 18.

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Music, Videos , ,

Rachael Kilgour – “Ontario”

PDDTV Oct 06, 2023 No Comments

“Ontario” is the third single from Duluth native Rachael Kilgour‘s new album, My Father Loved Me.


Music, Videos

Postcards from Bill’s Mount Silver Motel and Cabins

Paul Lundgren Oct 05, 2023 No Comments

The postcard above, and the one below, were both published by Gallagher’s Studio of Photography circa the 1950s. And both were made to promote Bill’s Mount Silver Motel and Cabins on Silver Cliff Bay, northeast of Two Harbors. The location now features private residences.

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History , ,

Hayward record and book store will move to Duluth

Mark Nicklawske Oct 04, 2023 No Comments

The former Riverside Flooring building at 1814 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park will be home to a new record and book store. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)

A Superior native and long-time music collector who haunted some legendary, long-lost Twin Ports area record stores plans to open his own shop in Duluth’s Lincoln Park Craft District.

Todd Hanson, owner of Hole in the Wall Books and Records in Hayward, has announced plans to open a new store in the former Riverside Flooring building at 1814 W. Superior St. this fall. The store will be called River City Records and Books.

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Music, News and Current Affairs , , ,

Poet Laureate Collection unveiled at UMD

David Beard Oct 04, 2023 No Comments

The Twin Ports area has long been a literary center for Minnesota. Now, the history of the literary community in Duluth is open and available to researchers and readers alike in the Archives and Special Collections of the Kathryn A. Martin Library at the University of Minnesota Duluth. The Poet Laureate Program is the heart of a collection of materials available to the public.

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History

Northeastern Minnesota Book Award Winners for 2023

David Beard Oct 03, 2023 No Comments

An old fire tower in the north woods, a busy Duluth harbor on the day tall ships arrive, and an 1894 murder on Minnesota Point are just some of the settings for books honored in this year’s Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards.

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News and Current Affairs , , ,

Twain’s coldest winter revisited

PDD News Sieve Oct 02, 2023 1 Comment

Dave Wilton at wordorigins.org delves into a famous-though-probably-inaccurate Mark Twain quote in his latest article. “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” has of course also been spun as “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Duluth.” Wilton covers it all in detail, as did Tony Dierckins some years ago on zenithcity.com. Lake Superior Magazine also covered the subject in 2003.

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History

Sherlockiana at the Book Sale: Barry Day and Val Andrews

David Beard Oct 02, 2023 No Comments

There was an entire bookcase of books about Sherlock Holmes at Friends of the Library Book Sale at the Superior Public Library. I took home two full shelves.

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Events