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Synchronicity in Action: How I Met the Late Ralph Abraham

Oct 12, 2024 No Comments

Among the mind-blowing coincidences of my life is how I met the countercultural chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, who died on September 19. He was a huge influence on me and the moment we met was extraordinary.

Coincidence is not technically the same thing as synchronicity. To believe in synchronicity, you must believe in meaning. And I did.

It was the 1990s and I was a young hippie newlywed in Bonny Doon, the backwoods of Santa Cruz, California. Like a lot of folks, my wife and I lived at the end of a long winding dirt road at the end of another long winding road. It was like a miles-long driveway. People with land out there had sprinkled the place with trailers and shacks, and they let people rent them cheap on the down low. One of those shacks was home sweet home. You could hear the ocean in the distance. The outhouse had no walls or roof, it was just … out.

R.I.P., Random Saturday Essay, Weird

The Lost Coast and the Ghost Choir of Mount Shasta

Jan 13, 2024 5 Comments

My one unexplained “paranormal” encounter happened on a trip to the so-called Lost Coast of Northern California. I camped there the summer of 1994 with my girlfriend Mary, in one of our relationship’s great death spasms. Near the end of this expedition, I heard the singing of a ghostly choir in the woods around Mount Shasta. It was singing Mary said she couldn’t hear.

This vacation was important to us. Austin transplants, we’d been cooped up at retail jobs in the Berkeley-Oakland sprawl for a year. We hadn’t explored the wilds of California like it really deserved. So when she caught wind of the Lost Coast, we arranged a matching week off to go find it.

We drove north from the Bay Area in her white Chrysler minivan. We were listening to a mixtape of J.J. Cale, perfect road music with his driving early drum machine sound: “They call me the breeze, I keep blowing down the road.” We also had some Jerry Garcia Band, which we’d been seeing at the Warfield during its unofficial residency. And, we were still coming to terms with Kurt Cobain’s suicide a couple months prior, three days before my 25th birthday. His widow’s album Live Through This was released within days and we were listening to that too. We couldn’t believe she recorded the line “Someday you will ache like I ache” months before he died. Now that line screamed across the radio like live anguish. So those were the vibes.

Outdoors, Random Creepy, Saturday Essay, Weird

Free Republic of Duluth Funnies, 2005

Oct 14, 2023 No Comments

Below are artifacts from the Richardson brothers 2005 Free Republic of Duluth events. The idea was a Duluth secession into a city-state embodying Situationist ideas of art-as-life. It culminated in a community art event at Washington Studios where these were displayed. Allen and I created these in the spirit of détournement, the practice of subverting commercial art like comic strips to revolutionary ends. Our house became a collaborative artspace freakout, reflected in the fact that the lettering in the last strip was done by someone I can’t remember, it could have been anyone, some citizen of the Free Republic …

Art, History Comics and Cartoons, Weird

What AI thinks “Lake Superior fish” look like

Jul 28, 2023 No Comments

I used stablediffusionweb.com to make these, using prompts like: “Lake Superior fish,” sometimes including “angler” and phrases like “catch of the day” or “look what I caught.” Then I switched to “a meal of Lake Superior fish,” “Lake Superior fish on a plate,” and so on. You will see some “breaded fried Lake Superior lampreys.” Bon appétit!

Art, Outdoors Artificial Intelligence, Fish and Fishing, Lake Superior, Weird

Timber structure washes up near Lakewalk

Apr 15, 2023 No Comments

A large timber structure has washed up on the Lake Superior shoreline just west of the Beacon Pointe condominium and hotel complex. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)

Another large timber structure has washed up on the Lake Superior shoreline just west of the Beacon Pointe condominium and hotel complex.

The structure appeared on the shoreline below the Duluth Lakewalk trail following an April 4 snow and wind storm. It is made up of 12 x 12 timbers, metal cables and bolts and looks to be the size of Chevrolet Silverado crew cab pick-up truck.

News and Current Affairs Lake Superior, Weird

The Nimrods win American Birkebeiner Giant Ski Race 2023

Feb 27, 2023 No Comments

This highlight video shows the drama from the qualifying run and finals of the American Birkebeiner Giant Ski Race, held last weekend on Main Street in Hayward. The Nimrod Giant Ski Team recaptured the championship this year.

Outdoors, Sports, Videos American Birkebeiner, Hayward, Skiing and Snowboarding, Weird

I tested ChatGPT’s morals and things escalated quickly

Dec 16, 2022 3 Comments

I asked the AI illustrator craiyon.com “Are you sentient?” Its cagey reply was the pantheistic picture above. So I was eager to see how ChatGPT would reply to the question. I also wanted to test its AI morals. Here’s how it went.

Random Artificial Intelligence, Creepy, Lake Superior Aquaman, Weird

The Institute for the Study of Light and Water: Another psychedelic weather report

Nov 14, 2022 No Comments

Sunset a silent H-bomb

Now a burning Saturn, now an apricot pastel dab on slate. Sun zips the sky closed behind it as it goes, now dying, now resurrecting in orange creamsicle. Color cosmologies. Gold birch leaves rattle like paper coins. Leaves crunch, clatter, gather against curbs.

Outdoors Lake Superior Aquaman, Weather and Climate, Weird

The Institute for the Study of Light and Water: Fall weather report

Oct 30, 2022 No Comments

Green-red and other impossible hues

Evaluation of Impossible Colors

On the grounds of the Institute, which really are all grounds, observations were made of maple and oak leaf colors absent from Newton’s spectrum: green-red and other impossible hues. The Institute conducted evaluations along subjective parameters as follows:

Random Lake Superior Aquaman, Weird

Is Duluth, Minnesota really paradise?

Aug 19, 2022 2 Comments

Art, Photos Aerial Lift Bridge, Artificial Intelligence, Weird

Creating Duluth-Themed Art with AI

Aug 17, 2022 7 Comments

A Van Gogh style painting of a 1920s cargo train traveling on a winter night though an evergreen forest next to a huge blue lake with the aurora borealis in the night sky.

DALL-E is an online tool that uses machine learning to generate digital images from plain English text descriptions. You type a description of something real or imaginary and the program does its best to create a unique image based on that description. After some time on a waitlist, I recently received an invite that allows me to create and download a limited number of artificial intelligence generated images per month. This came at a good time, as I recently found a watercolor print of the Duluth hillside in a Lincoln Park shop that I liked quite a bit but could not afford. I decided to use some of my AI image credits to see if I could get the automated system to produce Duluth art of at least somewhat comparable quality. In the examples that follow, I describe this process, showing what worked and what did not. The captions of each picture show the text query that generated the image.

Art Artificial Intelligence, Queries, Weird

Canal Park souvenir invites tourists to envision a lift bridge over the Mississippi

Aug 12, 2022 No Comments

Some years ago, I had a Duluth nameplate hanging from the back of my bicycle, which I suppose is why I impulsively bought another when I saw it recently in a Canal Park souvenir shop. I vaguely remember the one I had purchased in my younger years having a generic cityscape and not actually showing Duluth.

This one seemed no different, and might even be the same design, but this time I noticed that the building on the far left had a rather specific architecture. Checking with a group of skyscraper-obsessed friends led me to a conclusion that I should have reached myself: this Duluth souvenir depicts the skyline of St. Paul.

Art Aerial Lift Bridge, Collections and Memorabilia, Weird

Successful transplanting of phallus impudicus

Oct 03, 2021 No Comments

I successfully transplanted these phallus impudicus (“impudent phallus,” aka the common stinkhorn) from one end of town to another in my diabolical plan to expand the range of this deLIGHTful species.

Outdoors, Photos Creepy, Lake Superior Aquaman, Mushrooms, Phallic Symbols, Weird

SubSuperior: Day 1

Aug 14, 2021 No Comments

Beta-test/proof of concept/first annual; video to come. Making music underwater and projecting it on land with hydrophones.

Outdoors, Photos Lake Superior, Lake Superior Aquaman, North Shore of Lake Superior, SubSuperior, Weird

Artificially Perfect Duluth Day: The Microsoft Flight Simulator

Aug 05, 2021 No Comments

Microsoft’s Flight Simulator came out on the Xbox last week and allows players to fly anywhere in the world, including Duluth. It combines information from Bing maps with an algorithm that builds 3D representations of the landscape, creating shapes and textures when data is missing or incomplete.

The video below shows a simulated flight over Park Point.

Videos References to Duluth in Film/TV or Other Media, Video Games, Weird