Weird Posts

Avant-Garde Women: Michele Bernstein, Queen of the Situationists

Dec 31, 2020 2 Comments

The video below is from a 1960 French TV interview about Michele Bernstein’s subversive novel “All the King’s Horses”. Yes this is in French, which I cannot follow. The auto-translation isn’t much better. It’s sort of a friendly verbal chess match. At around 2:30 the interviewer asks her something about having respect for her literary forebears. She replies: “We each import our own small stone to the cathedral.” Asked what novel she can compare hers to, she replies, “I don’t know; if it is simply a novel we can compare it to all that exist.”

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Art, History, Random , ,

Avant-Garde Women: Eliane Brau, the Invisible Icon

Dec 04, 2020 4 Comments

Born Eliane Papai around 1935 in Spain, Eliane married her way into a couple other last names; she is mostly referred to as Eliane Brau, using the last name of her second husband. I think of her simply as Eliane, in deference to her singularity. Below I argue that her role in the “Letterist” movement of early 1950s Paris has been diminished; conversely, the achievements of the Letterist men have been overblown. It has been too easy to write her off as a passive “muse” for these men who indeed loved her fiercely. She deserves parity. Sadly, unlike her lovers, there is a distinct lack of information about her on the internet. I cannot even determine if she is still alive. Eliane is an invisible icon.

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Nate J. Mattson – “Moon Racer”

Sep 15, 2020 No Comments

This experimental music video by Duluth’s Nate J. Mattson features Shereé doing her “Original Tiger Dance.”


Music, Videos

Short story about PDD blog comments’ infinite recursion of self-referentiality

Jun 30, 2020 4 Comments

With regards to a recent sarcastic comment by Vicarious about me posting on PDD about an interview I did about a PDD post, I was reminded of this Richardson brothers story. It was inspired by a war in the PDD comments section back in the old days, but the gist is infinite recursion in blog comments.


Art ,

Ghosts of the French River: the book

May 21, 2020 No Comments

 

My friend Erin Tope (now Sola) and I collaborated on these pictures in the French River a few years ago. From the first they suggested characters and supernatural narratives, which I initially put to a series of four wordless short videos set to music.  That sparked years of subsequent imagining about who these ghosts are. Words have now been joined to pictures to form the final iteration of the project. In the absence of an actual physical publisher, I have posted them at their own site where I consider it a free 16-page e-book. I post them here as well for your enjoyment — although you may want to leave the light on.


Art, Outdoors, Photos , , ,

New Richardson Brothers Podcast Episode: “Bar Fight”

May 18, 2020 No Comments

“Bar Fight” is a Duluth-centric science fiction vignette in the style of William S. Burroughs. It reads like a hard-boiled noir tale of a private eye tailing a crooked cop to the bad part of town, ending in a scene of shocking violence — except the private eye is an interdimensional traveler in a space suit, the crooked cop is the god Osiris (now a beat cop for Jehovah), and the bad part of town is a bar in Limbo (modeled after the Pizza Luce bar). I performed this through a megaphone while speaking very quietly because it gives the feel of a distant transmission. I recorded this a couple years ago late at night, but abandoned it because I thought it was silly and I was a mess. Now I’ve viewed it again and it is making me laugh, so I’m posting it. There is a gap of a few seconds in the middle as I scroll my page down. This is the first video release on our podcast, which you can see if you click through but it’s just me reading at a table. The video has a surreal shuttering effect which was unintended but I like it. This story originally ran in the Transistor.


Art, Random , ,

Richardson Bros. Ghost Story “The Haunted Groom”

Apr 10, 2020 No Comments

“The Haunted Groom” is a supernatural adventure story set largely in the Duluth bar scene. It explores PTSD, addiction, abusive relationships, and the coronavirus lockdown. Full story below.

Part 1: I Married a Ghost. Part 2: Trapdoor to Hell. Part 3: The Demonizer.

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The 2005 Duluth Art Institute Riot

Mar 27, 2020 2 Comments

Academic and Critical Excerpts, collated and footnoted by the Richardson brothers (Jim and Allen Richardson)

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Art, History , ,

The Richardson brothers in the book “Haunted Minnesota”

Mar 22, 2020 5 Comments

This post could also be called “Bigfoot and Us.”

Starting in 1998, my brother Allen and I wrote a “weird science” column called “Gonzo Science” for the alternative Duluth newsweekly Ripsaw.

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Ophelia Prowls the Chapel

Feb 23, 2020 1 Comment


 

Model: Cam Rose. Mask by Jill Holmen. Photos taken at the Embassy, the art church at 2701 W. Third St., the new home of Embassy 35 (the pop-up at the Catalyst fest last fall). Watch for events there soon.


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Lake Superior Aquaman Interview with DailyPlanetDC.com

Feb 18, 2020 No Comments

The comic book fan site interview


Outdoors, Photos , ,

Grandma’s Marathon 2019 Double: 52.4-mile Bachelor Party

Jan 21, 2020 1 Comment

“Marathons are hard. Double marathons are harder.”

A perennial favorite on Perfect Duluth Day is Eric Strand’s annual video of his jaunt from the finish line to the starting line and back to the finish line of Grandma’s Marathon. Yes, that’s right, he runs the course twice. Every year. The 2019 installment is the eighth-annual Grandma’s Marathon Double, and includes, among others, an about-to-be-married dude named Zach embarking on the 52.4-mile run.


Sports, Videos , ,

Antics from Duluth’s Thanksgiving Weekend Snowout of 2019

Dec 03, 2019 No Comments

Some video fun while you wait for the plows to clear the streets. Here’s a montage of snowy silliness.

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Videos , ,

They take blue balls pretty seriously in Rice Lake, Wis.

Nov 08, 2019 No Comments

From the Rice Lake Chronotype of Rice Lake, Wis., about 100 miles south of Duluth. Via @hometownpolicelog on Instagram.


News and Current Affairs

The Richardson Brothers Podcast: New Episode

Nov 02, 2019 No Comments

This week: “SuperDuluth, the Living City,” a hallucinatory vision of the city awakening in a dream of light and water.


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