We just introduced our toddler to "This Little Piggy," and I'm pretty sure he thinks Christopher Nolan should be be adapting that epic instead of The Odyssey.

Max Rebo plays keyboard with his...feet?!

Just another night in Duluth: ten couples having sex onstage.

"There's just junk everywhere. [pause] It's not junk. It's awesome stuff." - Diane Podgornik of Whoopsa Daisy Farm

An amateur sleuth gets tapped to join the cast of a reality dating show after the leading man gets offed in this lighthearted, very fast read. And to learn the author’s follow-up will be titled “Sex on Murder Island”? Absolutely perfect. No notes. Thanks Random House for the free book.

MAKE IT SOOOOOOO

The termination of federal funding for public media means that PBS North stands to lose over a quarter of its budgeted revenue.

Doesn’t seem like a good omen that Siri pronounces BeReal as “burial.”

One would perhaps not guess from the cover that this songbook includes Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

How many other Great Lakes shipwrecks can you name?

No one is going to have a more horrifying Halloween than the Duluth City Council. www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/local/d...

Anne McCaffrey’s storytelling took a leap (flight?) forward with the third Pern book, an absorbing narrative about a young man caught between two worlds and riding a dragon with unique powers. A bold story, but also unafraid to be cute and cozy. Thanks Random House for the free book.

According to star Emma Thompson, exteriors for the Minnesota-set movie were filmed in Finland because climate change had robbed our own state of the necessary white stuff. She's not wrong: The movie was filmed in early 2024, as the Northland was experiencing a historic lack of snow.

Iron Man really set the MCU mold. Titular hero: *spends film saving the world single-handedly with no discernible assistance available* Boss appearing in post-credits sequence: "You're not the only superhero in the world, you know."

I still occasionally find myself watching the corner of my monitor screen for the steady stream of tweets that used to appear there. For *years*, I would work all day with TweetDeck running because Twitter was so integral to news media. It's wild to think there's nothing remotely like that anymore.

The light pouring through the ice rink windows is so heavenly, Patrick Swayze’s "Ghost" character would fit right in as canteen manager, serving miso soup in hand-thrown mugs.

Wednesday was a big day for fans in the artist’s home state.

If you wanted to buy "Chicago III" on 8-track in Duluth circa 1971, it would have run you the equivalent of over $70 today. If it was bad, that would have been really helpful to know.

The North Star Story Summit has dissolved amid at least one organizer's hard feelings regarding a lack of local support, but Duluth's most prominent film producer believes the city still has the potential to host a festival of major impact.

@jaygabler.com with the UMD hockey/romance novel crossover content you never knew you needed.

Pro: “Grand Casino Arena” is going to be more fun to say than “Xcel Energy Center.” Con: It’s a little awkward to name a place after another place. Like naming a building “Empire State Building Tower,” but it’s not the Empire State Building, it’s the building named after the Empire State Building.

Is it just me, or does this sibling relationship have some strange Folgers energy? #AlienEarth

Even if writer-director James Sweeney doesn’t do his characters full justice, it’s gratifying to see male vulnerability so openly on display in the age of the chest-thumping “manosphere.” (via @thetangential.bsky.social)

If nothing else, "Swiped" serves as a look-into-the-camera moment in the face of Mark Zuckerberg declaring that corporate America needs more “masculine energy.”

After starting at the Duluth News Tribune, I soon realized that everywhere I went on the Twin Ports music beat, I was hearing the name Erin Aldridge. Here's why.

[toddler is playing with LOTR figures] ME: That's Legolas. He says, "You have my bow!" TODDLER: [shakes head] No. ME: No? Okay, what does he say in your version? TODDLER: [pause] "Hello."

Overheard in Duluth bike shop: “I ran out of chain grease so I used bacon grease instead, but it’s so cold out there, it started to freeze up and get hard to pedal!”

Thanks @minnpost.bsky.social for covering the forthcoming @duluthnewstribune.com Edmund Fitzgerald podcast!

If Dario Argento had become a CBS journeyman, daytime TV might have looked like this.

When I see a tag like this, I'm like...what, you mean more than I usually keep my toddler away from fire?

"We try to evolve, but accountability and truth have to precede reconciliation." - Lee Hawkins

Jesse presents the rings and Neil Lane’s name isn’t even on the boxes?! The most radical #BachelorInParadise rebrand yet.

Never mind the hill, what really defines the pedestrian experience in Duluth is being barked at by yard dogs whose owners then yell, from inside the house, for them to shut up.

The biggest reason there hasn't been another Great Lakes freighter lost since the Edmund Fitzgerald is vastly improved weather data. The Trump administration is proposing a NOAA funding cut that could cause much of that data to disappear.

The first sequel to Anne McCaffrey’s “Dragonflight” sees Pern getting real petty (interweyr drama! fire lizard envy!), but builds to a couple striking scenes that had me ready to jump into book three. This world is a remarkable creative achievement. Thanks Random House for the free book.

If there is one thing I have learned about Duluth in three-plus years as a journalist here, it is that the thirst for a Trader Joe's is EXTREME.

"We would like to provide here in the museum a memorial to the ship and its crew, and would like to feature relics of the vessel if they may be obtained." - Lake Superior Marine Museum director C. Patrick Labadie to the Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Co., November 28, 1975

Dad overheard at Minnesota State Fair, to preschool-age son regarding a urinal trough that comes up to about his eyeballs: “Well, in this building this is your option.”

Duluthians have some FEELINGS about this. (Relevant to your interests @blindeke.bsky.social)

While writing her book, Elle Andra-Warner was surprised to be contacted by someone whose name was familiar: Edmund Fitzgerald.

Absolutely savage how when you search for Duluth's population, Google throws a line for Rochester in there just to troll us.

Big announcement! I'm writing and narrating a five-episode podcast about the Edmund Fitzgerald. You can listen to the trailer now!

My first Duluth City Council meeting! I like that the Victory Chimes is still etched on the public comment lectern.

This long-overdue @duluthnewstribune.com profile of Ross Thorn is also one of two stories this week in which I interviewed siblings. Sorry we didn't have a chance to talk about "Cats," Ross and Garrett.

The Moomins are coming to Duluth!

10,000 Maniacs' MTV Unplugged album is so well-engineered it's ridiculous.

A really important discovery of this century in popular music is that every track named after a diet soft drink is a banger.

A woman from Arizona walked into the @duluthnewstribune.com office one day, looking for an article we published about the widow of a Pullman porter, then making her home in Bayfield County, in 1964. That became a window into a truly incredible story.

I swear, I could be married to a man named Philip and I still would never remember how many Ls he has in his name.

Nice to see the Pern novels out in attractive new editions (though I miss the classic Michael Whelan art). DRAGONFLIGHT made a great summer read, and I was struck by how kin this saga is to DUNE: same era, same SF-fantasy hybrid, same vibes. Thanks Random House for the free book.